As I was preparing to write my editorial and was also looking for a past Back-scatter column to run in this issue, since Bill Minkler was unable to write his column this month (see page 88), I came across an editorial by past Nuclear News editor Jon Payne. Its headline: "Spent-fuel storage: Same old story." It appeared in the October 1977 issue, the same issue from which I drew the Backscatter column. Both have to do with waste management (the topic of this issue's special section that begins on page 39, albeit with more of a D&D aspect) and spent fuel storage, topics we've been covering for lo these many years. In his editorial, Payne states, "Even if the [Carter] administration should propose that the government accept spent fuel, no one should lose sight of the lengthy path between proposal and implementation. Meanwhile, there is a flurry of inactivity. Some utilities have discussed building 'away from reactor' storage capacity, but are waiting to see the U.S. government's next move." Sounds familiar, doesn't it? They have been waiting for a very long time.
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