Reader comments
Yucca Mountain is a loser

Nuclear power = Socialism | 7:32 a.m. Oct. 10, 2007

The idea that nuclear power is "affordable" needs to be corrected. Nuclear power has taken more subsidies from the federal government compared to any other power source. Our federal government covers the insurance for disasters and the never-ending waste storage costs of the nuclear power industry. Expanding nuclear power generation will only add to those continued subsidies. Other countries, like France and Japan that have significant nuclear power generation, are socialist economies that can afford such generation via high taxes. Is this the direction we want "free market" America to go? Nuclear power does not fit Utah's fiscal conservative values! Let Wall Street foot the bill for Yucca Mountain -- all $77 billion, instead of the federal government -- and see if nuclear power can really stand on its own!

Raymond Takashi Swenson | 9:05 a.m. Oct. 10, 2007

The funds to pay for the Yucca Mountain Repository have been collected through a tax on nuclear power plants. The main reason Yucca has been delayed is Congress being unwilling to release the money already collected! Some nuclear utilities have now successfully sued the government for not fulfilling its legal duty to use the billions in the fund to take care of spent nuclear fuel. The fund helps make Congress look more solvent. Insurance against possible nuclear disasters under the Price Anderson Amendments Act has a humongous deductible of millions of dollars, and is no different than the government paying for hurricane and flood and earthquake relief. Three Mile Island cost the government almost nothing compared to Hurricane Katrina. America needs a repository because there are already several hundred million gallons of highly radioactive wastes from nuclear weapons production that need to be moved out of underground tanks in Washington State where it might leak to the Columbia River. Recycling nuclear fuel will still create nuclear waste that needs to be put deep underground. This is not scientifically difficult, it is simply a political problem, and the money to solve it is already in the bank.

LazyEdna | 9:57 a.m. Oct. 10, 2007

Nuclear power is the most expensive way to create electricity. The total costs are never included in the pro nuke pollyanna reports.
There is NO VIABLE SOLUTION for nuclear waste. DOH!

If the USA spent ONE PER CENT of the $$$$$ that nuclear gobbles from taxpayers, on alternative, renewable energy, our problems would be solved. Why don't we just sell the sun and the wind to Halliburton and get on with it!

Comments continue below

yucca_insider | 10:06 a.m. Oct. 10, 2007

Congress has already given "final" approval to Yucca Mountain. It happened in 2002. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission must now grant or deny a license to construct.

Reprocessing is great but it's decades away, there are still leftovers that need geologic disposal, and you still have transportation concerns (although I'm far more concerned about things like chlorine gas on our roads and rails).

Raymond is dead on about the money.

Bill Craig | 10:08 a.m. Oct. 10, 2007

Nuclear power is not the sole solution to our energy problems, but we desperately need this source of energy. Our nation's future depends on it.

It's interesting to listen to the anti-nuclear dialogue about death and destruction, when there are very few deaths attributable to nuclear energy industry. Burning hydrocarbons for energy continues to cause health and environmental problems worldwide. Wind, solar, hydroelectric and geothermal energy can help us, but these sources can never provide a significant portion of our energy needs.

Our nation needs cheap reliable and plentiful electrical energy to remain competitive in the global economy and to slow the damage to our environment.

Steve Watts | 10:25 a.m. Oct. 10, 2007

Raymond & Insider,
The unfortunate fact is, the "solution" at Yucca Mntn is OUTDATED technology for dealing with nuclear waste. It is a 1950's response. You discount the reprocessing as "decades away." Not in Europe. Your attitude is certainly not what made this country a leader in technology.

Thomas | 11:00 a.m. Oct. 10, 2007

The obstacles to reprocessing nuclear fuel (which would tremendously decrease the volume of waste, burn up most of the really nasty transuranic elements from the primary fission cycle, and shorten the half-life of the waste) are almost entirely regulatory, not technical. The technology already exists, and is widely used elsewhere. President Carter, applying his typical judgment, prohibited multi-stage nuclear reactors because they produced plutonium (which is then used in a second fission process, basically doubling the energy extracted from the same amount of fuel and reducing the dangerousness of the resulting waste.) His concern was that plutonium can be used in bombs. His idea was that if the U.S. just set an example of not using breeder reactors, the rest of the world would follow, and there'd be less plutonium around to be weaponized.

