Stuart Dean Waymire

Yucca Mountain Stuart Dean Waymire

Yucca Mountain is a critical fork in the road for America. This book covers the early history of the Yucca Mountain project and how it was derailed by radical political and academic forces. Knowing this history will be important as America attempts to restart the repository project. Yucca Mountain is a necessary cornerstone of our future hopes for energy self sufficiency, . Its completion will allow us to secure the availability of 20% of our energy production now derived from nuclear reactors and allow us to move to 4th Generation Small Modular Nuclear Reactor technology. 4th Generation Fast Reactors also offer the potential to reprocess and densify current nuclear waste. This non-polluting energy can allow us to continue development of our natural resources without the environmental burdens traditionally associated with fossil fuels and the resource limitations of alternative solar systems. Arrayed against Yucca Mountain and nuclear energy are radical forces whose philosophy is to politicize every aspect of our technology and environment. Unfortunately, the alternative worldview they offer is one of uneconomic solar technologies that are unlikely to survive without massive federal subsidies. Solar utopianism is very different from solar realism, which views energy from the sun as a useful alternative energy option but not a political end in itself. Nuclear energy in parallel with solar energy and hydrocarbons offers America rich energy options while solar utopianism offers the paralysis of our society and possibly the destruction of the environment we wish to preserve. Yucca Mountain is critical to that future.