What is amazing about the report is that the GAO appears to find different numbers for building everything than reality would suggest. For instance, the lastest cost estimate for Yucca Mountain by the DOE last year was around $97 billion in 2007 dollars, yet their report says it will cost a mean of $53 billion in 2009 dollars. Regardless of the illogical footnotes in the report, this just does not make sense. As a result, one could probably say that every number in the report is about 1/2 of the true value, including interim storage.

Additionally, the report doesn't state what the cost of just one terrorist attack on an interim storage site would be - which could be $100-$500 billion.

The choice of interim storage as being cheaper is obviously illusionary. One should ask why the GAO issued such a report. If DOE had used such math in its design and license application, the Sun would have been crying foul very loudly.

Ms. Berkley, your quote in this article that "It's long past time those who produced this nuclear garbage take responsibility for finding a real solution to this issue." appears to invoke Nevada's responsibility to dispose of it. About 50% of the garbage of which you speak is from 60+ years of defense nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel from Naval ships, both of which have defended the state of Nevada, provided stability to the world, and allowed tourists to visit Nevada and spend money gambling. Additonally, Las Vegas presently receives about 16% of its electricity from nuclear power. I am glad that you finally recognize that Nevada owns a good portion of the country's nuclear waste and must participate in its disposal.

As to Mr. Domenici's comment that Yucca Mountain is dead, this is a self-serving statement to promote the development of nuclear reprocessing in New Mexico, his home state. He obviously is not afraid of tens of billions of dollars in nuclear technology unlike Nevada's leaders.

Sure, interim storage is cheaper for 100 years than infinite disposal. This is a no brainer but means nothing unless the total cost is calculated. Kinda like saying universal health care only costs $800 billion for the first 10 years when the next 10 years cost $3 to $5 trillion.

Makes you wonder what type of mathematicians work at the GAO, and what ethics do they have to release such a distorted half truth report at the request of Reid and Ensign.

Also makes you wonder what other projects are misleadingly described by the GAO.

Let me reiterate and clarify: the only LEGAL way for Obama and Reid to end the license application is to either change the law or let the NRC find the application insufficient.

This no doubt will not stop Obama/Chu/Reid from withdrawing the license application during Congress' Christmas recess so as to ensure that few people are around to protest.

Nonetheless, the NWPA allows any citizen to file a lawsuit with a federal circuit court to stop the President or Secretary of Energy from performing against the NWPA.

Why would 49 other states let one Senator stop Yucca Mountain? It will be interesting to see who in the Senate, House or just the American public objects to defiance of the NWPA by the current administration.

See, the only problem is that Yucca Mountain is not owned by DOE, but by Congress. When they passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in the 1980's, Congress specifically spelled out the process for finding, licensing and operating a repository. Once the site was recommended, the Secretary of Energy has no further role in the licensing process. Neither the DOE nor the President has authority to withdraw the license application once it has been submitted to the NRC. The only ways to end the license application are for the NRC to find flaws in the design, or for Congress to change the NWPA. This is quite clear in the NWPA. It appears that the Sun editorial staff is recommending that the DOE violate a federal law.

To revitalize Las Vegas and Reno requires a paradigm shift. Such a shift would be to provide cheap nuclear power for the next 60 years to light up both cities, power new industries, and provide cheap energy to pull in vast populations. Solar and wind just will not do this, particularly without subsidies which will disappear as soon as Reid and Obama are out of office.

If Nevada wants long term economic security, join the Southern states as well as France and China, and go nuclear.

A nuke plant on each of Lake Mead, Lake Tahoe and near Ely would be a perfect trifecta.

How dare Nevadans think anything but casinos are a way to make money. When MGM or Wynn determines that a nuclear power plant themed resort will make money, only then will Nevada have a nuclear reactor. Oh, and remember that it will be able to use all of the water it wants just like the strip does now...

There are ways to build nuclear power plants such that their water usage is almost nothing such as by air cooling. Alternativley, using a river or lake is another way to not need evaporative steam. If Ely built a huge lake to go along with the nuke unit, it would add to the recreational aspects of northeastern Nevada as well as provide a huge power source. Lake front housing would go for a fortune and also boost the home building business in Nevada.

Louise,
Yucca Mountain would have created about 5000 jobs for over 20 years, plus another 1000 jobs for the next 70 years.

In addition, by the NWPA Nevada could have asked for and received health care centers every 50 miles along new 4 lane interstate highways leading in from all four corners of the state.

Finally, Yucca Mountain could have become the foremost nuclear research center in the world for the next 100 years with billions in research.

Oh, but Reid and Greeenspun are against it because it might divert high school non-graduates from the casinos. What a joke.

Nevada is doomed to a slow uneducated jobless death as the world moves on with worthwhile endeavors, rather than all too commmon gambling in the middle of an unreachable and expensive desert.

The end of the Yucca Mountain project just spells vast riches for any state that does accept the much needed repository to store the nation's defense and civilian nuclear wastes, of which Nevada receives a large benefit from in stable economics and fewer wars, and which will ultimately pay to someone else a whole lot of money.

The new definition of "gullible" is anyone in favor of Reid and against the repository.

While Obama and Reid may direct Chu to withdraw the license application, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act has a detailed legal framework for developing a repository at Yucca Mountain, and at this stage of the project has no provision for withdrawing the application. The only legal method to end the Yucca Mountain repository would be to change the law, i.e., the NWPA. Will Congress have the guts to take on Reid and Obama now that the early administration freight train is derailed? If not, one or more of the other 49 states will have their chance to a repository. Instead of being 100 miles out in the desert next to 1000 exploded nuclear bombs, these repositories will be much nearer major population centers. Additionally, since it has taken over 25 years to get this far on Yucca Mountain, it is quite likely that nuclear waste will stay where it is for the next 35 to 100 years if not forever.