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In less than 3 months on the job, Gov. Huntsman has figured out the correct solution to the nuclear waste issues involving Skull Valley (Utah) and Yucca Mountain (Nevada): fight against both sites. This is the right thing to do and the politically winnable thing to do.
The State has objected to storage of nuclear waste at Skull Valley on four fronts: (1) lack of control, (2) transportation issues, (3) storage upwind of our communities, and (4) lack of benefit. Given those concerns, it has always floored me that our political leadership has considered Yucca to be a good idea. With Yucca, Utah (1) still has no control, (2) has even greater transportation concerns, (3) still is downwind (though it is St. George, instead of Salt Lake City), and (4) still gets no benefit. I likewise found it amazing that Utah’s political leadership would stir up the troops against storing waste at Skull Valley with stories of Southern Utah’s downwinder history; and, then, they would champion policy to store the waste where the bombs were detonated. Wait, didn’t you just say...?
In my opinion, the biggest hazard involved in either project is transportation. Because the bulk of the waste comes from the east, storage at Yucca simply means that the waste would be transported through even more of the State than it would were it stored at Skull Valley. It would go through northern Utah, pass by Skull Valley, make a left turn, and then come through the rest of the State. In short, Yucca, like Skull Valley, has always been a sorry idea.
In terms of political feasibility, Nevada Senators Reid and Ensign are effectively putting the kibosh on Yucca. They have the political muscle to help shape a sensible nuclear policy (store it on site, until we are politically willing to reprocess it – really a no-brainer), which puts an end to Skull Valley and Yucca Mountain. Utah should join with them.
Yucca is not going anywhere fast, if ever. But Skull Valley keeps moving forward. Say Utah were to have some successes in its challenges to Skull Valley (which I, of course, hope it will); as long as Yucca hangs out there as a possibility, Skull Valley will have perceived need and will continue to be pursued. But, if Yucca dies (which it eventually will), Skull Valley dies with it. Utah should help Yucca die – before Skull Valley gets the rods. We’re really in a bad way, if Skull Valley proceeds and Yucca doesn’t – meaning we’ve got the waste and it has nowhere else to go. The increasing likelihood that this might happen and the realization that Yucca itself is bad for Utah is causing Utahns to become increasingly frustrated by Utah's prolonged fumble on the issue.
While it has been politically expedient to support Yucca and proclaim “over our dead body” to Skull Valley, Utahns are educating themselves on the issue and will demand logic and toughness from our elected leaders. Thank you, Gov. Huntsman, for letting some light into the room. The entire federal delegation soon will get in line.
UPDATE (04/05/05): Sooner than I thought. Senator Hatch now says, "I don't feel good about Yucca, either. I've never felt good about it. Its never fun for us to vote" against your neighboring senators, he said. "But had we not voted for that, I guarantee that it would be coming to Utah."
I'd love to be a reporter on this one and follow up on that last line -- the guarantee . How exactly did that vote slow down PFS, even a little? This is a complex issue, and the people deserve clear information. The reality is that the Skull Valley project has continued its march through the regulatory process, and the vote to send the waste through Utah and park it upwind of my community did not cause Skull Valley to miss a beat. To the contrary, it furthered the underlying logic of Skull Valley, which is to move the waste, temporarily, to a site close to Yucca Mountain, until that facility is completed. Surely, the guarantee does not refer to the hollow promise he was tossed that no federal money would be used (on a project that doesn't need any federal money).
To be clear, I like Senator Hatch and appreciate his service, but he needs to admit he was wrong on this issue and start digging in to help. Hand-wringing statements, like this next one, don't cut it: "The question is what do you do and what do you support to make sure it stays out of Utah?" Hatch says. "Right now, it's Yucca. But I wouldn't be a bit disappointed, in fact I'd be elated, if the NRC and the administration decide to keep it where it is and reprocess it." If that's what you now want, which was the right thing all along, make it happen.
The State has objected to storage of nuclear waste at Skull Valley on four fronts: (1) lack of control, (2) transportation issues, (3) storage upwind of our communities, and (4) lack of benefit. Given those concerns, it has always floored me that our political leadership has considered Yucca to be a good idea. With Yucca, Utah (1) still has no control, (2) has even greater transportation concerns, (3) still is downwind (though it is St. George, instead of Salt Lake City), and (4) still gets no benefit. I likewise found it amazing that Utah’s political leadership would stir up the troops against storing waste at Skull Valley with stories of Southern Utah’s downwinder history; and, then, they would champion policy to store the waste where the bombs were detonated. Wait, didn’t you just say...?
