Election politics at play – votes or money from the nuclear industry. We will see how long this lasts.
What is wrong with this quote from the article?
“Nuclear power currently produces more than half the nation’s carbon-free electricity.”
Nuclear power produces about 20 % of our nation’s electricity.
Nuclear power is not carbon free, it is low carbon.
Evidently the reporter compared nuclear to renewables only and nuclear is not renewable. Follow the link to see the figures. They make it clear – if you make the correct comparisons.
The south portal of Yucca Mountain outside Las Vegas. (John Locher/AP)
President Trump with one single tweet appeared to reverse his administration’s support of entombing dangerous radioactive material under the Yucca mountain.
Just nine months away from the 2020 election, Trump tweeted that he opposed the nuclear waste repository in the remote highlands of Nevada, a state Republicans hope to turn red after years of trending toward Democrats.
“Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you! Congress and previous Administrations have long failed to find lasting solutions – my Administration is committed to exploring innovative approaches – I’m confident we can get it done!,” Trump fired off in a tweet Thursday evening.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you! Congress and previous Administrations have long failed to find lasting solutions – my Administration is committed to exploring innovative approaches – I’m confident we can get it done!</p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href=”https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1225542486875082753?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 6, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
It’s the latest about-face for Trump on a local environmental issue as he seeks to court voters from a series of swing states. Trump lost Nevada to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 by a slim 2.4-point margin.
The administration had promised to finish building the Yucca repository, first proposed in the 1980s as the site to store the nation’s ever growing pile of spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste.
The last budget request from Trump’s White House asked for $116 million to restart the licensing project. The previous two asked were $120 million. A senior administration official told Reuters the next funding request will not ask for any money to license the project.
Yet well before Trump took office, the would-be repository, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, had already become the ultimate not-in-my-backyard project.
Nevada voters did not want the waste in their state, and politicians from both parties made careers out of opposing completion of the project. Nevada officials have argued seismic rumblings near the site make it unsuitable for storing waste that needs to be underground for tens of thousands of years.
No elected official did more to stymie it than Harry M. Reid. In 2010, the former Senate Democratic leader leveraged his powerful position to get the Obama administration to take Yucca funding out of its budget request.
The retired Nevada senator is happy to see Trump do the same thing. “I’m glad he has finally seen the light,” Reid tweeted.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Yucca Mountain is dead and will remain dead. This has been true for a long, long time. Donald Trump finally realizing this, changing his position and trying to take credit for its demise will not change that fact. I’m glad he has finally seen the light.</p>— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) <a href=”https://twitter.com/SenatorReid/status/1225572759905812480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 7, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
Cautious praise came in too from Nevada’s current senators, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, as well as Gov. Steve Sisolak. All three are Democrats.
Trump’s shift comes at a time when Republicans are pushing to build the next generation of nuclear power plants amid a growing effort within GOP ranks to address climate change, even though there is no permanent spot to store the long-lasting waste from today’s nuclear stations. Nuclear power currently produces more than half the nation’s carbon-free electricity.
In Trump’s early funding proposals, the Office of Management and Budget had sought to gut funding for restoration programs for the Great Lakes and Florida Everglades. But last year, amid pressure from Midwestern and Florida Republicans, Trump changed course and decided to support funding both programs.
“I support the Great Lakes,” Trump said at a rally last year in Grand Rapids, Mich., a state encircled by lakes Michigan, Huron and Erie that he carried by just 0.3 percent in 2016. “Always have. They’re beautiful. They’re big. Very deep. Record deep.”
By Dino Grandoni
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2020/02/07/the-energy-202-trump-backs-down-from-building-nuclear-waste-site-in-nevada/5e3c31e9602ff15f8279b370/
