Libertarian Presidential Candidate Off on Yucca Mountain

Last night, three libertarian party candidates and one green party candidate (not as balanced a set as advertised) participated in an online call-in debate. I’ll post the full transcript later today. For now, I’d like to consider one part of it, in which Libertarian Party candidate Wayne Allyn Root talks about nuclear waste and Nevada’s Yucca mountain:

Moderator: All right, Wayne Allyn Root, on your website you oppose the use of Yucca Mountain to store nuclear waste. Where should the waste be stored for the thousands of years it takes for the material to no longer be radioactive?

Wayne Allyn Root: Well, where it’s being stored right now is in each local area where they have a nuclear power plant, and by the way everybody thinks that’s an imperfect system. I think everyone agrees it’s an imperfect system. But I don’t think taking the nuclear waste and travelling all over the United States is a smart way to do it. I think it invites more terrorism. I think it invites a disaster, not only from a terrorist attack. I mean, many trucks travelling and many trains travelling are on roads and railways with nuclear waste on them, but on top of that it invites a disastrous accident which would have nothing to do with terrorism. And last but not least, Yucca mountain when it was first thought of in the 1950s, Las Vegas was literally a desert town with no one in it. It had a population under a hundred thousand, it meant nothing to America’s economy, as recently as a year ago, USA Today called Las Vegas the economic engine of the United States of America. As recently as a year ago, the Wall Street Journal called Las Vegas the stock market leader of America. Not even New York! Las Vegas! The stock market leader of the American economy. So I think that right now you’re talking about the town that is the symbol of America all over the world, to store nuclear waste from all over America, only a couple hundred miles from Las Vegas, is inviting a disaster of global proportions. It just doesn’t make sense. It’d be no different than storing nuclear waste outside a major metropolis like Los Angeles, New York, or Dallas Texas. We never would think of it. But in 1950, Las Vegas was a one-horse town. Today, to store it outside the tourist capital of the world, with 40 million visitors, makes absolutely no sense at all. We’re inviting a disaster of epic proportions!

Boy, Root sure is worked up over Yucca mountain. In fact, he was so worked up, raising his voice so high, speaking in such emphatic terms during the debate that I felt compelled to check it out.

If a “couple hundred miles” from a city is too close, then it would be hard to find anywhere in the United States that would be a fit place to store nuclear waste. After all, a “couple hundred miles” is almost a tenth the width of the United States and a seventh of its height. Actually, the proposed facility is not a “couple hundred miles” away. It’s 90 miles away. 90 miles outside Los Angeles is still metropolitan. But 90 miles outside Las Vegas is another matter. Settlement stops abruptly at the city limits, and Yucca mountain is not on any major transportation route. And unlike Los Angeles, or Dallas, or New York, Las Vegas has a mountain range outside it, a mountain range which stands between Yucca mountain and the city. It is different.

I’m sure there is a case to be made against the storage of nuclear waste at Yucca mountain. There’s probably a case to be made against the storage of nuclear waste at any location on the globe. Root didn’t help his case by pushing himself into hyperbole.