Dear Editor,
Your editorial about recycling nuclear waste was exactly correct. In an average spent fuel assembly (such as those to be buried at Yucca Mountain), there is an energy equivalent of about 90,000 barrels of oil remaining in it! This is in the form of unused fissile materials U-235 and Pu-239.
The burying of such energy is simply shortsighted driven in large measure by public fear and energy illiteracy. Fear and its awful consequences have been a disheartening, costly, and dangerous aspect of human activity for centuries. Will it ever end?
Michael R. Fox, Ph.D.
Richland, Wash.