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How Yucca Mountain Was Killed
ATKeiper writes "The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which was selected by the U.S. government in the 1980s to be the nation's permanent facility for storing nuclear waste, is essentially dead. A new article in The New Atlantis explains how the project was killed: 'In the end, the Obama administration succeeded, by a combination of legal authority and bureaucratic will, in blocking Congress's plan for the Yucca Mountain repository — certainly for the foreseeable future, and perhaps permanently.... The saga of Yucca Mountain's creation and apparent demise, and of the seeming inability of the courts to prevent the Obama administration from unilaterally nullifying the decades-old statutory framework for Yucca, illustrates how energy infrastructure is uniquely subject to the control of the executive branch, and so to the influence of presidential politics.' A report from the Government Accountability Office notes that the termination 'essentially restarts a time-consuming and costly process [that] has already cost nearly $15 billion through 2009.'"
end of story
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
1) $15 billion is small potatoes if that's all it's cost through now, not per year. 2) This seems like a fairly iffy idea anyway for any number of reasons 3) If you're really concerned about costs, actually read the goddamned report and see (page 27) where it would cost $41-67 billion more to actually complete.
Cutting off an iffy project that would result in many times its current cost seems like a win.
That's the biggest problems with shifts in power, especially if parties change every four years. One party spends four years getting something in place, or sets some long term goals, and then next election someone else comes in and changes it all. So they spend all the time and money getting one thing spun up and then it gets canned and they spend the next four years doing something else and it may be canned.
Gotta be a better way.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. All power has its cost. Yes, even wind and solar.
Solar panels huge enough to collect loads of energy also cool the ground underneath them; changing climate patterns. And they kill what lives under them. (And if you put them in space, then you have the little problem of transporting the energy.)
Wind farms huge enough to create loads of energy may actually affect wind patterns and temperature dispersal. Plus they kill loads of migrating birds.
And both require many, many resources to build and maintain the collection devices.
Hydro; well, that's an eco-disaster because you have to dam a river to produce it.
Collecting energy from tides? If you did that on a huge scale, I'll bet it would have some major effects on marine life.
Just want to put it out there. I'm not saying nuclear is fantastic. Just want to point out that nothing is.
Not to mention the idea of every morsel of radioactive waste being transported on public highways to a single location (Yucca Mountain) is not that popular. Sucks we still don't have a long term solution to this nasty problem. Oh well fuck it, we will leave it for the next generation - right?
Oh my! I realize nuclear waste is dangerous, but if it has the power to bring mountains to life, we really need to be more careful with the stuff. I'm glad we were able to kill it.
So instead of storing highly toxic and radioactive waste deep underground in specially designed and very expensive long term storage meant to keep it safe from all kinds of disasters, we can keep storing it above ground in short-term storage pools that we know will fail if they should be exposed to a decent sized disaster. Keep in mind this isn't storage just for future waste, but stuff that actually exists, right now, sitting in short-term storage, and if you read TFA, you'll find out not only is there no other long-term storage option, there isn't even a plan for one. So who are most people going to blame when (not if, but when, unless we do something about it) those current storage sites fail? I'm betting it won't be Obama. Anyone want to take that bet?
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
The author Adam J White, is a lawyer specializing in fighting federal regulation and is a contributor to the neocon rag The Weekly Standard (founded by Bill Kristol). This piece places the failure of Yucca mountain singularly on president Obama while saying worshipful things about Reagan every other paragraph.
So take this "article" with a grain of salt. Any federal regulation is wrong to this neocon and everything is the fault of the current president. There was plenty of controversy and challenges to Yucca before Obama became president.
It's scary how much president's get away with doing unilaterally these days. They start wars (Libya, Serbia) without congressional authorization. They unilaterally put into effect laws that they couldn't get passed through congress (like the DREAM act). Congress has become so cowed that the only tool they have against the president, impeachment, is pretty much a dirty word.
I wish both parties in congress would start defending their institution more. Congress is supposed to be the source of laws and an obstacle to actions they deem appropriate. The president is supposed to make sure the laws are followed out, not make the laws himself.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
"must be stored in isolation for tens of thousands of years"
I find this to be extremely silly and wrong
It does not need to be stored for tens of thousands of years
It needs to be stored until technological and political change turn it from a waste into a valuable material for reuse
Yucca mountain may or may not be a great/terrible solution. Argue amongst yourselves.
