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StumbleSUN EDITORIAL:
It’s just fool’s gold
Common sense should tell you that the Yucca Mountain project is deadly
Monday, May 17, 2010 | 2:06 a.m.
The federal government for decades was on a crusade to bury 70,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada. But today this state has never been closer to seeing the Yucca Mountain project finally finished off.
Keeping a campaign pledge, President Barack Obama is in the process of killing the project with the steady and invaluable assistance of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The effort over the years by Nevadans to derail this project has been largely unified, drawing opposition that has been bipartisan and bereft of ideological divisions. That is why it is so strange that, as Nevada is within a whisker of ending the Yucca Mountain project for good, there are still whispers out there that the state should capitulate and let man’s deadliest waste be buried here in return for financial benefits from the federal government.
Just last week former Republican Gov. Bob List, who once represented the nuclear power industry but no longer does, suggested the Yucca Mountain project could be a “Fort Knox” for the state. List, speaking before the state’s Legislative Committee on High-Level Radioactive Waste, said “it’s the opportunity of a lifetime to take a fresh look.” The Las Vegas Sun’s Cy Ryan reported that List went on to say that, at $100 billion, it would be the largest public works project in the world. But state Sen. Dean Rhoads, a Republican from Elko, aptly told List: “I’m fearful it would become the dump of America.”
Indeed, Nevadans have heard countless times from the nuclear power industry’s cheerleaders that Yucca Mountain would be a virtual gold mine. They claim it would help the state by creating new construction jobs and that it would result in the hiring of employees to watch over the facility once it was built.
For starters, if being the final resting place for man’s deadliest waste is such a great deal, then why aren’t the other 49 states in the nation clamoring to get the dump put in their state? The answer is obvious: They’re no fools.
The nuclear power industry and its supporters also have suggested the state should throw in the towel in return for money. But what price can you put on the safety and well-being of Nevadans? Besides, if there were an accident involving the transportation or storage at the dump just 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, it would forever harm our tourist-based economy. Additionally, one would have to be naive to think that the federal government, which already is straining under an enormous debt, would gladly throw money at Nevada to concede the fight.
Despite the long odds of preventing the nuclear-waste dump from being granted a license to operate, the state has for years fought the issue in the courts and Reid was instrumental in limiting funding to the project, essentially buying the state time as it marshaled the facts on its side, showing just how dangerous it would be to ship nuclear waste cross-country to Nevada and bury it here in a seismically active region. All along the cooler heads in Nevada, the ones leading the opposition to the dump, prevailed. It sure wasn’t easy, but who in their right mind would consider conceding the fight when victory is within our grasp?
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This is a losing issue for Reid in 2010.
Why in the end the courts will force this project to be completed by the DOE or the courts will allow the private industry to complete.
So Harry Reid is keeping the $30 billion in ratepayer money and when you pay your electric bill you are still paying. Hmmmmmmm
So Harry is using the NWPA to collect money but he stopped the project.Hmmmmmmm
Meanwhile numerous lawsuit have started to force the government to met it commitment. Hmmmmmmm
------------------------------
NRC Commissioner Dale Klein said at the 2010 NRC's annual Regulatory Information Conference
"In my opinion, the administration's stated rationale for changing course does not seem to rest on factual findings and thus does not bolster the credibility of our government to handle this matter competently.
Those who would distort the science of Yucca Mountain for political purposes should be reminded that it was a year ago today that the president issued his memorandum on scientific integrity, in which Obama stated that, 'the public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions.'
I do know that, under the law, that licensing determination" and the technical evaluation of the science" is the NRC's responsibility."
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Texas or Arizona
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
These two , or both, are places that should step up and take the nuclear waste.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
In fact, its sorta' perfect for it to be stored there.
::::::::::::::::::::
Thanks For Reading This.
this is the most dangerous stuff known to man...
and some idiots want to put it in our backyard...
in hopes of getting a few pennies...
good lord...
where do all these idiots come from...
do those few pennies really mean that much to you idiots...
is it worth having our children glow in the dark...
birdie, have you ever seen anybody glow in the dark? I've known a lot of people that worked at Yucca and not 1 of them glowed in the dark.
