No need for Yucca repository

No need for Yucca repository

EDITOR:

Your July 8 editorial, “To expand Nuclear energy, stop stonewalling Yucca,” badly misrepresents the issues surrounding the failed federal nuclear waste program. For one thing, Yucca Mountain — or any nuclear waste repository — is not needed for there to be new nuclear power plants. The country has had nuclear energy for 50 years without a final disposal site.

The fact is that spent nuclear fuel is perfectly safe and secure where it is — in storage facilities associated with the power plants. And new dry storage technologies that are being implemented at almost every existing reactor facility are even safer and more secure while being more economical than disposal in a repository.

Contrary to the assertion in your editorial, building a repository at Yucca or anywhere else will not eliminate the need for storage at reactor sites. Spent fuel must be cooled and stored in pools adjacent to reactors for at least five years (and preferably longer) before it can be moved. Plus Yucca would be filled to capacity long before all of the cooled waste that currently exists could be removed. So, even with a repository, you will still have waste at over 100 reactor sites around the country. In addition, there will be thousands of shipments of dangerous radioactive waste being continuously shipped around the country creating risks for cities and communities and potential targets for terrorists.

Apart for the fact that Yucca Mountain is an unsafe and unsuitable location for a nuclear waste repository (it is characterized by earthquakes, the potential for renewed volcanic activity, fast ground water pathways, and a highly corrosive underground environment, just for starters), spent fuel is much safer being left where it is — in highly secure storage facilities at the power plants — than it would be if it were put on the country’s highways and rail lines for shipment across the nation to Nevada.

There are much better ways to manage the country’s spent nuclear fuel — be it from existing reactors or from the expansion of nuclear energy. Yucca is not the cause of delays in expanding nuclear power. It is a distraction keeping the nation from developing real solutions, like advanced reprocessing technologies.

JOSEPH C. STROLIN

Administrator, Planning Division

Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects

Office of the Governor

Carson City, Nevada

So much for Hippocrates

EDITOR:

Dr. Charles McGowan wrote a very enlightening and educational letter on abortion in the July 6 Vindicator.

Roe v. Wade was made legal on my 17th anniversary. I was horrified that murdering of babies could become legal. What a tragedy for this country. I cannot imagine that doctors once took a Hippocratic Oath that originally stated, “nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion.” A lot of this oath has been changed, but doctors know what is right and what is wrong. When our government makes things legal, that doesn’t always mean it is morally right. To take the life of a whole, separate, unique, human being in the womb is the same as taking the life of any human being.

I am ashamed of our country for ever allowing abortion to become legal and of the doctors who would do such an atrocity. I’m not their judge, but one day they will stand before the judge who controls it all, as we all will.

BETTY FORD

Youngstown