Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, October 23, 2003
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Las Vegas SUN
October 23, 2003
Official: Yucca won't be ready by 2010
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
ROCKVILLE, Md. -- The Energy Department's 2010 target date to put highly radioactive waste into Yucca Mountain likely will not be met because of federal regulations, a Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner told an advisory panel today.
"It isn't a worry, it's almost a fact," Commissioner Edward McGaffigan said today at a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste. "2010 is just about impossible."
The Energy Department plans to submit its application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, in December 2004.
The NRC has the final say on whether a dump opens. McGaffigan is one of five commissioners. His term ends in June 2005.
Reading directly from NRC regulations, McGaffigan pointed out the any change the department would make after submitting its license application could push the whole licensing process back to square one, restarting the three-year time frame for the commission to evaluate it.
"DOE has to have its act together the day it applies," McGaffigan said. "For the commission to complete work in three to four years, we need a very high quality and stable license application."
the Energy Department has said in the past it could add items once the application has been submitted. Department spokesman Joe Davis had said in the past week that the agency is flexible on some of the design options expected with the license application.
But McGaffigan said the rules are not flexible.
"This is a naive notion of the DOE officials," McGaffigan told the committee. "Our process does not allow for an, 'Oops we changed our minds.' "
Changes to the repository's design would call for an additional hearing, which could add years to the process.
"At the most senior levels of DOE, at this time, it isn't clear they know this," he said.
If the Energy Department gets authorization to build the facility, it can start construction but could not accept waste until a second approval by the commission.
"I don't know how rapidly they can construct," McGaffigan said "We don't do hearings faster than three years."
McGaffigan said the waste acceptance date, should the site be approved, would be more toward "2015."
He also noted that Energy Department is still without formal counsel on the project.
Washington attorney Joe Egan, who will represent Nevada at federal court cases in January, said this is what the state has been arguing all along.
Egan said one of the claims under the National Environmental Policy Act case is that the agency has been using a "we'll get to this one day" rationale for items the state believes should have been addressed in the final environmental impact statement.
Energy Department officials couldn't be reached this morning.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 23, 2003
Safety of tunnels at Yucca studied
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
ROCKVILLE, Md. -- The effects of rocks and dust falling inside the tunnels onto engineered barriers at the proposed Yucca Mountain repository are still being studied by Nuclear Regulatory Commission researchers, scientists told a commission panel Wednesday.
Researchers explained to the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, an advisory panel for the commission, how they measure and analyze safety systems and components of the tunnel that will hold containers of high-level nuclear waste that is proposed to be stored at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The tunnel is expected to degrade over time, scientists said, but by how much and exactly what the effects will be on the engineered barrier -- planned now to be titanium drip shields -- covering the waste containers and the containers themselves is still being calculated under various conditions. These are part of the remaining "key technical issue agreements" the Energy Department is working on submitting to the NRC.
Raj Nataraja, progam element manager, said Wednesday some parts of the repository design issue have been closed, but 23 unanswered questions on the stability of the tunnel and rockfall effects are still being worked on.
NRC researchers used examples of how they plug in different accident scenarios, such as a canister breach or failure of a crane, into formulas on a computer program to estimate consequences.
Researcher Doug Gute said the waste package response to earthquake activity over time has not yet been assessed, but noted that rock should not affect the packages because of the drip shield. But he added the department is re-evaluating the drip shield and other designs for the repository.
Researcher Goodluck Ofoegbu pointed out that in abandoned mines tunnels have collapsed underground and sinkholes developed at the surface.
The NRC researchers also pointed out that the commission staff and the department have different views on the overall magnitude of rock pieces accumulating on the drip shield and other issues in this remaining unsolved questions.
Mark Board of Bechtel SAIC, the project's main contractor, said researchers need to be careful when comparing the project to mining studies. He said rock in mines is "pushed to heavy stress levels" due to the "high extraction ratio."
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Las Vegas SUN
October 23, 2003
DOE response to corrosion issue awaited
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
WASHINGTON -- Whether reports this week of possible corrosion in containers proposed for use at Yucca Mountain change the Energy Department's approach to the project will be up to the department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is charged with licensing the planned high-level nuclear waste dump.
