Jack, I completely agree with you about the deadly lake. It scares the willies out of me.
A difference between the US and USSR weapons programs was that the US was SLIGHTLY better about handling radioactive waste.
You are also correct about the fact that tons of waste would be stored at Yucca Mountain. There is no reason to suspect that a disasterous earthquake at Yucca Mountain would have any effects at all to anywhere but a local area. Of instance, Las Vegas would not have any problem.
FYI you can see the repository at approx. 36 48' 12 "N/ 116 09.18W on googleEarth. It's about 10 miles SW of the Nevada Nucler test site.
There are no geological fault lines within about 100 miles. Certainly none pass under the mountain.
I'm all for reasonable caution with dangerous materials. Leaving the waste at reactior sites is only a short term answer. Have you seem the testing that has been done on the transport vessels? It's impressive what they will survive.
Just for fun you might want to see how much radioactivity is released into the air by burning coal.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste&ec=su_coal
This is not to say that nuke power plants are risk free by any means.
Donuel, old pal, I think you might like to post some real info about these weapons that the ruskies were going to make rain in Indonesia. I kinda doubt that it happened as stated. I don't know of ANY large scale attempt to induce rainfall for forest fire control in any place in the world.
FYI the 2004 forest fire season in Indonesia was not particulaly severe. About 140km squared were burned. The 91 and 94 seasons had about 10x that amount. the 2003 season was only about 40Km squared.
I'd be interested to see sources for you claim that did not require the wearing of tin-foil hats before viewing.