Nevada officials are expected to sign off on a contract Wednesday that is part of the state’s efforts to continue the fight against the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
Yucca Mountain
Contrary to his campaign rhetoric, President Donald Trump has not articulated a position on Yucca Mountain though his administration has released a spending plan that includes $120 million to jumpstart the facility.
If licensing proceedings for the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository in Nevada’s Nye County, arguments will be based on arcane computer models of what might or might not happen over a million years.
A bill to restart the stalled Yucca Mountain project was approved by a full House committee on Wednesday after members tried to appease Nevada by striking a provision dealing with state water rights.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry was on Capitol Hill on Thursday for another hearing and tangled with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto over administration plans for the Yucca Mountain project.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry defended a $28 billion budget proposal Tuesday, citing the need for $120 million to restart licensing of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project and develop interim storage that could include the Nevada National Security Site.
A bill to expedite the licensing and development of Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada was passed by a subcommittee on Thursday, clearing the first hurdle for legislation expected to be taken up in the House this year.
The Department of Energy’s Yucca Mountain program was defunded and dismantled under President Barack Obama, leaving only a handful of scientists from the hundreds who once worked on the project.
Federal plans to saddle Nevada with burying the nation’s most potent radioactive waste in Yucca Mountain were bemoaned Tuesday by the state Commission on Nuclear Projects and American Indians who would be most affected.
The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste plan was kept alive Tuesday when a panel of judges ruled the Obama administration does not have the authority to withdraw the project without permission from Congress.
With Albert Einstein’s “research” quote glued to the laboratory door, a team of radiochemistry researchers routinely goes about its work at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in hopes that someday they really will know what they have done and if it will make a difference.
In what is the strongest indication to date that it will abandon the Yucca Mountain Project, the Department of Energy on Tuesday withdrew 116 water applications it had filed with the State Engineer for building a rail line to haul nuclear waste to the mountain from Caliente.
Chains holding the white Department of Energy flag creaked against the flagpole in the gentle breeze and sent an eerie sound across the half-filled parking lot at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project Tuesday.
While the Obama administration has been pursuing a course to kill the Yucca Mountain Project, the Department of Energy has been quietly forging ahead with its plan to obtain water rights for building a rail line across rural Nevada to haul the nation’s highly radioactive waste for burial in the mountain.
The Department of Energy’s plan for hauling nuclear waste across the nation to a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain is a brush job at best, Nevada officials who are reviewing the document said this week.