Here are the facts:
* Billions spent
* About 14 years late for initial use (scheduled for 1998)
* No sign that it was ever going to get used
I believe we need a solution. But I can't get to mad about scrapping a multi-billion dollar project that looks doomed to failure.
Whats even better is the consumers, as in the American public, have already paid the government $15 Billion for this project. Once again, the US government takes from the public, is unanserable to the public, and tells us to shut up and go away. This is what, the 50th thing Obama has done that he believes he is unaccountable to the public or Congress for? Whats the difference between this administration and a dictatorship?
Obama isn't to blame for this. The OP ignores the fact that the Yucca project has been in trouble long before Obama was on the political landscape. Use of it was initially blocked before anyone even knew who Obama was. Penn and Teller did an episode of Bullshit! called "Nukes, Hybrids and Lesbians" which called out all years of different tactics that were blocking the use of the site for its intended purpose. That episode aired in 2007, one year before Obama was even elected into office. Penn and Teller pointed to all kinds of NIMBY groups and the complaints they put forth over the years...like the fact that nobody had tested to see how well the site would do in a flood. (Mind you, it's a mountain...in the middle of a desert.) Did it become official on Obama's watch? Sure. But the funeral isn't where the murder took place. Yucca was dead long before now.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
This has been the case since at least Reagan. At least he's the first one to do it overtly and every president since had been leaning his way politically. There is no left party in the US, only the right and the extreme right. You have bad choices, don't choose.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
The fear of nuclear energy is another case of how the left become anti science crowd.
JAM
"right"
At least in America, that word doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. Here the people on the "right" are usually the one's calling for limits on government power. And neither party has been very good about that. The Republicans talk a good game about limited government but don't seem to mean it while Democrats laugh at the idea of limited government (Nancy Pelosi literally laughed at it when someone asked her about the Constitutionality of the health care law). We have two parties on the left, none on the right.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
My first ten years as a working professional engineer was as a plant staff, NOT CONTRACTOR, Engineer at a two unit commercial nuclear plant. IF you are unwilling to learn about and understand the implications of the body politic on something as important as energy policy, you do not deserve to be included with those of us truly in the nerd status.
[AND yes, I stay anonymous for a damn good reason, I AM still employed in the energy industry.]
They don't care. And they'll make toys and toothpaste out of it and sell it back.
Nevada was selected for the Nation's dangerous nuclear activities PRECISELY because it was barren and relatively unpopulated. Having polluted it with many nuclear blasts over decades, we effectively made it even MORE appropriate that we concentrate all the waste there.
Any civilian who moved there after the testing began in the 1940's has no right to complain; that's like moving into a house next to the airport (which you guy at a discount because of the noise) and then demanding the airport get shut down because it is depressing the value of your home
What could possibly be WORSE than putting all the waste into a single multi-billion dollar containment facility (designed by the nation's top scientists in the field) where it can be guarded and monitored? Oh... let's seeee.... the OBMA PLAN: let it accumulate in various containers at power plants and medical facilities all over the country with dubious monitoring/guarding.
Even if we were to abandon nuclear power (not gonna happen... we will always have nuclear-powered naval vessels) we would still produce lots of nuclear waste in industry and in the medical field, so the current no-plan plan is mind-blowingly stupid and short-sighted
The real problem is that nobody wants nuclear waste because it is... well, radioactive, duh!
This is the core problem with nuclear (fission) energy. There is no way to deal with the radioactive waste. Nobody wants it anywhere. Nobody wants the risk of disease. Everybody is a nuclear NIMBY.
Much better to look at other sources of energy which don't have this waste problem which is qualitatively much different than any other industrial process.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Yup.
I followed this closely. To get re-elected, Reid needed it killed. And Obama needed Reid. And it never came up during the election.
By the way, the cost quoted is only the cost of the project. In addition, the USG is on the hook for another 12 B because DOE signed contracts to start taking fuel in 1998. The utilities are suing to recover their costs since 1998. Worst, this last cost does not come from the Waste Fund. It comes from general revenues.
Like nearly everything else the man is "kicking down the road" it will have to be dealt with later (when it will be both more painful and more expensive) ... and, like his bloated spending
I'm curious what kind of noises (if ANY) you were making with regard to forcing-our-grandkids-suffer-for-our-misdeeds when Bush Jr was erasing a national surplus that was paying down the debt in favour of record deficits and massive tax-cuts for corporations and their hedgemonic owners a decade ago?
