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U.S. Department of Energy
Yucca Mountain is located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009 | 2:45 p.m.
Sen. Harry Reid
Sun Topics
Sun Archives
- Nevada skipped in talk of nuclear waste storage (1-14-2009)
- Will Obama starve the beast? Reid thinks so (1-13-2009)
- Editorial: Putting science first (12-17-2008)
WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today that the new president will essentially zero out funding for Yucca Mountain in the 2010 fiscal year budget being submitted to Congress in coming weeks.
President-elect Barack Obama’s proposed budget may contain only minimal funds to begin transitioning the Yucca Mountain program from a long-term nuclear waste dump north of Las Vegas to a system of on-site storage sites at existing power plants across the country. There may also be funds to help workers in Nevada adjust as the project mission is changed.
“When Obama’s budget comes out for the following year, there’ll be nothing in it for Yucca Mountain,” Reid said.
Zeroing out the budget could all but kill the long-running plan to store nuclear waste in the desert.
Reid's comments came during a meeting this afternoon with the Nevada congressional delegation.
Republican Sen. John Ensign agreed there could be funds to make the transition to on-site storage, which he, Reid and other lawmakers from Nevada have maintained was “the best solution.”
Obama's budget is expected in coming weeks, after he takes office. Eliminating funding would make it all but impossible for the Energy Department to continue developing the project, which is now undergoing a four-year review before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Reid said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's budget would also be less than expected.
But first Reid expects to slash another $100 million from the Energy Department's budget for Yucca Mountain for the remainder of this fiscal year. Reid has systematically directed Congress to cut the project’s budget in recent years, an effort to essentially starve the Energy Department of the funds it needs to fully develop the Yucca Mountain. For the first half of this year, Reid cut the project by 20 percent.
The Energy Department advanced the project to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year despite the cuts.
A spokesman for Obama's transition office was not immediately available to comment.
NWPA is just one more law that Reid will violate.
Time for the NEI to "pass go" and collect $20 billion and complete the job.
What does Reid fear from the LA review?
Obama's budget, like all presidential budgets, will be ignored by Congress.
Just a few months ago, the Democratic controlled House sub-committee voted to fully fund Yucca.
Reid and Obama face an uphill battle against their own party if they try to zero out funding for Yucca.
Harry will say anything to get re-elected, this guy is a joke.
I repeat, the only people currently making money on Yucca mountain are Harry's crony lawyer friends.
What amazes me is nobody wants to see how safe Yucca is, they only want to knee jerk their way around this.
Let me show you my shocked look.
If Harry Reid thinks wind and sun will meet our energy needs, he's out of his mind. His anti-nuke attitude may get him elected as often as he likes, but he's destroying the nation he professes to love. Please don't tell me we don't know how to build and operate nuclear plants safely, or that we don't know how to dispose of nuclear waste; I have too much expertise to believe the bumper stickers. Arsenic will last forever, so please don't tell me how long radioactive waste will last; that's irrelevant. Arsenic is probably already in your drinking water because God was careless about where he put it; for most of us, it's at harmless concentrations. If waste buried at Yucca Mountain ever gets to your drinking water, the concentration will be barely detectable and undoubtedly harmless. Smarten up, Harry, before America is owned by the Chinese and Arabs.
A Program of Positive Change should include Changing America's Fuel Cycle to Thorium
When it comes to nuclear waste, it is better to just make much less of it.
Nuclear power currently produces 70% of the nation's non-GHG producing energy. Thorium Molten Salt Reactors are practical proven technology that really does produce 1 part in 1000 the amount of high level radiotoxic waste as current Light Water Reactor technology. We need to commercialize Thorium Molten Salt Reactors to provide America with abundant less waste generating nuclear power and to achieve genuine energy independence.
Dr. Edward Teller, the founding director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, wrote his final paper a month before his death on the subject of the advantages of Thorium Molten Salt Reactors and the contribution this style of less polluting nuclear energy could provide in solving the problem of achieving energy independence while reducing the need to generate green house gases. This paper can be downloaded from the following URL:
http://www.geocities.com/rmoir2003/moir_...