Return of the Nuclear Waste Debate

Just when you thought that the nuclear waste dump story had subsided, the Sun Herald wrote Wednesday that the Mississippi Energy Institute is just getting started by declaring it the biggest project it's working on. Ignoring the advice of Republicans like Congressman Palazzo and Andy Taggart, the Mississippi Energy Institute is going full speed ahead with their plans to push for Mississippi becoming a new home for the world's nuclear waste. The project has the endorsement of Phil "Three Mile" Bryant and chief lobbyist Haley Barbour.

The President of the MEI, Patrick Sullivan, said something that should alarm everyone, proponents and opponents:

"It's going to be a huge industry," he said. "Understand, this is all speculation on our part. We've studied, looked at it, and this is our best guess."

His best guess?! This is nuclear waste we're talking about!

By Sullivan's own admission, it would take nearly 30 years for the state to have systems in place to manage large nuclear waste storage. Nuclear energy, as a share of our country's energy mix, is not increasing. To read between the lines, it seems Sullivan is suggesting that Mississippi get on the bandwagon of a technology that is slowly becoming less utilized in the United States and in other parts of the world.

Mr. Sullivan went on to suggest that oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico will not have an adverse effect on tourism in Mississippi's costal communities. Again, it is Sullivan's best guess that nothing will go wrong. Any notion to the contrary will only weaken his argument and probably upset his board of directors. After all, his job is to promote the interests of the companies that want to drill on the Coast and move nuclear waste to Mississippi.

I guess we can sleep peacefully with Sullivan's reassurances/speculation in mind.