Yucca Nuclear Waste Plan Mushrooms in Nevada Race

Yucca Mountain’s future as a nuclear waste burial ground is central to US energy policy—but first, the site north of Las Vegas has a key role in Saturday's Nevada Democratic primary. Despite environmentalists’ newfound respect for nuclear fuel, candidates are required to pledge opposition to the 30-year-old plan, Bloomberg reports, which would store spent fuel in an extinct volcano.

The primary calendar is conducive to letting local issues affect major policy: Just as Iowans won promises on ethanol subsidies, Nevadans have extracted opposition to the Yucca storage plan—on which $11 billion has already been spent—from the Clinton, Obama, and Edwards camps. In this, the candidates reflect more closely Silver State politics than the latest thinking on nuclear power’s green credentials. (More Yucca Mountain stories.)