It's odd to me, how all these "fiscal conservatives" didn't have a freakin word to say about MASSIVE government spending, expansion and deficits as long as they had their OWN shepherd guarding the flock, but suddenly, when the other side comes to power, they're all suddenly outraged by it...
-AC
Quite a few folks, me included, *did* decry the spending under Bush. Then again, being clear thinkers, we recognize that, you know, that Congress things has some say in it, too.
I'm not a conservative, but a lot of the conservative magazines and other outlets did beat up on Bush for it. It just didn't get widely reported.
Yucca Mountain was an expensive non-solution for a problem that only exists because we choose not to solve it. Modern reactors have a very different waste profile, as well as the capability to safely consume spent fuel from existing reactors while producing energy. Spent fuel is not something that should be buried, but rather is a vast energy resource that should be tapped. We need a change in policy in order to allow this, and people need to educate themselves and get behind it.
The Nuclear Waste Fund currently has about $25B intended for dealing with the "waste". If even a small fraction of this were spent developing modern reactors like the LFTR, not only would we solve the waste problem in short order, but we would also be well on our way to replacing fossil fuels entirety. More information about the possibilities enabled by this technology can be found at Energy from Thorium.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAAzBArYdw bird strikes are on youtube.
"The saga of Yucca Mountain's creation and apparent demise, and of the seeming inability of the courts to prevent the Obama administration from unilaterally nullifying the decades-old statutory framework for Yucca"
It's Nevada who is objecting to using the site as a nuclear waste dump.
AccountKiller
In the long run this "could" (though admittedly probably won't) be a good thing. Simply taking our nuclear waste and burying it has never been a good idea. From what I understand "Nuclear Waste" can be reprocessed back into usable fuel. A vast majority of what we call "nuclear waste" is still quite usable fuel, it simply is contaminated with elements that make it difficult/dangerous to use. Nuclear reprocessing can remove these contaminants and with some additional steps return the fuel to usable condition. The part of the fuel that can't be used looses 99.9% of its radioactivity after 40 years. It is a tad more expensive than just throwing it in a hole, but it vastly decreases the amount of nuclear waste, newer technologies have the hope of making it cheaper than throwing it in a hole, and it decreases the need for mining. The only issue I believe is that the nuclear industry has been wrapped in so much red tape & politics that it is next to impossible to do in the US, so much so that there has been talk of shipping our "waste" to other countries to have them reprocess it.
Let the nuke industry house the fuel until THEY find a way to deal with it!
This is just another manufactured chicken little scenario, just like the bank bailouts. Create a crisis which can only be 'solved' with a taxpayer-funded bailout.
It's bad enough there is a cap on liability if they screw up.
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
Um, spent nuclear fuel is not waste. It is actually more fissionable material. Only an idiot would bury it. The french reprocess their nuclear fuel because they are sane, since Jimmy Carter we have been on the other side of the spectrum. When you separate the actinides from the rest you actually will have something that will decay below natural uranium in radioactivity in a relatively short period of time, say 400 years or so. We should use the money to build liquid chlorine fast reactors and burn up the spent fuel to make energy, not bury something worth more then gold per ounce into the ground. Fissionable fuel has this wonderful property that it makes more fuel, it truly has the Midas touch. A light water reactor only burns around a few percent, leaving around 98% of the energy in the fuel. Of course the neutron damage to a solid fuel element means we have to completely remake the thing before we can use it, and all the short half life isotopes mean you have to do it robotically. With a liquid fueled solution like a molten salt reactor you can continuously reprocess the fuel and use extremely high percentages of the fuel.
I never understood what people have against reprocessing. The plutonium from a reactor is pretty much worthless for making bombs. It is not P-239, but usually has multiple more neutrons and is not desirable if you want to make a bomb. I suppose they are afraid that the infrastructure could be re-purposed, but reactor grade plutonium is super crappy for making bombs. I suppose people aren't rational about nukes, so I shouldn't be surprised.
