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Yucca Mountain politics
Despite what critics say, science never drove the plan to make Nevada a nuclear dump
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 | 2:09 a.m.
There has been a spate of editorials and articles recently whining about President Barack Obama’s decision to kill plans for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
USA Today, for example, published an editorial Tuesday decrying the decision as “political” — noting that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is from Nevada. The newspaper said the decision countered the White House’s belief that “politics should not drive science.”
Similar arguments have been made by others, including The Washington Post, the Washington Times and those in the nuclear power industry. Those who cry politics are either disingenuous or ignorant of the facts: Politics is the reason Yucca Mountain was chosen in the first place.
When Congress decided to create a dump, it decided it wanted a place with geological features that would shield radiation from escaping and ordered a scientific search for the best sites. Yucca Mountain, a porous, volcanic ridge, would not have been at the top of the list. There were many other sites across the country considered, including places in Texas, Washington state, Utah, Louisiana and Mississippi.
In 1985 President Ronald Reagan narrowed the list to Nevada, Washington state and Texas.
Nevada didn’t stand a chance. The vice president and the speaker of the House at the time were from Texas. The then-House majority leader was from Washington state.
A powerful senator from Louisiana provided the political answer, authoring the so-called “Screw Nevada” bill in 1987. The bill named Yucca Mountain as the only site to be considered. Nevada’s small congressional delegation, whose senior senator at the time, Chic Hecht, hadn’t been in office for a full term, was powerless to stop it.
The bill set the government off on an impossible quest: Make science support a political decision. The result has been a waste of more than two decades and nearly $8 billion. President Obama was true to his word. With his decision, science finally ruled the day.
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"With his decision, science finally ruled the day"
What science exactly?
Did he have a secret set of scientists to study Yucca in the last 50 days and that issued a secret report?
Yes, Obama used science as in political science to the make the decision.
The left, including the Sun, look ridiculous when on one day they are heaping praise on Obama for relying on science and then next week cranking up the old excuse spin machine to explain away a political decision that trumps a public board of scientists that oversees the safety of Yucca.
It is a good laugh.
Nance;
Do you mean the Nuclear public board of Scientists that are pushing this nonsense?
Or the Independent board of Scientists that have called out Yucca for the mess it is now, not to mention what would happen if it ever opened. Go to Washington State and the Hanford site. They are billions and years short of cleaning up leaking tanks and containing the waste.
But of course that means nothing to a person living in Reno.
I have to say, I enjoy reading the LV Sun for its entertainment value, and it's endearing pretense at journalism. It kind of reminds me of my junior-high school newspaper - - earnest, goofy, completely inaccurate, non-factual, completely amateurish, but a fun read nontheless. It never disappoints in that regard!
The "whining" you refer to has to do with the decision by the Obama Administration to follow through on the President's 2007 statements that "legitimate scientific questions" have been raised about the safety of disposal of nuclear waste at Yucca and therefore "it is no longer sustainable federal policy" to consider Yucca for a permanent repository.
Let us recall the timing of that statement. It was sent to the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee the day before a hearing was scheduled by the chairwoman at the request of Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Obama's rival for Nevada caucus votes. Does anyone think Obama had some special scientific knowledge that led him to judge that there were legitimate scientific questions aside from those he may have been furnished by the State of Nevada?
There are questions to be examined in the proposed repository and there is a process for the consideration of those questions in an unbiased process by technically qualified people at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Department of Energy, supported by the National Laboratories, other federal agencies and a host of contractors has submitted the license application (that few outside government seem to have actually read) that makes the case that the repository they hope to build will meet the radiation regulatory requirements and other regulations. The State of Nevada can and will challenge those arguments with their own contentions. The NRC license review, which may take 3 to 4 years, is the way for "science to rule the day."
Many years ago when the NWPA was revised to deselect to Yucca Mountain it had a reasonably warm acceptance by most in Nevada. A large number of Nevadans know the real details of Yucca and support the project.
A repository was determined to be the American waste disposal option because of Democrat Jimmy Carter's fail nuclear legacy which prevented the fuel recycle option. A fuel recycle option would have saved the electric utilities billions in fuel cost.
It was only late in the Clinton administration that it became a fear mongering election issue lead by Harry Reid when he first ran against Ensign for the Senate in 1998. Harry Reid has always been a marginal and inept politician and has over played the Yucca issue to his advantage.
Under Clinton the Yucca tunnel was bore and most of the science investigation was done and transportation safety issues resolved.
