Nevada panel optimistic Yucca Mountain project can be killed

[NVMojo]

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - A proposed southern Nevada nuclear waste dump is on the "verge of collapse" because of legal and budgetary setbacks, a report by a state board concludes.

The Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects, which oversees the state's fight against the dump at Yucca Mountain, called the project a "dead man walking" and expressed optimism that it could be killed.

The report was delivered to Gov. Kenny Guinn and the Legislature just before Monday's start of the 2005 session. The panel is urging legislators to continue funding the state's anti-Yucca Mountain efforts.

"While the proposed Southern Nevada repository may be in the category of a `dead man walking,' much remains to be done in the next two years to assure the state does, in fact, prevail," the seven-member panel wrote.

Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis disputed the report. "We continue to move forward," he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

more..

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2005/feb/05/020510591.html

[Massacure]

1. So where do they want the waste to go?

[NVMojo]

2. Utah????

Most feel the waste needs to be addressed by the State of origination with the private corporation that generated it.

[amandabeech]

3. But some states have better geography and climate for this than others.

One requirement is that the waste not come into contact with the water table.

That may rule out some of the wetter states. For example, my home state of Michigan contains many, many lakes in addition to a very long Great Lakes shoreline. The same could easily be said about most of Wisconsin and Minnesota.

All those lakes represent high water tables, and I think that it would be difficult to find spots for storage. Even the old iron and copper mines in the quite high hilly areas around western Lake Superior fill to quite a high level of water when abandoned.

I'm sure that other areas have their problems, too.

Frankly, very dry, lightly-populated areas in the west that have little or no earthquake potential may turn out to be the best long-term storage areas. Perhaps more sites in the west could be found to take some of the burden off Nevada.

I agree that the owners of the nuclear plants should shoulder much more responsibility for disposing of their waste properly, both in cash and action.

Edit: a few more thoughts

[NNadir]

4. While I oppose Yucca mountain on the grounds it is a waste of good nuclear

materials, I think Nevada has very little case here.

Why is it that Las Vegas, Nevada can be one of the most wasteful consumers of electricity, gives not a rat's ass about how many mountains of West Virginia are removed in service of their silly lights, how many vast Mercury strip leaching pits are dug in Wyoming for the obscene glare their gambling strips, how much of the Colorodo River's eco system is destroyed etc, etc, etc and still manages to whine that "they didn't make the so called 'nuclear waste.'"

Because the nuclear materials are so low risk compared to all these other activities, because the the calculation has come down to whether it is remotely possible that two or three extra Nevadans might develop a cancer in 3000 years while millions die world wide from air pollution, I have very, very, very little sympathy.

It's pure and simple NIMBY and it makes no rational sense.

The fact is that if Nevada had an ounce of sense, it would be crying out for nuclear plants and be relieved that all they need face is a 75,000 metric tons of highly insoluble and therefore extremely low risk decaying nuclear matter. Everyone else should be so lucky, including us in New Jersey who have growing tonnage of Mercury raining from our skies.