The Irrational Now and the Catastrophic Later: Nuclear Energy in a Time of Climate Change

Nathan Myhrvold, the former Microsoft technology office and current venture capitalist with a position on the board of nuclear energy startup Terrapower (whew!), makes the case:

Nuclear technology is scary to some people because they fear extremely improbable scenarios while ignoring the virtual certainty of climate issues. Ironically people who argue against nuclear on environmental grounds may contribute to a far greater environmental catastrophe. Unfortunately the physics of climate change makes the here and now danger too easy to ignore.

He goes on to explain that the worst impacts of climate change will happen over the course of the 21st century and beyond. He doesn’t say it, but that means many of us won’t be around to experience it and what Myhrvold implies – well, let’s let him say it:

This means that if we wait until temperature change becomes an obvious and immediate problem, we’ll only be half way through the warming caused by carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere. Even radical cutbacks at that point will not prevent another century of warming.

Obviously, Myhrvold is interested in nuclear energy as a means to combat climate change, but his implicative connection between what people irrationally fear now from nuclear energy and what they will not have to fear from the slow moving disaster of climate change is unique and has some explanatory power. I think Myhrvold underestimates concerns for the fate of humanity’s children and grandchildren, still, this strikes a chord.

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Myhrvold’s piece is part of the New York Times’ Room for Debate series, which is currently exploring the letter from four top environmentalist requesting the increased use of nuclear energy to combat climate change. Naturally, being a debate – sort of - some of the writers take a dimmer view of nuclear energy than others, but none dismiss it out of hand. Here’s Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes, whose latest book looks witheringly upon the wedding in black of politics and industry with (some) scientists:

In their new book, Merchants of Doubt, historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway explain how a loose–knit group of high-level scientists, with extensive political connections, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades.

The book discusses tobacco and DDT in this context and also climate change. Nothing startlingly new in the ongoing study into the human capacity for corruption, but sobering when all put between two covers. Anyway:

And that’s the point: nuclear power has never delivered on its promises. It hasn’t been the miracle technology that its advocates envisioned back in the 1950s, and it remains one of our most expensive sources of electricity. Citizen opposition explains very little of its high cost, most of which arose from difficulties inherent to the technology and its management.

The first bit (“miracle technology”) means that advocates in the 50s may have yoked the batter a bit, but domestic nuclear energy has certainly delivered on its promise – and expensive source of electricity is not one of them. Ask Japan – or Germany.

This is her proposal:

Several commentators, myself included, have argued for a new Manhattan Project on energy and the environment to develop options. This could include safer reactors, but also carbon capture and sequestration, improved efficiency and storage for renewable sources, better building design, and smart electricity grids, as well as regulatory and taxation structures that foster innovation and public acceptance.

Well, the Manhattan Project operated in secret and didn’t have competing goals. But this is Oreskes’ reason for the comparison:

The approach taken [in the Manhattan Project] was not to decide in advance which technological approach was most likely to succeed, but to try them all. It was an expensive strategy, but it worked. This is what we need to do now.

It is called Room for Debate, after all, and I certainly find Oreskes’ ideas debatable on multiple levels – and really tough to make work across many multiple disciplines. But not invalid perforce.

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There are two other worthy participants. Mark Lynas, the environmental activist who featured very appealingly in Pandora’s Promise , thinks nuclear has to be part of the mix along with renewable energy, and Zhao Zhong from Pacific Environment goes for a carbon tax. All worth a look.

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Why India's Nuclear Liability Law Is Harming Indian Interests

Ted Jones

The following is a guest post by Ted Jones, Director of International Supplier Relations for NEI.

In a post published this week on the New York Times’ India Ink blog, M.V. Ramana and Suvrat Raju discussed U.S.-Indian commercial nuclear cooperation in the context of nuclear liability law. They argue that the divergence of the Indian liability law from international practices is minimal and justified by the Indian public interest.

 But the authors are deeply misinformed about the attributes, purposes and effects of nuclear liability law. As a result, they misunderstand features of the Indian liability law that could undermine India’s public safety interest.