Yes it was a political decision to deselect to Yucca. But the soundness of the science is an independent issue and for to Harry Reid LV Sun political fear mongering and feigned claim of "States Right" is falling flat. Harry Reid as can be seen by recent action is not a support of "States Right". Such issue as the Federal location of transmission lines is proof.
Obama said "it is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make facts, not ideology."
What is Obama doing about the sound science of Yucca Mountain or alternative nuclear waste storage? Obama is processing the Yucca LA through the NRC review.
Harry Reid wants to stop this just as the Science of our National Labs and the USGS is verified by the NRC.
We need to stop the Zombie Harry Reid politics in 2010.
The Reid-Ensign bill calls for "exploring" a range of issues that have grown around the nuclear waste program
- basically nothing specific like reprocessing nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site, and would require that completion be in after two years - or after Reid's 2010 election.
- There would be no safety standard to meet, so the answer can be to leave the waste in dry cask storage at multiple plant sites for 1 million years.
The commission members would be picked by Reid --so you can expect to see Nevada's own confessed crook lobbyist Bob Loux and former Sparks mayor, television sports broadcaster, and baseball card trading business mogul Bruce Breslow.
Reid's primarily study objective is he wants a way to keep the accumulated $20 billion from the utility ratepayers and not return the $10 billion that Reid has already spent.
@Patt: I concur; this paper is a joke...
@Nance, Boco, & Future: I'm in violent agreement.
@FCC: Pull your head out of Reid's butt! And, stop comparing apples and oranges -- you can't compare the handling of commercial nuclear spent fuel to the waste generated during World War II efforts in a race against Germany to develop the bomb... Moron...
People Please... STOP perpetuating the Reid Spin that the selection of Yucca Mountain was purely political!!! I work with people that were involved in the selection process. It was the comparitive analysis of the 3 remaining sites that were being characterized that concluded Yucca Mountain was the best site -- Based on Science!!!!
We need to campaign against Reid's fear mongering insanity that has this state completely hoodwinked. We need the Yucca Mountain for so many good reasons -- a primary one now is to help the Nevada economy and save jobs!!! Besides, IT IS THE LAW!!!
Why are "We The People" allowing Reid and Obama to circumvent the Law???
Just say No to Harry in 2010!!!!
Everyone needs to see: www.yuccamatters.com for information on how to fight Harry on his farcical "Don Quixote"-like quest to kill Yucca Mountain. There is also a site called "abadreid" out there with good information.
Can't we just pay Al Gore to say "the science is good" and be done with it?
Ho ho ho...this editorial should be read by every member of congress so they could see the level of dialogue in Nevada concerning Yucca Mountain.
The Sun is at least consistent in it's blissful state of ignorance.
No one, least of all the press, should call people objecting to Obama and Reid bypassing many features of the American Constitution and its legal processes related to LAWS passed by Congress to pursue political payback by defunding Yucca Mountain as whining. The press is supposed to be a defender of the Constitution.
If Reid or Obama are opposed to Yucca Mountain, then they should change the law. This backdoor method sets a precedent that any law or the rights in the Constitution can be ignored just through defunding. Such as freedom of the press, the Civil Rights Act, etc etc.
You are right. Obama is breaking the law.
That's right Reid only wants jobs for criminal invaders not Nevadans.
The Yucca mountain project would be a source of thousands of recession proof jobs for Nevada.
If you say its not safe, You have no true knowledge of the subject, only the terrorist Harry Reid and Cronies political concept of the subject.
FCC:
I'm afraid I have to concur with the obviously more knowledgeable bloggers in here.
You can't simply offer vague assertions and expect any serious-minded person to take you seriously. You may provoke some cheers from the knee-jerk anti-Yucca crowd (which may be all you're after in the first place), but you won't make much headway in terms of the "shadow debate" being carried on by those of us who have actually studied the subject.
Your attempt at an analogy to Hanford, for example, verges on the absurd when you get down to the particulars. I'm sure the bloggers in here would be happy to debate the particulars, but of course you haven't provided any beyond the simple suggestion that the two cases are comparable.
Likewise for your citation of some alleged "Nuclear public board of Sciences" or the equally nebulous "Independent board of Scientists." What organizations are you referring to here? Or are you simply parroting something you heard from an anti-Yucca source? There are probably many people in here who would take up the issue if you gave us something to work with (are you talking about the NWTRB, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the National Academy of Scientists? To what reports or studies are you referring?).
