MONIZ ON YUCCA MOUNTAIN: ‘NOT A WORKABLE SOLUTION’

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz reiterated the Obama Administration’s stance that Yucca Mountain is “unworkable” as a disposal site for the nation’s spent fuel in a talk given yesterday at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ Winter Meeting, held in Washington D.C. “Look, might as well say it up front, obviously there may be some divergence of opinion somewhat on certain issue of this problem, between us and those of you out there—let me completely straight-forward, we, the administration, continue to feel that Yucca Mountain is just not a workable solution,” Moniz said. He went on to say that the current strategy of consent-based siting is the best option and that the first priority should the siting of a pilot-scale storage facility to accommodate used fuel from shutdown reactors.