Let’s hear it for Yucca Mountain

28 Replies

Something pretty important happened in the last couple of days, and I’m not talking about Obama cinching the nomination. This is bigger than that, with longer-term ramifications. In it’s own way, it’s more amazing than Hillary Clinton actually giving up on the idea of winning the White House, which is something I’ll believe when it actually happens.

And it actually seems to be good news, and in a year in which S.C. lawmakers as usual failed to enact a cigarette tax increase after much ballyhoo, all on account of the governor’s firm belief that it’s, well, a tax, we could use some of that.

So I was happy to see the release from Sen. Jim DeMint late Tuesday:

Washington,D.C.– Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South
Carolina) responded to the U.S. Department of Energy’s submission
to
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of a license application seeking authorization
to build a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

 “It’s time we begin the Nuclear Renaissance in America and Yucca Mountain is a vital step,” said Senator DeMint. “As one of the most abundant and clean sources of energy, nuclear power is crucial to the economic future of America. If Congress is serious about reducing carbon emission, non-emitting nuclear energy must play an even larger role than it does today.”

“Without Yucca Mountain, America will not have a safe and secure place to permanently store nuclear waste and instead waste will pile up at existing reactors. Eventually this will cause them to shutdown and reduce our nation’s energy supply. I call upon Senator Reid to fully support the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s review of the license application so we can expedite this process and help make America more energy independent.”

We have of course been talking about Yucca Mountain, and the government’s dithering over whether to go ahead and dump our waste there rather than leave it lying around all over the country, for a period of time that would seem to rival how long the stuff will remain radioactive.

So now, after we jump through a bunch more hoops, maybe we’ll have a place to put the waste from the nuclear plants that we’re getting ready to build in SC — something else we should have done way before this, as the best way of producing our electrical power, and which we’re finally going to see the benefit from in 2019. Maybe.

This progress is slow and incremental — in fact, the term "geologic" is a good one to be using here — but it is progress. If I’m not jumping up and down about it, it’s because I believe that we need to be moving faster on this and every other plank on the Energy Party Manifesto if we are to have any noticeable, beneficial effect with regard to our dependence on foreign oil and global climate change.

28 thoughts on “Let’s hear it for Yucca Mountain”

  2. bud

    The problem is nobody wants the nuclear waste. I’m for Brad’s energy policy except for drilling in the ANWR. I’m convinced now that that would be a bad thing. It’s sort of like giving heroin to an adict. It just continues the addiction. Time to go cold turkey.

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  3. Mike Cakora

    Good news, but many politicians treat anything having to do with nuclear power as though it were radioactive, if you know what I mean…
    Take Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev). Yucca happens to be in Nevada, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and Reid won’t gamble with the perceived safety and security of nuclear waste storage so close to the holy city:

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has made sure the Energy Department doesn’t get the money it wants for the program. Reid has called the Yucca project “a dying beast” and said he hoped the budget cuts “will drive the final nail into its coffin.”
    This year Congress provided $386.5 million for the program, $108 million less than the Bush administration had wanted as it geared up for submitting its application for a construction license. In 2007 the project received $444 million.
    The federal government under the 1982 law is contractually required to accept the spent fuel from commercial power plants. It was supposed to have a central repository available for fuel shipments by 1998.
    Reid and other Nevada officials say the waste ought to stay where it is until the best long-term solution for dealing with it can be determined.

    With the Dems projecting substantial gains in the Senate, Yucca’s not likely start receiving waste anytime soon. Reid’s approach is bad policy but good — for him — politics.

