Editorial: It’s the waste, stupid

Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2007 | 7:36 a.m.

Anxious to take advantage of tax credits, loan guarantees, application subsidies and other benefits provided by the 2005 energy bill, many power companies are getting ready to file for permission to build nuclear power plants.

More than 400 people have been hired recently by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review applications for as many as 29 reactors at 20 sites, mostly in the South.

Stated reasons are plentiful for this spurt of interest in new nuclear power plants after 30 years of dormancy. Generous federal assistance is now available. Electricity demand is growing faster than ever. Coal-fired power plants are in disfavor because their emissions foul the air and contribute to global warming. And, advocates of nuclear power claim, updated designs will make new plants operationally safer, more secure against terrorist threats and less costly to build.

Yet those reasons are not as convincing as they may sound. Federal assistance is generous because the Bush administration is joined at the hip with nuclear power lobbyists. Demand is out of control because leadership in the area of conservation has been sorely lacking. Other energy sources - solar, wind, geothermal - could be replacing coal-fired plants with the right energy policy. And can anyone ever trust a nuclear power plant to be safe and secure?

All of those reasons play into our opposition to new nuclear power plants. But our biggest objection is also the most obvious: In more than 50 years of nuclear power, not even the most brilliant nuclear scientists have solved the problem of securing its deadly waste.

The government's only plan - burying the waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas - is so dangerous that it should have been abandoned years ago. Even if only three or four power companies actually commit to building nuclear plants, what is the plan for managing the additional waste?

There is no safe and sane plan. For that reason, there should be no more nuclear power plants.