Yucca Mountain News Clips
Sunday, May 29, 2005
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Indianapolis Star
May 29, 2005

Uranium waste to cross Indiana

Shipments from Ohio to Texas could start as soon as this week

Tammy Webber
tammy.webber@indystar.com

Truckloads of low-level radioactive waste could begin rolling through Indiana as soon as this week, en route to Texas from a former uranium processing plant near Cincinnati.

About 4,000 containers of uranium byproducts will be shipped on flatbed trucks -- two 20,000-pound containers per truck, up to 15 shipments a day through the end of the year -- traversing Indiana via I-74 and I-70, said Jeff Wagner, spokesman for Fluor Fernald, the U.S. Department of Energy contractor cleaning up the plant.

The trucks will take I-465 around Indianapolis, he said.

Grant Smith of Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, which has opposed long-delayed federal government plans to ship spent nuclear fuel through Indiana to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, said he was unaware that the Ohio waste would be trucked through the state.

"I'm not familiar with the characteristics of the (Ohio) waste, but it makes the most sense to keep this type of waste away from densely populated areas," Smith said.

But the risk of an accident is low, and, even if one happened, it almost certainly would not result in a radiation release, Wagner said.

The waste -- radium, thorium, polonium, lead and actinium -- will be mixed with concrete and coal ash in half-inch-thick carbonized steel containers, and each shipment will be tracked by the Global Positioning System.

"It makes good common sense to use the interstates," Wagner said. "We can't use back roads and alleys to get from Cincinnati to Texas."

This won't be the first time radioactive waste has been shipped through Indiana.

Since the mid-1980s, more than 6,500 truckloads of waste from the Ohio plant -- which from 1952 to 1989 processed and purified uranium metal used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons -- have passed through the state en route to Nevada.

And since 1999, more than 150 trainloads of the plant's waste have been shipped to Utah through Indiana, Wagner said. Those shipments are expected to end early next month, he said.

State and local emergency management officials said they were not worried.

The Indiana Department of Homeland Security will be notified of the shipments, and local emergency workers along the route have been trained to respond to an accident, department spokeswoman Pam Bright said.

"We have no concerns," she said.

Lt. Dale True, Indianapolis Police Department liaison to the Marion County Emergency Management Agency, said he's not worried either, adding there is a greater danger from some chemicals trucked through the area.

"We feel very comfortable," with the waste shipments, he said. "God forbid, should an incident occur, we're prepared to respond to that."

For more information, go to the Fernald Closure Project Web site at www.fernald.gov.

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Billings Gazette
May 29, 2005

Roll call report
Thomas Voting Reports

WASHINGTON - Here's how area members of Congress were recorded on major roll call votes in the week ending May 27.

NUCLEAR REPROCESSING: Voting 110 for and 312 against, the House on May 24 refused to cut spending for the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel by $15.5 million and shift the savings to programs that promote energy efficiency. The vote occurred as the House passed a bill (HR 2419) appropriating $29.7 billion for the Department of Energy and other agencies in fiscal 2006. Overall, the bill provides $750 million for developing safer technologies for recycling nuclear waste.

Amendment backers said U.S. reprocessing of commercial nuclear waste would be unsafe at home and set the wrong example for countries such as North Korea and Iran. Opponents said that underground waste storage at Nevada's Yucca Mountain will face capacity limits, and that new technologies are making it safer and more economical to recycle spent fuel.

A yes vote was to cut spending for nuclear reprocessing.

Voting no: Rehberg, Cubin.

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Pahrump Valley Times
May 27, 2005

Yucca Mountain

Commercial use of railroad possible
PVT

Commercial use of a new rail line from Caliente to the proposed Yucca Mountain Geologic Repository will generate new business opportunities and employment for Nye, Esmeralda, and Lincoln counties, according to a recent study by the Nye County Department of Natural Resources and Federal Facilities.

Nye County prepared the report as part of ongoing research to the U.S. Department of Energy's proposed 'Nevada Rail' line between Caliente and Yucca Mountain.

