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Atop Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, signs warn of possible radiation near a test well.
Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 | 10:51 a.m.
Sun Coverage
Sun topics
Declaring “We’re done with Yucca Mountain,” the Obama administration today announced the formation of a 15-member panel to study nuclear waste disposal alternatives -- another critical step in killing the proposed waste dump in Nevada.
The White House’s top energy adviser, Carol Browner, said Yucca Mountain is off the table as the new commission headed by Lee Hamilton and Brent Scowcroft begins a two-year process to study alternatives for handling the nation’s spent nuclear fuel.
“The debate over Yucca Mountain is over as the president has made clear,” Browner said during a conference call announcing the commission. “We’re done with Yucca. We need to be looking at other alternatives."
Scowcroft, the former national security adviser to two presidents, said the commission will be “trying to look forward, not back.”
“Nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain is not an option and the commission will be looking at better alternatives,” said Hamilton, the former congressman who also co-chaired the 9/11 Commission.
The formation of a panel to study alternatives was proposed last year as Obama announced his intention to dismantle the Yucca Mountain project he had vowed to kill.
Obama is scheduled to unveil his 2011 budget Monday. The spending plan is expected to zero out funds for Yucca Mountain, even as Obama called for “building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants” in his State of the Union speech this week.
Nevada officials welcomed the development as a key step in the state’s decades-long battle to stop the proposed waste dump.
But Nevada’s team fighting the project also warned that until Obama pulls the Energy Department’s application to license Yucca Mountain or Congress rewrites the law allowing it, the project could merely be on hold.
A change in the political winds could allow a new president or supportive lawmakers to restart efforts to license the site.
“The key for us will be whether they withdraw the license and declare the site unsuitable or leave the license in place, perhaps suspended, while the commission does its work,” said Bruce Breslow, the executive director of the Nevada State Agency for Nuclear Projects, which opposes the dump.
“Is the commission looking at alternatives in the hopes there is one while they keep the possibility of Yucca on the back-burner or suspended? Or are they willing to finally admit the Yucca site is unsuitable and that’s why their going back to the drawing board.”
Nevada’s Washington lawmakers are confident the commission will take Nevada closer to being done with Yucca Mountain.
“President Obama and I have worked closely to stop dumping taxpayer money into Yucca, and I have fought hard to ensure Yucca Mountain is dead,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “This panel of experts proposing other options for nuclear waste is the logical next step in that process.”
Democratic Rep. Dina Titus called the panel “another critical step forward in the effort to put a stop to Yucca Mountain once and for all.”
“I have been opposed to Yucca Mountain since day one and I have long worked with my colleagues to block it,” Titus said. “Today we are closer than ever to ensuring that Yucca Mountain never becomes a reality.”
Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley said, "By taking Yucca Mountain off the table, commission members will be able to propose a safe and secure solution to America’s nuclear waste problem.”
The panel includes prominent voices in the nuclear debate in Washington including Allison Macfarlane, the George Mason University professor who has conducted critical research on Yucca Mountain; John Rowe, the CEO of the powerful Exelon energy company; former Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the longtime chairman of a Senate energy committee; former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; Ernie Moniz, a leading professor of physics at the Masschusetts Institute of Technology; and Mark Ayers, president of the Building and Construction Trades Department at the AFL-CIO.
The panel is expected to study alternatives for 18 months and issue a report with 24 months, though the chairmen hope to finish sooner.
Good to see both sides represented in this panel. Allison Macfarlane is a great choice, having written one of the best books on Yucca Mountain called "Uncertainty Underground."
rejco100... huh?
Once we have a space elevator built, we will simply shoot it to the moon!
Nevada can't get Grants, we can't get a high speed train out of Las Vegas, we can't even get used radiation waste at Yucca Mtn.....but thank goodness we have our beloved HARRY REID. Honestly, who could ask for anything more??
Well Good Lord if there is already radiation there, why are we going to contaminate a new site somewhere else?