A basic principle of nuclear liability law – embodied in the international conventions as well as the national laws of nuclear energy countries – is channeling of absolute and exclusive legal liability to the operator of the plant. A second basic principle is limitation of the amount of liability borne by the plant operator. The authors characterize the principles of nuclear liability law as a “subsidy to the nuclear industry” that has allowed suppliers to “have escaped unscathed in the past.” But these features promote important goals – including deployment of the safest and best technologies the private sector has to offer, economic rationalization of insurance, and alignment of legal liability with responsibility.

A few points to consider:

• Rationalization of liability. Channeling liability to the plant operator makes economic sense, because insuring a single plant is simpler and therefore cheaper than separately insuring the plant’s hundreds of suppliers. In assuming the liability risk of its suppliers, the plant operator factors the liability cost into the procurement contracts. As a result, the suppliers effectively pay their share of liability costs. They have never “escaped unscathed.”

• Role of the regulator. The authors fail to recognize that in the nuclear energy industry – very unlike their examples of the chemical and oil and gas industries – a strong regulator plays a unique role. In the United States and India, the nuclear regulator ensures safety at every phase of plant development and operation, and this role has important ramifications for liability. After a power plant component has been rigorously scrutinized and licensed, it is appropriate for the legal liability associated with that component to shift away from it supplier. Imposing exclusive and absolute liability on the utility, which will operate and maintain it, aligns legal and functional responsibility and serves the public safety interest.

• Worldwide acceptance. In the authors’ vivid account, nuclear liability principles were imposed on the world by the “powerful governments” of the United States and Europe, which “extracted these legislative concessions for their companies, as they expanded to build reactors around the world.” This ignores that the United States and Europe first adopted the same nuclear liability principles in their home countries for domestic reasons. Contrary to their claim that the United States bullied India to adopt nuclear liability, India’s Department of Atomic Energy adopted a liability law based on the international model for similar domestic reasons, years before the United States and India agreed to collaborate in nuclear energy. Likewise, India made its own decision to adhere to the IAEA’s Convention of Supplementary Compensation (CSC) in order to obtain the convention’s unique benefits of international support, not because the U.S. supports it.

• India’s radical departure from international practice. The authors claim that the Indian liability law “largely copied” the CSC model law. The CSC model law, consistent with longstanding and widespread international practice, allows two exceptions to the basic principle that absolute and exclusive liability be channeled to the plant operator. The first exception, reflected in Article 17(a) of the Indian law, permits the plant operator legal recourse against a supplier if the parties so agree by contract. The second exception, reflected in the Article 17(c) of the Indian law, permits the operator legal recourse if the supplier has intentionally caused damage. To these limited exceptions, the Indian law adds a third, in Article 17(b): where “the nuclear incident has resulted as a consequences of an act of the supplier or his employee, which includes the supply of equipment or material with patent or latent defects or sub-standard services.” The authors, who are not lawyers, claim that “this clause does not seem significant,” but Indian and international legal experts have consistently concluded that 17(b) undermines the channeling principle and the purpose of nuclear liability.

• Broad dissatisfaction with the Indian law. The authors single out “strenuous demands made by the United States and industry,” but ignore the many other stakeholders who have faulted the law. Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), the sole plant operator, warned in a statement on the eve of the Indian parliament’s approval of the liability law that 17(b) would “defeat the purpose” of the law. The statement predicted that if the clause remained in the law, “no manufacturer, Indian or foreign would be able to serve the nuclear power industry.” NPCIL’s prediction has been accurate, as it has failed to conclude any major contract since 2010. Despite years of contract negotiations for Kudankulam units 3 and 4, Russia and India have yet to overcome the nuclear liability issue. Russia initially sought to grandfather the two power plants under an existing intergovernmental agreement that absolves Russia of any legal liability for an accident at Kudankulam units 1 & 2. More recently, Russia has indicated that it would demand an increase in the agreed price for the plants, in consideration of costs associated with the Indian liability law. Similarly, the French have been unable to conclude a contract for the first pair of Areva power plants at Jaitapur, in large part due to concerns about liability. Indian suppliers, too, have been reluctant to agree to contracts with NPCIL. As former Atomic Energy Chairman Anil Kadkodkar warned in 2010, India’s private sector may suffer the greatest impact from the law, because it impedes their collaboration with foreign nuclear companies globally, not just in India.

