Comments about ‘My view: A better way needed for spent nuclear fuel’

Mr. Hancock fails to mention that much of the multi-billions already spent on the Yucca Mountain Project addressed his items 1 through 3. More study is not needed because a suitable site has already been found on the edge of the Nevada Test Site at Yucca Mountain. We simply need the political will to go ahead with it.

He is correct in stating that salt was ruled out 20 years ago for high-level nuclear waste because the hot waste would work its way downward through the salt. That is not true for the low-level waste stored at WIPP.

Mr. Hancock misrepresents the technical challenges of salt disposal and doesn't address the advantages of that rock type. Salt was never "ruled out" as a host rock. Salt was "ruled out" when congress, in its wisdom, decided that Nevada would be the site, apparently thinking that, with only 4 electoral votes (1987), the state could do little; congressional judgements speak for themselves decades later. The facts are that the nation simply lacks the political will to resolve the siting question. Mr' Hancock's assertions about New Mexico's attitude toward radioactive-waste disposal reflect only a minority view of this issue. Maybe there should be a binding New Mexico-wide vote to see where folks really are...?