Friday, Jan. 7, 2005 | 5:36 a.m.
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
WEEKEND EDITION
January 8 - 9, 2005
Keep the faith, Nevada. Science is coming to the rescue.
It seems appropriate that I start this column in 2005 in much the same way as I ended it last year, talking about a subject that spans far more than a year, far more than a few years, and far more than the few decades, which, at best, provide the historical perspective for most Americans. That's right, Yucca Mountain, the federal government's plan to bury in our state the most deadly substance known to man.
Until recently, our state leadership -- admittedly "disappointed" that President George W. Bush decided to ignore science and reward his corporate benefactors in the nuclear power industry by picking Nevada to play host to the nation's nuclear garbage -- has done very little. Sure, they have filed the necessary lawsuits and even won an important victory that could slow the process down, but there has been no outright defiance, no outrage and no leadership designed to stop President Bush's unholy plan to destroy our state.
Perhaps Congressman Jim Gibbons, who is exploring the idea of leaving the U.S. Congress in order to run for governor of Nevada, will learn that Nevadans, despite attempts by Bush supporters to convince us that the fight is lost and the inevitable will happen, don't want this deadly legacy for our children and theirs. Perhaps Gibbons will understand when he comes back to Nevada to explore, that for the real people here, the mothers and fathers and young adults old enough to understand what is happening to us, that "disappointment" ain't enough for people who want to lead.
Education and lower taxes are great, Congressman Gibbons, but all that is useless when our future is being jeopardized by the greed of others who care not for Nevadans but only for their pocketbooks. Come up with a way to stop this nuke menace -- and start right now while you are still in Congress -- and your road to Carson City could go a lot smoother. And the same holds true for any other gubernatorial hopeful.
This whole issue of Yucca Mountain has rested on the nature of the science that the Congress determined should drive any decision on where to store some 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste for the next few hundred thousand years. Nevadans and most objective onlookers have concluded that science has proved just the opposite -- that Yucca Mountain is one of the worst places in the country in which to bury all that death and destruction.
President Bush and his friends in the nuclear industry, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and that part of corporate America that sees profits in abundance should Yucca Mountain finally open, have determined that flawed science is sufficient cause to jeopardize the health and safety of Nevadans and millions of other Americans who, naively, believe that our leadership gives a damn about our health and safety.
I have never understood what President Bush was thinking when he told us that he believed that the science behind Yucca Mountain was sound. And I am being charitable in even considering the concept that he knows anything about the science or even asked a question beyond what his corporate benefactors wanted him to do. But assuming he placed his faith in his advisers and their opinions regarding science, then the worst we can say about him is that his faith was misplaced. Now there's a mouthful to consider for another day.
So assuming he just misplaced his faith on this one, I have an answer for our president. It is also an answer for our gubernatorial hopeful, Jim Gibbons, and anyone else who aspires to a leadership role in this state with the desire to actually lead.
Pick up a copy of the December issue of "Technology Review: MIT's Magazine of Innovation."
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of higher education's great leaders in the field of science and technology. While it is well known around the world it, regrettably, is not household knowledge across this country. And its magazine is even a greater unknown. Lest I become known as an egghead in an environment that thinks unkindly toward such great thinkers, the December issue of the magazine is the first one I have ever read. As an aside, I have missed a great deal by not reading it on a regular basis.
What attracted me to "Technology Review" was its cover. It screamed out in large headline type, "The Best Option For Nuclear Waste, We Don't Know How To Store It Forever. Let's Leave The Solution To A Generation That Will."
Under the headline, "A New Vision For Nuclear Waste," science -- remember this science is the real thing -- has determined that at this time our country is unable and incapable of coming up with the right answer about what to do with the high-level nuclear waste that is piling up at nuclear power plants across the country. But those who study this stuff each and every day believe that the next generation or the next will have that ability, will have that capability to safely and responsibly deal with the waste issue.
So what to do with all that deadly stuff now? Science already has an answer. It is an answer mostly ignored by the Bush administration and its friends in the power industry but it is safe, secure and, most importantly, sane.
The article states the case that, "Yucca is already on tenuous ground; in July a federal appeals court said that to open the mountain burial site, the government would have to show that it could contain the waste for hundreds of thousands of years. Extensive scientific analyses by the Energy Department show that it cannot."
So rather than continue on a collision course with science, the article proposes that dry cask storage be used. Heard that one before? While the kind of casks the Energy Department wants to use for the deep geologic storage in Yucca Mountain will not hold for the hundreds and thousands of years required, scientists are certain that they will be good for at least 100 years. It is during that time that science of the 21st century can come up with a proper, safe and sane long-term solution, the article concludes.
So there you have it. I implore every Nevadan to get a copy of December's "Technology Review" -- find it at www.technologyreview.com and read it for yourselves so you will be well-armed when those who want you to give up and give in come a calling. I would also ask each and every mother and father in this state to demand that our governor, our congressman who-would-be-governor, our president and anyone else who thinks that Yucca Mountain is good for Nevada, read this article.
There is no way that a person can read what the folks at MIT think and know and still have faith in the bad science, bad policy and bad idea that George W. Bush thinks is good for America.
For those who demand it, this can still be about faith. But it has to be about faith in good and proper science and not a blind faith in the charlatans who practice politics for the profit of others at the expense of those of us who are dangerously close to losing our own faith. And that would be our faith in leaders who we want to believe give a darn about what happens to us.
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