• Public interest. The authors invoke the Bhopal catastrophe to justify Article 17(b) of the Indian law, but the Bhopal case illustrates why it is essential that India establish an effective liability regime. If such an effective national and international liability regime existed for the chemical industry, the victims of Bhopal would have received swift, certain and adequate compensation, supplemented by other countries and administered by a dedicated national tribunal. But instead of a liability regime, Bhopal’s victims were forced to contend with a litigation regime that is by its nature slow and uncertain, and which often provides inadequate compensation. To this day, many of Bhopal’s victims have never received compensation.

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Responding to Mark Bittman's "Half-Baked" Diatribe in the New York Times

Over the past few months, coincident with the release of Robert Stone's Pandora's Promise, we've seen a lot of favorable news coverage concerning how many environmentalists have begun to reconsider their position on nuclear energy. One of the places where we've seen this coverage has been in the New York Times, which recently ran a story by Eduardo Porter urging the nation to get moving on building new nuclear power plant in order to help constrain CO2 emissions.

This apparently got under the skin of the paper's food critic, Mark Bittman, who took a radical departure from his normal area of expertise in order to question folks like Stone, James Hansen and Stewart Brand who no longer see any contradiction between being pro-environment and pro-nuclear energy:

Before we all become pro-nuclear greens, however, you’ve got to ask three questions: Is nuclear power safe and clean? Is it economical? And are there better alternatives?

No, no and yes. So let’s not swap the pending environmental disaster of climate change for another that may be equally risky.

In the comments, NEI's own Steve Kerekes left the following rejoinder:

Something smells rotten in Mr. Bittman's kitchen, specifically this half-baked diatribe. Nuclear energy facilities have long since proven their value to society. In the United States, for two decades now, they've provided 20 percent of our electricity supply (even as overall demand has risen) from only 10 percent of the nation's installed electric-generating capacity. That alone demonstrates their efficiency, reliability and cost-effectiveness.

The author misleadingly compares the Solyndra loan guarantee (startup technology for a company with virtually no assets) to a loan guarantee (not yet finalized, by the way) for a reactor project being undertaken by an electric utility that has operated for decades and has billions of dollars of assets. He mischaracterizes the Price-Anderson Act liability framework that has functioned effectively (and generated revenues TO the federal government) since the 1950s.

He wrongly suggests that used nuclear fuel is not secured safely and securely. And he seeks to pin America's energy future on technologies that, while they have a role to play in our energy mix, have not proven their reliabiity over time in no small part because they are intermittent by their nature. During the recent East Coast heat wave, nuclear energy facilities operated at 96 percent of their availability the full week. Mr. Bittman's preferred technologies came nowhere close to that.

Thanks to Steve for stepping into the fray.

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Pandora’s Promise in Review

Opening Reviews? Mixed, with a tilt to the positive.

Manohla Dargis in the New York Times grabbed a little harder than I did at the drubbing of Dr. Helen Calidicott got in the picture and said it showed the movie’s one-sided view of nuclear energy.

This comic divide — the strident old lady environmentalist with the apparent bad dye job (Ms. Caldicott) versus a Yoda of the modern environmental movement (Mr. Brand) — makes for quite a setup. Yet such deck-stacking in movies can also be a viewer turnoff, no matter how seemingly worthy the cause. And “Pandora’s Promise” is as stacked as advocate movies get.

The descriptions of Caldicott and Brand are pretty terrible - remind me not to get on Dargis’ bad side. I used to work in the independent film business in New York (briefly, ineffectually) and a positive review from the Times was very important to launch an independent picture. One of the companies I worked for went pear shaped after a poor NYT review.That’s not as true now as it was when Vincent Canby ruled the NYT reviewing roost in the 70s and 80s Happily, the rise of specialized theater chains such as Landmark allow worthy films such as Pandora’s Promise to open in more than one city at a time, just like Man of Steel – well, minus 12,000 screens, but still, plenty for an adequate launch.

In many of these cities, the documentary picked up exceptionally good reviews.

For example, Michael O’Sullivan at the Washington Post understands a better than Dargis that Pandora’s Promise is more an essay than a news account.

Although the documentary ultimately argues in favor of nuclear power, an energy source that’s anathema to many tree huggers, it does so in a way that’s less strenuous than strenuously ambivalent. In the end, its somewhat equivocal message — that nuclear power might just be the lesser of several evils — is more convincing than you’d think.