I am probably more in favor of the idea of using Yucca Mountain than against it. The storage part doesn't seem to present that much risk and I think that reprocessing, which is what should be happening with the spent fuel, would be a good thing. The bigger issue is that of transportation. It just seems that at some point you are going to have some sort of accident with the vehicles (train or truck) moving the material and I am concerned that there won't be adequate protection against spilling from a bad wreck. Even if there normally is, people screw up and what happens then. It is important to know as much as possible about how the material will be moved to judge whether it appears to be managed safely.
The dangers of storage at Yucca wasn't the only reason the project was killed -- many states objected because the waste would travel by train through their states.
The fear of an accident during transportation helped kill the Yucca taxpayer blackhole.
I agree with Floozy. Storage has never been a valid argument against the project, except for paranoids. It is no threat to Vegas or any population center deep inside that mountain. Getting it their is another matter,but I cannot imagine 21st Century minds not being able to devise and enforce safe methods to do it.
Yup, deadly in about 2,000 years if government workers don't find the leak - and we all know how well government works.
Not to worry...
The closing of Yucca is just an election year ploy by Obama in a lame attempt to help his right hand man Harry Reid get reelected.
After the November election, it will be business as usual with Yucca being brought back on line and Harry enjoying his retirement in Searchlight...
Rafted a river in Idaho in the early 80's with a Hydrologist PhD. from the U. of Idaho. He'd been studying nuclear waste storage for years. He said water was the key issue. He said Yucca Mountain was the driest mountain in the country and was ideal. His studies led to the choice of that site. The rest is paranoia and politics.
It still rains there, and water flows through Yucca Mountain. Sorry after Enron and the banks collapsing and now the oil slick I don't trust self dealing experts anymore. Shouldn't you change your name to "rightiebob".
"It still rains there, and water flows through Yucca Mountain" Hookershaky said.
The rate of flow through Yucca Mt. 10,000 years about 1 inch. So I guess you are correct Hookershaky (kinda). This is the fear mongering the anti Yucca people do.
Soil has moisture = water = corrosion = leaks under ground water changes direction and location.
Yucca is as safe as it is going to get. Just more doom and gloom scare tactics from our Liberal overseers...
It is my firm belief that if states wish to use nuclear power, they all are responsible for storing their nuclear waste within their own state. No exceptions.
i wonder how many of these blowhards that are all gung ho for yucca...
actually live in vegas...
what a bunch of idiots...
hey patrick...
did you register for the draft son???
Perception is far more important than reality. Once tons and tons of radioactive material start their regular journey to a home just outside Las Vegas, the world's partygoers will find a new, safer, fun place to be, and if you think the Nevada economy is in the cellar now, and if you're concerned that the market value of your house is half what you bought it for, well ... try to imagine what it would be like if the gamblers and retirees stop coming.
The MRI today is an ubiquitous diagnostic tool. It's not uncommon for patients to request a test even though they may have no idea whether it may be of any value. They just know that it's a powerful instrument. Yet, when the MRI was first introduced, doctors found that they could not patients to use it. The problem, as it turned out, was its name. The technology behind it had been used by laboratory chemists for decades and is called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. When imaging capability was added, they naturally called it Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (NMRI). Fortunately, the marketing guys soon realized that that the the word "Nuclear" carried with it way too much baggage, and subsequently solved the problem by merely dropping it. Thus today, we have the MRI.
Now, does anyone have a suggestion as to how we might similarly disguise the fact that there would be tons of radioactive waste moving around Nevada on its way to a garbage dump near the Las Vegas playground?
You hear from the Republicant's saying what a revenue generator this would be for the state. In a few years when problems start occurring at Yucca, (and they always due, for example deep sea oil drilling, Three Mile Island, Chernoby all supposedly safe projects), will the revenue generated be enough to cover the cost of cleanup and decontamination, not to mention the health toll that it will deliver to the environment and the people in the surrounding area. It will be another folly the Republicant's got us into with no thought for the future and the troubles it will bring to our state and Nevadans will be stuck with the bill as the result of the Republicant's maneuvering. I remember our last President selling us a bill of goods on Iraq and their Weapons Of Mass Destruction and we saw how that turned out. I do not trust any Republicant's trying to sell anything. This surely will not turn out to be a benefit for the State of Nevada. If other states want this sort of activity in their state I say let them have it.
Common sense from the Sun!?! Not really.
Common sense says that reprocessing nuclear waste is the way to go and a processing site in Nevada would be an economic boon. I'm getting very tired of this straw man about burying something "forever" when there is a finite supply of uranium on the planet and an almost infinite need for clean energy.
