Yucca Mountain: End of the Road?

A graphic summarizing major milestones for and against the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump in Nevada. It was published in the Las Vegas Review Journal on Feb. 8, 2010 -- a week after Obama administration Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced he would move to withdraw the application to construct and operate the Yucca dump from the NRC licensing proceeding, and would zero out the Yucca dump's budget in Fiscal Year 2011.  An even more comprehensive and detailed timeline of the Yucca Mountain issue was later (June 20, 2010) posted at the Las Vegas Review Journal's website (see the left hand side bar).

Yucca dump licensing proceeding limps one step forward

Or should we say backward? The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff has published the first of five volumes of its "Safety Evaluation Report" (SER) on the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) application for a construction and operating license for the high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Western Shoshone Indian lands at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Although NRC staff has given DOE's work a "passing grade," it should be borne in mind that NRC staff was busted by its own Inspector General in Sept. 2007 for plagiarizing nuclear utility "safety analyses," cutting and pasting them into NRC staff "safety evaluations" as part of rubberstamping 20 year license extensions at old reactors. This latest NRC Yucca licensing action comes despite DOE Secretary Steven Chu moving last March to withdraw its license application "with prejudice" (that is, forevermore, with no option to re-submit it), following President Barack Obama's clearcut and wise policy decision, that Yucca Mountain is no longer an option for radioactive waste disposal. But, incredibly, an NRC "Atomic Safety (sic) Licensing Board" (ASLB) then rejected DOE's motion to withdraw in late June, sending the matter to the five member Nuclear Regulatory Commission itself for review, where it now sits, awaiting a ruling. Regardless of the fact that DOE's budget for the Yucca Mountain dump project is a big fat ZERO for Fiscal Year 2011, thanks to the efforts of President Obama, Energy Secretary Chu, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), it is almost certain that whichever side loses at the NRC, it will appeal to the federal courts. The nuclear power industry's strategy is to draw out the Yucca dump's "last throes" long enough, in hopes that Sen. Reid loses his re-election in November, 2010, and President Obama his re-election in November, 2012. Then the nuclear power industry, its many friends in Congress, and presumably its new ally in the White House could move to "revive" the zombie that is the Yucca dump.  A timeline of the Yucca Mountain issue is posted at the Las Vegas Review Journal's website (see the left hand side bar).