In my opinion, the biggest hazard involved in either project is transportation. Because the bulk of the waste comes from the east, storage at Yucca simply means that the waste would be transported through even more of the State than it would were it stored at Skull Valley. It would go through northern Utah, pass by Skull Valley, make a left turn, and then come through the rest of the State. In short, Yucca, like Skull Valley, has always been a sorry idea.
In terms of political feasibility, Nevada Senators Reid and Ensign are effectively putting the kibosh on Yucca. They have the political muscle to help shape a sensible nuclear policy (store it on site, until we are politically willing to reprocess it – really a no-brainer), which puts an end to Skull Valley and Yucca Mountain. Utah should join with them.
Yucca is not going anywhere fast, if ever. But Skull Valley keeps moving forward. Say Utah were to have some successes in its challenges to Skull Valley (which I, of course, hope it will); as long as Yucca hangs out there as a possibility, Skull Valley will have perceived need and will continue to be pursued. But, if Yucca dies (which it eventually will), Skull Valley dies with it. Utah should help Yucca die – before Skull Valley gets the rods. We’re really in a bad way, if Skull Valley proceeds and Yucca doesn’t – meaning we’ve got the waste and it has nowhere else to go. The increasing likelihood that this might happen and the realization that Yucca itself is bad for Utah is causing Utahns to become increasingly frustrated by Utah's prolonged fumble on the issue.
While it has been politically expedient to support Yucca and proclaim “over our dead body” to Skull Valley, Utahns are educating themselves on the issue and will demand logic and toughness from our elected leaders. Thank you, Gov. Huntsman, for letting some light into the room. The entire federal delegation soon will get in line.
UPDATE (04/05/05): Sooner than I thought. Senator Hatch now says, "I don't feel good about Yucca, either. I've never felt good about it. Its never fun for us to vote" against your neighboring senators, he said. "But had we not voted for that, I guarantee that it would be coming to Utah."
I'd love to be a reporter on this one and follow up on that last line -- the guarantee . How exactly did that vote slow down PFS, even a little? This is a complex issue, and the people deserve clear information. The reality is that the Skull Valley project has continued its march through the regulatory process, and the vote to send the waste through Utah and park it upwind of my community did not cause Skull Valley to miss a beat. To the contrary, it furthered the underlying logic of Skull Valley, which is to move the waste, temporarily, to a site close to Yucca Mountain, until that facility is completed. Surely, the guarantee does not refer to the hollow promise he was tossed that no federal money would be used (on a project that doesn't need any federal money).
To be clear, I like Senator Hatch and appreciate his service, but he needs to admit he was wrong on this issue and start digging in to help. Hand-wringing statements, like this next one, don't cut it: "The question is what do you do and what do you support to make sure it stays out of Utah?" Hatch says. "Right now, it's Yucca. But I wouldn't be a bit disappointed, in fact I'd be elated, if the NRC and the administration decide to keep it where it is and reprocess it." If that's what you now want, which was the right thing all along, make it happen.
posted by steve u. at 3/28/2005
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5 Comments:
Maybe Governor Huntsman didn't notice, but the big uranium mine site on the Colorado River that needs to be cleaned up is where a lot of the uranium in the nuclear fuel in use around the country came from. The claim that Utah had no part in the prior history of these nuclear fuel rods is simply ignorant of history. As to the risk of transportation: How do you think the fuel got to all those nuclear power plants in the first place? We have been moving nuclear fuel all over the country for 50 years, from mines to refineries to fabrication plants to the power plants on both coasts, and not a single significant event has occurred where someone was seriously injured by radioactive materials. Contrast that with the recent leakage of hazardous acids that ate their way out of a railroad car and forced the evacuation of thousands of people and the shutdown of the freeways. The containers have been smashed into reinforced concrete walls at 60 miles per hour without breaking open. Even if they did break, they are not liquid or gaseous, so they would not leave the immediate location of the accident. They would not create fallout.
We live every day with dangerous stuff on our rails and highways, and even in our cars. Gasoline is dangerous, both toxic when drunk or inhaled, easily flammable, sometimes explosive, and capable of triggering cancer in small concentrations. More people are endangered every day from gasoline contamination of their drinking water from leaking underground tanks than will ever receive a radiation dose from nuclear fuel rods.
