[ RadSafe ] Yucca Mountain

[Steven Dapra]

July 6

         My comments (SD) interspersed.


At 10:03 PM 7/6/08 -0700, James Salsman wrote:
>Steven Dapra wrote:
>
> > Note that above James Salsman ... quoted something Miller and McClain
> > said about BEIR IV, to wit:  "The BEIR IV report (1988) ...
> > cautions against minimizing the risk until more studies become available."
>
>Those studies have become available, and they have gone from neutral
>-- no evidence of carcinogenicity -- to positive, meaning that uranyl
>exposure causes leukemia in animals.

SD:

         Let's all run out and warn the animals that they should not eat 
uranyl.  Naturally James has omitted any citations for his claim.

>The teratogenicity and mutagenicity have never been in doubt since the 50s 
>and 90s,
>respectively.  That was in the portions of Miller and McClain that I quoted.
>
> >  For a dirty bomb (or any type of bomb) to be effective it must do damage
> > at the time it is exploded, not (possibly) 30 or 40 years in the future.
>
>What source could you possibly have for such an absurd statement?  Do
>you know that weapons which act off the battlefield have been against
>international law for almost a century?

SD:

         James, you are soooo dumb.  Can you imagine someone saying "I'm 
going to set off a bomb by you, but don't worry.  You won't suffer any ill 
effects for at least 20 years (the typical latency period for hard tumors), 
and it may be 30 or 40 years before you see any ill effects, and you may 
*never* see any ill effects."  What good is a bomb like that?

         All weapons act off the battlefield.  We know that because in 
training exercises weapons are fired and they do damage.  What is the 
source for your "against international law" assertion?

> > If you, James, want shipments to Yucca Mountain to begin, why don't
> > you petition Sen. Reid of Nevada who is violently opposed to opening YM?
>Do you mean "violently" in the literal sense, or is that the sort of
>accusation that you think it is okay to make?  Senator Reid can't do
>anything to stop Yucca Mountain, it has been entirely in the NRC's
>hands since last month's submission of the DoE's application.

SD:

         Sen Reid has been fighting Yucca Mountain for a good long 
while.  For example:

Las Vegas Review Journal
December 4, 2007

http://www.lvrj.com/news/12110841.html

WASHINGTON -- With Congress nearing decisions on federal spending for the 
coming year, Yucca Mountain critics are winding up for another swing at 
chopping the nuclear waste budget to crippling levels.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is seeking to cut beyond a $50 million decrease 
the Senate has written into its fiscal 2008 spending for energy programs, a 
spokesman said Monday.
The goal of the Senate majority leader is to disable the Department of 
Energy's drive to apply, by next summer, for a construction license to 
build a repository at the Nevada site for thousands of tons of spent 
nuclear fuel from power plants and for other forms of highly radioactive waste.
"We are working with the House side to further cut Yucca Mountain, but I 
don't have a firm number just yet," Reid aide Jon Summers said Monday. "The 
goal always is to kill Yucca Mountain and to ensure the dump is never built."

[edit]

         To quote something you once said to me, James, "Why were you 
unable to use Google" to find out about Sen. Reid's opposition to 
YM?  (said on RADSAFE, April 5, 2007).  It's not only Reid either.  The 
entire Nevada Congressional delegation is opposed to YM.

>What we really need is an emergency petition to the NRC to modify the
>existing licenses of facilities with overflow spent fuel casks rated
>for only eight hours submerged (most all of them) to use the Yucca
>Mountain facility according to its existing application on a tentative
>basis.  What we don't need is the idiots who turn their backs on the
>mutagenicity of U(VI) drafting it.

SD:

         What we don't need is the idiots who are fulminating about uranyl 
causing leukemia in animals.

> >  RADSAFErs are not opposed to opening YM
>
>You have clearly not been reading.  Dr. Rabbe along with a small
>minority of nuclear scientists and engineers want to begin
>reprocessing and they think Yucca Mountain will somehow impede it.
>Opening Yucca Mountain to overflow cask storage will not impede the
>ability to reprocess spent fuel.  Even if Yucca Mountain was one-way
>there would still be plenty of fuel to get to in non-overflow
>facilities.

SD:

         You haven't been reading much either, James.  As far as I'm 
concerned Yucca Mountain isn't the most important thing on tap.  I do not 
know what Dr. Raabe's views are on YM.  He will have to speak for himself, 
because I'm certainly not going to believe you, James, even if on this rare 
occasion you somehow manage to be correct.

         I would merely reiterate that by and large your no-nuke fellow 
travelers are adamantly opposed to YM.  If they find out that you support 
it they will probably revoke your honorary life membership in Physicians 
for Disease and Surrender (aka Physicians for Social Responsibility).

         By the way, James, when are you going to post your CV?

Steven Dapra