Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Bush Administration is trotting out its latest plan to increase the number of nuclear power plants in the nation.

Monday federal officials presented their plan to residents of the Tri-Cities in Eastern Washington.

The plan is controversial, but many there are hoping it will result in more jobs at the nearby Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Richland correspondent Anna King reports.

Here’s the problem: Spent nuclear fuel has to go somewhere.

That somewhere right now is a facility being built at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. But the government figures at the current rate of production it will have enough waste to fill the massive facility in about two years.

So what do you do with all that extra waste that will be produced afterward? The government is exploring recycling.

They take the spent waste and reprocess it so it can be used again.

James Robinson of Yakima says people who don’t want more nuclear power should, in his words, “shut their lights off.”

James Robinson: "They want to tear the dams down, they want to thwart nuclear, but they don’t want to burn coal, they don’t want to burn oil, where are they going to get their power? Wind? I don’t think so."

Opponents of the administration’s plan say that recycling spent nuclear fuel would only create more toxic waste. And they don’t want taxpayers paying to clean up waste from private power companies.

Tuesday the Department of Energy will have a similar meeting in Hood River, Oregon.