(I'm reposting this as myself, I didn't realize I wasn't logged in)
Um, spent nuclear fuel is not waste. It is actually more fissionable material. Only an idiot would bury it. The french reprocess their nuclear fuel because they are sane, since Jimmy Carter we have been on the other side of the spectrum. When you separate the actinides from the rest you actually will have something that will decay below natural uranium in radioactivity in a relatively short period of time, say 400 years or so. We should use the money to build liquid chlorine fast reactors and burn up the spent fuel to make energy, not bury something worth more then gold per ounce into the ground. Fissionable fuel has this wonderful property that it makes more fuel, it truly has the Midas touch. A light water reactor only burns around a few percent, leaving around 98% of the energy in the fuel. Of course the neutron damage to a solid fuel element means we have to completely remake the thing before we can use it, and all the short half life isotopes mean you have to do it robotically. With a liquid fueled solution like a molten salt reactor you can continuously reprocess the fuel and use extremely high percentages of the fuel.
I never understood what people have against reprocessing. The plutonium from a reactor is pretty much worthless for making bombs. It is not P-239, but usually has multiple more neutrons and is not desirable if you want to make a bomb. I suppose they are afraid that the infrastructure could be re-purposed, but reactor grade plutonium is super crappy for making bombs. I suppose people aren't rational about nukes, so I shouldn't be surprised.
Jeff | MemVance - Memory Advanced | View my blog on memory and study techniques
I interpret this as a general sentiment against creating long-term (as in, millions of years) nuclear waste that is "simply" thrown away somewhere -- despite substantial and expensive assurances that a good somewhere has been found. And I agree.
So deal with the waste, or don't produce such things in the first place -- though a bit late for that one. Sooner or later we have to deal with the consequences of making all this stuff, like reprocessing it while keeping bomb-grade material out of the hands of bad guys. Live and learn.
In other words, a better model is needed for the entire uranium (etc) life cycle. What's failing is handling it piecemeal, along with the concept that there's an "away", as in garbage throw-away, which is already far too ingrained in our consumer mentality. No wonder there's controversy as we slowly and painfully and expensively learn that this concept doesn't apply to nuclear waste.
Burial of Radioactive Waste under the Seabed; January 1998; Scientific American Magazine; by Hollister, Nadis; 6 Page(s)
On the floor of the deep oceans, poised in the middle of the larger tectonic plates, lie vast mudflats that might appear, at first glance, to constitute some of the least valuable real estate on the planet. The rocky crust underlying these "abyssal plains" is blanketed by a sedimentary layer, hundreds of meters thick, composed of clays that resemble dark chocolate and have the consistency of peanut butter. Bereft of plant life and sparsely populated with fauna, these regions are relatively unproductive from a biological standpoint and largely devoid of mineral wealth.
Yet they may prove to be of tremendous worth, offering a solution to two problems that have bedeviled humankind since the dawn of the nuclear age: these neglected suboceanic formations might provide a permanent resting place for high-level radioactive wastes and a burial ground for the radioactive materials removed from nuclear bombs. Although the disposal of radioactive wastes and the sequestering of material from nuclear weapons pose different challenges and exigencies, the two tasks could have a common solution: burial below the seabed.
Also:
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96oct/seabed/seabed.htm
my associative arrays can kick your hash - TCL
The problem of waste storage is the main objection to nuclear power. Some of our leaders don't want that problem to be solved (either by Yucca or by breeder reactors), because they don't want that objection to be overcome.
Never mind that nuclear power is the ultimate in green energy (no CO2 emissions, etc.); they oppose nuclear power in all forms. (Maybe they had proto-hippie parents who filled their minds with tales of glowing three-eyed fish.) If it's not an anemically low-energy-density source that can never hope to meet the needs of an energy-intensive civilization -- i.e., if it's not wind or solar -- it doesn't meet their definition of green.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
You're right, but it's sad. The shuttle (and military programs like the F-35) wouldn't have been so expensive if assembled where it made economic sense to do so, instead of in the districts of the gladhanding-est congresscritters. If we could somehow terminate all wasteful pork projects, it would be such a boon to the economy that even those who directly benefit from the pork would be better off without it.
The other day I heard the umpteenth special interest group appeal to me to appeal to my congresscritter to not cut funding for some "vital" program, and it occurred to me that instead of being individuals that do and create and achieve, we've become a nation of squeaky wheels. (If each of these thousands of special interest groups convinces thousands of citizens to beg for funding, imagine what a nightmare it must be to be an elected official these days. While being bombarded with a constant cacophony of squeaking wheels -- you and your staff must politely listen and acknowledge each squeak -- how can one ever hope to concentrate on making sound policy? You can't, and that explains a lot. Worse, some leaders actually like being the figure to whom the squeaky wheels complain, and they encourage more squeaking.) The adage, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease," is true if only one wheel is squeaking. If 200 million wheels are squeaking, the mechanic will rightly say "screw this" and go home.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
i dont know... something like renewable energies?!
thermal, wind, solar, biofuel, waves, etc
Also, make things more efficient... many of the today cars, houses, electronic, machinery could be made to use a lot less energy
there is no "one size fits all", but all working in parallel can do it
Higuita
He is fully aware of the dangers of allowing the federal government free reign to do whatever they please.
