Yucca Mtn Nuclear Waste Fiasco Back To Future Flic?

Reading the WSJ’s “Escape From Yucca Mountain” was a “Back to the Future” moment for me & I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Before 9/11/2001, I was writing stories for a national legal journal about public opposition preventing the nuclear waste facility from becoming operational & now in 2021 we’re learning “Biden Administration Promises Progress on Nuclear Waste.” Promises of “progress,” no less?

In fairness to President Biden, the Energy Dept is AGAIN taking on the “politically radioactive issue of nuclear-waste disposal, which the past several administrations have tried and failed to resolve.” That may be the understatement of the nuclear age. Yucca Mountain in Nevada is the first & only federally-designated long-term nuclear-waste disposal site designed to park the nation’s nuclear power plant waste in one fell swoop. But, somebody in the Swamp forgot to ask the hometown folks what they thought about living next to the supposedly radioactively secured dump. Don’t expect them to suddenly break out the welcome mat.

The WSJ says Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, for instance, has “extracted promises from Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm that Yucca Mountain won’t be part of the administration’s planning for nuclear-waste disposal.” Huh? Does that mean Joe is going to park the nuclear crap, radioactive or not, under his White House bunker? Then-President Trump had “tried to restart” the endless Yucca talks but “after an outcry from Nevadans he reversed himself – tweeting, ‘Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain” – and promised ‘innovative solutions’” that presumably would happen in a second term. Wonder what Las Vegas Nevada odds-makers are giving Mr. Biden’s chances…

Davd Soul