W. Kenneth Davis was an energy undersecretary from 1981 to 1983
A former Reagan administration energy official who proposed Yucca Mountain for disposing of the nation's highly radioactive waste now says that the Bush administration should abandon the project because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission won't approve it.
W. Kenneth Davis, an energy undersecretary from 1981 to 1983, expressed his view near the end of a three-page commentary on the Bush-Cheney energy plan.
He said the solution to the problem of storing spent nuclear fuel is to keep it at reactor sites "and eventual sites for reprocessing plants" even though the political climate is not right to raise the issue of nuclear fuel reprocessing.
That position, in part, parallels Nevada's stance that high-level radioactive waste should be kept at sites that generate it and not shipped across the country for disposal in Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"It is not necessary to inflame the anti-nukes any more than necessary now," according to a memo from Davis of San Rafael, Calif.
"Yucca Mountain, which is unlikely to be licensed, in any case is not a reasonable view of the shipping required if nothing else, and in my opinion should be put in mothballs," he said.
Citizen Alert, a statewide environmental group staunchly opposed to the proposed repository, said Davis' letter reflects the group's position that the mountain, even with engineered barriers designed to keep radioactive materials from escaping, is not a safe place to put 77,000 tons of the nation's most lethal nuclear wastes.
"Nevadans have not been blowing smoke all these years just to keep the dump out of our back yard," Citizen Alert Executive Director Kaitlin Backlund said. "Nevada's position is based on science, and Mr. Davis' comments are another indicator of that."
source; http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/May-31-Thu-2001/news/16217284.html
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