This is a good point to bring out. The film does not downplay issues environmentalists – including those in the movie - have had with nuclear energy. If O’Sullivan errs a bit in considering energy choices greater or lesser evils, he sees that there is an argument to made for nuclear energy. Going from “anathema” to “ambivalent” is not nothing.

A little more:

J.R. Jones in The Chicago Reader:

The pro-nuclear left grabs the bullhorn in this lively advocacy documentary, which argues that nuclear power is much less damaging to the environment than people think and, given the exponential rise in energy demand, the only credible alternative to fossil fuels.

Colin Calvert in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

While the film may not soothe every skeptic’s misgivings, it argues persuasively that nuke-produced electricity can be a major contributor to the needs of an energy-hungry world. Like many advocacy documentaries, it offers a one-sided argument. This time, however, it’s advanced by people who spent much of their lives on the opposite side.

There’s plenty more reviews, but the ability to quote them thins out behind pay walls – I’m sure Stone and his distributor will find them all the positive ones for the ads – but generally, the reviews are well-considered and judicious. Those that don’t like the film generally call it one-sided, following Dargis, but a lot get past simple minded views of journalistic balance to see the movie as it is, a film essay on nuclear energy.

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Manola Dargis is a fine reviewer, but I cannot help but think that the Times in general cannot quite figure this movie out. In an odd feature article entitled Rebel Filmmaker Tilts Conservative, writer Tom Roston works with the notion that conservative documentarians have trouble getting their wares into festivals such as Sundance, yet Stone had little problem with Pandora’s Promise.

But the Sundance director, John Cooper, said, “We like films that create dialogue.” Asked whether Mr. Stone’s history — he has had three previous films at Sundance — was a factor, Mr. Cooper replied, “The credibility of a filmmaker does matter to us.”

So, clearly, Stone’s reputation preceded him – as it should – what is the point of a reputation, after all? But more troubling is the effort in the article to pin down the ideology of the film because it is about nuclear energy. Although the focus is on environmentalists, several of them are not American, and none of their ideological affiliations are discussed. Assuming they’re all liberal or that Stone is less liberal because he supports nuclear energy is just – insulting. Access to electricity is pretty close to being a human right – no affiliation necessary.

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Nuclear Energy As Another Joe or Jane

A couple of major editorials take a look at President Obama’s energy-related nominations to his cabinet: Ernest Moniz for Energy Secretary and Gina McCarthy for EPA Administrator. These are not specific to energy generation or even to the nominees, really, zeroing in on climate change mostly, but it never hurts to see if nuclear energy gets a shout out – or just shouted at.

Here’s the Times’ view. It opines that Congress is unlikely to move on climate change legislation and continues:

This means that his second-term agenda on climate change will run through Ms. McCarthy’s and Mr. Moniz’s agencies, and will depend almost entirely on executive actions that do not require Congressional approval. Here are three strategies that could make a big dent in carbon emissions. 

Just three? You’ve got to start somewhere. They are: Use the Clean Air Act to limit pollution (good for nuclear); Make natural gas safer (neutral); Improve energy efficiency across the board (also neutral). All these align with Obama’s views on energy, so the Times is likely to get its wish-list fulfilled.

Nuclear energy falls into the “other good ideas” category:

There is obviously more: finding new refrigerants to replace climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons, investing not only in familiar renewable energy sources like wind and solar power but also in basic research, next-generation nuclear plants and experimental technologies that could smooth the path to a low-carbon economy.

It’s a fine point, but when nuclear energy is just another Joe or Jane in the energy mix, all is good. That’s what it is, after all, but a particularly useful one for the goals the Times is seeking. Its inclusion here is appropriate.

The Washington Post takes an unusual perspective on the nominations, using its editorial less to run through qualifications – it does that in news analysis stories – than to take a swipe at environmentalists that have apparently objected to Moniz.

Mr. Obama should also ignore the complaints about Ernest Moniz, whom the president nominated Monday to head the Energy Department. Mr. Moniz, an MIT professor, favors renewable sources of electricity — but also nuclear power and natural gas.

