nuclear-news

Quick answer unlikely for nuclear hot potato

Quick answer unlikely for nuclear hot potato TriCity Herald  by Rick Larson, 11 May 09  A piece of President Obama’s budget that hasn’t drawn as much attention as other high-profile programs would finally bury the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project in Nevada.Scrapping Yucca Mountain will leave a $13.5 billion hole in the ground, which is how much the Department of Energy has spent on the project since 1983, and it leaves unanswered the question of what to do with waste from nuclear power plants. It’s a question the nation has struggled with for some 30 years………………………………

Scrapping Yucca Mountain isn’t as simple, however, as just walking away from a massive hole in the ground. The problem of what to do with the 55,000 tons of used nuclear fuel sitting in 39 states in “temporary” storage at nuclear power plants — including the Energy Northwest plant at Hanford — remains.

And lawmakers from states with nuclear plants are getting angry, threatening to stop or reduce their payments to the federal government for nuclear waste management until a solution for nuclear waste emerges. The New York Times reported in April that at least four states — Maine, South Carolina, Michigan and Minnesota — were considering measures.

All of this comes as nuclear power plants are being promoted as potential sources of clean and reliable base power……………………

Quick answer unlikely for nuclear hot potato – Ask the Editors | Tri-City Herald : Mid-Columbia news

May 12, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear wastes, radioactive