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  4. Mike Cakora

    bud –
    C’mon, let’s drill in ANWR. If you’re worried about the caribou, I’ve been fooling around with some recipes that might change your mind. The secret is a little cranberry in the sauce. Mmmmmmm, good!
    There are ways to recycle more of the waste from nuke plants — France, the UK, Japan and Russia do it — but according to this article, the U.S. stopped recycling waste as part of non-proliferation policy because the process used creates weapons-grade plutonium.
    Note that the headline of that linked article starts off with “Florida Outage Aside,” a reference to the massive blackout that affected 3 million customers in South Florida on 2/26/2008. The outage was initially attributed to human error, but the National Journal, a non-partisan, highly respected, and trusted news source, recently reported that the outage was caused by cyber-hackers working on behalf of the Chinese government and military.
    I mention this here because of the nexus among nuclear power, climate change, and really bad ideas for forcing developing countries like China and India to restrict their economic development by reducing their energy consumption. In the case of China, they’ve got a couple of tricks up their sleeves if anybody’s thinking about pushing them around.
    Whether one accepts the IPCC version of climate change and the Kyoto Protocol, nuclear power is a great way to me US energy needs.
    I should add that it’s good that we figured out how that outage happened, because we now know another area where China is preparing for contingencies and can develop countermeasures.

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  5. p.m.

    The Warthen Energy Party Manifesto, properly named in light of its Marxist leanings, would turn us all into sardines in a can.
    If all our cubicles are identical, what’s the use?

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  6. bud

    Very interesting article in the State today (originally the WSJ I think) that suggested it may be a good time to buy a large SUV. Manufacturers are offering enormous benefits. Then they made this whopper of a claim (paraphrasing): A large SUV like a Suburban, driven 8,000 miles/year will use approximately $2000 of gas during that period. Compare this to a Honda Civic driven 16,000 miles that will use $2200 of gas.
    Imagine that. You can save $200 on gas simply by driving half as much. Who writes this nonsense. Of course if you only drive 8000 miles per year why would you buy a new vehicle? The cost per mile would be astronomical after factoring in insurance and depreciation.

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  7. bud

    Thanks in large part to the non-existent energy policy of the current administration we have this:
    WASHINGTON — The government said Friday that the nation’s unemployment rate jumped to 5.5% in May — biggest monthly rise since 1986 — as nervous employers cut 49,000 jobs.
    The second Bush recession continues to reek havoc. Jimmy Carter was right when he declared the energy crisis the “moral equivalent of war”. Oh how right he was. And now 30 year later we’re paying for the failure to properly wage that war. Jimmy, where are you now that we need you?

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  8. Lee Muller

    When I worked for a engineering company that was building a lot of the Alaska Pipeline in the early 1980s, we heard all this malarky about harming the caribou.
    Caribou herds all over Alaska and Canada are at all-time historical highs. They need more hunting to thin them out. The current limit in all hunt units is 2 caribou, either sex, and please shoot a bear or wolf, too.
    Caribou herds tend to fluctuate quite a bit, as they overpopulate, overgraze, then suffer disease. Wolf and bear populations increase, kill lots of them, then the wolf and bear starve as the caribou herds dwindle and the process of herd regeneration starts over. Exxon has no impact on it.

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  9. Lee Muller

    As a matter of fact, it is a great time to buy an American SUV like a Tahoe or Suburban. Instead of making wasteful trips in some ricebox and scrapping it at 120,000 miles, use your 20 MPG Suburban wisely and drive in comfort and safety for 250,000 miles.
    If you buy a nice used Suburban, Buick Century or Taurus for $6,000 and save $20,000 over a new tiny deathtrap, you can buy 5,000 gallons of fuel, enough to drive 100,000 miles.
    If you invest the savings wisely, you can generate enough income to drive 10,000 miles a year without touching the principal. Let the non-thinking greenies fight over the Jujitsus.

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  10. Mike Cakora

    bud –
    Just what we need, moral equivalence war-monger Carter. Seems to me that the gas lines ceased after Reagan ended Jimmuh’s idiotic controls.
    Your screed puts me in the awkward position of having to defend the stooopid party. The other party, the Dems, tried to raise the price of energy overall this week but appear to have rebelled against Boxer’s re-write of the Lieberman-Warner Economic Devastation Act. The Dems with very little GOP support have been behind just about every measure to outlaw domestic oil exploration and extraction. Their only new idea — suing OPEC — is bizarre.
    In line with Lee’s point, a couple of years ago I wrote about how you could save money by driving a 2003 Crown Vic instead of a Prius.
    The Hammer’s correct at $4 per gallon, everybody gets rational, even some in the GOP. Yup everybody, except the Dems.

