Last Thursday, Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev) killed Yucca Mountain Johnny. I’ll admit, I didn’t even know who Johnny was until I heard of his death (kind of sad since I’m a nuclear engineer working with nuclear waste issues). But it turns out that Johnny is was a hard-hat wearing cartoon whose sole purpose on Earth (read the Internet) was to educate young people about nuclear waste. I know what you’re thinking … ‘What a bastard, how dare he!’ It’s preposterous that the federal government (by way of the Department of Energy) would waste our tax dollars on something so asinine as education about nuclear waste. Who even knows what nuclear waste is, save the few handfuls of nuclear engineers out there who make the stuff and the residents of Nevada who are unfortunate enough to be “educated” on the matter by Rep. Berkley?
“No single issue unites Nevadans more than our opposition to becoming the nation’s nuclear waste dump.”
Rep. Berkley (D-Nev)
The Yucca Mountain Repository is hardly a “dump”.This piece of land is the most studied and well-understood geologic feature on the face of our planet. Decades of scientific study, billions of dollars of research, and thousands of man-hours have gone into making sure the location is well-understood and capable of the task. To call it a dump is akin to calling Las Vegas a mole hill. My personal feelings on our country’s course of action concerning nuclear waste aside … the point is, this woman, a representative for the people of Nevada, has deemed it more important to stop educating children about a problem that will outlive all of them than to deal with say … I don’t know … health care. Here is a list of some of the things Rep. Berkley deems worthwhile.
Our children deserve to know the truth about the dangers of nuclear waste, but all they get from Yucca Mountain Johnny is a one-sided tale designed to convince them that it’s OK to turn Nevada into a radioactive garbage dump. While I am sure the Department of Energy will be sad to say goodbye to their nuclear version of Joe Camel, pulling the plug on this website will be a victory for truth and for America’s children. I will be glad when the day comes that we can finally say good riddance to Yucca Mountain Johnny and his pro-nuke waste siren song once and for all. … quoted from Rep. Berkley’s website.
So we’re to believe that because the scientists – the ones working to make Yucca Mountain a real and viable option for our country’s spent nuclear fuel (it’s not all waste) storage – have created a website to educate the populace, that it’s going to be a “one-sided tale”. I’ll agree with that. I should think that it will present nothing more than the science behind Yucca Mountain and spent nuclear fuel so the reader can make an informed personal choice [after looking at the site, I'm convinced that's what they were doing]. There are plenty of anti-nuclear groups out there who do nothing but perpetuate misguided falsehoods about the entire nuclear industry, but there are very few websites touting the benefits and accomplishments of the industry … let alone facts. To suggest that by promoting informed decision-making based on scientific fact is somehow polluting our children’s minds … well that’s just plain idiotic (unless you want all children to grow up to be uninformed congressional representatives from Nevada).
Visit the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management and the Nuclear Engergy Institute and get yourself informed before someone else decides you can’t. Also check out the NEI Nuclear Notes blog.
You can read the full press release from Rep. Berkley’s website here.
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