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twitterNUCLEAR WASTE:
Bell tolls for Yucca
President’s budget ends all planning for the dump site, but only Congress can kill it
BLOOMBERG NEWS FILE
The U.S. Energy Department plans to store spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, an extinct volcano about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Friday, May 8, 2009 | 2 a.m.
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- Obama plans lean Yucca budget (5-6-2009)
- State: Yucca is dying, but don't stop fighting (4-29-2009)
- McCain: Blue ribbon Yucca panel unnecessary (4-22-2009)
- Environmentalists try to block Yucca water rights request (4-13-2009)
Washington — Ask the White House whether the Yucca Mountain project is dead and you will be pointed to Page 68 of President Barack Obama’s budget.
The 2010 spending plan starkly lays out a path to end the planned nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The dump dispute has generated boxcar loads of documents over the years. Obama’s budget dismisses the project in a few paragraphs.
While running for president, Obama promised to withdraw the application to license the dump to operate, which would deliver an even greater blow. Yet despite his actions, Yucca Mountain won’t truly be dead until Congress changes the law it passed that led to the plan for the dump.
What's on Page 68
TERMINATION: YUCCA MOUNTAIN REPOSITORY PROGRAM
The Administration proposes to eliminate the Yucca Mountain repository program. The Budget provides $196.8 million for the Department of Energy (DOE) to explore alternatives for nuclear waste disposal and to continue participation in the repository license proceeding before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Justification
This proposal implements the Administration’s decision to terminate the Yucca Mountain program while developing disposal alternatives. All funding for development of the facility would be eliminated, such as further land acquisition, transportation access, and additional engineering.
The President has acknowledged that nuclear power is — and likely will remain — an important source of electricity for many years to come and that how the Nation deals with the dangerous byproduct of nuclear reactors is a critical question that has yet to be resolved.
The President, however, has made clear that the Nation needs a better solution than the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. Such a solution must be based on sound science and capable of securing broad support, including support from those who live in areas that might be affected by the solution. Accordingly, Secretary of Energy Chu has announced that he will stand up an expert, Blue Ribbon Commission to evaluate options and make recommendations to the Administration for developing a new plan for the back end of the fuel cycle. The program accounts continue to fund only those costs necessary to participate in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission proceeding and an effort by the Administration to devise a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal.
Congressional Quotes
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:
“For more than two decades, some have persistently tried to turn a piece of the magnificent Nevada desert just outside of Las Vegas into a dumping ground for dangerous nuclear waste. I am proud to say that today, with the release of President Obama’s budget, that idea is dead.”
Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley:
“President Obama is making good on the promise he made to end Yucca Mountain, and this budget takes us closer than ever before to permanently burying this $100 billion dinosaur in the Nevada desert. Support for Yucca Mountain has collapsed.”
Discussion: 19 comments so far…
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So where is the $30 billion that must be returned to the electric ratepayer in the budget.
Just waiting on the lawsuits
Future 2012 asks a good question, I believe that no budget line item will be shown in the Budget for refunds to ratepayers or to the utilities which made the payments for disposal that was promised in contracts with the federal government but now in greater doubt than ever. What is happening is that most of the nuclear utilities are suing the government over that breach of contract. There have been some settlements but in most cases the courts are still determining how much the government must pay. When damages or settlements are set, the payments are made from a curious budget element called the Judgment Fund. What is curious about it is that no one seems to manage the Fund. Instead, the Department of Justice tells Department of Treasury who to pay how much. The money is replenished through a difficult to determine manner, but the point here is that it does not come out of the Department of Energy or any other agency's budget.
2012 may also know that Senators Graham and McCain have introduced a bill that would require the President to accept Yucca as the disposal site or rebate the balance of the Nuclear Waste Fund. It is doubtful that such a bill will pass but the matter should be debated.
We don't want any new energy. Not nuclear, not oil, not gas, not coal. We want to go back to the buffalo roaming across the plains. What a country.
The Obama administration basically caved into Harry Reid's wishes. This decision isn't based on SOUND SCIENCE (that was already accomplished via the license application). Secretary Chu's "Blue Ribbon" panel is just a smoke screen.
Instead this is just POLITICS, plain and simple. Chu should turn in his Nobel Prize medal in physics as science has taken a serious back seat. Nice promises Obama, to have science be a part of important decisions such as this.
More comments are listed on aBadReid.com in the "Yucca Mountain" tab.
Bad Reid
Bad Senator
As a native Nevadan.. I observe the following...
Harry Reid said ..."For more than two decades, some have persistently tried to turn a piece of the magnificent Nevada desert just outside of Las Vegas into a dumping ground for dangerous nuclear waste."
The US Govt, with some 40 years of atomic testing, turned Reid's 'magnificent Nevada desert' into a nuclear bomb pocked marked wasteland that will not be 'magnificent' or usable for another 40,000 years (read that as "dangerous nuclear waste") ! Is there a better site to put nuclear power waste which would decay in about the same time? On all levels, it is the best option.