The idiom is "free rein", as in "releasing the reins on a horse, which allows it to choose where it wants to go without the rider's control."
However, remarkably, in this specific context your nonstandard use makes sense, albeit with different semantics.
I'm still annoyed at President Carter. On 7 April 1977,
Here is the history surrounding Carter's decision.
So there you have it. Carters policy was rescinded by Reagan just 5 years after it's inception. Any argument and gnashing of teeth about Carters decision has been a moot point for well over 2 decades. Arguments about breeder reactors must be carried out on the basis of the merits of the technology which is known to be costly to implement and very hard to run safely.
If you are arguing for the creation of a plutonium economy it still isn't the right thing to do. There is ample reserves of plutonium ( well over 70,000 tons) and absolutely no need to create any more so breeder reactors still don't make any sense. We have reached the limits of our existing infrastructure to handle existing pu-239 reserves, still have no proper plan to contain it and Yucca mountain has proven itself to be totally unsuitable.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Back in the 1970s President Carter decided, in the interests of promoting nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaties, to stop processing spent nuclear fuel produced in the US although the generation of BWR and PWR power reactors don't breed usable bomb-grade Pu-239 plutonium as it is contaminated with Pu-240. The result of the reprocessing moratorium is there are a large number of moderately radioactive spent fuel rods in storage in various places from the hundred or so power reactors in the US (the US military reactor fleet and its accumulated waste problem in Hanford and elsewhere is another matter).
Reprocessing is quite expensive; it's cheaper by far to use mined uranium ore to make fresh fuel. The big advantage of reprocessing is that it concentrates the waste isotopes and, although kilo for kilo they are much more radioactive than unprocessed spent fuel they take up much less space and hence are easier to dispose of in deep geological burial sites. A 1GW reactor produces a few hundred kilos of long-lived dangerous waste each year whereas a set of spent fuel rods will mass over 100 tonnes for the same generating capacity.
Yucca Mountain was going to be physically a very large depository to accomodate all the spent fuel rods currently in store and for the next few decades of reactor operations. Other countries which reprocess fuel rods are planning much smaller depositories although there is no pressing need for them yet since the current quantities of waste in aboveground storage are so small.
Reprocessing nuclear waste back into nuclear fuel is not cost effective with today's current technology. Entirely possible, and not that much more expensive. It's simply cheaper to dig up with conventional means. Reprocessing also comes with risks you don't have when you dig it out of the ground. On the flip side, you accumulate large amounts of waste. France has been doing this since the beginning of their nuclear program. Commercially, no one is going to invest billions into a net-loss technology that solely exists to clean up our spent fuel stockpile, that may be banned at any time. As President Carter said, commercial and national economic (toss in environmental) interests came second to nuclear proliferation. Rather than try to handle it, ban it and let everything sit. You'd basically have to add a few cents per KWH of nuclear energy for a disposal fee, exactly what is done for decommissioning fees.
It hasn't been perfect, there have been cost overruns and issues with reprocessing. But all and all, they have to deal with a lot less highly radioactive waste. Reprocessing does generate a fair amount of low radioactive waste, but that'd be a fraction of the radioactive medical waste which is routinely handled. Again, this is hardly state of the art tech, as France has been implementing it for decades. It's more expensive, but reduces the amount of waste. Incidentally, the US military uses reprocessing to get plutonium for its nuclear weapons.
The best argument against reprocessing is "Uh, that's a LOT of weapons grade plutonium". Which is correct, and a concern. One that can be handled. Best argument there would be to have a couple highly trusted parties handle the reprocessing. Yes, you would have to either built reactors that burn plutonium, or stockpile it. It still drastically reduces (or closes) the fuel cycle.
