As Yucca gives up the ghost, specter of reprocessing rears its ugly head
July 1, 2011
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While the court ruling on July 1st against the Yucca dump is a major environmental justice victory for the Western Shoshone Indian Nation, President Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission for America's Nuclear Future is advocating "centralized interim storage" for commercial high-level radioactive waste -- de facto permanent parking lot dumps. But consolidating irradiated nuclear fuel would make it a short step to reviving reprocessing in the U.S. for the first time since 1972. DOE's Savannah River Site, South Carolina is a top contender for a parking lot dump that could then lead to a reprocessing facility. And a number of sites in Illinois, including the Dresden nuclear power plant and adjacent, aborted General Electric reprocessing facility in Morris, were also in the running, just a few years ago, to host "centralized interim storage" and even a plutonium-extraction facility under the George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Sam Bodman "Global Nuclear Energy Partnership" attempt to revive commercial reprocessing in the U.S.

Article originally appeared on Beyond Nuclear (https://archive.beyondnuclear.org/).
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