FORGET YUCCA MOUNTAIN

Obama administration: ‘We’re done with Yucca’
Lisa Mascaro, January 29, 2010 (Las Vegas Sun)

"…The White House’s top energy adviser, Carol Browner, said Yucca Mountain is off the table as the new commission headed by Lee Hamilton and Brent Scowcroft begins a two-year process to study alternatives for handling the nation’s spent nuclear fuel…"

[Former national security adviser (to two presidents) Scowcroft:] “[The commission will be] trying to look forward, not back.”

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[Former congressman and 9/11 Commission co-chair Hamilton:] “Nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain is not an option and the commission will be looking at better alternatives…”

"The formation of a panel to study alternatives was proposed last year as Obama announced his intention to dismantle the Yucca Mountain project he had vowed to kill...[The 2011 budget] is expected to zero out funds for Yucca Mountain, even as Obama called for “building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants” in his State of the Union speech…"

Besides having no solution for the storage of radioactive waste, nuclear energy is not the best economic choice and is not the best choice to beat climate change. (click to enlarge)

"Nevada officials welcomed the development as a key step in the state’s decades-long battle to stop the proposed waste dump…[but] warned that until Obama pulls the Energy Department’s application to license Yucca Mountain or Congress rewrites the law allowing it, the project could merely be on hold…A change in the political winds could allow a new president or supportive lawmakers to restart efforts…

"Nevada’s Washington lawmakers are confident the commission will take Nevada closer to being done with Yucca Mountain…The panel includes prominent voices in the nuclear debate in Washington…[It] is expected to study alternatives for 18 months and issue a report with 24 months, though the chairmen hope to finish sooner."