Posted on 03/04/2009 11:00:21 AM PST by Sergeant Tim
More than two decades after Yucca Mountain in Nevada was selected to be the national nuclear waste repository, the controversial proposal may finally be put to rest by the Obama administration.
In keeping with a pledge President Obama made during the campaign, the budget released last week cuts off almost all funding for creating a permanent burial site for a large portion of the nation's radioactive nuclear waste at the site in the Nevada desert. Congress selected the location in 1987 and reaffirmed the choice in 2002. About $7.7 billion has been sunk into the project since its inception.
"Yucca Mountain is not an option, and the budget clearly reflects that," Stephanie Mueller, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy, said yesterday.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), a staunch opponent of the Yucca project, called the Obama action "our most significant victory to date in our battle to protect Nevada from becoming the country's toxic wasteland."
Reid, who during primary season helped extract campaign promises from Obama and then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to stop Yucca Mountain, added: "President Obama recognizes that the proposed dump threatens the health and safety of Nevadans and millions of Americans. His commitment to stop this terrible project could not be clearer."
Less clear is what will happen next with the nation's growing stockpile of nuclear waste.
"That's a great question," said Geoffrey H. Fettus, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
What an idiotic headline. Obama is simply punting on this issue.
It is the WaPo’s headline. ‘Nuff said.
Store nuclear waste in in Bill Ayers house in Chicago. No one will notice.
All this does is kill off nuclear power. If France can do it why can’t we?
As it is, nuclear waste is stored in 200 terror friendly sites nationwide.
The time is coming when you turn on your light switch and get to use a flash-light.
Much of the “spent” fuel rods can be re-processed. The French are quite good at it. I thought we were licensing a French firm to build a reprocessing facility in Montana, but I could be mistaken.
Material that cannot be reprocessed should be dumped in the bottom of deep oceanic trenches were the tectonic process will return it to the bowels of the earth. I can imagine the greenies screaming about that, but it makes the most sense.
The safest place to store nuclear fuel until we figure out what to do with it is in the dryest place possible. That means the desert. And within a mountain within the desert is even better.
You have that right! This is nothing more then an attempt to kill off nuclear energy. I am looking into pulling my house off the grid, at least I will have power when everyone else will be freezing in the dark.
Reid didn’t get his payoff!
Generators, if you can get enough fuel with your ration card ...
How about “Portable Backyard Nuclear Reactors”?
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/09/portable-backyard-nuclear-reactors-ready-by-2013.php
well, there goes any hope of expanding nuclear power
cannot build new plants or expand old ones when waste disposal is an unresolved crippling issue
and Yucca is SO close, and the safety issue is another bogus environmental hype
looks like everyone better figure out how to build a windmill on their own property
france reprocesses their fuel, we don’t
And why don’t we reprocess? Because Congress says we can’t.
IIRC — France stores there low level waste in old salt mines.
—bflr—
this makes me want to watch The Beast of Yucca Flats (MST3K version) yet again. “Flag on the moon, how did it get there?”
Excuse my ignorance yet what does ‘blfr’ mean?
and we store our waste on numerous sites all over the country- so the enviros can claim “security” is a risk
no win situation- by design of the enviro-communist movement
it means that it is easier to type 4 letters into a post than to keep a wordpad or other file to save links in to read at a later convenience.....
****Less clear is what will happen next with the nation’s growing stockpile of nuclear waste. ****
That’s easy, He will leave it laying around right where it is until someone else has to deal with it.
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