Nukes

A letter to the editor in Forbes magazine:

(first one)

Despite Senator Harry Ried's opposition to using Yucca Mountain as a repository for nuclear waste ... we in Nevada welcome such an energy-producing initiative. Spent fuel can be processed to supply this country with energy for centuries and is collectively approaching $1 trillion in value. The hazard of transporting spent fuel is nil. Witness the tens of thousands of nuclear weaponse transported almost a hundred million truck-miles since 1945 without release of nuclear material. Advocates of Yucca Mountain view it as a Fort Knox of energy. Mike Dix, Las Vegas, NV

Indeed, even without reprocessing, spent fuel produces a fair amount of heat over the years, just from the ongoing breakdown of fission products. This could, at least in principle, be tapped for energy.

But Mr. Dix might as well have read Julian Simon's book, The Ultimate Resource. Simon points out that garbage dumps of all kinds, even "landfills" are valuable concentrations of resources. As but one example, Robinson Crusoe would have been thrilled to find, on his island, a 20^th Century landfill to raid for stuff. Nuclear waste is a similarly rich resource, requiring only the work to separate out the components, and of course, to keep it from leaking into the environment while you're working on it.