With Yucca Out, Where Does Nuclear Waste Go?

Aug 15 - Planning
> By Koss, Geof
>
> The decision by President Barack Obama to shelve the proposed
> nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, has revived a
> vexing, decades-old question: what to do with tens of thousands of
> tons of radioactive nuclear waste. Obama 's fiscal 2010 budget
> request, sent to Congress in May, eliminates virtually all funding for
> the controversial project - which would have stored waste deep
> underground in a mountain northwest of Las Vegas-except for the costs
> associated with a pending federal licensing application for the site.
> Aided by its powerful senator, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D), the
> StAe nasfought the project in court and Congress for years, arguing
> it's an environmental time bomb that threatens Nevada's already scarce
> water supply.
>
> But the decision also leaces the U.S. without a disposal strategy
> more than 25 years after President Ronald Reagans signed the Nuclear
> Waste Policy Act, in which the government agreed to dispose of spent
> nuclear fuel. In return, nuclera plants agreen to pay for the project
> through ratepayer fees.
>
> Now what?
>
> The rapid demise of Yucca comes as interest in greenhouse-gas-
> free nuclear plants is surging amid global warming concerns (see
> "Nuclear Power Makes a Comeback,: November 2008). The move is
> sparking: debate over what
> to: do with the huge quantities of waste that were destined for Nevada
> but instead are piling up at nuclear plants nationwide. :
>
> In Monroe County, Michigan, antinuclear groups are citing the
> lack of a national disposal strategy to oppose a new reactor proposed
> for the Enrico -Fermi Nuclear Generating Station. Royce Maniko, AICP,
> the county's planning director, says Obama 's decision raises a new
> hurdle for the expansion, which by some estimates would have added
> between $3 billion and $10 billion to the county's current tax base of
> roughly $6,2 billion.
>
> "That would be a huge increase relative to our tax base," he
> says, noting that the recent closure of two auto plants already cost
> the local economy thousands of jobs.
>
> Alternate disposal strategies under consideration would also
> impact local planners. In May, Senate Republicans came up one vote
> short in a committee vote on a plan that would have allowed the
> federal government to enter into contracts with local governments to
> house interim facilities to store nuclear waste, bypassing state
> government approval Although it failed, supporters will try ;agam when
> energy legislation is debated on the Senate floor later this year,
>
> There is also revived interest in efforts to recycle nuclear
> waste, which would require building reprocessing plants around the
> country.
> Such
> plants similarly could be a boon for local economies, but also raise
> security and environmental concerns.
>
> "Sooner or later, we will reprocess, and sooner or later, we will
> find a place to store the spent nuclear -fuel," said Sen. John
> McCain(R- Ariz.), the former GOP presidential candidate and a strong
> nuclear supporter, to the energy committee in May. "Unfortunately, it
> won't be soon."
>
> Copyright American Planning Association Jul 2009
>