David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 12/4/2008 2:00 PM dpb spake thus:

BobR wrote:

I believe there are safe ways to dispose of it but until a valid plan
is in place to do so, we have no damn business creating yet more
waste. Right now, there is nothing but stockpiling the stuff in
holding areas that are an ever increasing hazard to everyone. Find a
solution, prove it, implement it and then lets talk about building new
facilities. Until then, NO!

Unfortunately, we need the power now and the problem to be solved is
primarily political, not technical.

As noted upthread, Reid has been using Yucca Mountain as his own
personal populist whipping boy to his personal advantage for nearly 30
years. Once it does finally open and we can move stuff from the spent
fuel pools, there really is no crisis as far as ultimate disposal by
whatever means is finally allowed. Again, that will primarily be a
political, not technical decision.

You're at least partially correct that the problem is political rather
than technical, except that the technical objections to nuclear waste
storage are also formidable.

Regarding Nevada as you mentioned, it should be pointed out that not
only Nevada, but also Utah have both maintained very strong opposition
to high-level nuclear waste storage policy at the federal level. I know
about this: in college I won a cash award for a paper I wrote on the
subject. I used to subscribe to both the Utah and Nevada state
newsletters from the agencies in those states set up specifically to
fight the waste repositories from going there. So it wasn't just one
senator's personal vendetta. And I hardly need to point out that these
are both conservative states, hardly bastions of antinuclear activity or
havens for tree-huggers. (Interesting to note that Utah also vigorously
opposed the MX missile--remember that?--on account of the Mormon
Church's *moral* opposition to siting a weapon of mass destruction in
the state.)

Cash prize or no, the point is it is policy and that policy was made by
the processes of government. I'm not saying it necessarily was the best
decision, but it was the decision reached and NV did not prevail in the
debate. So far, they've been unable to win a change in that decision
and for the better good of the whole it's time to move forward.

The technical issues can't be resolved until there is a stable political
framework within which to operate to solve them. As noted earlier, a
misguided (1) former president tossed over a billion dollars of private
investment in a reprocessing facility about 20 years ago and nobody in
the national political spectrum has had the backbone since to pay more
than lip service to any truly coherent and realizable energy policy.

Time is coming, however, when it will no longer be able to be pushed
aside and ignored as it has been and (imo) when the generation shortage
reaches the crises stage there will be a massive change in public
attitude and all these apparently insurmountable issues of such
importance will be swept aside almost overnight in the rush.

(1) Despite (or perhaps because of the military side of it) his training
in the nuclear Navy, this former president was never able to separate
and understand the difference between commercial and military nuclear
power. Hence despite his well-intentioned but naive efforts he
succeeded in neither accomplishing nonproliferation (witness N Korea and
Iran) and in hastening and sealing the current stagnation of the US
commercial nuclear industry, thereby hastening the use of significant
quantities of natural gas for electrical power generation, surely one of
the most extreme examples of shortsighted use of a resource ever.

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