Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
By Karoun Demirjian (contact) 
Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011 | 2 a.m.
Mark Amodei
Sun coverage
For three decades, firm opposition to any sort of nuclear development for Yucca Mountain has been a rite of passage for any candidate seeking national political office representing Nevada.
But the past few congressional races, Republicans have been bending that rule.
Mark Amodei, candidate for Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District seat, told the editorial board of the Las Vegas Sun on Monday that he would be happy to keep funding the development of the Yucca Mountain project through the Energy Department, with the hope of turning it into a bastion of nuclear research and reprocessing.
“I don’t celebrate every time somebody says it’s funded at zero,” Amodei said. “I support Joe Heck’s efforts. I think there are opportunities to do things out there.”
Amodei stresses that he’s against turning Yucca Mountain into a nuclear landfill, but doesn’t appear opposed to transporting radioactive waste to and from the site if it could be brought to rural Nevada for reprocessing.
The transport issue, for many Las Vegans, is as much a concern as the storage.
“Why can’t we do the R&D for reprocessing here? Why can’t we do a best practices center here? Why can’t we do nuclear safety here?” Amodei asked rhetorically. “I think there are opportunities to make that something other than a nuclear landfill.”
To date, Nevada hasn’t been an ideal candidate for reprocessing because the commercially viable processes rely too much on water. A gas-cooled process does exist, but isn’t widely available.
So, say this latest crop of politicians, let Nevada develop the way of the future.
Amodei wouldn’t be the first to try to walk this political tightrope: Heck has adopted a position of less resistance to Yucca Mountain since coming to Congress. But Heck’s argument — that the millions that have already been invested could bring thousands of jobs to Nevada — has earned mixed reviews. Heck was compelled enough to clear things up that he took a stand this summer, attempting to strip funding from the House’s Energy and Water appropriations bill because it included funding for Yucca Mountain, and when his effort failed, voting against the bill.
Yucca Mountain is one of the few programs that the bill, sponsored by Republican leaders in the House, didn’t cut. Amodei wants to hold on to that funding — and has even bigger plans for it than Heck down the line.
“If you fund it at zero, then you’re put in the position of going back and saying in these economic times of budgeting, ‘oh, by the way, now that we asked you to zero it out, we’d like you to fund other stuff.’ I just think it’s a heavier lift,” Amodei explained. “I think you need a nuclear safety best practices center, a training center ... if the Department of Energy wanted to justify its existence, we could do some work which would be worldwide in nature.”
That would represent a return to Nevada’s roots: The Nevada Test Site, also known as Area 51, was the center of the nuclear universe in the early years when nuclear development was geared toward military purposes. But Nevada’s seen nothing like that sort of spotlight when it comes to nuclear development for energy: The Silver State doesn’t have a single nuclear power plant, and currently boasts only one research facility at UNLV.
Nevada politicians who have opposed Yucca Mountain regularly in the past — that includes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Republican Sen. Dean Heller and Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley — remain opposed to it.
Too bad the only part of Amodei's putative District is in Southern Highlands. That way, few people in Southern Nevada who would be put at risk from truck collisions involving radioactive waste haulers can vote against him. My main hope is that the voters in the District will figure out that Mr. Amodei has the same peculiar qualities as Michele Bachmann's husband, and let their "instincts" tell them what kind of person they don't want representing them.
Amodei, just another wacko GOP politician wanting to get in on the money game charade.
Finally a strong politican willing to stand up against the lair Harry Reid.
--------------------------------
The Obama administration has never said that Yucca Mountain is not safe just that it is "not workable." Not Workable is the statement in the budget submittals, court case briefs, and letters to the blue ribbon committee.
-----------------------------------------
Meanwhile Obama is actively promoting Nuclear power as a carbon free energy source.
Some of the America's best and brightest scientists in the 10 DOE National Labs lead by Sandia and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have spent 25 year looking at Yucca Mountain and determined it was safe. This includes 25 years of National and International peer review, and statement by Steven Chu Obama's Nobel Prize winning head of the DOE.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
The Yucca issue needs a solution, not more rhetoric - because no matter what the final solution it has to be based on the Sound Science developed by the Yucca Project and Federal scientists.
