Emperor Wears No Clothes

This week’s House Budget Committee hearing appeared finally to unmask Energy Secretary Chu’s decision that “Yucca is not an option” as both DOE and Department of Justice witnesses pitifully pleaded of being out-of-the-loop and unaware of any technical or scientific bases that would render Yucca Mountain as unsuitable as a geologic repository.  Even more disturbing was the inescapable conclusion based on the testimony of both agencies that apparently there was no evaluation or analysis of the decision’s likely consequences or costs to American taxpayers. Consequently, there is no reliable government estimate of the Federal Government’s potential liability for failure to accept and dispose of spent fuel and high-level waste.  The current estimate given by DOE and DOJ witnesses puts the potential  liability at $12.3 billion, but that estimate assumes that the DOE would begin accepting spent fuel and high-level waste in 2020, when Yucca Mountain was scheduled to start-up.  Neither agency has bothered to estimate the impact on the potential liability of terminating Yucca Mountain.

Also the Blue Ribbon Commission was elevated to the level of exalted supreme scientific priesthood , Wizard of OZ , status as all questions about the future direction and form of the government’s nuclear waste management program were deferred over to this august,yet to be established,  panel requiring the total suspension of belief, judgement and common sense.