Yucca Mountain and Vermont: Scofflaws in High Places

I’ve been to Yucca Mountain’s back yard, and you weren’t there. To me it seemed like the perfect place to put this stuff. Let the Feds actually finish their assessment and we’ll find out whether or not your fears are irrational. Or is that what you’re really afraid of?

Vermonters overwhelmingly want Entergy’s poison pig nuclear power plant outta here!

What the crooked courts failed to do will be done soon. All we have to do is back Senator Sanders’ legistive efforts to repeal Price-Anderson (the massive nuclear power plant government insurance backing subsidy).

Without Price-Anderson, never mind all the other government swag these expensive and aging time bombs are stealing from the public welfare, their energy would be priced out of the market.

Nuclear power plants cannot sell power (unsubsiduzed) for less than 20 cents a kwh (or more). Solar, wind,  geothermal and biogas are renewable, non-toxic, non-poisonous and are all under 10 cents a kwh (unsubsidized).

Regradless of the bought and paid for courts, nuclear, like fossil fuel energy, is a dead man walking.

“… Price-Anderson (the massive nuclear power plant government insurance backing subsidy).”

According to the US government, “… the projected annual subsidy is about $600,000 per reactor as well.”

http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/91xx/doc9133/05-...

With 100 reactors generating about 800 billion kW-h per year, that’s a subsidy of about 0.01 cents/kW-h.

umm well the waste would be stored 1000 feet under ground, under a mountain, in shielded containment, within shielded containment.

So yes I would live right next to that site because unlike you I am not ignorant.

If you want pay to store poison for a few thousand years, that’s your ignorance and math challenged brain’s failing, not anybody else’s.

I prefer cost effective and non-poisonous renewable energy. You would too if you were concerned for future generations.

But obviously, for you and people like you, it’s all about profit from government babying nuclear subsidies from mining to storage of used fuel rods and the devil taked the hindmost.

Greed isn’t just bad, it’s lethal to Homo sapiens. Grow up! Your attitude is helping to destroy civilization.

I think Entergy’s (and all other nuclear power plant operator’s headquarters) corporate headquarters is the proper place for used fuel rod storage. This is not a joke. I am dead serious.

Why? Because they will be forced to pay for secure storge, not we-the-people. All nuclear power plant operators have private profits to investors from stock and dividends. Why should we-the-people pay for corporate costs of storing nuclear poison?

I will not be party to financing your profits. If you really believe in free enterprise, you will agree that the the U.S. Government should not be saddled with nuclear poison storage costs.

But, if you are just defending your “enlightened self interest”, then you are being disingenuous.

Boy You are really spoilling for a fight aren’t you?

If you can show us what cost effective, non poisonous renewable is going to provide us with all the power you claim, and how it will do it, please go right ahead and do so. Be prepared to be specific, and show some proof.

Bear in mind that no one is going to be fooled by any proofless  hype from pro renewables websites.

Your problem is that you are not capable of thinking past the dogma and propoaganda you’re  swallowing hook, line, and sinker from unrealistic blind sighted pre-renewables websites.

Go back and do some research, and lets tackle this fake renewables future you fantasize about. Come back with some facts, and fewer insults about other people’s brains. Come back with some points for a real debate on energy, but don’t think that insults and self-righteous verbage would be allowed to pass uncountered.

“All nuclear power plant operators have contributed one tenth of a cent per kilowatt hour to a fund for storage of nuclear waste. “

I’m amazed that you believe a for profit corporation should do anything but pay 100% of all the costs incurred (present and future fuel rod life cycle costs)  to generate electrity from nuclear fision.

Why should congress baby nuclear power plant operators with, for example, the Price-Anderson Insurance guarantees? If nuclear was owned by the Federal government it would be different but it’s not. They even charge ridiculous amounts for the radoisotopes (e,g, Technetium-99) used in cardiac medicine.

This is what Senator Sanders of Vermont says about nuclear sourced electrical power.

Sen. Sanders is one of the most vocal critics of continuing government subsidies and special tax breaks for the nuclear industry, and has called for an end to the Price-Anderson government liability insurance for nuclear reactors. Following the disaster in Fukushima, Sen. Sanders pressed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to swiftly adopt safety reforms recommended by a special task force of senior NRC staff.

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/legislation/issue/?id=4b0bc4ae-4af5-43ea-8cf1-523f386ee5ba

I am, like him, supportive of what is the cheapest and most sustainable source for our electrical power.

Nuclear never would have gotten off the ground without the massive subsidies that have never been provided for renewable energy. As a Vermonter you should support wind and solar now simply because they are cheaper in addition to being sustainable.

We will never have to store used PV panels in a concrete lined bunker costing millions to build because they are, like wind turbines, totally non-polluting and recyclable. And both wind and PV already have 30 year life cycles guaranteeing no increased electrical costs from the present 6 to 14 cents a kwh (most of it is below 10 cents a kwh now) for the entire period. You cannot say that for nuclear.

And as to all that money the nuclear power operators have had deducted for future costs, it’s still not enough to cover a 20 year decommisiioning process and you know it. The nuclear power operators are the ones that owe we-the-people for future costs they have no intention of paying.

If you disagree, just get an estimate of the 20 year decommisioning cost of San Onofre. Now add 100 years of security and storage for used nuclear fuel rods. It’s an accounting nigthmare.

Unless you have income presently from the nuclear industry or relatives benefiting from working at the Entergy Yankee plant, you have no reason to support this costly and dangerous energy source.

I’m sure Nuclear engineer Arnie Gunderson would agree.  

Quote..“I’m amazed that you believe a for profit corporation should do anything but pay 100% of all the costs incurred (present and future fuel rod life cycle costs)  to generate electrity from nuclear fision.”

OH Wow!

She said no such thing. Why do you even come here if you won’t read the post?

She is saying that the Utilities have paid (as required by law) for the storage already. She is saying that the Government continues to take money earmarked for storage from them till today. That’s it.

Merredith has made no comment or insinuation that the Nuclear Utilities should not pay. She is merely saying that the Government should not continue to delay or circumvent the law for stortage of used fuel as they continue to recieve money earmarked for that self-same purpose.

Anybody who is not a retarded idiot looking for a fight would understand that the Government cannot ilegally collect money dedicated to a pupose, and then refuse to fulfill that purpose as per the law.

Obviously you are ignorant and unwilling to listen or learn or contribute useful opinion. You have not shown even  a single  iota of good will, nor a  desire, nor willingness to debate or comment graciously, while hearing other people’s opinions.

Your only purpose for coming hereitb seems, is to vomit out your vile and disrespectful self-righteous  ignorance all over the pages of this site.

Well you obviously are not aware that there exists a technology known as the fast neutron reactor which runs on nuclear waste and results a waste with half life on the order of decades rather than centuries. Along with burning waste other attributes of iterations of this reactor design include:

non proliferable and closed fuel cycle

the physical inability to mmeltdown

sound too good to be true? Well it’s not. Nonetheless this obviates the need to store waste at Yucca for 1000 years which really isn’t an issue in the first place as Yucca is the most studied piece of real-estate on the planet and all government reports on the matter indicate that it can safely store waste for the term indicated.