MIT geologist finds fault with Yucca assessment

[NVMojo]

RENO -- A geologist who spent a decade researching, compiling and editing a book of scientific analyses of the Yucca Mountain project said the Energy Department's assessment lacks sufficient geological input and is fraught with uncertainty.

"Yucca Mountain is a complex site geologically," Allison Macfarlane told the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects at a meeting Friday.

"This is a very uncertain endeavor, and we shouldn't be rushing into it."

Macfarlane and Rodney Ewing, a professor at the University of Michigan, co-edited the book, "Uncertainty Underground; Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste."

"It really is all based on geology," Macfarlane said. "It was surprising and alarming to us that there wasn't more geologic input. It's really important, it's essential, that enough people in the policy arena grasp these issues to make decisions."

more...

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Jul-08-Sat-2006/news/8385567.html

[papau]

1. people in the policy arena grasp these issues to make decisions." -We do

not elect competence and good ideas - our media sells us the "who would you rather have a beer with" concept and then tells us which one is that person - over and over again.

[jpak]

2. Symptomatic of everything WRONG with nuclear power

The designation Yucca Mountain as the site of the national spent fuel repository was a cowardly political - not science-based - decision.

Taxpayers (and not the nuclear plant operators that profited from the spent fuel they created) will spend tens of billions of dollars on this boondoggle.

Yucca Mountain cannot accommodate spent fuel from an expanded US nuclear power program - so it looks like we will see a repeat of this clusterfuck in the future.

The best way to deal with spent nuclear fuel is not to produce it in the first place...

[JohnWxy]

3. thanks for this post. This is something that you won't see on

MSM news! (doesn't fit with the 'party line').

Recommended.