President Barack Obama now supports the construction and operation of new nuclear power facilities to generate commercial electric power. We agree and encourage moving forward with this source of clean energy.
Some will challenge our assertion of nuclear energy as “clean” energy. Without additional federal action, they would be correct in doing so. Nuclear power creates a lot of “dirty” waste in the form of radioactive materials left over from the fission process first creating that energy. How to handle and dispose of such waste is a major issue.
First, waste disposal from commercial and military reactor plants is indeed a federal responsibility. By law, since the 1960s, the government assumed the responsibility to provide waste disposal sites. Yucca Mountain in Nevada was chosen as a disposal site for commercial reactor plants. It required decades of study, another decade or so of construction and still requires final licensing and commencement of operations. Total costs thus far are in the multiple billions of dollars.
Last year, the president’s budget zero-funded Yucca Mountain, and the plant is at a standstill. The very expensive hole is in the ground and support facilities are present. But an operating license has yet to be issued and people are yet to be hired to operate the plant, the only one of its kind in the United States. Currently the waste designated to be stored there is sitting in temporary plants at the 104 currently operating commercial nuclear plants around the country. And some of it has been there for around 50 years.
The biggest opposition to the operation of Yucca Mountain comes from many citizens of Nevada, led by the ever-present Sen. Harry Reid. Many environmentalists also support that opposition. Support for the project comes primarily from utility industries and other people familiar with the science, technology and the need for more and more electrical power demanded by almost all Americans.
So we ask the president: What will you do about nuclear waste given your now-expressed support for nuclear power? Is such support simply rhetoric, or will you do what is needed “on the ground,” so to speak, to resolve this long and contentious issue of waste disposal?
In our view, you should move forward quickly to open Yucca Mountain while encouraging private industry to build and operate new nuclear power generation facilities.