The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent government board set up to advise Congress on Yucca Mountain matters, sent a letter to Margaret Chu on Tuesday outlining its concerns about possible corrosion inside the federal nuclear waste repository planned at Yucca, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It said that corrosion could perforate the waste containers and release radioactivity into the environment.
The board previously noted its concerns about the same subject in a June letter to Chu, the director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
Chu sent the board a response to that letter on Oct. 10 saying, among other things, that the department's overall project assessment would be used to conduct additional sensitivity analyses for corrosion.
But in their letter sent Tuesday, the board members said that they believe "the total system performance assessment should not be used to dismiss these corrosion concerns."
Board members said the waste packages as currently designed have many chances for corrosion. If these packages corrode and eventually break, the fear is radiation would leak out of the containers and even out of the mountain, which could make people sick.
"The board believes that the high temperatures of the current design and operation will result in perforation of the waste packages, with possible release of radionuclides," the board wrote.
The 10-member board told Chu that the research by the Energy Department and the NRC's research on corrosion "are consistent in that both sets of data cast doubt on the extent to which the waste package will be an effective barrier under the repository conditions that have been presented to the board."
"We know that the department's decision-making process must take into account not only technical and scientific factors but also many others," the board wrote. "Nevertheless, because of the seriousness of these corrosion concerns, we strongly urge you to reexamine the current repository design and proposed operation."
Washington lawyer Joe Egan said the report should carry a lot of weight with the Energy Department, but he predicted it will not.
"The DOE does not pay a lot of attention to the (board)," Egan said.
In January 2002 the board characterized the Energy Department's technical analysis of the project as "weak to moderate" but the department went ahead with its site recommendation the following month.
Egan, who will present Nevada's cases against the site in federal court in January, said the new findings will not affect those cases. He said the state can't do much with the information in the upcoming cases because those lawsuits relate to decisions made before the site was recommended and approved by Congress.
Egan noted, however, that it is going to be impossible to ignore these findings during administrative law proceedings for the license approval at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
David Cherry, spokesman for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the board's letter basically rebukes the Energy Department's research on corrosion. He and other staff members were told more about the letter Tuesday.
Cherry said Berkley circulated a letter to other lawmakers on Tuesday highlighting the issue.
"We're trying to fight back that tide of opinion when the president approved and Congress overrode the state's veto of the site that somehow Yucca Mountain is safe and a done deal," Cherry said.
He said the letter may get the science debate back on the table. If it did, that debate could prove the site never really was suitable to serve as federal storage container for 77,000 tons of nuclear waste, Cherry said.
Rep. Jim Gibbons' staff members are scheduling a briefing, and Rep. Jon Porter, also R-Nev., has been consulting with the attorney general's office on what to do next, aides said.
Steve Kraft, director of waste management at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-Yucca nuclear industry group said he was not worried about the report.
"They're doing what they are supposed to be doing," Kraft said. "That's what they are there for."
Kraft said he would like to see the documentation that supports the board's conclusions.
The board promised Chu a detailed report "soon" on its technical basis for the corrosion problems and other concerns in the letter but did not specify a date.
Energy Department officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but their spokesman, Joe Davis, said Tuesday that the department is leaving its design options open.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 23, 2003
Studies projecting rate of tunnel decay at Nevada nuclear dump
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Scientists are trying to project when tunnels at a planned federal nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert will begin crumbling, and whether radioactivity will be released.
The matter is one of 215 questions remaining to be answered a year before the federal Energy Department applies for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to build and open the Yucca Mountain repository in 2010.
Researchers aired their views Wednesday before an NRC advisory board in Rockville, Md.
Members of the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste also expect to explore the issue during a visit to Yucca Mountain next month.
NRC scientists said they continue to work on 23 issues related to when rock walls and ceilings will collapse and how that will affect nuclear waste casks in the repository - 1,000 feet beneath the volcanic ridge, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Raj Nataraja, an NRC program manager, said the NRC is "forcing this issue" with the Energy Department, and the agencies have different views.
