McCain: Blue ribbon Yucca panel unnecessary

U.S. Department of Energy

Yucca Mountain is located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 | 5:08 p.m.

WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain said today that he did not believe the Obama administration’s proposed blue ribbon commission to study alternatives to Yucca Mountain was necessary.

McCain, the former Republican presidential nominee, remains a strong supporter of the nuclear waste dump planned for north of Las Vegas.

However, President Barack Obama has pledged to “scale back” the project and promises Yucca Mountain will not open as a repository for spent nuclear fuel.

Instead Obama’s Energy Department is forming a blue ribbon commission to study alternatives. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Sen. John Ensign had called for such a commission earlier this year.

“I don’t know if we need a blue ribbon commission, to be honest with you,” McCain said today in a brief interview.

“It’s very clear that Yucca Mountain was the best place to be. Now we need to find out the second best if Senator Reid insists and the administration continue to block Yucca Mountain,” he said.

“It’s not hard -- they can make it hard, which they are,” McCain continued.

“All the commissions in the world are fine. But the point is we have enough information to act.”

Some have floated the idea of using an existing lower-level nuclear waste facility in New Mexico as a permanent repository.

McCain did not immediately have an opinion on that, but said he recently returned from a nuclear waste reprocessing facility in Japan, and believes that technology could be used in this country.

Critics of reprocessing, however, question whether existing technology is the best alternative, and a viable option.

Discussion: 1 comment so far…

By davelv

4/24/09 at 8:55 a.m.

Suggest removal

Because the waste is too hot, any salt repository is useless for disposal of nuclear high level waste.

Additionally, salt collapses at the rate of about 1 inch per year so it is also not good for a repository where SNF can be recovered in the future.

As it turns out, only Yucca Mountain and Hanford are suitable for a repository based on the studies of the top 5 sites. So it looks like Hanford is going to be the chosen spot by the blue ribbon panel (until Reid and Obama are out of office).