Official: No Nuke Waste At Yucca Mountain

(AP)  For two decades, a ridge of volcanic rock 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas known as Yucca Mountain has been the sole focus of government plans to store highly radioactive nuclear waste.

Not anymore.

Despite the $13.5 billion that has been spent on the project, the Obama administration says it's going in a different direction.

It slashed funding for Yucca Mountain in its recently announced budget.

And on Thursday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a Senate hearing that the Yucca Mountain site no longer was viewed as an option for storing reactor waste, brushing aside criticism from several Republican lawmakers.

Instead, Chu said the Obama administration believes the nearly 60,000 tons of used reactor fuel can remain at nuclear power plants while a new, comprehensive plan for waste disposal is developed.

Chu's remarks touched off a sometimes testy exchange with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Obama's rival for the presidency last year, and provided the most definitive signal yet that the government's attempt to address the commercial nuclear waste problem is veering in a dramatically new direction.

At the hearing, McCain and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the decision not to pursue the Yucca Mountain project threatens the expansion of nuclear energy because the government can give no assurance on waste disposal.

"We've spent billions of dollars and many years preparing for Yucca Mountain to be our nation's nuclear waste site," Murkowski said. "Closing Yucca Mountain sends an unmistakable signal to nuclear developers that they might not have a place to store their waste, making them less willing to develop new facilities."

Congress in 1982 declared that the government must assume responsibility for reactor waste from commercial power plants. Courts have upheld what they call a binding contract with the nuclear power industry. With no lawmakers wanting a nuclear waste dump in their state, Congress five years later declared Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the only site to be considered.

Nevada officials openly labeled it the "screw Nevada bill" and the state's political leaders have fought the project ever since, arguing that the Energy Department has not shown it is an ideal - or even safe - site for nuclear storage.

Obama, campaigning last year ahead of the Nevada primary election, said he agreed with the state's assessment and promised to review the Yucca project.

Last year the Bush administration submitted an application for a construction and operating license to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Obama's 2010 budget calls for scrapping all spending on Yucca Mountain except for what is needed to answer questions from the NRC on the license application "while the administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal."

That isn't sitting well with some congressional supporters of nuclear energy development.

"What's wrong with Yucca Mountain, Mr. Chu," McCain asked Thursday at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on support for scientific research.

"I think we can do a better job," the Nobel Prize-winning physicist replied.

McCain asked whether it was true that Obama - as well as Chu - viewed Yucca Mountain as no longer an option.

"That's true," Chu replied.

"Now we're going to have spent fuel sitting around in pools all over America," shot back McCain, who characterized the Obama position on nuclear waste - and its rejection of waste reprocessing - as a reflection of the administration's opposition to nuclear energy.

Chu said there were short-term answers other than Yucca, while a long-term solution to dealing with nuclear waste is developed.

"The interim storage of waste (at reactors), the solidification of waste, is something we can do today. The NRC has said we can do it safely," Chu said.

But killing the Yucca project may not be possible by presidential directive.

The federal government is obligated by law to accept the used reactor fuel from 104 commercial power reactors, but as yet it has no place to put it. The spent fuel, growing at the rate of 2,000 tons a year, is being held in pools and aboveground concrete containers at reactor sites.

There appear to be no immediate plans by the Energy Department to withdraw the Yucca Mountain license application that is pending at the NRC because to do so could trigger lawsuits from the nuclear industry. The NRC has up to four years to consider the application.

A report to Congress in December by the Bush administration, which strongly supported the Yucca Mountain project, dismissed suggestions that reactor waste be kept at temporary storage sites by the government. That would require Congress to change the law that singled out Yucca for nuclear waste.

[johnbrown888]

Or, translated into plain English, Secretary Chu said:

"We're too afraid of political smackback to pursue the only coherent plan that has ever been developed in the US for storage of high level waste, so we'll just leave it scattered around the country while we appoint a commission to "study" the problem.

We're putting the t*rd in the pocket of the next administration because we have no idea what to do."