Well, the rest of the world basically said that's nice, Jim, but we're building breeder reactors anyway. The logic of refusing to reprocess has long been rendered irrelevant (and it was faulty in the first place).

Nuclear power is as expensive as it is because we've unnecessarily made it so.

Anonymous | 11:33 a.m. Oct. 10, 2007

Go look up Integral Fast Reactors - not only is the technology to reprocess fuel most assuredly NOT "decades away", we already HAD the capability to do it before Mr Carter legislated it away.

Brian | 12:27 p.m. Oct. 10, 2007

Reprocessing is not the ultimate answer. Yes, the volume of waste is reduced, but what is left over is highly radioactive. Even France hasnï¿½t solved the long term waste problem. Reprocessing is not cheap. Nuclear industry is just part of corporate welfare problem in the United States. Now the industry wants tax breaks, 100% loan guarantees, and take the wastes off their hands, while they rack up huge profits. The tax payer takes all the risks and gets none of the rewards, as in lower price on their electric bill.

Thomas | 12:43 p.m. Oct. 10, 2007

Brian -- "What is left over is highly radioactive."

Well, yes and no. Yes, it's radioactive enough that you don't want to get close to it for awhile, but that's not the whole story. The big thing about reprocessing is that the waste you get decays much more quickly than first-stage waste. You get rid of the really long-lived transuranics -- the stuff that stays highly dangerous for tens of thousands of years.

Theoretically, you could reprocess and dilute nuclear waste right back to its natural state -- i.e. to the equivalent of uranium ore. Again, theoretically, you could just stick it back in the ground you mined it from, and it would be as if you'd never dug it up in the first place.

If people and politicians approached nuclear power rationally, the industry wouldn't *need* tax breaks, loan guarantees, etc.

YMP Emeritus | 3:20 p.m. Oct. 10, 2007

Having worked on the Yucca Mtn Project in a central role, I have a thing or two to say about this editorial.
1) The science says it's a go. All that's holding it up is political posturing.
2) Reprocessing, integrated fuel reactors, or no, there will always be a need to store Bad Stuff where no one could ever get to it. Economically feasible reprocessing is still half a generation away.
3) Nuclear power has The Best safety record of any major energy source in North America, including transportation of highly radioactive materials. It is also the most environmentally friendly.
4) Yucca Mtn will end up mostly as a parking garage for valuable materials that will ultimately be reprocessed. But in the meantime, better in that remote location than near dozens of American cities.
Just watch the retorts to the above--they'll be based on emotional hype, bad science, and disputable facts (like half the letters above).

Stewart | 3:26 p.m. Oct. 10, 2007

Bill is slightly off on his estimation of "few deaths" from the U.S. nuclear power industry, the actual answer is zero. The primary reason that the U.S. doesn't reprocess like our European and Japanese friends is because it is more expensive than supplying fuel from raw uranium which we have in abundance and they do not.

SLC Native | 4:02 p.m. Oct. 10, 2007

YMP Emeritus,

I couldn't agree with you more. I am a Las Vegas resident and I see no problem with storing the waste deep inside a mountain. I hope these the politicians and so called environmentalists that are slowing this process up will soon back off. Like you say...it's better to store it in a safe place rather than have it sitting in random locations across the U.S.

Keith R. Wood | 9:14 p.m. Oct. 10, 2007

They don't need an "incentive" -- they need an end to the regulations which PROHIBIT reprocessing.

Those rules, put in place in the 1970s by the Save-the-Mosquito crowd during their first heady rush of political power. By forcing the storage of ALL of the waste (including spent fuel), the no-nukes kukes figured that they would make nuclear power too expensive to be practical.

Matt | 1:27 p.m. Oct. 11, 2007

There is a mistake in the article. In 2002, Congress approved Yucca Mountain. Now the US Nuclear Regulatroy Commission's approval is needed for construction authorization.

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