Yucca Mountain should be opened

Published 7:01 pm Wednesday, October 29, 2014

1. Nuclear power the only green energy

Nuclear energy is the only economically proven “green” energy producer, so this should be good news to environmentalists such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

A new study shows that Yucca Mountain is safe — the safest option, in fact, for long-term storage of nuclear waste.

“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday released a long-delayed report on the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a disposal spot for nuclear waste, finding that the design met the commission’s requirements, laying the groundwork to restart the project if control of the Senate changes hands in the elections next month,” the New York Times reported last week. “Republicans have been pushing to use the site, about 100 miles from Las Vegas, to store spent reactor fuel and highly radioactive leftovers from Cold War bomb-making, but they have been blocked by President Obama and by the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. A final ruling would have to come from the commission itself, and the State of Nevada and other opponents have promised lawsuits.”

What is Yucca Mountain? It’s the best and safest storage facility imaginable for nuclear waste. The federal government already has spent more than $15 billion on the site over the last three decades.

A 1995 National Academy of Sciences report concluded underground storage is safe, and also that governments must act quickly to alleviate the accumulating waste in above-ground temporary storage facilities. The NAS scientists also asserted the problem of nuclear waste disposal is purely political, and that waste disposal at an underground facility is safe from a scientific standpoint.

And a U.S. Department of Energy study had similar findings — that nuclear waste could be safely stored at the Yucca Mountain site.

Joe Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said the DOE report “on years of scientific study offers further support of the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository for used fuel from the nation’s commercial nuclear power plants and high level radioactive waste from the nation’s defense programs.”

So what’s the problem? Yucca Mountain is in Harry Reid’s home state.

Indeed, Reid has pledged it will never open, as long as he’s in power. He made that pledge last year, when an appeals court ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to continue the licensing process.

“With no disrespect to the court, this decision means nothing,” Reid responded. “Yucca Mountain is an afterthought.”

Realistically, however, all the green energy projects funded by the federal government have yielded little. A few places in the United States incorporate some wind or some solar energy into the power grid, but only nuclear energy has proven itself as a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

As the Heritage Foundation’s Jack Spencer points out, “Ultimately, the road to cleaner air must run through Yucca Mountain. The choice, then, is clear. Nuclear energy, carbon dioxide or the lights go out. What’s it going to be?”

There’s no better option for disposal of nuclear waste, and there’s no other option for green energy. We must open Yucca Mountain.