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  11. bud

    Interesting analysis Mike. At $3/gallon gas (the going rate in 2005 after Katrina) an old Crown Vic costs less per mile than a Prius. Of course since gas is now $4 and rising the math is already dated for this analysis. Still, this way of looking at things does have merit. But why stop there? Why not compare a 1985 Honda Civic with newer cars? Some models get up to 50 mpg. Or how about a Vespa? Comparing old, big cars with new, small cars is really comparing apples to oranges.
    Of course by varying the assumptions you can make any situation work. How about if we set the gas price at $6/gallon or $7. At some point the relatively large Prius will be cheaper to operate than a tiny gasoline only vehicle. So it really depends on the assumptions you make.
    As for me my next car will be a Prius as soon as my old Buick gives out, probably in about 2 years. Given it’s size (plenty of room for 4 adults) and incredible fuel efficiency operating costs will probably come close to the much cheaper Corolla over a 5 year period. I’m banking on much higher gasoline prices during that time.
    As for the safety issue. The idea that SUVs are safer is pure bunk. The damn things roll over very easily. An old Ford Explorer is much more dangerous when all crash situations are considered compared to a Mazda Miata. Yup, that’s true. A Miata is a very stable vehicle that can easily avoid a collision. When it leaves the road it is easy to recover and is very unlikely to flip. And if it does flip it’s far lower center of gravity is less likely to cause it’s occupants injuries (at least in the hard top version).
    So whether it’s safety, practicality or economy it’s best to go small and hybrid. In the long run it’s the only sensible choice.

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  12. bud

    Mike, this oil shale business is the absolute height of absurdity. There simply is no practical way to bring a positive net energy return to market from Colorado shale oil. To even consider ruining the environment for this pie-in-the-sky nonsense is insane. It will require extraordinary quantities of natural gas and oil just to bring a trickle to market. It’s probable that it will take more energy to extract the oil than it will ever deliver to market. Good for the Democrats for blocking this outrage.
    The U.S. will never be able to produce 20 million barrels of oil per day, our current consumption level. Nor will we be able to produce 10 million, the peak level in a couple of months in 1970. It is not even possible to produce the 8 or so million we did in 1985 when production from the north slope peaked. It’s perhaps remotely possible to produce 5 million for a few more years if we continue our furious pace of drilling we’ve been on during the past few years in places like Alaska (mostly opened up during the Clinton years), the Gulf, Montana, the Dakotas and other places. We now have over 525,000 oil wells in the United States, far more than anyone else.
    Our addiction to oil, and that’s exactly what it is, seems to be clouding the minds of the those folks who believe we can continue to use 20 million barrels a day like a powerful narcotic. It can’t happen. We will use less one way or the other and the sooner we plan for that the better. Otherwise breaking the addiction will be very painful indeed.

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  13. bud

    The real SURGE:
    NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices shot up more than $10 Friday to a record above $138 a barrel after a Morgan Stanley analyst predicted prices could hit $150 by the Fourth of July. Traders were also rattled by rising tensions in the Middle East.
    The meteoric surge builds on a huge jump on Thursday and sets the stage for the biggest two-day gain in the history of the New York Mercantile Exchange. A further weakening of the dollar helped keep prices high.
    Seriously folks. Does anyone really believe in their heart of hearts that the Democrats are responsible for this? This relates to a host of above the ground tensions, problems with the dollar and above all a decline in easily accessible oil. Drilling in the ANWR or shale oil have nothing to do with any of those factors. This is serious stuff that congress does need to address and soon. But drilling is not a part of the solution, especially in the short to medium term, if ever.

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  14. Steve Gordy

    I don’t know where Lee gets his information from, but my ’97 Honda “ricebox” just hit 172,000 miles and is still going strong. Plus, it is very stable and has good handling characteristics in tight maneuvers. Granted it only gets 25 MPG, but I drive it past sales lots full of new and used 16 MPG SUVs.

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  15. Sean S.