Based on studies of abandoned mines and other research, NRC scientist Goodluck Ofoegbu said tunnels at Yucca Mountain are expected to degrade and fill with rubble a few hundred years after the repository is sealed.
Project managers plan to entomb 77,000 tons of commercial, industrial and military nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, and say it will remain radioactive for 10,000 years or more.
Ofoegbu said the Energy Department plans to calculate the speed of collapse by employing static fatigue tests that subject rocks to intense pressure, crumbling them within seconds.
He acknowledged in a written presentation that using these tests to estimate long-term behavior of underground openings is unprecedented.
Mark Board, a subsurface geologist with Yucca project contractor Bechtel SAIC, said mining studies should not be used to draw conclusions about Yucca Mountain.
Board said tunnels at the repository will be larger and more widely spaced than those in coal mines and other underground commercial sites.
"We feel you can't simply take mining studies and extrapolate those things," he said. "It doesn't necessarily apply."
Board said project managers are examining tunnel degradation, but differ with NRC researchers on the depth and rate at which rock fails.
"We think it happens over a longer period of time," he said.
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On the Net:
Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
Nevada state Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste
Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal
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Las Vegas Review Journal
October 23, 2003
Scientists calculate collapse of tunnels
215 questions remain about Yucca Mountain
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Scientists are struggling to project how a Yucca Mountain repository might contain stored nuclear materials when portions of its underground tunnel network begin to collapse.
The matter is one of 215 questions remaining to be answered a year before the Department of Energy plans to file a license application to build nuclear waste storage into Yucca Mountain.
Researchers aired their views Wednesday in Rockville, Md., before an advisory board of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which will evaluate the license application. Members of the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste expect to explore the issue further during a visit to Yucca Mountain next month.
NRC scientists said they continue to work on 23 issues related to when rock walls and ceilings may fall into the repository, and how that will affect nuclear waste containers in tunnels that could be filled with tons of rubble.
Evaluators say those matters could determine the repository's ability to prevent radioactive materials from escaping the mountain, said Raj Nataraja, an NRC program manager. Nataraja said the NRC is "forcing this issue" with the Energy Department, and the agencies have different views.
Based on studies of abandoned mines and other research, NRC scientist Goodluck Ofoegbu said Yucca Mountain emplacement drifts are expected to degrade and fill with rubble within a few hundred years after the repository is sealed.
Ofoegbu said DOE plans to calculate the speed of collapse by employing static fatigue tests that subject rocks to intense pressure, crumbling them within seconds.
The NRC questions that approach. "Using static fatigue testing to estimate long term behavior (hundreds to thousands of years) of underground openings is unprecedented," Ofoegbu said in a written presentation.
But Mark Broad, a subsurface geologist with Bechtel SAIC, the Yucca project's operating contractor, cautioned against using mining studies to draw conclusions about the tunnels at Yucca Mountain.
Broad said waste emplacement tunnels at the repository site are larger and more widely spaced than those in coal mines and other underground sites dug for commercial purposes.
"We feel you can't simply take mining studies and extrapolate those things," Broad said. "It doesn't necessarily apply."
Broad said project managers are examining tunnel degradation, but "we are using different approaches."
"We differ with (NRC) on the depth at which the rock fails and the load that's applied and the timing at which that happen. We think it happens over a longer period of time."
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KLAS-TV
October 22, 2003
Safety of Yucca Nuclear Waste Containers
Gary Waddell
More Wednesday night on that warning from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board that says special metal canisters to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain could corrode and allow the waste to leak.
Nevada Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign said the report proves their case against Yucca Mountain.
Senator Reid, (D) Nevada said, "This is another example why Yucca Mountain was rushed into and it should not have been."
Senator Ensign, (R) Nevada said, "The science that's been coming down the last several years has been strengthening our case that Yucca Mountain is not a suitable site to store nuclear waste."
The Department of Energy says the canisters will hold up. And it will still go ahead with plans to apply for a license and open the nuke dump in seven years.
(Oct. 21) -- An independent science panel is warning the federal government that special metal canisters might corrode and leak radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain.
