Leadership and Nuclear Waste
For years now, I have been saying that storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain would be as bad for Utah as storage in Skull Valley. One of the biggest problems with moving the waste is the chance of an accident while the waste is being transported. Yucca Mountain, though, would mean even more transportation miles through Utah than would Skull Valley. So, it makes little sense to fight Skull Valley on one hand and eagerly support Yucca Mountain on the other.
Regarding the success of the Yucca Mountain v. Skull Valley fight, Senator Hatch earlier said, “I don’t think it comes down to politics.” Well, okay, you run with that.
For the rest of us, our best option seems to be to join with Nevada and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and work to keep the waste out of the West. Now, it looks like Senator Bennett also is seeing the light. “However much an idea of a single nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain made sense decades ago, it is now clear that it does not and we need to move in a different direction.” -- Senator Bennett, September 20, 2005.
With an election around the corner, any predictions on how long it will take Senator Hatch to flip?
My prediction: less than a month.
Regarding the success of the Yucca Mountain v. Skull Valley fight, Senator Hatch earlier said, “I don’t think it comes down to politics.” Well, okay, you run with that.
For the rest of us, our best option seems to be to join with Nevada and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and work to keep the waste out of the West. Now, it looks like Senator Bennett also is seeing the light. “However much an idea of a single nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain made sense decades ago, it is now clear that it does not and we need to move in a different direction.” -- Senator Bennett, September 20, 2005.
With an election around the corner, any predictions on how long it will take Senator Hatch to flip?
My prediction: less than a month.
posted by steve u. at 9/21/2005
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8 Comments:
This might be more appropriate for Mr. Urquhart's last post, but it also makes sense to include it here.
Steve’s stance on disaster relief appears to be based on what is politically expedient, rather than on proper principles... I see the pot calling the kettle black.
Check out Walter Willams latest column in the Deseret Morning News:
deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,610152574,00.html
Again, I appreciate that you believe the Constitution's spending powers don't allow money to be spent on the Gulf Coast. We've aired out that discussion earlier.
I found the initial relief package reasonable and would have supported it. Everything beyond that, if found to be essential, should have been coupled with cuts elsewhere. And, overall, the entire budget needs to be cut way back, so that people can keep more of their money and so that the federal government can better focus on the things it should be doing -- which Patrick believes would not include any relief in the Gulf Coast, but which we both believe is a much narrower scope than everything Congress is currently blowing money on.
Mr. Urquhart,
I really appreciate your quick responses.
Since you find constitutional support for relief packages (and I am still befuddled by that), why would you differentiate between the first 10 BILLION dollars and the balance that has been promised? It seems that you are saying that 10 BILLION dollars is petty change.
And could you clarify for me just what the federal government "should be doing"? I fear that if my senator can justify relief packages based on the Commerce Clause, that s/he can justify just about anything. I saw in the Robert’s hearings how keen the Democrats were on defending the current interpretation of the Commerce Clause for just that reason.
It doesnt look like Hatch is gonna budge on the Nuclear Waste, which is too bad considering all the other major players in Utah are on the right side. I really think this will make him even more vulnerable, especially since Huntsman came out and criticized him.
He'll budge.
It seems that nuclear waste has to be stored somewhere. It doesn't make much sense to adopt an "us vs. them" approach when dealing with residents of other states. If Yucca Mt. is the best place for the whole country, then let's do it--even if the people of Nevada and Utah suffer from NIMBY syndrome. If those that oppose the location have a better idea, let's hear it.
Arguing that it shouldn't be located in the most remote-but-still-accessible place in the country because it might hurt people is to say that the lives of people in Nevada and Utah are more valuable than the lives of people from other states. I'm open to a better location, I just haven't heard of one.
As for the risks of transport... that may be a valid issue, but does that outweigh the risk of leaving the waste in its current temporary storage?
The risks of transporting the waste far outweigh the risks of keeping it where it is. This suggests that the main reason to move it at this point is NIMBY syndrome from the states that currently have it. Yucca Mountain and Skull Valley don't solve anything; they simply shift the problem elsewhere and create risks in so doing.
The best solution for the nuclear waste problem is already in use elsewhere in the world: "spent" fuel rods are still mostly composed of usable fuel. They can be processed in a breeder reactor and prepared for further use. This process reduces dramatically the amount of "waste" material: instead of throwing away usable fuel, we would only have to store the small amount of material that really is waste.
The other part of the solution involves on-site storage at the facility where the waste was produced in the first place. This isn't a matter of NIMBY syndrome; it's a practical realization that, at least for now, we don't have anything better do do with it. Transporting it across half the continent and burying it at Yucca Mountain simply isn't a good solution.
Fifty years from now, we may have a better alternative to take the place of on-site storage. In the meantime, though, the adage holds: "It is often easier to not do something dumb than it is to do something smart."
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