McCain wants to build 45 nuclear plants in 20 years. But where to put the waste?
From the local paper:
The projected costs to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, ship used radioactive fuel to Nevada from around the country and operate the site for 100 years have grown to more than $90 Billion, an energy department official said Tuesday.Where's that money coming from? The story also says there are environmental concerns that still need to be addressed:
Questions surrounding radioactive waste disposal long have been an impediment to the development of more nuclear plants, Sproat contended.If McCain was president he'd be winding down his last year in office before he could even get started on nuclear energy. So McCain's nuclear talk is just that. Talk, talk, talk.
But with the project now under review by the regulatory commission, "we are three to four years away from answering the questions and putting them to bed finally," Sproat said.
McCain's Yucca talk hasn't been well received:
There was muted reaction on Capitol Hill and among nuclear industry representatives on Wednesday to Arizona Sen. John McCain's proposal that the United States participate in an international nuclear waste repository.
With the Department of Energy finally ready to seek a license to build a nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain, the candidate's comments could divert attention from that achievement, an industry official said.
DOE officials are expected to submit a repository application next week to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ending more than a decade of delay.
McCain "put the flag up there and I did not see anyone in Congress saluting it," said the official who asked not to be identified because his company was not commenting on the proposal.
"It is so far removed from where we are in policy circles that I can't imagine it being discussed, even in bar talk," the official said.
McCain even talked about an international dump:
LVRJ: After McCain's speech Tuesday in Denver where he said that an international nuclear waste site "could make it unnecessary" to open a facility at Yucca Mountain, his aides suggested he was thinking more along the lines of supporting Russia establishing a site in Siberia where nuclear waste from Asian and European nations might be guarded.
"The international spent fuel repository, first and foremost, is about what to do with spent fuel that resides in other countries," said Randy Scheunemann, McCain's senior foreign policy adviser.
Obama has always contended he would consider nuclear energy if the waste problem could be solved.