That's what the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board is saying in a letter to federal project manager Margaret Chu.
Review board scientists say they think that, over time, water seeping into tunnels at the repository in the Nevada desert will react with salts from the soil and damage the canisters.
They say that could release deadly radioactivity into the environment.
But the federal Energy Department says it believes the Alloy 22 canisters will hold up -- and safely contain spent nuclear fuel at the repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The DOE is going ahead with plans to apply for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license and open the repository in 2010.
The site is supposed to remain safe for 10-thousand years.
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Public Citizen
Oct. 22, 2003
Evidence Mounts That Yucca Mountain Dump Is Flawed
Statement by Wenonah Hauter, Director, Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program
The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board´s letter to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) warning that man-made storage containers at Yucca Mountain will probably leak should come as no surprise. Despite a mound of sound scientific evidence demonstrating the flaws of the Yucca Mountain plan, officials at the DOE have been influenced by the nuclear industry instead of by fact in their drive to build a high-level nuclear waste repository. The new finding by the board — the same body that in January 2002 called evidence supporting Yucca Mountain "weak to moderate" — further confirms that the project is unworkable and should be abandoned.
The reliance on engineered barriers to permanently contain dangerously radioactive waste for thousands of years is a huge safety compromise. The original law mandating construction of a permanent waste repository, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, called for a geologic barrier to permanently isolate the waste from the surrounding environment, not a man-made one. When it became apparent that the volcanic rock forming Yucca Mountain could not adequately perform that critical function, the government waived the requirement. This concession is part of a larger pattern of making the laws fit the site, not making the site fit the laws.
Yucca Mountain sits in an earthquake zone where a magnitude 5.6 earthquake damaged a DOE field office in 1992. An earthquake of 4.4 occurred as recently as June 2002. The site itself lies over a freshwater aquifer supplying drinking water to thousands of people; an earthquake could exacerbate the problem of water reaching the tanks, further corroding them and carrying the resulting contamination to the aquifer below. Again, instead of using this evidence to rule out Yucca Mountain, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency changed the law, making the expected level of radioactive contamination in drinking water "permissible," a move now the subject of a lawsuit by Public Citizen and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The DOE ought to heed the board´s warning and drop the Yucca Mountain project for a safer alternative.
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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
October 22, 2003
Nuclear power plugged as clean option
Madison conference seeks to revive interest in energy alternative
By Thomas Content
tcontent@journalsentinel.com
Madison - Nuclear power needs to be a factor in Wisconsin's energy equation as policy-makers balance the rising demand for electricity against heightened public concern about air pollution and the environment, advocates for new nuclear power plants said Wednesday.
Conventional generation plants that produce electricity from coal and natural gas rely on finite resources and generate too much carbon dioxide, a key contributor to global warming, said John Wiley, chancellor at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The key environmental challenge of the 21st century will be addressing global climate change by lowering emissions of carbon dioxide, Wiley said on the first day of a nuclear energy conference sponsored by the university's engineering department.
UW research into the environmental effects of energy generation found that coal and natural gas are 100 times more polluting than nuclear power and wind energy.
"It is clear that wind power and nuclear fission are 'slam dunk' winners for the clean and sustainable generation of electricity," he said.
This week's conference, "The Future of Nuclear Energy in Wisconsin," has been criticized as merely a "pep rally" for the nuclear industry by groups opposed to nuclear power.
"I'm disappointed that they have not discussed the policy issues and ethical issues" concerning nuclear power, said Kim Herb, staff coordinator for the Wisconsin Interfaith Climate and Energy Campaign. "They haven't addressed the strong not-in-my-back-yard issues of (nuclear) waste."
Conference speakers recognized that there are political obstacles to the rebirth of nuclear power in the nation, but noted that the nation has moved closer toward resolving one of the key issues - storage of spent nuclear fuel.
That fuel, stored at the Kewaunee and Point Beach nuclear plants, as well as 70 others nationwide, is to be sent to Yucca Mountain in Nevada beginning as soon as 2010. But Nevadans and others have filed at least six lawsuits to challenge the site selection.