The rail line is proposed to transport nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel for long-term storage. Commercial freight operations would share the tracks on the line but would otherwise be completely separate from any nuclear waste rail shipments.

The study team interviewed business development officials from the three counties, as well as existing shippers along the proposed line that could be served by a commercial freight rail operation.

From the interviews, the study team forecast that a commercial freight rail operation could carry between 660,000 tons and 3.5 million tons of freight per year - freight that could be shipped more economically by rail than by truck.

The higher figure assumed the development of a coal-fired power generation plant at Pioche, north of Caliente.

The tonnage figures represent potential annual transportation cost savings of between $18.4 million and $97.4 million. It estimates that between 424 and 2,239 new jobs would be created as a result of the economies offered by commercial freight operations.

The commercial rail operation itself would generate between eight and 14 new jobs in the areas of train operations, maintenance, and rail service administration.

The study also predicted that diverting freight from truck to rail would reduce congestion, road maintenance and accidents, and suggested that these savings be the subject of a subsequent analysis.

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Pahrump Valley Times
May 27, 2005

Crisis Averted

Nye sales tax revenues spike

County Manager, Commissioners Believe Budget could have Surplus come October; Demeo Says Deputies will not be Terminated

By Doug McMurdo
PVT

Ultraconservative budget projections formulated by County Manager Michael Maher combined with a dramatic spike in sales tax revenue generated in Nye County could ease funding woes - and allow Sheriff Tony DeMeo and other top officials to maintain the status quo.

Unfortunately, any budget adjustments couldn't be made until October when the county receives its tax redistribution from the state.

And while top officials are cautiously optimistic the revenues will be sufficient to see them through another year - as well as allow the county commissioners to keep their promise not to augment the budget with PETT funds - it seems everyone has subscribed to the theory of hope for the best, expect the worst.

PETT is an acronym for Payments Equal to Taxes, funds the Energy Department pays Nye County for its study of Yucca Mountain, the proposed national nuclear waste repository situated in central Nye County.

"We're tight," Maher candidly admitted in an interview Wednesday. "We're trying to put Jack back in the box and he hasn't been in there for a very long time."

Nowhere is the budget shortfall more desperate than at the Nye County Sheriff's Office, where Tony DeMeo had $1.5 million cut from his budget (though those numbers have been hotly contested by commissioners) and has subsequently announced he would have to lay off patrol deputies in order to stay within budget.

On Thursday the sheriff recanted his previous comment, initially published in the May 18 edition of the Pahrump Valley Times, saying no "pink slips" have been handed out and he doesn't foresee that happening.

DeMeo said he hopes there is a subsidy come October but until then he must maintain his current budget. "We can not lay off one person," DeMeo said, adding that doing so would impact county grants that are used to partially fund 10 deputy positions.

And while DeMeo has been at odds with a majority of county commissioners for quite some time, there are signs the frosty relationship is about to thaw. "I'll keep as many cops on the street as I can and we'll make adjustments elsewhere," he said. DeMeo added, "Hopefully, once the numbers are realized, if there is indeed a subsidy, I'm very confident the commissioners will adjust my budget, but until then I have to work within my budget. I thank the county commissioners for the opportunity that in the foreseeable future the budget will be amended."

"We have tried to come up with ways to help the sheriff," said Commission Chairwoman Candice Trummell in a Wednesday interview, and she praised Assistant Sheriff Rick Marshall's grant writing skills. She said it was discussed that Marshall could be outsourced to other county departments to oversee grants, which would preclude commissioners from having to hire a full time grant writer. The money saved from not having to fill that position, she said, could go into the sheriff's coffers.

So what has occurred that leads officials to believe there will be a subsidy in the first place?

In a word: taxes.

According to a report released by the Nevada Department of Taxation, Nye County's sales tax revenue jumped more than 20 percent from March 2004 to March 2005. This represents a more than $7 million dollar increase, from roughly $35.8 million last year to more than $43 million this past March.

Year-to-date figures are even more impressive. To date Nye County's consolidated taxes are at roughly $346 million; last year Nye finished at around $263.4 million. The difference represents a better than 31- percent jump. Only Storey County, much smaller than Nye in terms of population, experienced a higher percentage increase among Nevada's 17 counties.