    Another thing has to be kept in mind with Bud’s figures; that those barrels of oil aren’t just simply for gasoline, though according to the EIA (the agency is charge of keeping tack of energy statistics) a majority of the oil will be refined into that particular form. Some of it is turned into kerosene i.e. jet fuel and heating oil. Other get turned into distillates that then go on into things like plastics etc. Point is, there isn’t a direct and immediate connection between available gas fields and the price at the pump; other industries are competing for the same oil as well.

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  16. bud

    That’s a good point Sean. Many of the things you mentioned have readily available substitutes. Plastic grocery bags are a good example. We can easily use cloth or paper bags. Cloth bags can be reused many hundreds of times. Cloth seats in cars are another thing that can be used. Perhaps with all those surplus caribou in Alaska that Lee keeps talking about we could find a way to make seat coverings with caribou hide. In any event we can do a much better job of recycling. All those plastic drink bottles could easily be recycled but most aren’t. We can do this. It just takes a bit of national will. Until everyone is convinced that we can’t drill our way out it’s an uphill battle.

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  17. Mike Cakora

    Oil prices shot up today because of concerns about supply; Israel’s Transport Minister said that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was unavoidable.
    The owners of the oil are the biggest beneficiaries of higher prices. Note that China is assuring a stable supply by drilling on Cuba’s side of the Florida straits; the US does not allow drilling on its side, something that Congress could change.
    bud doesn’t recognized that increased domestic extraction is part of the way out.

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  19. Brad Warthen

    Mike, you’re right, we have to do something about increasing supply. Just as we have to do something to decrease demand. Neither will be anywhere near enough alone.

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  20. Mike Cakora

    Brad –
    Something is being done about demand, as the Krauthammer column shows, $4.00 per gallon is the magic number.
    (The FOMOCO CEO said recently that when gas passed $3.50, they saw an almost immediate change in sales patterns.) GM is shuttering SUV and truck plants and probably killing Hummer, Ford will hobble along, and Chrysler / Jeep is screwed. (In the DC Metro area they’re giving away cards good for $2.99 per gallon for three years with the purchase of a Jeep.) Even Toyota is scaling back truck production in Texas.
    If and when oil does become a bit cheaper, folks are going to remember this spike for some time to come. And what did it take? Congressional inaction!

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  21. Brad Warthen

    Yes, but as Krauthammer also says, demand is being addressed IN THE WRONG WAY — the extra money is going to the petro-dictators, when it could have stayed home is we had raised the price to $4 with a tax, instead of it happening this way.
    As he told us we should do two years ago. As I keep saying. As the Energy Party platform demands.

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  22. Mike Cakora

    If any of this is a problem, institute a carbon tax at the level of the carbon producer. As you build the consensus for that tax, explain how you are going to offset its effect on consumers, the ones who will end up paying the tax no matter where and how it is levied.
    The climate change / energy consumption issue has appeared to be partisan: both parties have tried to capitalize on it, but neither can claim a unanimous / comprehensive approach. The problem is that regional and economic issues that are confounding factors.
    Zum beispiel, a guy like Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) who otherwise would love a draconian globo-warmo approach can’t afford a substantial penalty on coal without some financial offsets, nor can other congresspeoples from coal-producing and coal-using states. Ditto for federal reps from oil-producing states. And ya gotta throw even more to the agricultural states, so where does that leave you? In a fine fix.
    So call in a fixer, and that means an outfit like Enron that can tell a great story while enriching itself, its shareholders, and its friends until folks realize that it operates in an artificial “free market” created by faulty law and regulation. Enron would be alive today were it not for the aura of invincibility that let its executives overreach and try to cover its tracks illegally.
    As Timothy Carney explains today in the Newark Examiner, the Boxer-amended Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill had its genesis with Enron in the sense that Ken Lay and crew were adept at getting legislators and regulators to create markets that Enron could capture and control. GE and Alcoa, among others, have replaced Enron as guiding spirits who’ve figured out a way to make a couple of bucks in this deal. All the backers spent millions to get the bill going this week and ended up surrendering. Why?
    Boxer added a 491-page “technical amendment” to the 157-page bill that had been floating around since last year, and Harry Reid tried to ram it through to a vote. Republicans succeeded in delaying action while they analyzed the bill, but it was probably Reid’s and Boxer’s incompetence along with the fact of $4.00+ gasoline that produced today’s surrender. What’s amazing (in its arrogance) is the extent to which Boxer’s amendment diverted funds to non-productive entities, primarily environmental groups, with the result that consumers would end up paying a lot more for energy to subsidize folks who want consumers to pay even more.
    In a sense, environmentalists should be glad that this all ended quickly enough so that the public at large remains largely unaware of all the screwy provisions. It could easily be resurrected next year if a Congress and a president more receptive to its shenanigans are elected.

