Chasing the Fourth Horse - Preface

With the threads of mystery and just a little romance, I have woven a complicated lie to entertain—even thrill— the reader.

Now, about this lie...

Mythical Mount Bleak, the designated national repository for high-level nuclear waste and the center of this intrique, is located about ninety-five miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada. There, before this story begins, a giant machine bored miles of tunnels through volcanic rock—tunnels designed to contain seventy thousand tons of radioactive waste.

Once the tunnels were bored, a series of political power plays blocked the licensing and opening of the repository. The politicians continued to argue its suitability for decades, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to deliberate for years the Department of Nuclear Energy’s (DONE’s) license application.

The waste piled up at the power plants, finally exceeding their storage capacities. In desperation and in secret, under the guise of research, the government started slugging their excess radioactive waste into the bowels of mythical Mount Bleak. They kept on and on, dumping waste.

By 2035 evil eyes see a chance to do great harm.

This is where the story begins.

The religious convictions of Unbelievers, Protestants, Catholics, American Indians, and extreme Muslims converge and sometimes conflict amidst a devilish plot to harm the United States.

Now, about the truth...

The NRC is now considering the Department of Energy’s license application to make Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the national repository for nuclear waste. The NRC will examine the application to determine what is wrong with stuffing high level radioactive waste there. Their examination could take years.

The State of Nevada fights to stop the Yucca Mountain repository plan. Nevada might win, and Yucca Mountain might yet become the nation’s most expensive research project—several billions of dollars already spent. At this moment, the budget of President Obama cuts-off much of federal funding for the Repository.

If the government abandons this project, they will have no recourse except to keep the spent fuel waste on-site at one hundred and three nuclear power plants or to develop a new system of interim storage which even could include private disposal.

If they keep it where it is, they face billions of dollars in judgments for default on their contracts with the utilities, and some utilities will soon run out of storage capacity. They might yet try to reprocess spent fuel or find a way to dump it in the ocean. Every option riles-up fierce opposition. “Not in My Back Yard” prevails.

Many argue that the United States must have one or more nuclear waste repositories, if nuclear power is to remain part of our energy program.
Back to this lie...

As they read this novel, the perceptive will detect, behind the fiction, a few of the things the NRC might consider during their Yucca Mountain licensing deliberations. The best liar always sprinkles the lie with the truth.

If you love horses, love a mystery, love God, study prophecy, or want to know more about one of the major issues of our time, this is for you.

Dennis Price, 2009
CHASING THE FOURTH HORSE
Essence Publishing, Canada
To obtain copies, email dlprice@cox.net