Legal Commentary

Two nuclear power plants, one in New York and one in Vermont, were temporarily closed yesterday due to ?emergencies;? a leak in one case and a transformer explosion in the other.  These accidents are likely to reignite the debate over developing nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels.   Earlier this year, President Obama expressed a renewed interest in developing nuclear energy and the DOE announced loan guarantees of $8.3 billion to help build new nuclear reactors.

Even assuming that nuclear power is the best alternative to oil and gas in terms of reducing carbon emissions, nuclear power presents its own challenges.  In addition to the obvious health and safety concerns, we still have not figured out how to dispose of high-level radioactive waste.  Back in 1987 Congress decided to construct a national high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as a long-term solution to storing nuclear waste.

In 2007, Harry Reid (from Nevada) became the Senate majority leader and less than two years later the Department of Energy terminated its plan for Yucca Mountain (after spending several decades and billions of dollars studying the site).  Reid?s somewhat surprising re-election to the senate last week presumably adds the final nail in the Yucca Mountain coffin (but see here for its possible revival).  So the question remains, if we develop additional nuclear facilities, where will the waste go?