Editorial: Nuke waste: Burial not the only answer

Friday, April 12, 2002 | 9:04 a.m.

Technology known as transmutation, which could provide an alternative to the burial of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, has never been a priority for the federal government. Theoretically, transmutation can destroy high levels of radiation in nuclear waste. The 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste that may be destined for Yucca Mountain, for example, could be reduced to under five tons. The remainder would be low-level waste that perhaps could be isolated somewhere other than 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Transmutation has been receiving annual research funding in the $30 million and $40 million range. In the past 15 years, by contrast, the federal government has sunk $7 billion into burial technology, which scientists so far have been unable to prove is safe. If transmutation were made a priority, with annual research dollars in the hundreds of millions, perhaps scientists studying the technology, including those at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, could make a breakthrough that would render burial a primitive solution.