Obama is about to put the kibosh on the long-planned nuclear-waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, according to Harry Reid,

“In his budget request for 2010, President Obama will announce plans to devise a new strategy to find another solution to deal with the nation’s nuclear waste that does not include storing it in Nevada. . . . Make no mistake: this represents significant and lasting victory in our battle to prevent Nevada from becoming the country’s toxic wasteland.”

After two decades of planning and billions invested in a suitable storage site, we’re apparently set to abandon our plans. Let’s pause to consider the costs of changing course: money we’ve already spent, money we’ll have to spend, the potential economic consequences if waste-storage holdup prevents nuclear power from helping meet our energy needs in the future — but it seems like spending lots of money is in vogue these days.

It’s curious, though, because what are we so afraid of? Not only have we produced nuclear energy safely for decades, but we’ve also stored it safely at nuclear plants across the country. William Tucker notes, “All of France’s nuclear waste from 25 years of producing 75 percent of its electricity is stored beneath the floor of one room at Le Hague. The lifetime output for each French citizen would fit in a soda can.”

Responding to the claim that nuclear waste will remain dangerous for thousands of years, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore writes, “Within 40 years, used fuel has less than one-thousandth of the radioactivity it had when it was removed from the reactor. And it is incorrect to call it waste, because 95 percent of the potential energy is still contained in the used fuel after the first cycle.”

Max Schulz argued yesterday that Obama needed to reconsider nuclear if he’s serious about meeting America’s long-term electricity needs. The early signs aren’t good.