This requires the NRC to be allowed to complete their Safety Evaluation Report.
There are four key points to this debate:
If the anti-Yucca crowd were true to a transparent science-based process then they should want the decision of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to be made public.
The anti-Yucca crowd should have no problem with the Harry Reid protegee NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko leading the NRC adjudication of the License Application prepared by the Five National Laboratories run by and science based on Obama's Department of Energy.
Steven Chu the Obama Secretary of DOE has not repudiated any of the Science-base information in the License Application that his DOE and the five U.S National Labs have developed.
Harry Reid, Barack Obama, Steven Chu, and Gregory Jaczko clearly have been complicit in violate the Nuclear waste Policy Act (NWPA) based on there efforts in the summer and fall of 2010 to re-elect Harry. The Federal Courts will find in favor as they always have in the past for the Yucca Mountain project.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Area 51 is only a small part of the Nevada Test Site in the northeast corner around Groom Lake, one of many areas. Groom lake was originally observed by Tony LeVier and selected in part by Kelly Johnson for testing and development of the U2.
Today, it has a very large large paved runway that connects with the dry lake with research facilities close by. Nuclear testing was never carried out there. It can be seen by typing 'area 51, NV' into Google.
Yucca Mtn is a political football. Commuting and working there is a 15+ hour/day experience: up at 3:30am, home at 7:30pm or later. The legs stop moving after 2 hours on the bus. It is an extremely expensive proposition in every way, a project to throw money away with mostly roadkill as a return.
When Amodei talks about increasing operations at Yucca Mtn, he is advocating a very expensive, inefficient and wasteful project. Amodei wants to make the Government more efficient yet is willing to throw money away on his pet projects. His talk and his actions are 180 degrees apart - as usual - and without a bit of understanding of the technology or goals.
News flash! Republican admits to being for government spending.
ladies and gentlemen...
boys and girls...
listen to a little birdie...
northern nevadans laugh their butts off at southern nevadans...
every single night before they go to sleep they get a good ole deep belly laugh at our expense...
you see...
we generate all the revenue...
they spend it...
it's a frickin joke...
they know it...
and they think we are just too frickin stupid to get it...
sad thing is...
they just might be right...
look at son of chucky here...
willing to open yucca...
why...
because he lives in the north...
he could not frickin care less about us...
he doesn't care if our kids glow in the dark...
not one damn bit...
mark amodei...
son of chucky...
where does the tea party gets these clowns???
sarah palin...
sharron angle...
son of chucky...
good lord...
Of course all of those Right wing nuts in rural Nevada will vote for this mining industry employee so that the mines continue to pay us virtually no taxes while taking our minerals. When will these Tea Nuts wisen up, when their goverment checks dry up?
We all know that Mark Amodei is on the TAKE. He takes money from powerful interests and lobbies for them, and votes for them. This guy is a crook, plain and simple.
The Sun needs to run stories on just who pays Amodei and his people millions of dollars to be turn coat traitors against the people of this state.
Great selling point! Come by our cheap housing, in the middle of the desert, next to a nuclear waste dump!
You can't make this stuff up.
Is Amodei confusing the Test Site with Yucca Mtn? As to Yucca, GE has spent a lot of money developing a new laser system which can be used to separate isotopes of elements, with the first pilot scale facility to separate U-235. The same technology could be applied to separate any desired element from others. The bottom line is that the GE laser separation technology could be used to separate and reprocess nuclear waste for re-use. No more need for Yucca to hold it underground for a million years until radioactivity declines to background levels. Doing this at Yucca is a pipedream because: A: We don't have the skilled workforce, B: We don't have GE here -- they are building in a State with a real educational system (and, which taxes companies), and a more "family-oriented" environment, and C: That other State is a lot closer to the nuclear power plants, which means that there is less transportation risk.
Here is yet another reason to not vote for Mr. Amodei.
The guy is ignorant to say Yucca should be opened to conduct R&D on nuclear waste re-processing. He doesn't seem to understand this research has already been done before and is still being done elsewhere.