Finally, playing the old "resident" card is as silly as playing the political affiliation card. I've lived in this state and in Vegas for nearly 30 years, and I'm a Democrat. Do these things give me automatic credibility when arguing the subject of Yucca Mountain with someone who isn't a resident or who is a Republican? For the record, I support the Yucca Mountain Project because I've actually studied it. Not that that makes me an expert; but at least I've made an attempt to cultivate an informed opinion, independently of political and media influences to the contrary.
Hurry Up, we've got tons of spent fuel in the Midwest waiting for a home in the Silver State !
How can you compare the political, almost dictator tactics of Harry Reid to the political vote decided by a bi-partisan government to allow Yucca Mountain to become FEDERAL LAW?
I can type all night, but all the details are for your viewing pleasure at http://aBadReid.com
Look for the article describing how aBadReid.com plans on giving Dr. Steven Chu (DOE Energy Secretary) TARNISH REMOVER so he can easily remove the tarnish that surely has built up on his Nobel Prize Physics Medal, with all this disregard for science that has been happening.
Welcome to politics Dr. Chu!
Bad Reid
Bad Senator
The treacherous McCain's own words,
But in a talk on nuclear security at the University of Denver, McCain offered another approach as part of global efforts to watchdog civilian nuclear power:
"I would seek to establish an international repository for spent nuclear fuel that could collect and safely store materials overseas that might otherwise be reprocessed to acquire bomb-grade materials. It is even possible that such an international center could make it unnecessary to open the proposed spent nuclear fuel storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada."
Backstabbing weasel.
I am glad that most people in this forum understand that the Las Vegas Sun is a propaganda machine and not a reliable source for news and information. With that being said, I have been able to understand the reason and sound science behind Yucca Mountain. Thusly, I support it.
We are letting the boob Reid abandon in place a 10 billion dollar project. The high-paying jobs that this city and state need so badly are moving out of state. The expertise necessary for waste handling will be gone. Reid has nothing to take the place of this loss of a tax base and does nothing to improve the lives of the people of Nevada. In the name of all that is right and proper, do not re-elect this fool Ried back to the Senate next year!
By the way Las Vegas Sun, Yucca Mountain was designed as a REPOSITORY, not a DUMP!! Look up the word in the dictionary!
Most people opposed to Yucca Mountain have no regard for nuclear energy, viewing it as nothing more than the civilian version of "nuclear bomb." Their conditioning is driven by pacifist politics dating back a half century or more, the environmental movement of the 60's and 70's, and the anti-institutional bias of the "identity politics" crowd. They're selective Luddites who can't stand the thought of using atoms for American energy independence, but have no problem gorging themselves on myriad consumer products based in petroleum (think an Iphone doesn't depend on oil?) while spewing tone-deaf political doggerel as if it were reason or common sense.
Yucca Mountain was one of seven sites under consideration at the time. It was uniquely suitable from an ownership point-of-view, being in a federally controlled area dedicated to nuclear activities in the first place. From a containment perspective, it was uniquely suitable in that it was dry, arid, substantially elevated from sources of groundwater and nowhere near surface-water sources. The notion that Nevada was a political football at the time of selection is fair, but the subsequent "screw Nevada" meme was more the product of enterprising politicians and an anti-nuclear hometown newspaper than anything else. Absent the weapons testing of the time, Congress might have pushed the location further into the Test Site, but I think the basic decision of storing our nation's spent fuel rods and other nuclear "waste" in a mountain in the middle of the Nevada desert on a known site where nuclear activities and specialists abounded would not have changed.
Yucca Mountain was principally about science as engineering. The question really was, "do we have confidence in our nation's ability to engineer and manage a safe storage location for these types of materials, irrespective of the exact time element involved." If you believed in American enterprise and the strength of our people to accomplish great deeds, the answer was yes. If you're one of those perdurable cynics who came to hate the America you grew up with, your answer was no (more often, hell no). The "no" tends to imply that nothing should be done that has any element of risk in it, because engineering can fail, space shuttles do fall from the sky, and radiation exposure within an underground storage facility, with loss of life, is always a possibility. Someone who mistrusts existing systems and institutions almost always expects the worst. But for the same reason one should not confuse the reality of Chernobyl with the reality of Three Mile Island, such a view simply reveals a bias of another stripe. It fails to provide any meaningful determination of whether to operate Yucca Mountain or not, for it willfully ignores an inconvenient truth about America; namely, that we're very good at what we do, more often than we are not. Yucca Mountain would have been a case in point, had the harridans not had their day.