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President Obama's proposed budget cuts off funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project…so what will America do with its nuclear waste in the future? Today after four on At Issue with Ben Merens, Ben and his guest discuss nuclear waste storage options and the questions they raise. Guest: Matt Wald, reporter New York Times - covered nuclear issues since 1979.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is asking hospitals, universities, and others who use radioactive materials for research to explain how they are affected by limited access to low-level waste disposal facilities. If important research has been affected or stopped because disposal is limited, NRC wants to know and factor that into future decisions, according to its announcement of an Oct. 7 public meeting on this topic that appeared in the Federal Register. The meeting will take place at NRC's Rockville, Md., headquarters, and the public will be able to participate via a Webcast. NRC's public Web site will provide Webcast and meeting details starting in late September. The questions NRC asked in its notice of the meeting included:

In Saturday's National Post Kathryn Blaze Carlson writes about the future of the nuclear industry. Below some crucial numbers on the industry. Listen to Kathryn Carlson on nuclear power

For the second day, North Texas nuclear opponents are presenting arguments before a panel of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. They are challenging Luminant Generation's request for a license to expand the Comanche Peak nuclear plant, as KERA's Shelley Kofler reports. Luminant wants to add two larger reactors to the two already operating at Comanche Peak, southwest of Fort Worth. Nuclear opponents have raised concerns about public health, cost, and enormous water use. In a courtroom in Granbury, attorney Robert Eye told licensing judges that Luminant's application assumes the federal government will provide a permanent repository for radioactive waste. But Eye reminded that the US Energy Secretary has said the proposed Yucca Mountain site in Nevada is no longer an option. Eye claims storing additional radioactive waste at the plant is dangerous.

Phil Radford talks to Bibi van der Zee about becoming the new executive director of Greenpeace USA, nuclear power and a clean energy future

Arjun Makhijani: The technical case for nuclear power, just like the technical case for wind energy, and solar energy, is partly built on the idea that it's a low CO2 technology. But it's a high cost, high-risk technology, and that's why I think we shouldn't be doing it. That's electrical and nuclear engineer Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Arjun Makhijani: Nuclear power is very expensive. Today, wind energy, for instance, is cheaper than nuclear power. If you use a combination of efficiency, wind, and solar energy, it would cost less. Makhijani said that there's still no long-term plan for storing radioactive nuclear waste, which some fear could be used to make nuclear weapons. Arjun Makhijani: Plutonium is generated in every nuclear power plant in its operation - about 40 bombs worth every year.

Arjun Mahkijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, looks back at the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown. The accident turned the public against nuclear power and Wall Street was reluctant to invest money in new plants. He tells host Bruce Gellerman that financing nukes may still be a risky business.

"The federal government had one place in mind to store the country's most hazardous nuclear waste. It was at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. President Barack Obama recently killed that project, even though the country had spent more than nine billion dollars on it. Shawn Allee found that figure is just the beginning: A map of purchaser fee payment to the Nuclear Waste Fund More about the Nuclear Waste Fund's budget A related article from the Christian Science Monitor"