- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
Bush administration will proceed with a plan to build a nuclear waste site
in Nevada this year despite a court decision ordering it to prevent radiation
leaks for more than 10,000 years, a senior Energy Department official said.
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- Critics of the project, including Senate Minority Whip
Harry Reid of Nevada, say this recent federal court ruling could permanently
derail a plan to build a massive underground storage depot beneath Yucca
Mountain about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The administration said,
however, that it does not intend to slow down.
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- "We are still on track toward submitting a license
application in December of this year, and opening the repository and beginning
waste acceptance in 2010," Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow
told a Senate Energy Committee hearing on nuclear energy.
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- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
last week rejected Nevada's attempt to block the plan to store 77,000 tons
of waste on constitutional grounds.
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- However, the court also said the administration wrongly
ignored a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences to ensure
safety from leaks for well beyond 10,000 years.
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- Radioactive releases could peak in 300,000 years and
the administration must assure safeguards on that scale, the court found.
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- Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, a long-time
nuclear industry proponent, said assuring safety over that timeframe is
"impossible," and that the industry will "stand or fall"
on how the court's objection is addressed.
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- Spent fuel from the nation's nuclear plants is piling
up - there are over 50,000 tons of it stored at over 100 interim locations
in 39 states within 75 miles of 161 million people.
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- http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/26032/story.htmNevada
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