WallStreetJournal At a Senate hearing, Mr. McCain complained that the administration's decision would set back the development of nuclear power in the U.S. "What's wrong with Yucca Mountain, Mr. Chu?" Mr. McCain asked at the hearing. "I think we can do a better job," Mr. Chu replied. "We're going to have spent fuel sitting around in pools all over America," Mr. McCain said. "To say after 20 years and $9 billion dollars spent on Yucca Mountain that it's not an option is a remarkable statement . . . It's clear industry isn't interested in the construction of nuclear power plants because we have no place to store" nuclear waste.
Haase - Mr. McCain makes a big and valid point that this is a major security and safety risk about 'doing nothing for now'... what is the 'monthly cost' of this project? 100's of Millions?
And I believe Mr. McCain and Mr. Chu could agree in a regulated plan with the utilization by reuse and recycling of the spent fuel that would not only prevent further Billions thrown in a "hole in the mountain" but would generate revenue in the near future.
Gentlemen, decades, billions "Let's make a deal". Spent nuclear fuel should be re-recycled down to nothingness.
- Reprocessing does not work.
- The $9 billion is just the 'chump change' compared to the "Trillion a Decade" is will cost in storage....
- Solving the waste problem unleashes nuclear's potential, and this waste can be recycled a second time. In a hundred years, when the heat producing and most radioactive fission products have decayed.
- Spent nuclear fuel produces enough free, carbon-free energy to produce the annual U.S oil requirements.
A recently published study by Australian, French, Canadian and U.S. scientists notes the unprecedented capacity of bitumen to sequester radioactive materials from bitumen found beneath shale formations that would further preclude either hydrocarbons or radionuclides from migrating to the surface. Such a use is technically indistinguishable from geothermal energy, which is widely acknowledged to be an environmentally sound approach to generating energy that burn pressurized water reactor fuel, the majority, as is.(no reprocessing required). - Another alternative to Yucca, and to reprocessing, is to burn up the spent fuel to start up a fleet of thorium powered nuclear reactors. These have the advantage of producing < 1% of the long lived waste of today's nuclear reactors. The liquid fluoride thorium reactor uses plentiful thorium, converting it to U-233 that reacts to make power. It only needs fissile material, such as the spent uranium fuel, to start up. An introduction to this is available at
http://rethinkingnuclearpower.googlepages.com/aimhigh
(Just a few, call or email me for dozens more ;-)
NUCLEAR WASTE YUCCA FACTS:
YUCCA- Will be $96.2 billion (right now) to develop a repository large enough to handle 77,000 metric tons. Here's the problem - more than 56,000 tons are already stored at more than 77 reactor sites across the country. And this number increases by about 2,000 tons each year. So by 2036 (when Yucca would be filled to capacity), we'll be looking at about 110,000 tons - or 33,000 tons above what Yucca can store. Read more from nuclears-nemesis