The confusion between the above-ground atomic tests of the 1950s and 1960s and the storage of nuclear fuel rods plays on the ignorance and fear of the public, rather than educating our citizens to deal with the risks rationally. Utah has higher than average natural background radiation, partly due to the granite of its mountains and its higher altitude, that is many times higher than the radiation risk from spent nuclear fuel transport across the state.
The Nevadans complaining about the risk from the Yucca Mountain repository are also misled by their politicians, who have found a hot button item that can motivate voters, who do not want to learn about radiation physics and health risks. Nevada has over a hundred holes in the ground that were made by underground nuclear explosions. There is nothing stopping the radioactive isotopes in these holes from gradually infiltrating into groundwater, except for the lack of rain, and that has been true for 50 years, but there has been no sign of harm to anyone or anything from that condition. By contrast, the adjacent Yucca Mountain site will put the nuclear fuel in stainless steel containers and bury them 1,000 feet down and 1,000 feet above the groundwater table. Finally, the groundwater underneath Yucca Mountain does not flow toward the Colorado River or Las Vegas. In a worst case scenario, only a few hundred people in the southeastern deserts of California would need to get substitute groundwater if any of the material leaked out, thousands of years from now.
The rational reason to oppose the Goshute Reservation storage site is that it is only fit for temporary storage, at best, but the political battles over Yucca Mountain, which are supported by leftists who want to kill the nuclear power industry, threaten to make "temporary" become "100 years." In any case, any waste at Skull Valley will have the lowest priority to be moved to Yucca Mountain when it opens, because the stuff that is still in water pools at nuclear plants on the Hudson River are putting the population of Manhattan Island at risk.
The assertion that expended nuclear fuel rods should be stored indefinitely at the power plants is silly. The fuel rods will remain radioactive for thousands of years, but there is no operating mechanical system in man's history that has lasted more than a few hundred. The fuel rods will have to be moved eventually. Why not now, while the operating power plants can pay the cost, rather than after they shut down and the burden falls on Utah taxpayers?
The highest risk aspect of the Skull Valley storage facility is that there is no effective way to regulate the facility. The Goshutes lack the capacity and they have a conflict of interest. The companies likewise need independent oversight. The state cannot do it, which has been confirmed in a series of court battles that are applying law that was developed in an era when the conflicts were over issues like water, cattle and mineral rights. Indian law was not designed to address latent threats to off-reservation populations in the event of an F-16 armed with bombs crash landing into the middle of the storage pad. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was only designed to be a supplement to the normal regulatory powers of the states and does not do the intense level of inspection and auditing that is needed. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has no expertise with nuclear materials. So the activity is being done within a governmental vacuum, which will increase the likelihood that negligence will not be captured until it turns into an accident.
As for the sweet dream expressed by some Utah politicians that the used fuel can be reprocessed into usable fuel again, they need to learn some nuclear physics and environmental law. It would be impossible under current environmental laws (NEPA, RCRA, Clean air Act, Clean Water Act) to establish a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant anywhere near the population centers which are served by nuclear power plants. The nuclear fuel would still have to cross the country to such a plant, which could be in Utah's Skull Valley more easily than most other places.
Has the governor ever visited the nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities at the Hanford Site in eastern Washington? These are buildings 100 feet high and 1,000 feet long, made of reinforced concrete, and designed to be operated completely by remote control because of the high radioactivity of the materials and waste. Acid and other toxic chemicals are needed to separate out the uranium and plutonium from the other components of the fuel, and the High Level Waste that is created must also be sent to storage at Yucca Mountain. The last reprocessing plant at Hanford was shut down 15 years ago out of concern for the waste it created. There are hundreds of millions of gallons of the stuff in huge underground tanks, full of acids and other toxic chemicals and highly radioactive. At great cost, the worst of the stuff is going to be turned into glass logs that can be sent to Yucca. The initial waste from reclaiming nuclear fuel rods is far more dangerous to store and to ship than spent nuclear fuel straight out of a reactor. Where is it going to go? Reprocessing solves a problem we currently do not have, one of a uranium fuel shortage. It compoiunds the problem we do have, of finding safe disposal for highly radioactive waste, byt creating much more of it in forms that are hard to contain, hard to ship, and deadly chemically as well as radiologically.