It's important to note that Nye County will receive only a slice of the sales tax generated here, not the entire pie.

"Thank goodness for Wal-Mart," joked Trummell, who said the combined sales and use tax increases is the "big reason" for the optimism.

There are still concerns. "We don't know what the Legislature is going to do," Trummell said, regarding the three percent cap lawmakers placed on property taxes earlier this year. "We support the Legislature (on the cap), but we don't know what the figures will be, so we have to be conservative until we find out what the property tax bill is."

Another concern regards the paying back of a $3 million PETT loan the county borrowed last year to subsidize the budget. Commissioners in a 3-2 vote opted to shore up the budget with PETT funds, which obligates the county to surrender $600,000 a year for the next five years to make good on the note. Trummell and Commissioner Patricia Cox voted against last year's augmentation.

The most pressing concern from the perspective of county officials and residents is the sheriff's office budget and the question, Are things really as bad as earlier reported?

Maher in his projections said there was, in his mind, an "89 to 95 percent" probability factor that the $10.5 million budget was acceptable, especially when grants received by the sheriff's office were taken into consideration.

"This budget isn't cut in stone," continued Maher. "I felt the board would have a (better) idea (of the real budget picture) by October.

"It's not like we're not trying to work with them," said Trummell. "I think now there's more acceptance." She added that the sheriff doesn't pay his department's utility bill; the board has paid for the department's vehicles - along with the roughly $20,000 worth of police equipment that goes into each of the sedans - and the county's buildings and grounds department maintains the fleet out of its budget, not the sheriff's.

There is also the issue of salaries and the more favorable retirement benefits sheriff's office employees receive. Trummell made it clear she did not begrudge the better benefits, acknowledging the difficult job deputies perform, "but the board can only do what it can do."

What the board could do in October, however, might be dramatic given the boost in sales tax revenue. "It's hard to believe we could have a deficit come October," Maher said. Trummell agreed. "We should have a carryover ... our projections were very conservative."

Maher noted that in addition to the increase in tax revenue, the Mountain Falls subdivision was "getting ready to pop. We're on the upswing. If growth continues we could have a substantial increase in a year."

Maher and Trummell conceded that more people might bring in more revenue - but newcomers also place a deeper burden on the county to provide services.

It is important to note the county has created a so-called "stabilization fund" with $1.2 million in PETT money that would be used in emergency situations.

As for the sheriff's budget, Trummell offered an olive branch. "We know that Tony's budget is tight, but if he is prudent he'll be OK. Some of the dust isn't going to settle until we get to the end of the fiscal year."

Maher was even more enthusiastic. "I'm amazed. I'm tickled with where we are. It says something about (Nye County) employees. We have a great group of employees. I saw that in the budget meetings. People were working together."

"It wasn't easy to do but many gave up money."

If DeMeo's budget concerns are sound, it stands to reason District Attorney Bob Beckett, Pahrump Justice of the Peace Tina Brisebill, and Fifth District judges John Davis and Robert Lane would feel similar pressure.

They do, according to Maher, who said the judges and district attorney do have financial needs for their departments. The hope is that there is enough of a carryover to "help them out."

Trummell said she and her peers on the board gave DeMeo everything he asked for, with the exception of filling new positions and increasing his administrative staff. "Everything else we approved," she said. "We're trying to do everything we can," Maher added.

The rest is up to DeMeo, but as far as Trummell is concerned the sheriff's announcement that he would have to lay off street deputies was uncalled for. "The county commission provided him with enough to keep the status quo ... We won't micromanage the sheriff's department. If he feels he needs to lay off 28 deputies that's between him and the public."

"The board is really trying to make this work," added Maher. "I know the board is doing everything it can and (commissioners) are trying to be fiscally responsible. It's a case of the wants versus the needs and what you have in between."

While DeMeo doesn't agree entirely, he did say he would make the necessary adjustments to stay within his budget without laying off deputies, but his inability to hire additional officers will further stress a department already on the edge of collapse given the vast geographic size of Nye County.

