Democrats Oppose Nuclear Waste Dump

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-elect/2007/nov/13/111309181.html

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The leading Democratic presidential candidates are united on the government's Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage plan: They'd scrap it.

Their vigorous opposition to the project reflects Nevada's importance as one of a handful of states that will lead off voting in January for the Democratic and Republican nominations. Few local issues are as unpopular with Nevadans as the waste dump.

The Democrats have just one problem - their records keep getting in the way. Front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton has created suspicion because she's refused to rule out expansion of nuclear power as a solution to the nation's energy woes and has received campaign contributions from the nuclear industry. Barack Obama, whose home state of Illinois has more nuclear plants than any other, also has received substantial contributions from the industry and wants to leave nuclear power on the table.

John Edwards, when he was a North Carolina senator, voted twice to open the dump and once against it. Bill Richardson once ran the Energy Department, which is building the dump, and voted for it when he was a New Mexico congressman.

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[Nederland]

1. Do we get our money back?

I mean, the state of Nevada was happy to take the billions of dollars it cost to build the thing, shouldn't we get that money back now that they are saying we can't use it?

[jpak]

2. The nuclear industry is suing the DOE for $56 billion because the taxpayers

have not disposed of the spent fuel *they* made and *they* used to generate electricity and make $$$$.

Yet another reason why nuclear power is a scam...

[Nederland]

3. You didn't answer the question

Do we get our money back?

[jpak]

5. No, and you will be paying more - much more - to dispose of spent fuel in the future

The Nuclear Waste Fund (a 1 mill per kWh surcharge on nuclear electricity) will ultimately generate $28 billion in revenue (as of 2000, only $8 billion had been paid into the fund).

You didn't pay into it and you will get nothing back.

If the nuclear industry's wins its suit against the DOE, we, the taxpayers will be paying *them* $56 billion.

The estimated cost of the Yucca Mountain spent fuel repository is $65+ billion - that should give you some idea of the amount of money needed to deal with this problem.

Taxpayers - not the nuclear industry - will pay most of the cost of spent fuel disposal in the US - so dig deep and pay up....

[Nederland]

6. Where does the 65 billion come from?

I know France doesn't pay anywhere close to that much to deal with their nuclear waste...

[jpak]

7. From the DOE - and they have stopped releasing estimates of the final cost

because it just keeps on a'growin'...

[jpak]

8. Oops - I was wrong about the $65 billion...

It's now up to $77 billion...

YUCCA MOUNTAIN: DOE: Enlarge repository

http://www.lvrj.com/news/10257277.html

WASHINGTON -- Nevadans who fear the Yucca Mountain Project now might have twice as much to worry about.

The Department of Energy is almost doubling the size of the proposed repository as it completes new environmental studies and long-term cost estimates of burying nuclear waste in Nevada.

The department late Thursday issued a draft study that the project's director said analyzes the potential environmental effects of a repository built to hold up to 135,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive waste.

Further, DOE is finalizing long-range cost estimates for Yucca Mountain on the assumption it could be expanded at some point, project Director Ward Sproat said. The repository project's price tag could total in the range of $77 billion, a 35 percent increase from a 2001 estimate.

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[OKIsItJustMe]

9. That's because the French don't deal with their waste (yet)

http://www.forbes.com/finance/feeds/afx/2006/03/22/afx2613985.html

AFX News Limited
French govt backs long-term nuclear waste burial
03.22.2006, 11:45 AM

PARIS (AFX) - Industry Minister Francois Loos said the government has decided to propose long-term burial of France's stock of highly-radioactive nuclear waste, following a 15 year review of the options for dealing with spent fuel from the country's network of nuclear reactors.

The burying of nuclear waste in rock formations several hundred meters below the earth's surface, known as 'deep geological disposal', would provide France with a secure solution for waste that will remain toxic for hundreds of thousands of years, Loos said at a press conference.

'Wastes have been produced over the past 40 years; they are there, and it's up to us to manage them,' Loos said, adding that new taxes will be levied on nuclear plant operates, mainly Electricite de France, to fund additional research on radioactive waste disposal.

Already, provisions are being constituted to finance nuclear waste management, and Loos said that for a typical French family's annual electricity bill of about 600 eur, about 10 eur is set aside to cover disposal costs.

A final burial site will be chosen by 2015, and Loos reaffirmed that France will not allow storage of high-level nuclear waste from other countries.

...

[bananas]

11. Nevada was never happy about it

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nevada_Bets_against_Nuclear_Waste

<snip>

In November, three weeks into the advertising campaign, industry-funded pollsters conducted a survey and reported that although 72.4% of Nevada residents had seen the ads, the results were "not encouraging":
Fewer than 15 percent of the respondents who had seen the ads said the ads made them more supportive of the repository, while 32 percent said the messages made them less supportive. Despite the barrage of pro-repository messages, almost three-quarters of the respondents (73.8%) said they would oppose the repository if they were to vote on whether it should be built--almost exactly the same proportion as before the ad campaign. . . . Almost half (48.5%) of the respondents who had seen the advertisements said they did not believe the ads, . . . while 3.3 percent felt insulted . . . and 11.8 percent disagreed with the ads for a variety of reasons. . . . These three categories of negative comments make up 63.6 percent of the recorded responses.

