OPINION:
Your Tuesday editorial “Nukes now” (Comment & Analysis) fails to place any responsibility on the nuclear power industry in the United States for the sorry state of affairs affecting nuclear power today.
There has been a lot of criticism of nuclear power by the environmental community over the years. Despite this, the nuclear power industry has been its own worst enemy.
Take the proposed nuclear waste repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The industry knowingly went along when the federal Department of Energy botched the selection process for a national repository and pressed forward with a scientifically unsuitable and unsafe site in Nevada for purely political reasons back in the 1980s. Had the industry used its considerable influence in Congress at the time and forced the department to put science ahead of politics, the country could well have a functioning repository today, albeit not at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.
JOSEPH C. STROLIN
Acting director
Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects
Carson City, Nev.
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