Feds: Yucca Mountain (spent nuclear fuel dump) application is ready

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/blogs/early-line/2008/jun/02/feds-yucca-mountain-application-ready/

WASHIGNTON - It’s official: The Yucca Mountain license application will be filed Tuesday morning.

Rep. Shelley Berkley’s office just announced that the Energy Department has notified Nevada’s lawmakers in Washington that it plans on Tuesday file its long-promised application to license the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste in Nevada.

This was supposed to be a major milestone for the project. But as I wrote in Sunday’s paper , it may end up being yet another step on a route filled with political setbacks in a state that overwhelming opposes housing the nation’s nuclear waste 90 miles north of Las Vegas.

<snip>

“Nevadans know a bad bet when we see one,” Berkley said, “and that is why we vehemently oppose the Bush-McCain Yucca Mountain plan and its decades of toxic radioactive waste shipments.”

“Nevada is not alone in this fight,” she added. “That’s why this submission should be seen for exactly what it is – an $80 billion goodbye present to the nuclear industry from President Bush at the expense of the health and safety of families in Nevada and nationwide.”

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[Tikki]

1. This is going to become a health issue......

anyone who doesn't understand this is naive.


Tikki

[DCKit]

2. A Bush-McCain issue?

I worked on this case in the mid-1990's. I believe that makes it a Clinton-McCain issue.

BTW, as much as I regret the fact that we even have Nnew-cue-lur waste, I haven't, in over a decade, heard of a better solution than Yucca Mountain. Anything beats the hell out of leaving this stuff scattered all over the country.

Then again, this is the Federal Government of Corporations, so any plan they've developed is likely:

1) The least expensive, most expedient solution.
2) Environmentally unsound.
3) Going to come back and bite us in the ass.
4) Going to be funded 100% by the taxpayers. The utilities will be off the hook for any but token expenses, and will charge them back to the consumer.
3)