After a few hours at Yucca Mountain, it becomes clear why, despite a desperate need for a solution to the nuclear waste problem (there is already enough waste in temporary storage to fill it), the site has not opened: No one is absolutely sure what will happen if it does. If all the regulatory hurdles are cleared, if Nevada loses its political battle and Yucca Mountain's license — which Benson says will be measured in "linear feet," not pages — is finally approved, the waste that goes into it will last for hundreds of thousands, even millions of years. "We don't know what will happen in 10,000 years," Benson admits. "Will people speak English? There probably won't be a United States."
From part 2 of Judith Lewis' timely and important article in the LA Weekly: Green to the Core? How I tried to stop worrying and love nuclear power.
