only color within the lines

Aug. 06, 2008…Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal …Projections for Yucca revised…Estimated cost of nuclear waste dump: $96.2 billion…By STEVE TETREAULTSTEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU …WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy on Tuesday issued new cost estimates for a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository that would be bigger, would operate longer and would cost billions of dollars more than earlier planned. The department in a long-awaited report announced the price tag on the proposed Nevada waste site has grown to an estimated $96.2 billion. Counting inflation, costs increased by 67 percent over DOE's previous estimate, which was $57.5 billion in 2001. In the intervening years, the project has been delayed and redesigned. DOE officials also made a key assumption that the repository will be expanded by Congress to make room for larger volumes of spent nuclear fuel being generated by commercial power plants. Bob Loux, who spearheads Nevada's official opposition to the Yucca project as director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the Yucca cost report is of limited value." What's the point of this?" Loux asked. Loux said the DOE did not make it possible to get a clear picture of how much it would cost to build a repository limited to 70,000 metric tons of waste, which is current law. "Secondly I think most people would take the DOE number for construction and throw in another half," said Loux, who said the cost for the Yucca site could end up closer to $120 billion to $150 billion.
I vividly recall being awaken a number of times in my youth as our nation exploded yet another “atom” bomb at the Nevada Test Site located about 100 miles north of my home in Las Vegas, Nevada. Then our nation entered that period where “we” no longer exploded these “atom” bombs in the atmosphere, we chose to explode them far beneath the Nevada desert. The same desert today’s scientists choose to use to store our nation’s nuclear waste into perpetuity.

Let me see if I understand this. First we blow the ground under this nuclear storage area all to hell, creating a plethora of uncharted cracks of unknown depth into our earth. We do not choose to chart the flow of any leachate (that’s the scientific term for leak) which could become part of the water source for humans. Then we construct one single nuclear storage facility near a worldwide known town – Las Vegas – near Hoover Dam, the first dam constructed on the Colorado River the nexus of drinking water serving some 25 million people.

What am I missing…? It’s not the gargantuan sum of money we are choosing to spend and it’s not the location, it’s we remain fixed on solutions derived solely from adhering to tunnel vision. We continue to only be able to “color-inside-the-lines” any other solution is summarily dismissed. Why…?