[gosuckabug2day]

We should dump that crap on the Southern border. Maybe that would slow down the lowlifes.

[lami987]

Nuclear waste created must not leave the communities benefited from its creation. It is not fair for a community to get the benefit of having a nuclear plant while its waste is transported and stored in another communinity. Not to mention the risks involved in its transportation from creation site to storage site.

[msmabuse]

UCLA. has a new study out linking the internet to global warming.
Apparently the lines run to carry the signals in some way heat the soils and the digging of the ditches have released heat stored in the earths crust.
Now I am not sure about all of this, but what I do know is that Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet and there for he has created this mess.

Thank you Al !!

[msmabuse]

Maybe we can let the dems have the waste to heat thier homes.
They can all hudle around it in the winter>

[courgl]

jjp735i why do you say its Republican ^^*&*? Never said I was a Republican, nor did I infer McCains position. I just know that Harry Reid has stopped/slowed Yucca for many years, under Republican and Democratic presidents, so Reid will stop anyone, even if they are a prize winning Nobel laureate with brains and know's what is best.

I have enough waste sites in my home state, rad and others, so it's time to "nationalize" the waste sites, place in one location, so we can protect this dangerous material from getting into the wrong hands, or have an incident. I know first hand what some of these sites look like and how they are controlled, some better than others. And if any of these companies that control these sites goes bankrupt, who do you think will controll them then?

[ProNukeEnvironmentalist]

This is a BIG problem folks! With no path forward for nuclear waste we now have multiple issues: 1) We need nuclear energy to get ourselves off dependency on foreign oil 2) Nuclear energy is the most cost-effective abundant energy source we have available for electricity 3) We have no reprocessing capability for spent nuclear fuel rods and developing it will cost easily as much as the Yucca Project has cost up to this point and much more 4) With no waste disposal option we not only discourage development of new plants but we leave fuel rods in water in pools!! Take a look at a project called the K-Basins at the Hanford Site and see the effects of leaving spent nuclear fuel in a water-filled basin for years and years...eventually the basin will leak radioactive water into the surounding soil, the fuel rods will lose "dust sized" particles and larger chunks will fall to the bottom of the pool creating a radioactive sludge. This is a royal nightmare to clean up when you finally identify the final disposal option for the fuel rod waste. So, instead of one nicely monitored storage and disposal facility (i.e., Yucca Mounain) where the fuel could be removed if a problem in one of the tunnels is identified, we will have a clean-up project at EVERY reactor site that uses water basins to hold fuel rods. Get with it folks...think a little more long-term and let the President and Harry Reid know killing Yucca is a huge mistake! Something tells me if the current Democratic regime is successful with the economy, Harry can get re-elected even if he revises his position on Yucca...which is what this opposition is is all about...votes in Las Vegas...not science! The Yucca site is located beneath a beautiful desert where we exploded nuclear weapons above and below ground for decades. That area is not...nor can it be...cleaned up to a pristine environmental condition...put the commercial fuel rod waste there please. I am largely a supporter of President Obama and most Democratic causes...but this is one where they are dead wrong!

[everlaw01]

Ok....here's another example of the man bowing down to the libs....we've spend 13.5 billion dollars....and now we're going to say forget it!

I tell you what....lets ship all the spent nuclear rods and waste to the queen and the bishop's states, along with all the folks living in Gitmo...wall off their states from the rest of America....name them dictators and allow them to tax their citizens out of existence, while providing for free health care, abortions on demand and the freedom to do what ever makes you feel good.

I've had it....

[jjp735i]

Give me a break. McCain fussed big time that he did not want this in his state many times. Funny, now that it's not in his back yard it's the way to go.

Regular Republican Bushit.

[Whoever4321]

Mr. Chu is playing politics because he is afraid of Harry Reid.
Posted by courgl

Bingo! And Obaaama is afraid of standing against the Dumocratic leader of the senate as well. Oh well, for the Dumocrats, wasting another $50 Billion or so is no biggie. Especially now because they get to spend it THEIR way, and not the way it was already being spent.