The only way to truly kill Yucca Mt. is to use it as bombing practice. As long as the tunnels remain, so will the likelihood that one day they will hold all of the high level nuclear waste ever produced since the dawn of the nuclear age. That cannot be allowed. It is time to test bunker buster bombs on Yuca Mountain!

Steve Gibson's Righthaven is trying to turn the federal court system into an ATM machine. After a while the court will likely do what it did in California when a lawyer flooded the courts with hundreds of lawsuits for technical Americans with Disability Act (ADA) violations: sanction him and shut down this nonsense. Real lawyers serve take-down notices first. Then, if the website owner does not comply, file a lawsuit. Gibson's tactics are both tacky and an enormous waste of judicial resources.

When judicial candidates tour all the law firms in town asking for campaign donations, and then do not recuse themselves from cases in which those law firms appear, they are violating the Judicial Cannon that judges avoid the "appearance of impropriety." So even if they are not being influenced, they are being unethical by definition. And it happens every day in almost every case. Perhaps worse, the system we have now guarantees that about 1/3 of the judges serving in Nevada are incompetent. Block voting by certain groups sweep their insiders onto the bench, and then they proceed to ignore the law and the facts. Many couldn't make it as lawyers so they run for judge. It is time for a change, Nevada. Bring justice and competence to the bench. Question 1 will help end this mess of a system.

I love the way the RJ campaigns for "tort reform." Then they clog the Federal District Court with these frivolous suits filed for an improper purpose and in violation of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Me thinks some fellow lawyers are going to get disciplined . . . and the RJ will have to pay for all the defendants' costs and legal fees. The punitive damages awards against the RJ should be very interesting. Hey, RJ, you gonna sue me for using the same alphabet?

This is exactly the kind of government investment we need in Nevada. But we need to do more than set up Federal research centers. We need more, many more, commercial electricity-producing solar installations. Nevada can and should be the national leader in solar electricity production! Bravo Senator Reid. But this is only the start. We need to expand the grid to distribute the energy. That is where economic stimulus money should go. The investment could be repaid over years through a charge to the utilities who receive the electricity (and the carbon credits they get for using it). Hopefully, this research facility will catalyze further private sector investment. This is exactly why we need to keep Harry Reid as our Senator.

Sunlizard, your conclusory statements knocking large-scale solar are unfounded and, frankly, wrong. There IS enough insolation in the deserts of the U.S. Southwest to provide all U.S. energy needs, including even transportation if it were used to hydrolyze water to produce hydrogen and oxygen. Yes, it would take a huge investment, but how much do you think we spend subsidizing oil companies to explore deeper and further? Or the nuclear industry to build power plants? But with solar, once built there is no fuel cost. None.

Utility scale storage is proven technology using compressed air or electrochemical systems. (See Zweibel cited above). These technologies are improving all the time.

Long distance transmission using high voltage DC systems is also proven technology, and the construction of a "smart grid" would create tens of thousands of jobs.

And, yes, we can put solar collectors in plenty of places in the U.S., but the best climate happens to be here. We are the center of the solar universe.

It seems the only people who belittle the potential of solar energy are those who just don't like the perceived politics of those proposing it. But this is not a Democrat vs. Republican issue. It is a matter of national security. We cannot sustain the current system of raping and pillaging the Earth so we can drive Humvees. The U.S. is 5% of the world's population and consumes 20% of its energy. Do you think all the oil BP, Exxon etc. are drilling for in the Gulf is for the U.S.? It is sold on the open market to the highest bidder, often China. So it is not just tree huggers who ought to be pushing aggressively for solar, but everyone who cares about the nation's security and well-being.

Commenter Schnorchel wishes to belittle solar energy because it is a diffuse source. But he betrays his agenda driven by politics, not science. Yes, solar takes a lot of square meters to capture sufficient energy to be useful, but sucking oil and digging coal are destroying the only planet we have. The deserts of the Southwest could capture enough energy to supply all of the U.S. energy needs. Yes, we have to store energy for night use, and it has a huge up-front cost, but once the investment is made we have fixed-cost energy with no end (see e.g. Zweibel, "A Grand Solar Plan," Scientific American, January 2008). Oil, coal and, yes, even nuclear are limited resources and endanger our biosphere in ways we are only now beginning to appreciate (thanks BP). Schnorchel misses the point (or hides it) that concentrating photovoltaic arrays reduce the cost of manufacture and operation of solar electric plants (and save water), thus reduce the incremental cost of power produced by them. It has nothing to do with "socialism," just practicality.

Here's the one they have in New Zealand. Very cool. http://www.skyjump.co.nz/

Senator Reid: Please invite the Air Force to use Yucca Mountain as a test target for conventional bunker-busting bombs. That should end the discussion.

Having an affair is one thing. Having an affair with an employee is an other. Having an affair with a close friend's wife is over the top. But worse is having an affair after calling for the resignation of other politicians for having affairs is pure hypocrisy. Mr. Ensign, time to do the right thing for a change. Resign.