Wisconsin electricity customers have contributed $473 million toward a $22 billion fund designed to pay for most of the costs to build and operate the Yucca Mountain site.
The Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository, under study since the 1980s, was approved by the U.S. Department of Energy and President Bush early last year. Apart from the court cases, it still faces several years of study and license application approvals by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before it can begin accepting waste.
Because of progress toward disposal of nuclear waste and incentives proposed in the energy bill being considered by Congress, several utilities have proposed building new nuclear plants - including one in southern Illinois.
No more nuclear plants are permitted in Wisconsin because of a state law that bans new nuclear plants until Yucca Mountain is licensed and until nuclear plants are economical. Rep. Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem) has introduced a bill to overturn the state ban. A committee hearing on that bill could take place next month, he said.
Wisconsin's two nuclear plants provide about 20% of the state's power.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 22, 2003
Science panel questions safety of Yucca nuclear waste containers
By Ken Ritter
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A scientific advisory panel's warning about metal casks corroding at high temperatures and releasing radioactivity will not slow plans to build a national nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert, the Energy Department said Wednesday.
"We have long studied the issues of corrosion at Yucca Mountain," DOE spokesman Joe Davis said in response to a letter of concern from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.
"What it comes down to is whether the repository is operated at lower temperatures or higher temperatures," Davis said from Washington, D.C.
He said the Energy Department's application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license the repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas would answer the review board's concerns. The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board was created to monitor technical and scientific performance at the Yucca Mountain project and report to Congress.
"No matter what our design, we believe we can meet the environmental and regulatory standards for operating the repository," Davis said.
In a letter to Margaret Chu, the federal official in charge of the repository, review board members said that at extreme temperatures of 200 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit given off by the stored radioactive material, water seeping into repository tunnels will react with salts from the soil and eat away at flaws in containment canisters.
"Because of the seriousness of these corrosion concerns, we strongly urge you to re-examine the current repository design and proposed operation," the letter states. "The board believes that the high temperatures of the current design and operation will result in perforation of the waste packages."
David Duquette, a board member who co-authored the letter, said the panel did not address whether radioactivity released from the stored nuclear waste would be lethal.
"This isn't necessarily a show-stopper," said Duquette, chairman of the science and engineering department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. "We're suggesting to them, 'Get your temperatures down.' If they do that, we would feel more comfortable that the containers would not corrode to the point of failure."
The letter focuses on the performance of casks built of Alloy 22, a combination of nickel and chromium alloys with other elements including molybdenum. Duquette called the alloy the best known material for nuclear waste containers.
Davis said Energy Department and Yucca Mountain scientists think such casks will safely contain spent nuclear fuel at the repository, which is being constructed 1,000 feet under an ancient volcanic ridge.
Spacing the canisters farther apart would reduce the temperature in the tunnels and reduce the corrosion risk, he said.
Plans are still being developed for shipping spent nuclear fuel to Nevada from more than 100 commercial, industrial and military sites in 39 states. Officials have focused on key rail lines running through Chicago and St. Louis, and truck routes from the northeast and southwest converging in Omaha, Neb., before heading west on Interstate 80.
Bob Loux, director of the state Nuclear Projects Office and Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn's anti-Yucca chief, said the Energy Department has been counting on both man-made and geologic design features to contain radioactivity for the 10,000 years that the federal Environmental Protection Agency requires.
"This is a fairly serious blow to DOE plans," Loux said of the review board's finding. "The waste is lethal for 250,000 years, EPA says the site only needs to perform for 10,000 years. The comments made by the board mirror a state of Nevada study that the canisters are very unlikely to last even 1,000 years."
The Energy Department plans by the end of 2004 to submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission an application to open and operate the repository beginning in 2010.
The Bush administration and Congress have approved the site, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will decide whether the project may open.
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On the Net:
Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov/
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov/
Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste
Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board: http://www.nwtrb.gov
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Las Vegas SUN
October 22, 2003
Editorial: A dose of reality for Yucca plan
Las Vegas SUN
How much room for error exists when planning to bury high-level nuclear waste underneath a mountain ridge in the Nevada desert? The answer is none. Especially when the proposed site, Yucca Mountain, sits just a thousand feet above an aquifer that nourishes a large agricultural region, has a history of seismic activity and is only 90 miles from Las Vegas, the fastest-growing city in the country.