Utahns who think that they can just tell New York and Massachusetts and Illionois to shove their used nuclear up their . . . are going to find out that there is no support among Democrats for Utah, and no support among Republicans when it is Skull Valley versus the Hudson Valley. Utah's best option for avoiding the Skull Valley storage facility is to get Yucca Mountain on track by a date certain so the congressmen from all the states with nuclear power plants can agree to hang on to the stuff until then. If Yucca Mountain dies, Skull Valley will become the only safe alternative to indefinite storage near cities and rivers.
Mr. Swenson, I'm honored that you would take the time to provide such thoughtful comments on this site. A few observations and questions for you.
Your comments on relative risk and Utah's Uranium producing history are on point. It is important that decisions be made on a sound basis. However, I am not aware that Gov. Huntsman has parroted Gov. Leavitt's "we don't produce it, we don't benefit from it, we don't want it" speech. Obviously, Utah did have a role in mining Uranium; and given the complexities of the power grid, the fact that nuclear energy makes up 20% of our nation's energy, and the intertwined benefits of commerce arising from that energy, it is silly to claim, as some do, that Utah does not benefit from nuclear power.
I don't follow your "why not now" logic on moving the waste. You state that moving the waste in the near future will preclude a threat of Utah taxpayers picking up the burden, since the utility companies are now solvent but might go out of business in the future. This seems to turn things on their head. Now, the burden for removing/storing the waste is on the feds. If the waste doesn't come to Utah, it of course would not become our burden. However,if it does come to Utah, and any of the companies backing PFS (who would retain ownership of the waste in the event it goes to Skull Valley) were to go out of business, the waste would be orphaned -- and might become Utah's problem. I guess you might be saying that we should rally behind Yucca, so that the waste will have a place to go outside the state. But, in that assertion, you and I start to differ on political realities.
I don't think Yucca is going to happen. As for a western state wanting to tell the other states where to stick it, it seems Harry Reid and Nevada are doing just that. In any event, it seems that Yucca is not going to happen any time soon. What would you realistically say is the most optimistic time frame? Whatever that is, it will take much longer, if past is prologue in this fight. That being the case, by getting behind Yucca, Utah's elected leaders unwittingly advance the need for temporary storage at Skull Valley. Temporary storage thereby becomes a reality, while "permanent" storage at Yucca slips further away. Hence, Skull Valley becomes permanent, at a site that was not designed for it.
Realizing you have a great deal of experience and sophistication in this arena, please clarify your comments that environmental laws would make reprocessing an impossibility. If the feds wanted to do it, couldn't they simply exempt the project from all the federal laws you mentioned? It might be politically difficult, but I think the answer is of course they could.
Lastly, I find very interesting your comment about citizens "who do not want to learn about radiation physics." The point you make is extremely valid; politicians should not panic the public and, then, exploit the situation -- as has definitely happened in this situation. But, you're right; the public at large does not want to learn about radiation physics. That fact, though, does not exclude the public from the debate. While science is an important part of political dialogue and public policy, the public is free to bring whatever it wants to the table. Elected leaders should work to educate and inform the dialogue, but they also need to factor in the public's will. And whether you think they should or shouldn't, Utahns do not want this material stored in Skull Valley; and, if I am correct, they do not want it funneling through the state on its way to Yucca. Yet, both negatives (storage in Skull Valley and, then, funneling through to Yucca) are exactly the policy their elected leaders have been pursuing.
Let me address specifically Steve's question about reprocessing of used nuclear fuel (the professionals term it "spent nuclear fuel" or SNF). Steve asked, "If the feds wanted to do it, couldn't they simply exempt the project from allthe federal laws you mentioned? It might be politically difficult, but I think the answer is of course they could."
Theoretically, Congress can just repeal the Nuclear Waste Policy Act provisions that require all of the processes, and decide to stick the SNF and High Level Waste (HLW) into Yucca Mountain without any further consideration of environmental risk or the wishes of Nevadans. That would solve the problem quite nicely. However, even the states that want to get rid this stuff away from the Hudson River, etc., have a conscience about putting other states at risk, so a straight override of any further obstacles to Yucca Mountain is politically unlikely. The Bush Administration does not want to create a story that says they don't care about the environment of the western states. And we should be glad they are not that irresponsible.