Kiss taxpayer money and jobs good-bye!
Another great victory for Sen Reid. Lowden wants nuke waste at YUCCA
Send Harry Reid up to Yucca Mountain
The Obama /Chu DOE 2011 Budget Request which will zero out Yucca Mountain does an injustice to Transparency, Sound Science, and current Laws and Agreements.
For Energy Security, Sound Science, and existing Laws and Agreements we must fund Yucca Mountain. Nuclear power is key to energy independence.
Obama has repeatedly said about "Sound Science" "It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make facts, not ideology."
If Obama is truly committed to Sound Science he must allow the Yucca Mountain License Application be adjudicated by the NRC and not conceal the results.
It is abundantly clear that Harry Reid and Obama have a non-transparent cloakroom handshake to support Harry Reid re-election. Yucca is toxic for many in Nevada and Reid is making his bones in the local press based on "killing" the project.
But since it is toxic to local politicians it is up to non-Nevada national politicians to fund Yucca and stop Reid.
Most disturbing is Reid's consistent denigration of the quality science being produce by America's ten National Laboratories and the USGS. These Obama lead organizations are on the forefront of every worldwide scientific endeavor know to man and are being besmeared by Harry Reid and Nevada.
Obama has enough friends (Exelon's John Rowe) and "State" lobbyist in the nuclear industry to know that if the Feds quit on Yucca without changing the NWPA, that the NEI (through the courts) will get their money ($22 billion plus) back and the NEI can complete the job themselves. DOE has lost every court case on this issue. We are currently paying 100s of millions for not accepting Spent Fuel.
In the 2010 budget request "The President, however, has made clear that the Nation needs a better solution than the proposed Yucca Mountain repository." And Reid and Chu promised a blue ribbon committee report before now on high level waste disposal. A BROKEN PROMISE - NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. In 2011 Obama wants to triple the Nuclear Plant guarantee yet can see the need to bury the waste.
In the run up to Harry Reid's 2010 election race, Harry Reid has repeatedly declared that with Obama complicit defunding help that he has killed Yucca Mountain, without eliminating the NWPA, and without challenging the science.
Further, what is not addressed by Obama, Chu, and Harry Reid is the broken DOE/EPA Federal Facility Agreements (FFA) (under the Federal Facility Compliance Act) with several States (SC, TN, WA, ID, etc). These FFAs were made in the Clinton 90's to address Defense High Level Waste from the weapons complex to meet RCRA and CERCLA by putting the waste in Yucca Mountain. We also need to dispose of Naval Spent Fuel.
I can't believe this is no where in the national news. Can't be found.
"President Obama and I have worked closely to stop dumping taxpayer money into Nevada, and I have fought hard to ensure Nuclear Power is dead," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "This panel of experts proposing other options for nuclear waste is the logical next step in that process."
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The White House's top energy adviser, Carol Browner has NEVER supported Nuclear Power.
Where is the Department of Energy in all of this decision making.
Why are the national labs not in all of this decision making.
Reid has already told them that the only answer is to leave it at the 100s of site scattered around the country, on our lakes and rivers, for the next one million years. Why because Reid has said high level waste cannot be shipped. So what is the purpose of the study since you cannot ship it.
So this bunch of ex-politicians, anti- nuclear professors, union guys, and Obama BFF Rowe are going to make a scientific decision that will NOT have the benefit of the results of a Technical review of Yucca Mountain by the NRC.
Will these ex-politicians, liberal anti-nuclear professors, and union guys submit their "technical papers" to the NRC to if they actual prove if they have any sound science merit?
In the run up to Harry Reid's 2010 election race, Harry has declared that with Obama complicit help that he has killed Yucca Mountain, without eliminating the NWPA, and without challenging the science.
