I am willing to question conventional wisdom in defense against the world's two headed enemy: the energy crisis / global warming. Our leaders must not surrender to Not In My Backyardism that has paralyzed our efforts to answer this threat to world peace and the lives of millions at risk from climate change fueled natural disasters. This NIMB opposition takes the form of blocking wind mill farms, transport of nuclear waste through someone's district, positioning of energy production facilities anywhere near anyone.
One of Socolow wedges dealing with the Energy/Globalwarming threat is nuclear fission (source). Naturally he notes that building 700 GW reactors world wide must deal with the waste issue.
Which brings us to Yucca mountain. Everyone following the campaign knows what the party line on Yucca is. Hillary, Barack and John have definitively stated they will cancel Yucca entirely. Now this may be heresy in the democratic party, but in the interest of survival of the planet / sticking to the standard of being fact driven as we strive towards our goals, I am troubled about the reasoning that went into this decision to discard Yucca.
Let me preface this heresy with a statement that I share the skepticism about the quality of research that has been done. With the Bush politicization of the federal bureaucracy, it is very difficult for me to take any DOE report made during the last 8 years at face value. So I violently agree with everyone's skepticism about the science behind Yucca.
We have heard many stories during the last 3 or 4 years about fabrication of information used to support Yucca. In particular, googling for the following phrase from one USGS researcher will return many of the in depth articles on the subject:
"I don’t have a clue when these programs were installed"
While there may be some missing context that would render similar statements in this particular email harmless, it impossible to take a report seriously when a researcher makes a statement like this one:
"This is as good as it’s going to get. If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff."
Certainly, the report from this USGS researcher is unreliable and the studies he was involved in should be conducted again from scratch. Further, all other Yucca reports should be reviewed aggressively by peers for similar indications that questionable science practices where engaged in.
Nonetheless, I remain unconvinced of the reasons for cancelling Yucca Mountain. I agree the scientific case has been flawed, and agree with Edwards' alarm expressed in the Nevada debate that data on Yucca had been fabricated. Without doubt, those reports that are similarly impugned should be rejected. We should not proceed without an affirmative argument backed up by solid science.
But similarly, I fail to understand the assertion that Yucca should be discarded if the science case against Yucca has not been made. Absence of an affirmative argument for Yucca does not mean that the negative case has been proved. Perhaps I am simply ignorant on this. Where is that negative case? I don't see it on the Yucca Mountain opponent sites- it isn't mentioned in the Wikipedia article, and so on. Maybe it is out there, but if it exists, this really this is what Obama, Edwards and Clinton should be pointing to- not anectodal instances of misdeeds of particular researchers. Otherwise it looks like caving in on our energy security / global warming policy based on innuendo rather than fact.
Perhaps someone else can give a pointer to the convincing science case against Yucca. Acceptable negative cases could take many forms. Eg: hydrology reports assessing likely risk of permeation of the soil over 100K years, risk due to unstable geology, and so on. It's disturbing to me that if these exist, that they are not being pointed to as the foundation for cancellation of Yucca Mountain.
Minus a science case, then a pragmatic case could be made that using of dry casks rated to safely store the waste for a century will buy us time to develop sufficient technology and perform sufficent scientific study to justify construction of very long term (100K year) storage solution. But this is not the case being made.
Minus such alternate arguments, it is insufficient to cancel Yucca based on doubts concerning science tainted by inept or politically manipulated research. If we have no support in science for the democratic position to cancel Yucca then it is unnacceptable, because we would be no better than republican leaders giving in to political pressure to push Yucca mountain forward regardless of the science.
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