In a recent editorial, the Tribune suggested that the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository should be licensed and opened. This is a terrible idea.
In my opinion, Yucca Mountain was the dumbest idea the federal government has funded. All nuclear fuel contains small amounts of plutonium. One plutonium isotope has a half-life of more than 24,000 years. A waste repository must not allow human access for at least a million years. Can we really place this burden on future generations?
Nuclear fuel still contains most of its potential energy. The fuel must be recycled, not buried. Argonne National Laboratory had a large program to recycle nuclear fuel. Most of the scientific research had been completed and engineering was well under way when the Clinton administration terminated the program. The goal of the program was to recycle nuclear fuel and have only hospital-level nuclear waste.
Unfortunately this technology has not been made available to the nuclear industry. At a time in our history where global warming is a serious problem, nuclear energy with recycled fuel is a reasonable way to reduce our carbon footprint.
— Robert Blomquist, Plainfield