"President Obama and I have worked closely to stop dumping taxpayer money into Yucca" said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
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This shows how dumb Harry is. It is not taxpayer money that is paying for Yucca - this is electric ratepayer money which will have to be paid back
Nevada is where they tested nuclear bombs, right? It's mostly vacant, empty desert, right? But, you don't want the image of being a dumpsite. You could lead the nation in safe disposal of waste, what a way to diversify. But no, not in your pitiful back yard.
Nevada is where nuclear weapons were tested? Last I knew it was a remote corner of White Sands which is in New Mexico.
Yucca Mountain has radiation already - is that where Area 51 is located?
Now for a serious moment. Nuclear fuel comes from Uranium;Uranium comes from mines. Why not put the darn stuff back into some of the abandoned Uranium Mines and let it live comfortably with friends and it's radioactive kin?
GM wrote: <<Good to see both sides represented in this panel. Allison Macfarlane is a great choice, having written one of the best books on Yucca Mountain called "Uncertainty Underground.">>
I agree it is one of the better books in terms of giving an overview of the science, what is known, and what the uncertainties are. But there are two chapters that contain some questionable, non-scientific judgements and assertions, and those are the two McFarlane contributions.
The Administration has the right to make national policy, they were elected. However, in my view, unless the Nuclear Regulatory Commission completes its Safety Analysis Report and concludes the proposed repository would be unsafe, we have no basis for declaring it unsafe. Anecdotal scientific criticisms appear now and then seemingly for the purpose of shaking public confidence, a tactic that works well.
Attempting to disqualify the site or the design over a single nonideal fact or feature or issue is not how the safety regulation is written. It is written in terms of the entire system's performance and asks DOE to make a case for there being a basis for the NRC to find that there is a reasonable expectation of safety over a million years.
Some scientists are upset over there being oxidizing conditions in the proposed repository. But that is why Alloy 22 was selected for the waste packages, it is corrosion-resistant even in the oxygen-rich environment anticipated. Some are upset over trying to place large metal objects into the repository 100 years (approximately) after operations have begun. But the system is open and maintained and monitored, and the equipment is stored outside the radiation areas where it can also be tested and maintained. It is just not a big deal. In my opinion.
I look forward to the panel's recommendations. Hopefully we can all have confidence that the nation will do the right thing, do it well, and do it soon enough that there can be sufficient confidence to allow new reactors to be built, including one here in Nevada, perhaps. I like the idea of the state becoming an energy exporter, instead of the importer it is today.
I have an idea. How about storing the waste at Yucca Mountain.
Is Yucca Mt. being closed down for good, forever? It need not be a total waste of U.S. treasury. There are other possible uses for Yucca Mtn. Why not turn the cavernous tunnels that are deep beneath this mountain into a very secure prison for the most vile and dangerous prisoners such as terrorists now occupying Guantanamo Bay? With modifications this would be the most secure place to incaracerate these criminals for whatever length of time their sentences dictate. In the depths of this mountain the only way in or out would be through elevators or a series of elevators, which if properly designed could be made escape proof as humanly possible. We already have several select very secure escape proof federal prisons so why not consider Yucca Mountain as a new potential modern day Alcatraz?
The remote nature of this area seems like the ideal location for a new state of the art federal penitentiary. It's remoteness would make planned attack to release terrorists by outside terrorists groups highly unlikely or extremely difficult at best. If an escape from within did occur the prospects of the escapees getting of the property are rendered very difficult by the distance from main state highways.
Could not the Yucca Mt. area be used to do other forms of research such as manned and unmanned space vehicles development for exploration and possible colonization of other planets in our solar system and galaxy? I am certain there are other forms of both applied technical and pure research applicable to both peaceful and military uses that could be conducted on this remote and secure area. Just because it may not ever be used for permanent storage of highly toxic nuclear wastes does not mean that this vast area does not have other potential uses for the United States.
dipstick must have a big back yard.
So, instead of having one well designed and maintained isolated location, dipstick would like to have waste sites at every nuclear power plant across the country.
Are there any nuclear power plants that sit on tributaries of the Colorado River?