Why are people so freaked out about using Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waster depository? Now that the government has built it, we should make use of it.

Because everyone is scared of nuclear contamination, potential terrorist target, and some idiots – pardon me – fear that somehow it’ll turn into a nuclear bomb. Of all of these, nuclear contamination is perhaps the only reasonable one, however the containers they developed for holding nuclear waste are as close to indestructible as anything mankind has created so far. The terrorist threat is unlikely because if there is ever any Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical attacks on American soil, we have an initiative that allows us to nuke whatever country, or region we believe to be behind such action. The rest of the world’s governments more or less agree or submit to this.

@Winters If Osama Bin Laden hit us with a Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical attack on US soil, I highly doubt we’d nuke Pakistan in retaliation. I do think it would probably make for a shitty terrorist target though. I mean it’s guarded like Fort Knox, and it’s in the middle of nowhere. Terrorists could probably do more damage with legally available handguns at a parade.

To the original question, I believe the biggest risk is in the transportation of material to Yucca mountain. Nobody wants trucks with nuclear waste next to them on the highway, nor do they want trains with nuclear waste going through their backyard, or next to their kid’s school. If all of the domestic nuclear power were created near Yucca, it wouldn’t be as big of an issue, but since the power-plants need to be relatively close to the destination for efficiency purposes, having one central repository can create issues.

@gorillapaws
Hahaha, if the attack is Islamic in origin, the Middle East pretty turns into a sea of molten glass, as well as a few other countries. From there we hold several important cities hostage, such as Mecca, as insurance. The countries that are targeted are aware of this initiative and thus actually do supply us with a some information regarding potential attacks.