Given that we cannot expect a simple legislative fix that would get us past the remaining obstacles in the Yucca Mountain process, the same is true for ALL of the obstacles that would stand in the way of an SNF reprocessing facility. Let me point out a few of them:
NEPA: The project would not come to Congress with all details worked out, as to location and design, so the facility would have to be located and designed by the Department of Energy (the only Federal agency with expertise in this area, including the ability to oversee construction). It would clearly be a major Federal action, and no one could argue that it would NOT have a significant impact on the environment, wherever it is located. Therefore, there will need to be an Environmental Impact Statement prepared to weigh each of the alternative sites. While Congress occasionally will exempt certain major controversial decisions from NEPA, it usually does it only half way, such as with the military base closure process (commission decision exempted, but actual post-closure land transfers and redevelopment must be analyzed). The usual NIMBY response to projects involving radiation and hazardous waste will ensure that (a) the EIS takes a long time to be written and (b) it will be tied up in litigation and a preliminary injunction as soon as the Final EIS and Record of Decision (ROD) are issued.
The Federal government starts out having "sovereign immunity" from regulation by Federal and State agencies. However, since the 1970s, Congress has enacted, and expanded, specific language in most of the major environmental laws that waives Federal agency sovereign immunity. While those waivers could be repealed by Congress for a specific project like this, getting the majority of both House and Senate to agree to that would be politically impossible. Remember, the Congress does not represent the nation as a whole, it represents individual states. A limited repeal of the waiver of sovereign immunity would be condemned by every State governor of both parties. They are very zealous of their legal jurisdiciuton to regulate--and assess penalties against--Federal agencies that violate their environmental laws. So the reality is that a proposed SNF reprocessing plant would have to go through review and permitting under all the applicable Federal and State environmental laws. This includes:
Clean Air Act: Even if the facility was designed to capture all potential air emissions, the requirement to get an air pollution permit under Title V of the Clean Air Act would be based on the potential unregulated volume of emissions, and the nature of those emissions. It is taking years for Title V permits to be issued, and before you could even apply, you would need detailed designs and analysies predicting the nature and volume of the emissions. Furthermore, as a Federally-financed project, the facility MUST comply with CAA Section 176(c), which flatly prohibits any Federal action which contributes additional air pollution in a location that is in non-attainment of any national crieria pollutant standard (ie. where the air is even a little dirty). However, going into an area that has no air pollution problems is also a problem, because many of these are in Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) regions, intended to protect national parks and monuments from air pollution. And in either case, the proejct would undergo New Source Review, which requires that the Best Avaialble Technology (BAT) be incorporated into its design and operation.
Clean Water Act: Is the site going to be anywhere near a stream, river, lake or the ocean? If the site drains into any of those, it cannot go forward with construction until a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan for construction is established, anfd mitigation measures put in place. the facility will need support systems--workers and their homes, and communities. Will it be put in or near an existing community (Grantsville?), or will we have to create a new community (like Richland, Washington) to service it, which will increase the scope of the environmental impacts we need to analyze and litigate over. Will there be any wetlands on the site? Any intermittent streams (even in the desert)? There will usually need to be excavation for foundations, and in the case of a reprocessing facility, it will need to have an extensive undergound portion in order to shield workers from radiation from the SNF reprocessing wastes. Are any of the areas affected in wetlands or water channels?
While the CWA does not regulate discharges to groundwater, the Safe Drinking Water Act regulates waste injection wells, and many states in the West have their own statutes.
The site will need a lot of water to operate as well as to take care of its workers. That water supply must be based on water rights. As a new Federal activity, the project's ability to rely on Federal reserved water rights will be limited, and it may have to buy water rights--or even condemn them--in order to ensure it has enough water to build and operate.
The proposed site will need to be examined to identify any resources that need to be protected: endangered plants, animals, and insects, migratory birds (have to do a full year of surveillance to see the changing flora and fauna), archeological sites and Indian burials and artifacts (See AIRFA, NAGPRA, ARPA), review of potential hisotric properties or locations with the State Historic Preservation Officer, etc.
A major concern will be how to manage the hazardous chemical and radioactive waste the reprocessing facility generates. Most states have authority delegated from EPA to regulate chemical waste, including chemicals mixed with radionuclides, such as the very "hot" HLW that is produced by SNF reprocessing. Before you can even store the stuff, leta lone treat it or dispose of it, you have to apply for a RCRa Treatment Storage and Disposal Unit Permit. The process of applying for and obtaining a permit can take years for a normal facility. The EPA will also look over the shoulder of the State to ensure that hazardous waste managementis being done properly.
The most acute problem is, what do you do with the HLW? RCRA prohibits storage of chemical waste for over a year, and expects it to be treated to remove toxicity
and mobility of the waste before it can be disposed of in the ground. It is possible to negotiate, for rtadioactive waste at DOE facilities, a Site Treatment Plan that allows highly radioactive waste to be stored longer than 12 months, so long as DOE is making steps toward creating a treatment and disposal method for it.