Do Obama and Reid 'really' prefer we go to someplace else in an unspoiled 'magnificent' area the country, say outside of Chicago, or better yet, Washington, DC... and put the waste dump site there... If so, then we will have two sites in the US that will not be 'Magnificent' for 40,000 years..
Somehow that just does not make sense on sooo many levels..
Good for Obama. Good for Nevada.
Dump in Alaska at Sarah Palin's house. I bet that hypocrite would be screaming if it effected her people.
We dont want to be a nuclear waste dump.
If Yucca is dead, why does the budget allocate funds to "continue participation in the repository license proceeding before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?"
Shouldn't the license proceedings be suspended indefinitely or terminated immediately?
A potentially viable alternative solution was summarily spiked back in the '90's. See "The Sub-Seabed Solution."
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96oct/...
They let this get spun by the Greenies (and others with land-based repository interests) as "ocean dumping," when that was not what was being proposed. Read the article.
Put it in Texas. Thats where it should have been put in the first place.
I'm all for putting the dump in Crawford, Texas........Bush is already half brain dead, and a few isotopes won't do him much more damage...........and the glow of the waste can help light and power is pending library.........the one where history will be rewritten and where LIE gets first billing in library
I wonder how the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners like being told they can take their scientific evaluations of Yucca Mountain and shove them up their you-know-whats?
I wonder if they enjoy being told they are irrelevant regarding one of the most important decisions regarding the long-term storage of nuclear waste?
In the competition between science and politics, looks like politics wins.
It's long past the time to walk away from nuclear energy. It is the most expensive form of energy ever devised and perhaps the most dangerous as well. It creates incredibly toxic mining sites, waste material and leads to the proliferation of nuclear bombs.
Are we so selfish that we would burden future generations for thousands of years with our waste just so we can charge our ipods and cell phones? Just to have that big screen tv? How childish.
Let's get real. A sustainable society can not be created using toxic, dangerous technology.
Way to go Senator Reid and President Obama. Thank you for keeping your commitment to Nevadans!
Stephens-"The US Govt, with some 40 years of atomic testing, turned Reid's 'magnificent Nevada desert' into a nuclear bomb pocked marked wasteland that will not be 'magnificent' or usable for another 40,000 years (read that as "dangerous nuclear waste")"
Then why are the radiation levels in Hiroshima the same as anywhere else in the world. http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/kids/KP...
"Residual radiation (Note 1) appeared as the initial radiation subsided. About 80% of the total amount of residual radiation was released within 24 hours of the bombing. One study found that a person standing at the hypocenter 24 hours after the bombing would have received only one thousandth the dose of residual radiation that would have been received by a person who was there right after the bomb exploded. One week later, the dose would be only one millionth the original dose. (Note 2) In other words, residual radiation levels fell very rapidly."
"Today, the background radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the same as the average amount of natural radiation present anywhere on Earth. It is not enough to affect human health."
Now that your reasoning is false, why would a 40 year resident want nuclear waste that IS dangerous.
Let me correct that from 'a 40 year resident' to 'a native resident'. Not that it matters how long you have been here. The dump poses dangers to all residents and those in the transportation path.
Lisa,
I like your title line - only Congress can kill it. Absolutely correct since it is not a project by the President or a Senator, but of the United States passed by Congress 27 years ago.
The real question does this Congress realize that killing Yucca Mountain opens 46 states to being a potential repository. I say 46 because obviously the home states of Pelosi, Reid, Obama and Biden will not be considered no matter what. One would hope that over 500 people are not so naive as to think that killing Yucca Mountain will not ultimately affect their own re-election chances as 2 years from now the Blue Commission will pick one or more of their states for the new multiple repositories vs just one at Yucca Mountain.
Yucca is DEAD.
Good Riddance.
I really dont understand why you have to esssentially bury something for hundreds of years that is giving off energy. Why not tap it and use it for lower grade things?
Sec Chu has said "We're looking at reactors that have a high-energy neutron spectrum that can actually allow you to burn down the long-lived actinide waste. [note: Actinides include plutonium, which can be dangerous for 100,000 years.] These are fast neutron reactors. There's others: a resurgence of hybrid solutions of fusion fission where the fusion would impart not only energy, but again creates high-energy neutrons that can burn down the long-lived actinides."
Chu has got a big problem here. If he uses molten salt reactors to consume Light water reactor wastes he will produce too much electric power for the US to consume. He can't keep up with the Light Water Reactor waste stream because the molten salt reactors will produce 30 times more power the current reactor fleet. Why, because they are 30 times more efficient. What will the green power people do? The greens will have no power market! Of course fusion hybrids are even worse! We could power America for 1000 years just on the nuclear wastes we have already produced.