More Support For Yucca Mountain

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Surprisingly, the Pahrump Valley Times has put forth an editorial supporting reopening Yucca Mountain to receive used nuclear rods from nuclear power plants.
From the PVT:: It’s almost as hard to believe that people in Las Vegas are stillwilling to embrace that misbegotten nuclear glory of the 1950s, yet thesame crowd will shriek like little girls when it comes to discussingYucca Mountain.
Yucca is like a nuclear hot potato with nailsdriven into it, each spike representing a different politician with adifferent viewpoint as to what should be done with that big hole in themountain northwest of here.
To hear some people talk, the ideabehind Yucca is to pour every other state’s nuclear waste directly intoLas Vegas’ water supply. That isn’t the case.
The repository ismeant to be a permanent storage facility for spent nuclear fuel rods.For all intents and purposes it is expected to be the safest way yetdiscovered to dispose of such waste. Billions and billions of dollarsin taxpayer money has already been spent building this facility. Statesfrom Washington to South Carolina to Illinois are growing more and moreimpatient waiting for a place they’ve long been told will one dayalleviate their aging, cramped waste storage facilities. The licensingprocess for Yucca — essentially the study to determine its true valueas a safe place to store waste — was booby trapped by our owncongressional delegation in Washington, D.C.
And now a trio offederal judges is deciding whether the law mandating Yucca was violatedand whether the licensing process should be restarted.
We say yesto Yucca, or at least yes to restarting the licensing process. Thethought of spending billions and billions of dollars on a hole in amountain and then not finishing the work required to determine whetherthe darn thing is safe or not seems stupid.
Politics be damned. Wedon’t care why Nevada was chosen over Texas or Washington or New Mexicoor anywhere else. Nevada is desolation defined and its history ofnuclear testing seems to make it ideal for what Yucca represents. Ifit’s not safe, then that’s a different story. Prove it and we will bethe first to say, not in this backyard, buddy.
But what if it’sperfectly safe? What if Yucca is really the missing ingredient inNevada’s potential evolution as the energy laboratory for the entirecountry? What about the jobs and economic benefits?
Public safetyis certainly top priority, but what of meaningful economicdiversification — a future for Nevadans that isn’t hitched to tourismand mining is a worthwhile goal. Yucca is the state’s best chance tokick diversification into high gear, particularly since everything elseis suffering — education is dismal, housing is kaput, gaming istreading water, medicine isn’t anything to brag about, et cetera, etcetera. Thank God for the price of gold and for those boys in the silksuits with offices on the Strip, otherwise a nuclear waste dump mightbe the only reason to keep the state open for business.
In short,we agree that Yucca’s licensing should be finished. We believe that thedebate about Yucca can’t even truly begin unless all parties canequally weigh the merits of Yucca’s safety, or lack thereof, asdocumented by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its attendantadvisory boards. Without the licensing process complete, everythingelse is just political talk and hand wringing.
The complicatedpolitics of it all is above us simple folks in Nye County. We don’tcare how Nevada figures into Obama’s re-election campaign, or what Sen.Harry Reid promised years ago about killing Yucca dead.
All we know is that with Yucca, the potential economic benefits to Nye County glow brighter than an atomized Pacific atoll.
Without it, we just have another empty hole in a mountain to look at, albeit a very expensive hole.
http://pvtimes.com/news/editorial-board-obstacles-to-yucca-licensing-should-be-removed/
It is one of the more intelligent things to come out the PVT in some time and it puts forth an intelligent argument for Yucca Mountain.  It certainly is better than many stupid politicians who think tourists will come to Las Vegas because of Yucca.  And it is certainly smarter than anything old senile Coward Harry Reid has to say.
So, welcome PVT to the real world.