I would think after Energy Secretary Steven Chu, enviro-types would understand that Obama has no particular animus against nuclear energy – and that Obama tends to prefer academics when there is science involved – and that science-based academics have mostly sidestepped ideological worries about nuclear energy. I can see where Obama’s choices can be frustrating to that crowd – but it does help keep the energy discussion broad and inclusive.

Anyway, the Post continues its argument with an example involving natural gas, so no nuclear pickup there. But it concludes:

Instead of indulging in distractions, Mr. Obama and his friends in the environmental movement should push for policies that could make a significant difference by cutting demand for carbon-intensive fuels.

Even though the dismissal here might seem a bit too airy – I doubt the complainers consider their complaints a distraction – I have to agree with the sentiment. Better to table increasingly stale arguments in favor of really engaging with the topic. Nuclear energy has a role to play here – as does natural gas – and enviros and the Obama administration agree on it’s importance. That’s a big win. There will be other days to fight about the particulars.

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The State of Play

Harvard professor David Ropeik takes a look at radiation and the concept of risk and find a number of linkages that inculcate a fear of radiation beyond the actual risk from it.

Particularly among baby boomers, our nuclear fears are rooted in existential Cold War worries about nuclear weapons, which transitioned into fear of nuclear fallout from weapons testing , which transitioned into environmental concerns. Beyond that stigmatizing past, nuclear radiation bears many of the psychological characteristics that research has found make any risk scarier.

We're more afraid of risks imposed on us than those we choose, which is why medical radiation is accepted but nuclear power radiation isn't.

A sign of a good article is that it is not afraid to tread into uncomfortable areas.

The more pain and suffering they cause, the more afraid we are of risks, and nuclear radiation is associated with cancer, even though studies of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have firmly established that this form of radiation is a much weaker carcinogen than most people realize. The high doses and prolonged exposures from those explosions raised the cancer death toll among survivors who were within two miles of the explosions by only about half of 1%, according to the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, which coordinates the now 65-year-long epidemiological study of these survivors.

It is fear of radiation that put advocates all over the American airwaves after the Fukushima accident to talk about an imminent radiological apocalypse. Actual risk can be far outstripped by perceived risk – and  exploited accordingly.

Admittedly, Ropeik goes further than I think the subject can sustain. For example:

On top of those "risk perception factors," nuclear energy is associated with industry and capitalism and institutions of economic and political power that some feel are responsible for an unfair society, one in which a few have most of the control and the rest are stuck lower on an economic and social class hierarchy too rigid to give everyone a fair shot.

Really? Polls have shown that the nearer one lives to a nuclear facility, the more one likes it – because it is an economic engine in the area – and because plant workers in the neighborhood act as de factor advocates, helping to get actual and perceived risk into balance. On several levels, a nuclear energy plant is like a factory – it provides jobs to workers and an economic boon to its county and state.

(It’s not unusual for social studies academics to explore a topic via the perils and pitfalls of capitalism, and such a perspective can be useful. This time, though, Ropeik applies a fairly standard critique of industrial endeavor where it really doesn’t fit – The China Syndrome tried the same approach, blaming the faults of that movie’s fictional nuclear facility on rapacious owners.)

Quibbles aside, the overall point is solid and Ropeik states it exceptionally well. Well worth the read.

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Interesting if very dated video from the Atoms for Peace era. It’s 1952 and Fred MacMurray is your host. Father James Keller, who wraps things up in the last section, is well spoken but seems to have been brought aboard to provide extra spiritual ballast. Even when it makes you cringe a bit, the history is the history:

Yes, it’s true. We never get tired of showing the Vogtle plant in Georgia -  clearing land or pouring cement or whatever the workers are up to - It’s been a long time coming.

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Reporting on the BRC Report

The NEI coverage of the Blue Ribbon Commission final report is below this post and gives a good summary of industry response. We’d thought we’d take a look at some of the coverage in the press and see how it is playing around the country. These are news stories, so we’re not gauging reaction, as we would with editorials, just the accuracy and usefulness of the reporting.

And some are better than others. The TriCity [Wash.] Herald, using the AP story as a base, sort of misses the boat with this lede:

The United States should immediately start looking for an alternative to replace the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, which cost an estimated $15 billion but was never completed, a presidential commission said Thursday.

It’s not wrong exactly, but the stress on Yucca Mountain suggests the commission had something to say about it. In fact, it had nothing specific to say about it and, if Yucca Mountain were determined to still be the best locale for a central used fuel repository, that would be consistent with the report.

