Nuclear Waste:

A New Path Forward?

I was just wrapping up a post a couple of weeks ago and reflecting on how, most of the time, people don't want new infrastructure, be it a windmill or a factory, and yet they don't want to lose infrastructure either, even if other people consider that infrastructure dirty and polluting.

I was thinking specifically of coal mines, which arguably have often damaged the landscape and affected the health and safety of their workers, but I also recall cases where people fought to save industries in their communities, even when the industries spew pollution over the local residents.  I was toying with introducing a new acronym to the world to highlight the fact that there is a counter to NIMBY.  I thought of something like Keep Our Old Pollution Spewing Industries, or KOOPSI, and was envisioning sayings, like "oopsis follow KOOPSIs" or "KOOPSIs lead to oopsies."   

But I knew even as I was thinking about this that it was too simplistic.  If there is a KOOPSI attitude, there are certainly exceptions.  Witness people who have continued to argue against nuclear power plants in a region, even when they have operated safely for decades, and brought jobs and prosperity to their host communities.  So, I held off from publishing my whimsical new addition to the world of acronyms.

So, imagine my surprise, just after I hit the publish button, of opening a message in my mailbox that led me to an article about Loving County, a county in Texas that is thinking of offering to take the nation's high-level radioactive waste!

Of course, this is only an initial thought by a few people.  It doesn't mean we've solved the country's HLW problem.  It doesn't even have the full backing of the 95 residents of the county, and it seems to be for storage, not permanent disposal.  But the most interesting fact in the article was that there might be other sparsely populated counties in the deserts of the Southwest that see some benefits to the jobs and funds that would come with such an enterprise. 

But it just shows that, just as there are exceptions to KOOPSI, there are also exceptions to NIMBY.  In the end, in most cases, it boils down to jobs and the local economy.  That should surprise no one.  But if the old adage that the exception proves the rule is true, if we accept NIMBY, we have to accept KOOPSI, too, so I hearby introduce this new acronym to the world.

On a more serious note, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future recognized that the problem with Yucca Mountain is that it did not have the support of the local community from the outset, and any new process had to start with inviting interested communities.  The possible offer from Loving County, Texas seems like the first small step in that direction. 

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