Yucca, if used, will turn out like every other landfill. One day it will be mined for its valuables by someone smart enough to extract them at a profit.
r4akese says: "One day it will be mined for its valuables by someone smart enough to extract them at a profit."
So, some future mining corporation will make a profit? r4d4 thinks that's a valid reason to put the garbage dump in Yucca? Well, when that future corp gets the rights to mine Yucca's uranium and plutonium, Las Vegas will have long been just another Western Ghost Town having withered and died less than a decade after they cut the ribbon opening the dump for business.
Rest in Peace, Sin City.
hyperbole, hyperbole. Those casks can survive under water, that is submerged, for decades with out a leak and these people act like the Nevada desert is swarming with vast oceans of water. The problem isn't water, its vast government subsidies on our energy policy.
Stan the man writes: "...to a home just outside Las Vegas..."
Really now Stan, just outside Las Vegas?
How far away from Las Vegas will the repository before you feel safe? 80 miles? 800 miles, 8,000 miles, 8 million miles?
Just more doom and gloom scare tactics from our Liberal overseers...
By the way there Stan, Yucca repository is located on the far side of the Nevada Test Site where at least 928 nuclear tests were conducted.
So, if Las Vegas still exists and is safe after 928 nuclear bombs were exploded between Las Vegas and Yucca Mountain, I think we will survive with the Yucca Repository in operation...
YUCCA IS DEAD.
If you are from New York, Texas, or even Iowa, never mind China, Yucca is next door to Vegas.
LarryV writes:
"So, if Las Vegas still exists and is safe after 928 nuclear bombs were exploded between Las Vegas and Yucca Mountain, I think we will survive with the Yucca Repository in operation."
I'm afraid your facts are not correct about Las Vegas or the surrounding area being "safe" after all of the nuclear explosions that took place just outside of the city--nor will it be safe for tens of thousands of more years as a consequence.
Here is what Wikipedia has about the environmental impact of the nuclear tests here:
"Environmental impact
Each of the underground explosions--some as deep as 5,000 feet--vaporized a large chamber, leaving a cavity filled with radioactive rubble. About a third of the tests were conducted directly in aquifers, and others were hundreds or thousands of feet above the water table.[4]
When testing ended in 1992, the Energy Department estimated that more than 300 million curies of radiation remained, making the site one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the United States. In the worst affected zones, radioactivity in the tainted water reaches millions of picocuries per liter. (The federal standard for drinking water is 20 picocuries per liter.) Although radiation levels in the water have declined over time, the longer-lived isotopes will continue to pose risks for tens of thousands of years.
The Energy Department has 48 monitoring wells at the site and recently began drilling nine deep wells. Because the contaminated water poses no immediate health threat, the Department has ranked Nevada as a low priority for cleaning up major nuclear weapons sites, and it operates far fewer wells than at most other contaminated sites.
Cancer and test site
A 1979 study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that:
'A significant excess of leukemia deaths occurred in children up to 14 years of age living in Utah between 1959 and 1967. This excess was concentrated in the cohort of children born between 1951 and 1958, and was most pronounced in those residing in counties receiving high fallout.'
In 1982, a lawsuit brought by nearly 1,200 people accused the government of negligence in atomic and/or nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site in the 1950s, which they said had caused leukemia and other cancers. Dr. Karl Z. Morgan testified that radiation protection measures in the tests were substandard."
Patrick, if you are counting on a world wide education campaign to convince tourists it would be safe, you are sadly , sadly out of touch with reality.
But of course we already knew that.
Wikipedia on Test Site continued:
"In a report by the National Cancer Institute, released in 1997, it was determined that ninety atmospheric tests at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) deposited high levels of radioactive iodine-131 (5.5 exabecquerels) across a large portion of the contiguous United States, especially in the years 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1957--doses large enough, they determined, to produce 10,000 to 75,000 cases of thyroid cancer.
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 allowed for people living downwind of NTS for at least two years in particular Nevada, Arizona or Utah counties, between 21 January 1951 and 31 October 1958, or 30 June and 31 July 1962, and suffering from certain cancers or other serious illnesses deemed to have been caused by fallout exposure to receive compensation of $50,000. By January 2006, over 10,500 claims had been approved, and around 3,000 denied, for a total amount of over $525 million in compensation dispensed to "downwinders".
