To the Point
Climate Change and Nuclear Power
After 20 years and $9 billion, Nevada's Yucca Mountain won't be the final resting place for 60,000 tons of deadly nuclear waste piling up at power plants all over the country. So what happens now to a nuclear industry that expected a shot in the arm from demand for “clean” energy to reduce global warming?
By Warren Olney • • 1 min readAfter 20 years and $9 billion, Nevada's Yucca Mountain won't be the final resting place for 60,000 tons of deadly nuclear waste piling up at power plants all over the country. So what happens now to a nuclear industry that expected a shot in the arm from demand for “clean” energy to reduce global warming? No new plant has been licensed in the US since the Three Mile Island accident 30 years ago, but Energy Secretary Henry Chu has promised to find a way. Has Europe developed safer technologies? What about cost and weaponization? Would nuclear power be better or worse than climate change?
Warren Olney
former KCRW broadcaster
Andrea Brody
Senior Producer, KCRW's Life Examined and To the Point podcast
Christian Bordal
Managing Producer, Greater LA
Keith Johnson
Foreign Policy magazine
Victor Gilinsky
independent consultant on Yucca Mountain, State of Nevada
Per Peterson
Professor of Nuclear Engineering, University of California Berkeley