Nevada Issues Atomic License Plate

Nevada’s newest special-interest license plate depicts an atom, Einstein’s equation E = mc ², and the mushroom cloud from an atomic blast. Profits from sales of the plates, which cost $61 for two, will go toward preserving the history of Nevada’s nuclear test site.

Atomic testing “is an important part of Nevada history, and national and international history,” says Dina Titus, a director of the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation and the state senate minority leader who sponsored the plate in the state legislature. Rick Bibbero, a real estate agent, won $500 and the first set of mushroom cloud plates for creating the design in a nationwide competition.

Not surprisingly, not everyone is eager to celebrate Nevada’s role in the development of the atomic bomb. Antinuclear groups protesting the turning of Yucca Mountain at the southern tip of the state into a permanent waste storage site call the new license plates “an abomination.” But Bruce W. Church, president of the foundation, says most comments have been positive, although there were some worries about the design. A bemused state assemblyman, Thomas Collins, a Democrat from North Las Vegas, quipped in the state senate, “Is the atomic plate going to glow?”