Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, May 19, 2003
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
May 17, 2003
DOE undecided on method for shipping waste to Yucca
Department official says rail transport preferred over trucks
By Tony Batt
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department hasn't decided if trains or trucks will be used in Nevada to complete nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain, a department official told a panel of scientists Friday.
Jeff Williams, acting director of the DOE's Office of National Transportation, said rail shipments in Nevada would be the preferred choice because trains could move nuclear waste casks more quickly than trucks.
Williams made his comments during the first meeting of a National Academy of Sciences board that is beginning a two-year study of nuclear waste transportation.
"It's incredible how big (heavy-haul trucks must be) to carry these large casks in a very long trailer," Williams said in an interview after speaking to the panel.
"The (Nevada) roads themselves would need to be upgraded. They have travel speed restrictions ... The drivers can't make it all in one day," he said. "The cost of upgrading the highways could be similar to the cost of building a railroad."
The transportation of nuclear spent fuel to Yucca Mountain is scheduled to begin in 2010 with shipments totaling 400 tons, Williams told the board.
The total will increase each year and reach 3,000 tons by 2014. Williams estimated there would be 175 shipments of nuclear spent fuel per year for 24 years to Yucca Mountain. The shipments will come from nuclear power plants in 34 states.
Five possible rail routes in Nevada are being considered, but it's still not clear that any of them will be used to build a track to Yucca Mountain, Williams said.
The cost of the department's transportation program for Yucca Mountain would be about $6 billion, with less than $1 billion needed for equipment and the rest paying for operations.
Williams and officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Transportation urged the board to consider the safe transportation record of nuclear waste.
William Brach, director of the NRC's spent fuel project office, told the panel there have been 1,300 shipments in NRC-certified casks in 20 years. Only four accidents have occurred, Brach said, and none released radiation.
Les Bradshaw, manager of the Nye County Department of Natural Resources and Federal Facilities, did not appear at Friday's hearing but submitted a statement saying transportation of nuclear waste in Nevada should be by rail to avoid the Las Vegas area.
"We are in an information-gathering mode now," said Neal Lane, a Rice University professor who is chairman of the board. "None of us know where this will go."
The 15-member board does not include anyone from Nevada. "When we constitute our committees, we do not put members of various interest groups on the committees," said Kevin Crowley, the board's director. "What we try to represent are areas of expertise."
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Las Vegas SUN
May 16, 2003
Berkley concerned nuclear study may face conflicts of interest
Las Vegas SUN
WASHINGTON -- A newly launched National Academy of Sciences study of nuclear waste transportation is laden with conflicts of interest and will not yield an objective and independent report, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said.
At issue is an $850,000 study overseen by the academy paid for, in part, by the Department of Energy, which manages the Yucca project, and the Electric Power Research Institute, a research arm of the utility industry, including the nuclear power industry. The study is also sponsored by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Transportation and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program.
"I have several reservations and serious concerns about a study that is primarily funded by the executive branch and a private research company that are heavily invested in moving forward with a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain," Berkley wrote in a letter to National Academy President Bruce Alberts.
The 15-member research board meets in Washington today for the first time. The board's goal is to analyze important technical and societal issues for shipping high-level nuclear waste, and then outline policy options for managing the waste-shipping risks.
The federal government and nuclear power industry have for years shipped relatively small amounts of high-level nuclear waste, mostly used uranium fuel from reactors. But the government is considering a massive new waste-shipping campaign as part of the Yucca Mountain project, the proposed plan to construct a national repository for high-level waste in Nevada.
Berkley fired off two other letters Thursday:
In a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Berkley said she was opposed to the Energy Department's plan to use an informal procedure to select a law firm for Yucca legal work. Abraham has cited a loophole that allows the department to deviate from federal laws that require a formal competitive bidding process. Abraham said that the law allows the department to bypass the formal process when special circumstance warrant. Yucca legal work is a highly specialized area, Abraham said. At least one law firm, LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene and MacRae, has filed an injunction to stop the informal search.
In another letter to Abraham, Berkley asked for the complete results of an internal Energy Department survey that revealed that a majority of workers are not comfortable bringing their concerns forward to their supervisors.
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Magic Valley Times-News
May 14, 2003
INEEL gets contracts for Yucca Mountain work
IDAHO FALLS (AP) -- The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has parlayed its experience in dealing with nuclear waste into millions of dollars a year in work on the nation's planned high-level radioactive waste dump in Nevada.
While officials in Nevada continue to fight the federal plan to dump 77,000 tons of waste in Yucca Mountain, INEEL people are involved in a number of projects needed to make the facility a reality.
"We have ready-made expertise for Yucca Mountain," said Phil Wheatley, manager for nuclear materials engineering and disposition at the INEEL.
With its experience from transporting highly radioactive material from the Three Mile Island site in Pennsylvania more than a decade ago, INEEL engineers are earning the site $1 million a year advising Yucca Mountain planners on waste transportation.
"They can say 'That can work, but let me tell you what might work better,"' Wheatley said. "Where we move these things everyday, we're experienced."
INEEL researchers also have a $2 million-a-year contract to design and test a system for closing waste casks before they are permanently stored in the mountain. It involves welding three separate lids shut, but it has to be done remotely because the waste is so radioactive.
"They really want this stuff developed and proved out," Wheatley said. "We're able to take pieces of projects and build the mock-up, prove them out and deliver them to a customer as a working system."
"With a laboratory our size," he said, "we can reach out and pull together these multidisciplinary teams."
In addition, INEEL experts are evaluating commercially available technology and working in other technical areas. Wheatley expects a relationship between Idaho and the Nevada project for years to come.
INEEL researchers and scientists from other federal laboratories are just starting to work on a system to monitor the waste once it is stored underground. Officials see the work as crucial to INEEL's new mission as the center of nuclear-energy research, because permanent storage for reactor waste is vital to the future of nuclear power.
"Anything we can do to help Yucca Mountain helps us, helps Idaho," Energy Department spokesman Mark Arenaz said.
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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