independent consultant on Yucca Mountain, State of Nevada
Independent consultant and advisor to the State of Nevada on Yucca Mountain issues, former commissioner with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and former head of physical science for the Rand Corporation (1961-1971)
Nuclear Power and Climate Change After 20 years and $9 billion, the nuclear-waste storage facility at Nevada's Yucca Mountain has been scrapped by the Obama Administration. There has not been a nuclear power plant licensed in the US since the Three Mile Island accident 30 years ago. In the meantime, nuclear power is finding converts in Europe, and America's Nuclear Regulatory Commission is looking at more than 30 applications.
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? 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?
Trump plays scolder-in-chief with NATO allies At the opening of NATO’s dramatic new headquarters in Brussels today, President Trump acknowledged that Article 5 — promising that “an attack on one nation is an attack on all” -- has only been invoked one time: in the aftermath of September 11. But the President failed to provide what 27 other Alliance members have been waiting for: a re-commitment by America’s new leader to Article 5. Instead, they got a scolding.
Replacing Obamacare: Now you see it… now you don’t As the Senate deliberates replacing Obmacare, health coverage for millions of people is at stake. There've been no public hearings, and a draft measure won't be made public. Is the House version so unpopular that that Senate is hiding a version that looks much the same?
White House budget proposal slashes and burns President Trump's first budget request is considered dead on arrival in Congress — a familiar development in Capitol Hill. We hear what it reveals about the priorities of the new administration. What's likely to die… and what might survive?
Janesville and the American Dream Janesville, Wisconsin is the hometown of Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. But he couldn’t prevent the closing of the General Motors factory after 100 years. On this Memorial Day rebroadcast of To the Point, we hear what’s happened to what once was a model of American middle-class unity.