Senator McCain Supports Yucca Mountain

From last week's Deseret News:

Arizona Sen. John McCain said Friday he supports high-level nuclear waste storage in Nevada — even though Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. praised McCain as the only GOP presidential candidate who understands Western issues.

Huntsman, along with most elected officials and voters in the West, opposes the proposed Yucca Mountain facility, citing concerns about radioactive waste being transported through Utah and other states on its way to the site.

But McCain mocked a question about the dangers of transporting nuclear waste while speaking with Utah reporters.

"Oh, you have to travel through states ... I am for Yucca Mountain. I'm for storage facilities. It's a lot better than sitting outside power plants all over America," he said, then added, "I don't mean to be sarcastic. I apologize. But I believe we can transport waste safely."

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Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...

Wednesday Update

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NEI Nuclear Notes

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