{"id":490774,"date":"2010-03-30T15:55:46","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T19:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2011479389_yuccamountainwoes.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-03-30T15:55:46","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T19:55:46","slug":"yucca-mountain-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/490774","title":{"rendered":"Yucca Mountain woes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Comparing cost of nuclear energy absurd<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Editor, The Times:<\/p>\n<p>President Obama\u2019s decision to withdraw licensing of the Yucca Mountain waste dump is a reminder of how absurd it is to compare the cost of nuclear energy with other energy types [\u201cNuke waste has no place to go; new hunt begins,\u201d page one, March 29].<\/p>\n<p>We do not know the true cost of future production. Considering the unresolved disposal question, potential cost of a terrorist attack on a plant or its accidental meltdown, we don\u2019t even know what use of nuclear energy already costs. We\u2019re still spending billions to find and safeguard a final resting place for toxic byproducts of nuclear energy used decades ago.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 John Tuttle, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Yucca Mountain what it is because of politics<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The story, on Yucca Mountain needs a bit of perspective.<\/p>\n<p>On the siting of the nation\u2019s nuclear waste storage facility, the process was riddled with politics. The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act established a selection process that includes six candidate sites: three in the East (where 80 percent of the waste and most of the commercial reactors are) and three in the West.<\/p>\n<p>While scientists were studying the sites, the political power of the Eastern congressional members got the three Eastern sites removed from consideration (even though the site in Maine seemed to be superior). This left three sites in the West: the Texas site, which lies above a huge aquifer that irrigated thousands of farms; Hanford in Washington, next to the Columbia River and Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which lies above an aquifer and is in an earthquake zone.<\/p>\n<p>The Texas and Washington congressional delegations got them removed from selection, leaving only Nevada. Since the state\u2019s population was small and had little power in Congress, the nuke dump was rammed down Nevada\u2019s throat.<\/p>\n<p>It was raw politics that led to the selection of Yucca Mountain. Do not be too critical of Obama\u2019s closing of Yucca Mountain. It is really Congress\u2019 failure to do its job fairly. It should start over with a new site selection process without the politics.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 Phil Quigley, Olympia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Comparing cost of nuclear energy absurd Editor, The Times: President Obama\u2019s decision to withdraw licensing of the Yucca Mountain waste dump is a reminder of how absurd it is to compare the cost of nuclear energy with other energy types [\u201cNuke waste has no place to go; new hunt begins,\u201d page one, March 29]. We [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-490774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}