Is Yucca Mountain Safe?

There's a discussion in the comments to this post on Assymmetrical Information on the safety of nuclear waste depositories. In order for a waste depository such as Yucca Mountain to be unsafe the following assumptions must be true:

• There is no safe dose of radiation.

• We should consider the effects for the indefinitely-long future.

• Currently-impermeable barriers cannot be trusted.

If all of those are true, we must use up dangerous natural uranium as soon as possible. Each uranium atom will eventually release 50 MeV of radiation if it isn't split. The fission products will release half that.

There's another reason to use nuclear energy. It will save oil that should be reserved for the far more important purpose of tarring and feathering environmentalists.

Addendum: I just realized I blogged this before. On the other hand, there's P.D.Q. Bach's motto: “If something didn't sound right the first time, say it again louder.”