Re: Don't support S.1287 and H.R.45

[Al Tschaeche <antatnsu@pacbell.net>]

Jim Muckerheide wrote:

> Hi Al,
>
> This analysis doesn't hold up. Yucca Mt. will destroy nuclear. It must not be
> supported.

Without reprocessing, you may be right.  Yucca Mtn. was intended for "high level
waste."  We don't have any of that in the civilian nuclear industry.  However,
there is some in the DOE system.  Where to put that is the question.

> The immediate issue however is spent fuel storage.

Agree.

> Giving this job
> to DOE is ludicrous, and it would cause nuclear to 'choke on its waste.'

Agreed.

> Sites
> must provide (are providing) storage.

A few years ago, when the constipation of the nuclear power industry spent fuel
first surfaced, I seem to remember arguments about how much more unsafe it would
be to store spent fuel at each reactor rather than at a central location.  Also,
with spent fuel stored at each reactor, the antis would have the opportunity to
"divide and conquer" by creating fear locally around each reactor where spent fuel
is stored, thereby stopping the storage and closing the reactor.  That doesn't
seem to have happened.  So, maybe not having a central storage facility is OK.

> We solve many (all major) problems by
> moving it later (except utility commitments to their local states - suck it
> up, they have to build on-site dry storage anyway - but tell your states that
> you can get the $$ back from DOE!!.

Since the idea for YM was to store high level waste (which we seem to have
forgotten), and there is none in the civilian nuclear industry, and spent fuel is
safely stored at the power plants, looks like we don't need YM at all for the
civilian system.  But, what about the weapons high level waste?  Where does it
go?  On site storage like spent fuel?

> The idea that there's no diff between moving the fuel "now" (with a timetable
> and 'Mobile Chernobyl' activists; to gov't central storage and bureaucracy)
> and "later" (when nuclear itself will be accepted - or dead, in the unlikely
> condition that our grandchildren don't need it, then we don't care, they'll
> move/dispose of less radioactive material) doesn't consider the real
> conditions.
>
> The time for YM to "show that we have some place to put the waste" is long
> past, and even then it would "prove" nothing, unless you want to wait 10,000
> years to prove the anti's wrong :-)

I still get lots of comments from the public about "no place to put the waste."
It's still one of the major reasons they don't want nuclear power.  If the time
for YM to "show that we have some place to put the waste" is long past, how come
the public is still concerned about nuclear waste disposal?

Regards.  Al  antatnsu@pacbell.net
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