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Skip Bowman On "Nuclear Energy Outlook 2006"

By Eric McErlain
Earlier this week, NEI CEO Skip Bowman delivered a lecture on energy policy at the Cebrowski Institute of the Naval Postgraduate School on energy policy. Click here (PPT) for the presentation, and here for a UPI account of the speech:

Adm. Frank L. "Skip" Bowman, U.S. Navy, retired, president and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said storing highly radioactive nuclear waste at the plants, where it was produced, poses no threat.

"Leaving used fuel exactly where it is right now ... is perfectly safe," Bowman said Monday at a Defense Department program on energy policy.

Still, he is in favor or a more progressive approach to storing the 2,000 metric tons of byproduct produced at the 103 civilian nuclear plants across the country each year in a geologic repository and, until that opens, at interim sites.

[...]

While the NEI's Bowman is "not Yucca or bust," he says it should be opened -- and remain open indefinitely -- and viewed as an ever-evolving repository for nuclear waste, improving as new technology is applied, including innovations in storage and reprocessing.

In the meantime, interim storage sites should be set up, but not using the same method used to choose Yucca Mountain. "No more picking a state and forcing it down somebody's throat," said Bowman, adding states could see it as an economic boon and wouldn't put up the fight Nevada has.
For more on the recent discussion of the Yucca issue on Capitol Hill, click here.

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