But that brings us full circle: Our SNF reprocessing plant will create even MORE highly radioactive waste than we started with! And it will be highly acidic, generate hydrogen and other flammable gases, and be very liquid and, literally, hot! Storing and disposing of such liquid HLW is a much more difficult challenge than storing and disposing of good old solids like SNF. We have the same waste proble, with MORE stuff that is MUCH more dangerous and hard to handle.
Now remember, that all of these actions can be turned into lawsuits by private citizens. Every decision of an agency to grant a permit can be a basis for a Citizens Suit that says the State or EPA was unreasonable in its decision. The Final EIS will be subject to suit and injunction. Because of Executive Orders like the one that requires all agencies to be concerned with "Environmental Justice" (disparate impacts of environmental permitting decisions on disadvantaged neighborhoods), it is even harder to site anything near civilization. And because of the Endangered Species Act and historic and archeological protection laws, it is harder to siote anything out in the wilds.
The bottom line is, a SNF reprocessing plant would be tied up in the same kind of legal morass as the Yucca Mountain project has experienced, and it would have the additional negative of MAKING THE NUCLEAR WASTE PROBLEM 100 TIMES AS DIFFICULT!
Finally, the rationale for the Skull Valley storage facility does NOT rely on Yucca being built one state over. If Yucca is pushed back, the need for the Goshute's facility will be all the greater. Harry Reid will have no interest in defending Utah against it, once he has won his case, and the Democratic Party will not help Utah defy the states with power plants.
I think the best strategy to fight the Skull Valley plan is to pressure the Bureau of Indian Affairs to take responsibility for it. That agency is trustee for all Indian tribal lands. It is the owner of the land for purposes of being liable for cleanup costs if the facility has an accident or it is somehow abandoned in the future. BIA is picking up ENORMOUS liability by accepting this SNF onto its lands. Furthermore, I doubt that the Price Anderson Act Amendments, that indemnify power plant operators in nuclear disasters (e.g. Three Mile Island) would cover the Skull Valley plant. If a problem occurs, BIA will be at the top of the list of persons responsible under CERCLA "Superfund") for paying the cost of cleanup, as well as being sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act for negligence in failing to supervise the operation of the facility. BIA does not understand how much liability it is biting off here.
In addition, the State of Utah should insist that effective mitigations should be put in place to prevent any foreseeable risk. Pressing to have costly protections built into is may discourage companies form participaitng in order to pick up the tab.
On the other hand, if it looks like Utah might get stuck with it, at the very least, Congress should disgorge some of the SNF trust fund monies to help pay for proper surveillance and protective measures, such as sirens, pagers, emergency radios, radiation detection systems, cell phone alert systems, breathing masks and training for police, fire, ambulance, hospitals, children and adults. There should be training of doctors and nurses to become certified in treating radiation illnesses. Etc. Etc., anything that would mitigate the risks should be paid for out of the trust fund. That is the kind of thing you might get Congress to do.
I wrote a detailed response on the environmental problems a repocessing facility would encounter, and other examples of how stingy Congress is with exemptions to those laws. There are a dozen different ways in which State regulatory agencies can hold up such a project, and another dozen ways in which citizen organizations can also sue and seek injunctions against it. You have a bunch of environmental law experts at the U of U law school, who held a symposium two years ago on the problems of nuclear waste in the western states. Just ask them if what I have said is not true.
High Level Waste is already the subject of a lawsuit against the Department of Energy, and special legislation only solved half the problem because the Washington congressional delegation did not support the fix.
Bottom Line: Turning Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) into reprocessed fuel and waste will just INCREASE the amount of highly radioactive waste you have to dispose of, and it will be much harder to transport and dispose of safely because it is liquid, full of strong acids and other toxic chemicals, and generates hydrogen and other potentially explosiuve gases. If Utah hangs argues that Yucca Mountain is not needed because the SNF can just be reprocessed, it is going to end up being ridiculed for not knowing what it is talking about.
Thank you, again, for your fabulous comments. Tell me, though, when is the earliest that you believe Yucca could be on-line? And do you disagree that Nevada is derailing Yucca?
I agree that Utah's best bet in stopping Skull Valley is to have the BIA disallow the lease. Any way to handicap the likelihood of that happening?
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