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We’re not going to say the cat’s out of the bag or anything like that, be we were surprised to read this in the Wall Street Journal, with the paper’s Robert Thompson listening to Energy Secretary Steven Chu: Well, it's fair to say that the whole history of Yucca Mountain was more political than scientific...

In a comprehensive, fascinating interview Thursday in sunny Idaho Falls with Idaho Samizdat , Dr. Dale Klein, longtime NRC commissioner and its onetime chairman, discussed rabbits in the context of public communication, cheeses, small reactors, Yucca Mountain, bozos, Blackberries, and business. Serious...

Via Nasdaq : As part of a long-running rift over how to deal with the nation's nuclear power waste, the Obama administration announced plans this year to cancel the Yucca Mountain waste repository site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Although Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in April he would appoint...

If you cover the nuclear news world during the later years of the Bush administration, there was no missing Ward Sproat, who turned up at virtually every Congressional hearing having anything to do with nuclear energy. He was Director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste...

A group of 17 Senators are puzzled : Over $7.7 billion has been spent researching Yucca Mountain as a potential repository site and neither the NAS, the NWTRB, nor any of our National Labs involved in conducting studies and evaluating data have concluded that there is any evidence to disqualify Yucca...

Here are some quick hits to roll around the mouth and savor. You don’t even have to spit them out. --- Steve Williams responds to William Tucker’s approval of the scaling back of Yucca Mountain: If the enviros had any sense at all - and if they feared global warming (um, climate change) as much as they...

Does USA Today qualify as a top newspaper on a par with the New York Times and The Washington Post? It’s certainly more colorful. You can get it free on air shuttles and at a lot of hotels. People who have seen their local newspaper die – like Seattle – will likely depend on it more, if not for local...

After all the to-do about Yucca Mountain, you may be feeling a little – wrung-out. Our Panglossian side says that a proposal isn’t a budget and a budget passes through many hands, some of which may have something to say about this change – some already have, of course – but then – you know – our Cassandrian...

We highlighted the Washington Post’s response to the Yucca Mountain situation because the paper carries some weight and helps set the agenda for the news media. But other editorials can drop the responsible judicious pose and just let ‘er rip : President Obama's decision to abandon the national nuclear...

The editorial board takes a look at the Obama administration’s decision to reduce funding for Yucca Mountain: If the president's vision for a clean energy future is to be believed or is to come to fruition, nuclear energy must be a part of the mix, and the safe disposal of its radioactive waste must...

Here is a transcript of the testimony from yesterday’s hearing of the Energy and Natural Resources. The intent of the hearing was to discuss energy R&D, and mostly concerned that issue, but with DOE Secretary Steven Chu present, several of the Senators let their displeasure known about the scaling...

The used fuel repository at Yucca Mountain has found itself in a bit of a corner. The Obama administration intends to withdraw all funds for it except what is necessary to allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to evaluate its license application. Obama had stated a preference for intermediate storage...

There's quite a spirited debate going on at WSJ's Environmental Capital about the proposed defunding of Yucca Mountain in President Obama's budget plan . NEI's Scott Peterson notes in the comments , This is an opportune time to re-evaluate America’s policy on managing commercial reactor...

From the Las Vegas Review Journal : Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a group of state officials Wednesday he favors moving toward licensing a nuclear waste repository in Nevada, although whether it would ever be built is another thing altogether. ... The proceedings would continue for the government...

President-elect Obama often mentions the "safety" of used nuclear fuel as a block to a whole-hearted embrace of nuclear energy, so we wondered what thinking was going on that seeks to mitigate or even eliminate permanent or even (long-term) interim storage. We might be all aboard the Yucca...

Via Tom Toles in today's Washington Post . ...read more

For years, we have heard opponents of nuclear energy call the Yucca Mountain repository called a “dump”. The tactic of using inaccurate and misleading terms to help or injure a cause is nothing new, but even news outlets that profess to be objective use the term. Certainly they must know, by doing so...

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has formally docketed the Department of Energy’s license application for the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. The agency staff has also recommended that the Commission adopt, with further supplementation, DOE’s Environmental...

We already knew from the Democratic debate in Nevada that Barack Obama had no use for Yucca Mountain, but despite this, and John McCain’s support of the brown mound, McCain and Obama are within a couple points of each other. Now, Obama is trying to close the deal, using Yucca Mountain as the wedge. Well...

A fascinating article in the Guardian by sociology professor Ulrich Beck points up an interesting tidbit about the future risk of Yucca Mountain (or any used fuel repository) far into the future. That is, how do you do you tell people of the far future that there might be danger? The anthropologists...

Yucca Mountain, that is, which has been getting something of a rough treatment lately. Fears about storing tons of used nuclear fuel there have been unfounded, and though the Department of Energy has submitted a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Agency for the big brown mound, political support...

If all day Senate debate on Lieberman-Warner wasn't enough to keep you occupied today, the DOE is announcing its submission of the Yucca Mountain license application at the National Press Club. The webcast can be seen here . (At least they were good enough to schedule the press conference during...

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has just completed delivering a major foreign policy speech on Nuclear Security at the University of Denver. (The full transcript is available here .) I found this quote especially interesting, I would seek to establish an international repository for spent nuclear fuel that could...

According to Energy Secretary Bodman, it looks like the DOE is still on track to submit Yucca's license application to the NRC early next month . ...read more

Jonah Goldberg tries to yoke two highly incompatible subjects into one column in the Los Angeles Times : See, Yucca Mountain is where the government wants to keep incredibly dangerous substances -- nuclear waste -- until we figure out a better way to handle it. And Guantanamo Bay is where the federal...