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Counting the Cards in Nevada
President Trump is putting Nevada in play for the 2020 election. The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage project has always been a political hot potato and a hole in the ground into which Congress pours money. Senator Dean Heller, like Senator Reid before him, is opposed to the Yucca Mountain project, and there are likely not the votes to force the issue. Now the story in important Las Vegas news outlets is President Trump is on Nevada’s side.
Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you! Congress and previous Administrations have long failed to find lasting solutions – my Administration is committed to exploring innovative approaches – I’m confident we can get it done!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2020
This is very savvy. Presidents, Congress, and bureaucrats have been talking but never actually acting to use Yucca Mountain. Over decades, surely smarter answers have emerged than transporting and concentrating high-level nuclear waste in one location.
Now we have a president throwing the bovine scat flag on the old game, enabling real solutions to surface for serious consideration. Yet another win for America on many levels.
- Nevada wins, gets what people demand.
- Nuclear power wins if real waste management emerges, removing waste as obstacle to construction.
- Environment wins with waste management and more non-greenhouse gas energy.
- Homes, businesses get more megawatts of reliable and truly “green” power at affordable prices.
- More nuclear power means more ability to power more electric motors, fill more batteries.
Now that you mention the military, who actually owns Yucca Mtn?
Edit: OK, I wikiated it and found that it is Fed land. If I was prez I’d wait until inauguration and then send the nuclear waste right over there in army trucks regardless of what the state wanted.
One of the legion of reasons I’m not prez. I mean I wouldn’t vote for me.
We could throw in a free concrete coffin.
Watch me.
I can pretty much guarantee that we lack the trucks and crews rated to transport nuclear waste. There are a very serious set of federal laws and regulations, and I doubt we could safely move any significant amount of nuclear waste, with containment systems, within the weight class of almost any military truck.
Then there is the small matter of security and technical staff on site forevermore. Then there is the annual funding for containment infrastructure support.
I get your sentiment, but this is part of why President Trump is responding as he is. There is no political will, as a nation, to do what the experts have urged.
Bad horror/ sci-fi movie ideas come to mind here. A politician interred with high level radiation. That weird black mold that likes radiation starts growing. The coffin is found empty…
Kinda. But cloud cover blocks and reflects solar radiation, so water vapor is both a powerful greenhouse gas and a cause of global cooling. When there is a major volcanic eruption spewing dust particulate into the upper atmosphere, this causes cloud formation (water vapor clings to the particulate) cooling the earth. It just depends on how long the cloud formation persists. Like insulation, clouds keep warmth in but if the source of that heat is solar radiation, if clouds persist long enough, they keep the heat out and the cool, in.
Nothing Can Prepare You For
Radioactive Pork Barrel Mutants!
Filmed in Stunning NEVAD-O-VISION™
Are we in agreement on wanting more cost effective nuclear power with better waste reduction/ recycling/ storage?
I remember seeing an evening news program like 60 Minutes do a segment of France’s nuclear power efforts. They got most of their energy from nuclear for decades. They stored all their waste in a office builing inside Paris. Something is very strange with this story.
Once nuclear waste is in a dry cask, it is not going anywhere without a heavy-lift trailer, and it is essentially safe to store anywhere with reasonable security. If I owned a lot of desert land, I’d look into it. Nuclear fuel casks are incredibly tough – they are tested by ramming them with a train, dropping them onto a steel spike, etc..
The real benefit to Yucca Mountain is for long-term storage. The stuff will be safe there for millenia.
Very bad idea. The power plants are there to make money. Where do you think a utility would be tempted to cut corners? Correct – something that requires just as much protection as the reactor but produces zero revenue.
Mmmm. I’m in favor of nuclear energy, but is this one of those “privatize the gains, socialize the losses” deals? Isn’t there a temptation to cut corners even on the revenue-enhancing parts of the deal?
There’s a temptation to cut corners in every business. However, commercial nuclear power has the NRC to oversee safety. It’s easy to get on their sh*t list, but very hard to get off.
As for transportation of nuclear waste, it’s heavily regulated too. Shipments of radioactive material occur every day, both by truck and by rail.
Sure. The use of radioactive isotopes was heavily regulated at my workplace, and for good reason.
But if storage of waste is at the site that produced the waste, that’s going to involve the plant operators. Whereas if it’s shipped to Nevada, I presume they will be able to wash their hands of it.
Nuclear plants do not have the room for all of the waste generated because they have been storing it on the site since they began operation.
Interesting piece in Forbes: “Stop Letting Your Ridiculous Fear of Nuclear Waste Kill the Planet“
And if all else fails, maybe we can get some of that radiation-eating fungi from the former-Soviet Union.