By Sean Whaley, Nevada News Bureau: An organization that wants to see Yucca Mountain used as a temporary nuclear waste storage site with a research center to explore reprocessing has proposed an amendment to a bill in the Legislature to move its Energy Park idea forward.
In a hearing Wednesday on Senate Bill 375 to create renewable energy corridors, John Dunn, one of the directors of Nevadans for Carbon Free Energy, proposed an amendment to the legislation to include nuclear energy as an option, and to change the term “renewable” energy, to “carbon-free” or “clean” energy.
The bill as written specifically excludes nuclear energy.
The Senate Government Affairs Committee, which heard the bill by Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, took no immediate action on the proposed amendment or the bill itself.
Cegavske said today the committee indicated at the hearing it wants to keep the legislation as written. While putting Yucca Mountain to use as an energy related research facility is worthy of discussion, SB375 is not the vehicle for that debate, she said.
The organization presented similar testimony at a meeting of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects.
The group says Yucca Mountain is an ideal location to temporarily store spent fuel and host a research center to study reprocessing technologies for commercial application. When such technology becomes available, the fuel could be sold to re-processors or a facility could be built to do the reprocessing.
The $13 billion spent on Yucca Mountain infrastructure when it was being prepared to be a long-term disposal site for nuclear waste makes the site a good candidate for such a park, the group says.