A few weeks later, the campaign hit another, even worse snag. One of the nuclear utility executives who had received Allen Keesler's "confidential" letter decided to leak it to anti-nuclear forces, along with other key documents detailing the industry's PR strategy. The documents proved highly embarrassing. In televised testimony before the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects, ANEC vice-president Ed Davis had claimed that the purpose of the advertising campaign was strictly "to inform and educate the public."

Newspapers and television coverage contrasted his statement with the campaign's internal documents, which talked of bringing pressure on the state of Nevada to cooperate with the program, and hiring local reporters to present the "industry's side of the stories" and "convince the public that nuclear energy is safe."

Nevadans reacted with outrage. Newspapers and television coverage featured scathing attacks by state officials that continued for weeks. Nevada Senator Richard Bryan demanded an explanation from Energy Secretary James Watkins regarding the role of his department in the PR campaign. Governor Bob Miller wrote the governors of other states with nuclear power plants, challenging the propriety of using utility ratepayer funds to persuade Nevadans that they ought to accept nuclear wastes that no other state wanted.

<snip>

[bananas]

12. They're so happy about it they call it "screw Nevada"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22screw+Nevada%22&btnG=Google+Search

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,250 for "screw Nevada". (0.19 seconds)

Screw Nevada!: A Cartoon Chronicle of the Yucca Mountain Nuke Dump ... - Google Books Result
by Jim Day - 2002 - Comics & Graphic Novels - 112 pages
books.google.com/books?isbn=1932173005...

Stephens Press LLC - Screw Nevada!
Screw Nevada! A Cartoon Chronicle of the Yucca Mountain Nuke Dump Controversy By Jim Day "This book is a compilation of Day's cartoons devoted to his wry ...
www.stephenspress.com/screwnevada.html - 6k - Cached - Similar pages

Tell the NRC "Don't Screw Nevada!" Submit Your Comments on NRC ...
The deadline for written comments on the NRC's Proposed Repository Licensing Rule for Yucca Mountain is quickly approaching. There is only one week left ...
www.nirs.org/alerts/06-27-1999/1 - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

Las Vegas Sun Politics: The facts on Richardson's record on Yucca ...
Richardson, as first disclosed by former Las Vegas journalist Susan Greene in The Denver Post on Tuesday, voted for the “Screw Nevada bill” in 1987, ...
politics.lasvegassun.com/2007/10/the-facts-on-ri.html - 25k - Cached - Similar pages

Nevada Politics - No Shoot Foot
This time, however, it's “screw Nevada”... by Nevada. .... Talk about “screw Nevada.” Benjamin Franklin once said that “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb ...
www.nevadapolitics.com/content/view/3883/34/ - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

Amazon.ca: Screw Nevada!: A Cartoon Chronicle of the Yucca ...
Amazon.ca: Screw Nevada!: A Cartoon Chronicle of the Yucca Mountain Nuke Dump Controversy: Books: Jim Day by Jim Day.
www.amazon.ca/Screw-Nevada-Chronicle-Mountain-Controversy/dp/1932173005 - 61k - Cached - Similar pages

Las Vegas SUN: Was Richardson for Yucca before he was against it?
The bill later became known as the "Screw Nevada bill" for targeting the Silver ... I don't recall any 'Screw Nevada bill.' Bill Richardson has always been ...
www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2007/oct/24/566672089.html - 19k - Cached - Similar pages

FactCheck.org: Yucca Mountain Mudslide: Both Sides Dissemble on ...
The legislation has come to be known as the "screw Nevada" bill. ... The "screw Nevada" provision was then part of an energy appropriations bill, ...
www.factcheck.org/yucca_mountain_mudslide_both_sides_dissemble_on.html - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

Floor Statement
Nearly a decade has gone by since the `screw Nevada' bill and the scientific evidence ... So back to the drawing boards to find another way to screw Nevada. ...
berkley.house.gov/legis/otr/statements/2000/fs_2000_0321.html - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

The Social Contours of Risk - Google Books Result
by Jeanne X. Kasperson, Roger E. Kasperson - 2005 - Environmental risk assessment
The signals are quite pointed as to the nature of these villains: • The wording of the Screw Nevada Bill is designed not only to speed up the search for a ...
books.google.com/books?isbn=1844070727...

[wuushew]

4. Nevada is not worth redemption

The state went red the last two Presidential elections.

Also the very act of bringing the state into the Union was skewed by Civil War politics and the temporary population boom brought on by silver mining.

The biggest land owner in the state is the federal government so can't garner much sympathy for the environmentally unsustainable New Sodom of the west.

[losthills]

10. There is no sane plan for "storing" it.

And that is just one reason for shutting the reactors down. Until then, they should be required to store it on site. (or in dead parrot's bedroom...)