Additionally, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 provides compensation and medical benefits for nuclear weapons workers who may have developed certain work-related illnesses."
I think the fact that Obama and Reid have killed the Yucca Mountain Project is in the best interest of Nevadans.....
AP
Good thing liberal control of house and senate "is dead" after the november elections. Just like the Obama presidency in 2012!
darthby writes:
"Good thing liberal control of house and senate "is dead" after the november elections. Just like the Obama presidency in 2012!"
Yep, if you want highly radioactive radiation in your backyard for the next 10,000 years, then you should definitely vote Republican.
If you don't, then you should vote Democrat.
A pretty simple choice, at least with that particular issue.
AP
Not to worry there AmericanParrot... Obama closing down Yucca Mountain Project is just an election year ploy to help get Harry Reid reelected. After the November elections, Obama will put Yucca back on line...
LarryV writes:
"Not to worry there AmericanParrot... Obama closing down Yucca Mountain Project is just an election year ploy to help get Harry Reid reelected. After the November elections, Obama will put Yucca back on line..."
As with most of what you write (whoops, change "most" to "all") Larry, you're blowing smoke out of your you-know-where. Your comment is based upon zero facts. As usual.
AP
Ah... The world according to the AmericanParrot...
AmericanPatriot is correct and larryv is 100%
wrong.
YUCCA IS DEAD.
The AmericanParrot is nothing but a parrot, repeating the same talking points that the Democrat political machine is putting out...
Nice article.
If the Yucca Mountain Project were to happen, future generations of Nevadans would look back and scratch their heads and remark: The fools, why did they do this? Just for a pocketful of change and a few jobs back then? Madness to throw this burden on shoulders...that aren't even born yet and don't even get a say in the matter. Now we are stuck with it to pass on to other Nevadans. Not a good tradeoff...storage is forever, the chances for an accident can happen anytime.
Politics is on our side now. No washed up Governor who is paid off and has a political agenda can alter the outcome.
Yucca is dead. Period.
Yucca repository is located on the far side of the Nevada Test Site where at least 928 nuclear tests were conducted.
Las Vegas is safe with no radiation exposure after 928 nuclear bombs were exploded between Las Vegas and Yucca Mountain, I think we will survive with the Yucca Repository in operation...
It is irresponsible to perpetuate through repitition the false assertion of how "dangerous it would be to ship nuclear waste cross-country to Nevada." Check the actual safety record to see that there is no basis for such claims. Harry Reid has gone so far as to assert "It would be dangerous and irresponsible to ship the most dangerous substance known to man through cities and small towns and past schools, hospitals and businesses so it can be buried 90 miles outside Las Vegas." Anyone care to compare accident history for such transport and smoking or driving while on a cell phone?
Over 50 years the US NAVY has operated on Nuclear Fuel in Subs, Destroyers, Cruisers and Aircraft Carriers. Can anyone point to a death caused by radiation in the US NAVY????? If there would have been even one the Left Wing Media would have had it plastered everywhere. The term fear drives the ignorant to a high frenzy for no reason at all. Stupid is as stupid does. If the shoe fits wear it.
Only greedy republicans support Yucca.
That tells the whole story.
YUCCA IS DEAD.
The people complaining about Yucca are also the same ones who believe in Harry Reid.
dhvincenti......
People who back Yucca know nothing about science
or safety.
Yucca Mountain sits on active earthquake fault
lines.
This is why Yucca will NEVER BE SAFE.
Oh teamster, we had testing going on when Democrats were in the White House. You must have moved to Nv during the mid 19990's and are expert on nucleur testing and waste. So tell me teamster do you forward to closing Yucca and letting your union brothers out of a job? YES teamster you have to be a union member to work there.Hahahaha teamster wants to put his fellow union members out of a job!
Burritto.......
We Teamsters put safety first.
Yucca will never be safe.
Republicans and other right-wingers are
incompetent on science and this issue.
Send the waste to Texas where there are no
earthquakes.
The comments made by most of the people on any Las Vegas Sun article are the dumbest I've ever seen.
"this is the most dangerous stuff known to man"
The deadliest substance known to man is chlorine - you use it to clean you toilet.
"many states objected because the waste would travel by train through their states."
Bullsit - site one reference to prove this (the ones where Harry Reid got his friend in Colorado to sing along doesn't count)