Yucca Mountain was picked by a process established by law, but "now the Blue Ribbon Commission suggests we just ignore the law and start all over?" said Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, who is running for governor as a Republican, in a statement. "That recommendation could set our country back at least 25 years."

Well, he said it, but it isn’t really the case that Yucca has been eliminated from consideration. The report didn’t eliminate any location from consideration. President Barack Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, yes, blue ribbon commission, no.

Here’s what the report says. It’s pretty direct:

The Blue Ribbon Commission was not chartered as a siting commission. Accordingly we have not evaluated Yucca Mountain or any other location as a potential site for the storage or disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste, nor have we taken a position on the Administration’s request to withdraw the license application.

The New York Time’s Matt Wald gets closer to the gist and introduced in the lede the second element that picked up a lot of attention, the consent-based approach to siting a repository:

A commission appointed to find alternatives to a failed plan to store nuclear waste in the Nevada desert declared on Thursday that the United States would have to develop a "consent-based approach" for choosing a site because leaving the decision to Congress had failed.

By securing local consent, the panel said, the government might avoid the kind of conflicts that led to the cancellation of plans to create a repository at Yucca Mountain, a site 100 miles from Las Vegas, in 2010. It noted that local willingness had been crucial to decision-making on sites for nuclear waste depots in Finland, France, Spain and Sweden.

This is true, though it ignores that Yucca Mountain might well be open today if President Obama had not closed it – and neither Obama nor Secretary Chu have offered a definitive reason for closing it, so we not sure if “conflicts” led to its shuttering. One can infer a lot of things, but not really know them.

Here’s what the commission says about the consent-based approach:

By contrast [to a top-down, federal-led approach], the approach we recommend is explicitly adaptive, staged, and consent-based. Based on a review of successful siting processes in the United States and abroad—including most notably the siting of a disposal facility for transuranic radioactive waste, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, and recent positive outcomes in Finland, France, Spain and Sweden—we believe this type of approach can provide the flexibility and sustain the public trust and confidence needed to see controversial  facilities through to completion.

And it’s right. This has worked to tamp down public opposition in those place – WIPP is almost a case study on how to do it - though it takes more time and effort to engage with local communities and any attempted process may come to nothing. That’s the risk.

Back to Wald:

The panel … also suggested that the government, which assumed responsibility for high-level waste 30 years ago, take the job of managing the waste out of the hands of the Energy Department and give it to a federally chartered corporation created for that purpose.

Such an agency would be more effective than the Department of Energy, which "must balance multiple agendas or policy priorities," it said.

The idea of the chartered corporation appears further down  in a number of stories, so a fair number of writers may have decided it’s a little more arcane a subject for general interest readers but still important.

Here’s the commission on the corporation:

[T]he Commission concludes that a new, single-purpose organization is needed to provide the stability, focus, and credibility that are essential to get the waste program back on track. We believe a congressionally chartered federal corporation offers the best model, but whatever the specific form of the new organization it must possess the attributes, independence, and resources to effectively carry out its mission.

The central task of the new organization would be to site, license, build, and operate facilities for the safe consolidated storage and final disposal of spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste at a reasonable cost and within a reasonable timeframe. In most stories I’ve read, Yucca Mountain and consent based siting have been the biggest subjects.

Even as the third most covered aspect of the report in most stories I’ve read, it’s often buried. CNN has it at paragraph 11:

It [the report] said this congressionally chartered federal corporation should have substantial authority and access to funds to accomplish its mission. A board, nominated by the president and confirmed by Congress, would oversee the organization.

I missed much coverage of interim storage sites, another of the report’s recommendations – that seems germane to various communities – but maybe that will be thought most important to communities where they will be sited.

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The story in the Las Vegas Sun, opposition central for Yucca Mountain in Nevada media, runs through the same subjects as the other stories we reviewed. What I liked was the headline:

Commission: Store nuclear waste where it’s wanted

Yeah, wise guys, where it’s wanted.

It’s a newsboy. I was a bicycle based suburban newsboy back when rather than a wuxtry-wuxtry urban type of newsboy. The former still have some currency – the latter, our boy in the picture, none at all. Count him as among the culturally lost.

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