Compare the relative dangers to Nevadans and the world, not counting climate change:

Yucca Mountain accepts nuclear waste from all over the US, perhaps from outside the US, up to its technical limit, which is much higher than its legal limit, compared with

Nevada keeps the smallest of its coal plants open.

Obama has advanced the cause of science significantly, with impressive changes from the Bush times. However, he has decided to end the scientific evaluation of Yucca Mountain. (Actually, I don't understand this--if NRC's questions are going to be answered, does that mean the scientific process will continue, but the scientific evaluation will not be part of Obama's decision-making, or that Obama is ending the scientific process before it can produce a result not to his liking?)

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

It is hard to reconcile this will the apparently high probability of more nuclear plants being built (or having their lives extended) in the US.

a sibilant intake of breath

At the very least, the US needs somewhere to store existing wastes in the long-term.

Dry cask storage and cooling ponds are temporary solutions, and they require regular maintenance.

a sibilant intake of breath

I strongly favor nuclear power but have called for cutting off the waste of money at Yucca for years.

If all our electricity came from fission, today's reactors would produce about 10 pounds of spent fuel per person per 80 year lifetime. It would contain about 6 oz. of fission products. Advanced reactors could reduce that to just the six ounces of fission products dissolved in a few pounds of glass or rock.

Here is an interesting 1 hr video on a very promising family of reactor designs for the next generation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F0tUDJ35So&eurl=http: ...

Recommendation;

1    When fuel is removed from the reactor it goes into the spent fuel pool. Water is the ideal medium for fresh spent fuel because of water's excellent shielding characteristics, high heat capacity, and transparency.

2    After several years the heat rate is low. The fuel is transferred into dry cask storage, a hermetically sealed container, vacuumed to remove all trace of moisture, and then partially filled with helium, a non corrosive gas with good heat transfer properties. The cask is shielded by thick layers of concrete and steel.

3     Maintain a low level R&D program to incorporate advances in materials and technology into the development of a fully automated fuel recycling system.

4    Develop commercial applications for radioactive and non radioactive fission products.

5    As time goes by the value of the material in spent fuel increases while the cost of reprocessing decreases. When those two curves cross reprocessing becomes economically attractive and should begin.

6    Uranium and plutonium are recycled into advanced reactors, useful fission products are sold.

7    Unused waste is buried at sea.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96oct/seabed/seabed.htm ...

Sea bed disposal is very inexpensive, unlimited, and nearly risk free.

Things Everybody Should Know About Energy

Official UK plans and strategies suggest that spent fuel from future UK production of nuclear power will be stored directly rather than being reprocessed, and there are no plans for further operations at THORP after 2010/11, when existing reprocessing contracts will be completed. Should the plant be reopened in April, Ms Bjørnøy takes it for granted that any reprocessing activity will be limited to existing contracts and not continued after 2010.
http://www.norway.org.uk/policy/environment/thorp.htm

For all practical purposes,
Nuclear waste without the U238, is just as radioactive as Nuclear waste with it.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/4891
http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/pages_us_en/document ...

Reprocessing isn't a "solution" for waste unless you plan on rolling out a whole fleet of breeder reactors, and running them for a few centuries.

And so far, we don't even have 1 commercial breeder reactor, and none are expected for many decades.  If at all.

-David Ahlport