The Washoe County sheriff, said DeMeo, has agreed to prepare a staffing study for the Nye County Sheriff's Office, for free, that should be completed sometime in July. "It will be objective and it will give us an idea of where we are and what we need," said DeMeo.

In the meantime, the sheriff promised no layoffs would be forthcoming and he and his staff will do what it must to provide services.

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Idaho State Journal
May 27, 2005

What were they thinking? Storing nuke waste at INL

BOISE (AP) - The Idaho congressmen who voted this week for an Energy Department spending bill that recommends storing highly radioactive nuclear waste at the Idaho National Laboratory say they're convinced a 1995 court order prevents that from ever happening.

But the White House's former nuclear waste czar, Boise attorney David Leroy, isn't so sure.

"There is a legislative history and policy agreements between the state and the Department of Energy which would discourage the use of Idaho for that purpose, but they don't constitute an insurmountable barrier if Congress chooses to rewrite that history," said Leroy, a Republican and former Idaho lieutenant governor who served as the federal government's nuclear waste negotiator from 1990-1993.

Leroy's attempts to find a willing host for a temporary federal nuclear waste dump among a handful of interested counties and Indian tribes failed. In 2002, President Bush approved an Energy Department recommendation to locate the dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada over the objection of state leaders.

Congress has been increasingly frustrated by the legal, scientific and policy challenges that have delayed the opening of Yucca Mountain until at least 2010, if ever. Tuesday, the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed an energy spending bill that gave the Energy Department money to begin taking ownership of spent nuclear fuel from 129 commercial reactor sites around the country and temporarily storing a portion of it at a federally operated facility by 2006.

The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration.

The House subcommittee that holds the purse strings to the agency said in a report included with the bill that the department should consider the Hanford reservation in Washington state, the Savannah River complex in South Carolina and the INL compound in the desert west of Idaho Falls as possible temporary storage sites for the radioactive waste. Called manager's reports, such provisions in spending bills don't have the effect of law but are intended by Congress to be marching orders for federal agency heads.

Two former Idaho governors, Democrat Cecil Andrews and Republican Phil Batt, waged a 10-year battle against the federal government that culminated in an unprecedented 1995 agreement between the state and Energy Department, requiring the agency to remove all the Cold War-era nuclear waste stored at the Idaho site.

The court-approved deal also prohibited the federal government from shipping spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants to the Idaho site.

The state's two Republican House members Tuesday voted against an amendment to strip the interim storage provisions from the bill and supported the overall $29.7 billion spending package after being reassured the manager's report would not overturn the decade-old decree of no new nuclear waste in Idaho.

"The committee's language in no way alters existing law or the provisions of Idaho's 1995 settlement," said Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson, who sits on the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee that wrote the bill.

During Tuesday's debate on the House floor, Idaho Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter asked the chairman of the subcommittee, Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, "Would the language contained within this report in any way change existing law or alter the provisions of the state of Idaho's agreement with the Department of Energy?"

Answered Hobson: "No, it would not."

Leroy, however, said the manager's report in the spending bill shows the increasing political momentum to find an alternative to Yucca Mountain that may ultimately steamroll the Idaho pact.

"For the first time you've got somebody truly admitting Yucca is not going to open 'til 2016 or later, saying every year it slips is another billion-dollar price tag and saying that interim storage at a government-run site is essentially mandatory," he said Thursday. "The history of one set of elected or appointed officials in any branch of U.S. government absolutely binding their successors in office to their agreements is not one I would depend on in this case."

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The Oregonian
May 27, 2005

The problem with nuclear energy

A proposal to store commercial waste at Hanford is a reminder of unsolved nuclear disposal issues

We keep hearing that nuclear power is poised for a comeback, that nuclear energy is both cost-effective and "clean" because it creates none of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

Well, maybe. Nuclear power is safely and reliably churning out electricity in many countries, including environmentally conscious France. And certainly any source of power that does not burn fossil fuels has growing appeal.

Yet there is still an enormous problem with nuclear waste, one illustrated by a little-noticed vote in the U.S. House of Representatives last Tuesday: There is still no fully safe, appropriate place to store nuclear waste.

