McCain Dooms Yucca To Reid's Delight

NYT: So it was no small victory for Mr. Reid when Senator John McCain of Arizona, the former Republican presidential nominee and a big proponent of the nuclear storage area, declared on Tuesday that Yucca Mountain was no longer a realistic option given the opposition of the Obama administration. Mr. McCain said he still favored the use of Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste, but urged other options so that the United States could move to expand its use of nuclear energy.

“Nuclear power is a critical component in securing our nation’s energy future and reducing greenhouse gas emission and I believe that moving forward on Yucca Mountain is a key step in growing a strong nuclear industry,” Mr. McCain said in a statement. “However, if opponents of Yucca Mountain are going to hold this project hostage, then we shouldn’t be charging the American taxpayer and utilities for this facility.”

Obama To Cut Funding for Yucca Mountain

This is amazing. Harry Reid of Searchlight must be very, very pleased. Even republicans in Nevada hate the idea of a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. 

AP: President Barack Obama is taking the first step toward blocking a nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain by slashing money for the program in his first budget, according to congressional sources.
Obama's budget to be announced Thursday will eliminate virtually all funding for the Yucca project with the exception of money needed for license applications submitted last year to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
"The Yucca Mountain program will be scaled back to those costs necessary to answer inquiries from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission while the administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear-waste disposal," the Energy Department will say as part of the budget document, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because the document had not been made public.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who has fought the Yucca dump for years, said Obama's decision to cut funding "represents our most significant victory to date in our battle to protect Nevada from becoming the country's toxic wasteland."

Alternatives will be reviewed:

Obama is expected to establish a commission to examine alternatives to Yucca Mountain, even as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission continues to consider the license application for the waste repository that was submitted by the Bush administration last year.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said he has no plans to withdraw the license application, a move that could draw lawsuits from the nuclear industry.
The NRC has up to four years to review the application. The Bush administration had hoped to have the Yucca dump available for waste shipments in 2020.

New Obama Yucca Mountain Ad

Yucca Mountain, for years, has been a contentious issue in Nevada. That state has kept radioactive waste out of Yucca Mountain for years. 

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.

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.

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.

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.  

Here's the AP's comparison of Obama and McCain's energy plans.

Nevada ad


Obama's energy plan

McCain Defends Himself in Sparks Nevada

Photo of protesters at his "rally" in Sparks Nevada.

audio of McCain on taxes, no taxes but everybody on the table! He's very, very angry.

Obama to have 9 offices in Nevada

RGJ: In his first campaign appearance in Sparks, U.S. Sen. John McCain spent an hour Tuesday fielding questions from Nevada voters on immigration, the national debt, taxes and stem cell research, before defending his conservative credentials to a voter who said he is more excited about "voting against Barack Obama" than voting for McCain.

The crowd of more than 1,200 drew skeptics and supporters alike, from worried conservatives anxious that McCain choose a solid running mate, to undecided Democratic voters and even a disaffected supporter or two of U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's failed presidential bid.

McCain's swing through Northern Nevada was his third trip to the state since becoming the presumptive Republican nominee. He attended a private fundraiser at an Incline Village home Tuesday evening before leaving for Colorado.

Identifying Nevada as one of his top swing states in the November election, McCain positioned himself as a fellow Westerner who isn't afraid to go against Washington politics.

McCain won't win Nevada if he pushes nuclear. Most Nevadans --republican, democrat or otherwise-- don't want nuclear waste dumped at nearby Yucca Mountain but McCain says a repository must be part of the nuclear energy plan:

LVRJ The Democratic National Committee criticized McCain's comments on alternative energy, saying he has "consistently voted with (President) Bush and Big Oil and against renewable energy and new energy jobs."

McCain has voted against the kind of tax incentives that would promote investments in renewable energy and create new energy jobs consistently, the committee said in a release. The party also criticized McCain's support of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository.

In response to a question about Yucca Mountain during an interview after his town hall meeting, McCain said a waste repository must be part of the nation's energy plan in part because of national security issues.

But the Arizona senator repeated that Yucca Mountain should be approved only if it can meet all environmental requirements. And the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, as is now done in France, must be part of the equation, he said.

McCain said he wants 45 new nuclear power plants built by 2030.