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  23. bud

    I think it’s time for a history lesson. The anti-environmentalist fear mongers have long waged a war against anything that will help keep the environment clean for us and our children. Remember the burning lakes in Cleveland, the constant dangerous smog in L.A., the ozone hole. All the problems were fixed over the objections of the naysayers who claimed the necessary changes would ruin the economy. We changed the way cars and house are air-conditioned. Oh the whining and complaining. We’ll never be able to afford to air condition our cars. It will destroy our western way of life. Of course it never happened. Our cars stay cool and the ozone problem is pretty much a thing of the past. Shame on those who are willing to sacrifice our environment just to drive a Hummer. It’s time to end the addiction to oil. I say NO to drilling in the ANWR.

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  24. Mike Cakora

    Just a point of clarification: ozone up high is good because it shields / blocks UV radiation; at ground level it’s bad because it aggravates respiratory conditions.
    So is ozone a problem today? See this, follow the links, and you’ll find that today in the Palmetto State the UV index is high, so apply sunblock when going outside and bemoan the shortage of ozone in the stratosphere.
    The air quality index is good, so you should breathe easy out there today, but I think the ozone levels increase as the summer progresses.
    bud – The Alaskans, especially the folks we used to call Eskimos, want to open ANWR to extraction so that they can improve their lot with the royalty stream. Lee, I, and others are ready to back our position up by eating caribou. Are you ANWR prohibitionists willing to support your decision by supporting a replacement revenue stream, say a casino or bingo hall up there, and then visiting it for a couple of weeks twice per year?

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  25. p.m.

    Planet X is causing global warming. See http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=6487.
    I submit that Warthen, bud, Krauthammer and Kucinich are visitors from Planet X intent on taking gas tax money back to their roving planet with them.
    Put sulfur around your houses and wear sunscreen, folks. The summer of all sufferance is upon us.

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  26. p.m.

    Sufferance is my new word combining suffering and suffrance.
    It means misery caused by pther people voting.

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  27. bud

    Our only hope for the vitality of our economy is a massive shift away from the fossil fuel economy that has created the explosive growth of prosperity to billions of people over the last 100 years. The oil economy is about to end. Gasoline powered vehicles will be museum pieces within 20 years. We just need to accept that and move forward. In order to bridge the gap between the oil past and the renewable future we simply must find a way to conserve. No amount of drilling is going to change this inevitability.
    The world currently uses 31 billion barrels of oil per year. But we’re only discovering about 10 billion. And that figure is dropping fast. Even more startling the new oil that is discovered requires enormous amounts of energy to bring to market. The new oil has a much lower net return of energy than the old oil from the aging super giant fields at various locations around the world.
    If it wasn’t such a tragedy it would be downright hilarous that so many people foolishly believe we can change this by drilling in the ANWR and other places. The ONLY way to move forward is with new, renewable sources of energy. Wind and solar are our best bets. Algae based ethonol and bio-diesel show promise. Perhaps one day fusion energy will work. But for now about all we can do is conserve.
    In 2 years we’ll be longing for the good ole days of $4/gallon gasoline. By then our economy may be wrecked. We must act now to reduce consumption. Tomorrow will be 1 day too late.

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  28. Lee Muller

    If Obama gets elected, the USA will be one miserable place, except for the lobbyists and machine which is running this campaign with Obama as their mascot.

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