The House approved a spending measure Tuesday that included language directing the U.S. Department of Energy to begin temporary storage of commercial nuclear waste at possibly several federal facilities, including the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Wash.

Only 13 House members opposed the plan -- nearly all of them lawmakers from Washington and South Carolina, the states likely to be on the receiving end of waste from commercial nuclear reactors.

The legislation leaves it up the Energy Department to select one or more interim storage sites, but everyone knows where this stuff is going: to already polluted sites such as Hanford and the Savannah River weapons facility in South Carolina. The Idaho National Laboratory would be another likely site, except Idaho won a 1995 settlement that forbids the federal government from shipping spent fuel from commercial nuclear plants there.

The United States desperately needs a safe and permanent storage facility. In spite of a recent scandal about falsified analysis, the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada remains the best alternative for permanent disposal. But it's not clear when -- or even whether -- Yucca will open as a permanent repository. It still has not received a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Meanwhile, 50,000 tons of nuclear waste are now piling up at reactors in 31 states. The House plan is to start shipping some of that waste across state lines and to temporary facilities such as Hanford. The Northwest is naturally going to wonder just how long the half-life of "temporary" is. Until the Hanford region has an answer, and until this nation has a permanent storage facility, there won't be a lot of enthusiasm for nuclear energy's comeback.

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The State
May. 27, 2005

SRS named finalist for new nuclear plant

Aiken site among six in running for nation´s first nuclear energy facility in 30 years

By Lauren Markoe
Washington Bureau

The Savannah River Site is among six finalists that could be home to one of the first two nuclear power plants built in the United States in nearly 30 years.

NuStart Energy — the consortium of energy companies that wants to build the plants — will announce its final choices in September, and the plants could begin operations in 2015.

“There is no better time for a renaissance in nuclear power in this country than today,’ deputy secretary of energy Clay Sell said in Washington at a press conference to unveil details of plans to build the new plants.

And there is no better place than SRS, say South Carolina nuclear power boosters.

“We want this power generated here,’ said Fred Humes, director the Economic Development Partnership of Aiken and Edgefield Counties.

“If you want to grow, and you´re going to need power, why don´t we do it in this isolated and secure site at Savannah River?’

SRS, built in the 1950s to produce the key components of the United States´ nuclear arsenal, is now a nuclear storage and research facility owned by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Aiken and competing communities have until Aug. 15 to present proposals to NuStart.

General Electric and the Westinghouse Electric Co. each would build a plant, estimated to cost $1.5 billion to $2 billion apiece.

Westinghouse Electric is a separate company from Westinghouse Savannah River Co., which operates SRS.

NuStart president Marilyn Kray estimated each new plant would mean 2,000 to 3,000 construction jobs for the chosen community, and 250 to 400 permanent jobs.

NuStart and the federal government are touting nuclear power as an answer to the nation´s burgeoning energy needs, the growing problem of greenhouse gases, and Americans´ heavy reliance on oil.

The Bush administration has agreed to offset some of the startup costs for new plants and is backing streamlined plant licensing — historically a drawn-out process.

The 103 nuclear plants operating in the United States today supply 20 percent of electricity produced. But those plants will be obsolete in a few decades.

Opponents of nuclear power, in South Carolina and across the nation, say that if building a new nuclear plant were a good economic investment, government subsidies wouldn´t be necessary.

What worries them most, though, is the seeming lack of solid plans to dispose of the waste created by nuclear reactors. The federal high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is years behind on its construction schedule.

“I have the same fears I´ve had throughout my entire life about nuclear power,’ said Dell Isham, director of the S.C. chapter of the Sierra Club.

“What do you do with the waste? We have to safeguard it from all other living organisms for 10,000 years. That´s a crucial and moral issue we haven´t seemed much concerned about in the last decade or so.’

James Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst with Greenpeace, said the consortium should worry about how nuclear plants make the nation more vulnerable to terrorism.

“Did the people in that room sleep through 9/11?’ he asked.

But Mal McKibben, executive director of Aiken-based Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness, said security is one of the things that distinguishes SRS from its five competitors.