In France, the scientists came up with learned opinions that it is too expensive to do...not cost effective at all. Plus they determine it requires too much time to accomplish re-processing. The uses are limited. And they eventually even admitted that it is not perfected. Not even close.
I read earler on a LV Sun article that this research is actually being done in some form by UNLV already. Not to mention other places in the U.S. and worldwide.
So, he has no clue what he's talking about. He's making stuff up. Because in the Republican hell he populates, the ends are more important than the means. If the means don't make sense? Just throw it out there anyways. Really transparent. Just blowing hot air.
And another point was made in this article. How the hell can you re-process stuff in the middle of the desert? Unless you come up with an innovative way of replacing water with using scorpions, tarantulas and side slithering desert creatures instead.
I just hope the voters realize Amodei is a bumbler. He talks stuff he don't know. And what he talks only fits a Republican Party agenda from hell. The majority of people here in Southern Nevada DO NOT want Yucca Mountain Project to continue. It will die. And we have the political clout to make sure it dies. We don't care what laws were set up before, what courts are deciding, what money is being spent, or whatever...don't matter. Yucca is dead.
We have a say what happens in Nevada. Not anyone else. We say it's dead, it stays dead. Battalions of scientists and legions of lawyers can line up and differ all they want, but it don't mean snot. No means no means no means no and IT STILL means no. We refuse to agree to accept the most harmful substance known to mankind here in Nevada and give that legacy to future generations of Nevadans. It's madness. Sheer, utter madness. Because one simple mistake, it's over. You don't get another chance. Done. Southern Nevada is history.
If Amodei gets voted in, those constituents in CD2 deserve everything he does to them.
I am starting to believe that Republicans originally came from the Planet Mercury. Mercury was thriving, but because of their stupid policies, Mercury became a dead planet. By their own hand. Then they came to Earth to re-populate and will eventually do the same here. Then they leave and go do it somewhere else.
Serious sci fi channel stuff.
Perhaps Amodei is an alien. No not illegal alien. Alien. Bent on the destruction of Southern Nevada.
In short you want the money but not the responsibility. Screw you. I hope the next Republican president screws Nevada in the butthole over the Yucca mess.
Excellent comment Colin!
He's got my vote. Smart to consider using what has been developed there to help the state recover and diversify the economy. I guess all the enviros want to shut down any development in Nevada!
Why are you complaining Birdie? Liberals love taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor.
Who is currently "running in the black", the federal government or the Canadian mining companies?
Nice smoke screen, Amodei.
He is going to win.
He is going to win by over 5% percent points.
Gollee, gosh. We don't have the technology, we don't have the people, and there is no need to do it there ... but it is fiscally responsible to use public money on something that isn't needed, and we don't know how to do, and don't have (and can't attract) the people who could do it -- in a place that makes no economic sense to do it. Yessiree, that fella will fit right in in Washington, D.C.
I like Goodman's comment. He makes a good point when he says "there is no need to do it there." Yucca right now is just a 5-mile tunnel from nowhere to nowhere.
But he is wrong, I think, when he says we don't have the people, as someone else already pointed out, they are at UNLV right now. If Amodei really wants to push US nuclear energy progress he ought to be fomenting for a new more sophisiticated radiochemistry laboratory facility at UNLV, and for more funding from the feds to speed up work on advanced technologies to get more power from uranium.
It pains me, just a little, to read research papers coming out of China on the possibility of using a combination of many light-water reactors(LWRs) and a few heavy-water reactors (Canadian CANDUs) to cycle fuel first through the LWRs and then, when it is "spent," through the CANDUs to get still more energy out, several years' worth, and only then reprocess it to make mixed oxide fuels that go back into LWRs. It is a clever way to extend the useful life of the fuel. That is the sort of innovation that UNLV could materially contribute to, and that is where money ought to go to bring about a more affordable future energy source for the US. In my never-humble but always personal opinion.
YES, new technology will eliminate the need for
Yucca Mountain.
Does the phrase "money pit" mean anything to Amodei, or is he so removed from real life that he has no idea??
And he seems to forget that it's not the Feds money...it's the utilities that have had to fund this effort...and I don't think the money they put into the Waste Fund will be funneled into an R&D project