The only alternative is what we do now. Let it sit and built up at each and every reactor site. Yucca had its own engineering issues, mostly dealing with water, and cost overruns. But NIMBY was probably the issue that actually got it canceled. Which will happen ANYWHERE you try to build a repository. Since it's the government, there will be engineering issues and it'll go over budget. But two Senators deeply driving an issue will usually trump 98 Senators that don't really care. That makes central repository politically impossible. For the moment, that leaves us two options. Stockpile the waste or reprocessing.
this!
http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012
Is this president and his administration complete fucking idiots? How many more screw ups will this administration cause. The nuclear waste will not be dumped openly in a fucking whole. The waste is already in separate containers and these will go into larger thick sealed containers which are neatly placed inside. It's not like nyc sanitation department dumping the garbage shit all over the ground. We need a place for now to store these until we find another use for these nuclear rods or to build another storage site, yes it's safe for a few centuries. But instead, this community organizer cancels this project and we leave the nuclear waste lying around all over the u.s, how nice, i guess he really want's to be a Russian leaving nuclear material lying around for anybody to take, or ex-kgb selling parts on the black market.
No wonder this country has become such a shithole, considering parts of this country looks like a third world shithole, detroit anybody. STOP ELECTING THESE FUCKING UNQUALIFIED IDIOTS INTO HOUSE, SENATE, AND EXECUTIVE BRANCH!!
1. A friend of mine was on a team that was tasked with confirming the first hydrology study of Yucca Mountain that was used to select it for nuclear waste storage. Their results showed significant risk to the water table over the 10,000 year use period. Their results were tables and another confirmation study was done that looked remarkably like the first study.
2. A relative of mine works at WED - Disney's design firm. He was asked to bid on a project for some branch of the government; I think it was the Department of Energy. The project was to come up with a combination of sculture and architecture for Yucca Mountain that was so primordially frightening that it would keep humans away for 10,000 years even if they couldn't read warning and no matter what culture had evolved.
Just some fun data points for my fellow /. community members.
Every rule has more than one consequence.
These were just conversation. I have no idea whether NDAs applied or anything. I don't want to get anyone in trouble. But, yeah, the guy who told me about the hydrology said that the first study didn't consider the effects of shear or of water leaching up. Apparently it was a strait static analysis of the statistics of water getting in and out of the storage area based on its current configuration and gravity.
Here's a tiny tip of the iceberg of design work on Yucca mountain: http://www.desertspace.org/wwwroot/warning_sign/index.html. All I can say is that there was money available to build granite statues and icons of demons or whatever might scare the shit out of people. I thought it was a REALLY GREAT idea given a 10,000 year timeframe.
Sorry, I'm not invested enough to get clearance from friends and relations to name them.
Every rule has more than one consequence.
Legislature, Judicial, Executive; this is properly described by a single word: tyranny.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
You won't find any disagreement with me there, materials technology isn't at the point where an IFR style of Burner reactor is feasible. Only a molten lead cooled burner would be appropriate so that the burn up rate is high enough to make a large scale infrastructure project a possibility.
It depends on the context of re-processing, in a breeder style it make a whole lot of waste. The elements mixed in a breeder means that you put, say 5Kg Plutonium in and get 15Kg out through transmutation of the other 10Kg of elements in the reactor core. A plutonium economy only makes sense when you are in space.
Who you trust is a matter of perspective. Who the USA trusts is different from who Russia or China or India trusts. All of whom are Nuclear nations.
No, it wasn't NIMBY, it was engineering. Nimby is what landed it in Yucca in the first place. The science was corrupted and everything the DOE specified for 'Defense in Depth' about the Yucca site was not met. Yucca was dead from day one and the only reason it ended up there is because one Senator didn't show up for the vote.
The water only revealed that the geology was inappropriate. When the water was sampled from *inside* the mountain it was found to have Cl-36 produced in atmospheric nuclear testing. That demonstrated that the ingress of water was less than 50 years.
The CSIRO (in Australia) found that granite was appropriate because it captured the radioactive isotopes into crystaline structures in the rock. Yucca is Pumice.
Of course, I think though most people see it as a garbage dump as opposed to a centralised fuel storage area that could also contain a new type of nuclear reactor, immune to fukashima style issues because it's in the belly of a mountain.
I see something like that would set America up for the next 1000 years but I simply don't see the long term planning required to make it happen and it's simply not possible with the corporate mindset.
Even the transport infrastructure is a project that lasts 30 years and for it to be implemented you would already have to have an energy infrastructure based on WInd and Solar in operation to pick up the lost energy load for the 'failed generation' of nuclear reactors as all of the energy they produc
My ism, it's full of beliefs.