SRS is 310 square miles, McKibben said, and a reactor would sit about five miles inside its gates.

“You have all these wonderful guns and gates and guards and high-tech security equipment. You don´t have to worry about terrorists or any other goofy people trying to blow it up.’

Reach Markoe at (202) 383-6023 or lmarkoe@krwashington.com

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Baltimore Sun
May 27, 2005

Nuclear power is wrong answer

Michael Mariotte

WASHINGTON - The nuclear power industry and its allies in Congress are attempting to make the case that a revival of this deservedly moribund industry could help the world's efforts to combat the looming crisis of human-caused climate change.

But like everything else in the nuclear industry, which is increasingly hidden from public view by homeland security concerns, the reality belies the surface impression.

In fact, using nuclear power to address climate change would not only be ineffective, it would be counterproductive and would inevitably fail - hastening the global warming the world is trying desperately to prevent.

First, nuclear reactors are essentially pre-deployed weapons of mass destruction, the most tempting terrorist targets imaginable. It is unconscionable, if not downright irresponsible, to advocate a proliferation of these targets around the country under the false pretense that they would ease the impacts of climate change.

Second, even if the nuclear fuel chain were emissions-free - which it is not - sufficient new nuclear capacity cannot be built fast enough or inexpensively enough to make a meaningful difference.

According to two recent studies - one by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one by the National Commission on Energy Policy - at least 300 new atomic reactors would be needed in the United States and at least 1,500 worldwide (there are 440 worldwide now) if nuclear power is to have any significant impact on greenhouse emissions. That means building a new reactor somewhere in the world, starting today, once every six months for the next 60 years.

We don't have that long for nuclear power to make a difference, and such a schedule is impossible anyway. Our most recent experience with atomic reactors, those coming online in the 1980s and 1990s, confirms that reactors take an average of eight to 10 years to build (the last U.S. reactor to come online, Watts Bar in Tennessee, took 23 years).

Further, U.S. reactors coming online in the last 20 years cost an average of $4 billion each; the cost of such a program would be prohibitive - in the trillions of dollars. Given limited resources, this would prevent virtually any spending on sustainable energy technologies that actually could be implemented speedily, could create millions of jobs and could effectively mitigate global warming.

An escalated nuclear program not only would be cost- and time-prohibitive, but it also would create new problems. To handle the lethal radioactive waste so many reactors would produce, a new Yucca Mountain-sized atomic waste dump would be needed somewhere in the world every three to four years.

Yet Yucca Mountain itself is foundering in falsified scientific data and an inability to meet regulatory requirements 18 years after Congress designated it as the sole high-level waste dump in the nation. No country has yet solved the radioactive waste issue. Quintupling the amount of waste produced before a solution is found would engender massive public opposition to a nuclear construction program that is impossible to begin with.

Why risk all this to stem global warming when other, more sustainable energy technologies such as wind power exist and are growing rapidly and economically?

But, of course, the nuclear industry's dirty secret is that nuclear power is not emissions-free. The technology for the entire nuclear fuel chain is responsible for substantial emissions. Uranium mining, processing, enrichment, fuel fabrication, reactor construction and waste storage all result in greenhouse emissions. Nuclear power is actually closer to natural gas in terms of emissions than it is to wind or solar power. Energy efficiency improvements are seven times more effective at reducing greenhouse gases, per dollar spent, than nuclear power.

Finally, nuclear power, which produces only electricity, cannot even begin to address the single greatest global warming problem: the burning of oil for transportation.

If Congress is serious about mitigating climate change, it must greatly increase vehicle mileage standards and provide major incentives for hybrid and other advanced vehicle technologies. Failure to do so would be an indication that lawmakers are far less concerned about addressing climate change than they are about satisfying their campaign contributors from the nuclear industry.

We do need to address the global climate crisis - urgently. Nuclear power is not up to the task. Indeed, using nuclear power to wean us off fossil fuels would be like using heroin to combat alcohol addiction: It would be ineffective and we wouldn't like the results.

- Michael Mariotte is executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service.

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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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