Yet the federal government's fast-moving plans for Yucca Mountain are constantly being labeled as error-prone. The latest doubt is being cast by a letter now circulating in Washington. The letter, not yet in its final form, was written by members of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a scientific panel appointed by Congress to advise the Energy Department.
Looming among the long list of environmental concerns about Yucca Mountain has always been this basic question: Can it be said with certainty that no harmful amounts of radiation will leak from the mountain, either by way of ground water or air? And of course the truthful answer is no, despite 25 years of research by the federal government into the mountain's geology and at least a decade's worth of research into metal alloys. The plan is for man-made casks, built of high-tech alloys, to envelop the waste as it leaves the nation's power plants and weapons facilities bound for Yucca Mountain. The Energy Department would have us believe that the casks and the mountain's geology will form a double barrier that will protect against radiation poisoning for the 10,000 years the waste needs in order to become harmless through decay.
The Sun has reported in the past the skepticism toward this plan that exists within scientific circles. The letter now being circulated in Washington, which has not yet been presented to the Energy Department, is reason for increased skepticism. It cites new laboratory tests that re-created the conditions, including a constant 300-degree temperature, the casks will have to withstand underneath Yucca Mountain. The tests concluded that the casks would be highly susceptible to corrosion. The letter says the new tests "cast doubt on the extent to which the waste package will be an effective barrier under the repository conditions presented to the board."
Typically, the Energy Department dismisses criticism and blithely pushes forward with its optimistic assessment that Yucca will be perfectly safe. We hope this time, however, that it will listen -- considering that the source of the concern is the very panel created by Congress to offer informed, independent advice about the disposal of high-level nuclear waste.
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Nevada Appeal
October 22, 2003
Senators: Yucca caskets may leak
Geoff dornan
Nuclear casks designed to hold nuclear waste for 250,000 years could break down in less than a 1,000 years, according to a study by the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.
Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., say the study provides more evidence that Yucca Mountain is not a safe place to store nuclear waste.
The review board is drafting a letter to the Department of Energy which says the waste containers designed to store the waste could leak sooner than originally thought -1,000 years or less.
Ensign and Reid staff members were briefed on the report Tuesday.
"The storage of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain is, quite simply, scientifically unsound, as we in Nevada have been saying for years," said Ensign.
He said the Department of Energy has "chosen to ignore compelling scientific data in the past," but that he hopes this latest report will help make the point.
Reid said the report "appears to confirm that the project puts Nevadans at extreme risk."
Originally, supporters of the waste dump touted the mountain itself as able to keep the nuclear waste from ever contaminating the atmosphere. But studies showed the mountain is riddled with cracks, surrounded by earthquake faults, and has evidence that groundwater flows through it much more rapidly than originally believed.
When the mountain itself couldn't provide the protection from leakage, supporters of the dump shifted to the waste containers, which officials originally said were designed to last up to 250,000 years without leaking.
According to the briefing given to Reid's and Ensign's staffs Tuesday, it has been shown that the heat generated by the waste will evaporate the water surrounding the casks during the first 1,000 years of storage.
"The salt brine left behind will corrode the casks to the point of failure and could cause the release of a massive amount of waste," said a statement issued by the senators following the briefing.
The proposed dump would be just 75 miles north of metropolitan Las Vegas.
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Las Vegas Review Journal
October 22, 2003
New issue confronts Yucca dump proposal
By Steve Tetreault and Keith Rogers
Review-Journal
An independent science board has raised a new question about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, stating that the government's design will cause metal containers of spent nuclear fuel to corrode and leak highly radioactive materials.
The finding from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a respected monitoring group, could complicate the Energy Department's efforts to move forward with its preferred blueprint for the Yucca Mountain Project, according to some board members, staff and others who were briefed Tuesday.
The Energy Department plans to respond to the criticism. Spokesman Joe Davis said DOE believes its work is solid and managers expect to keep the program on track to submit a license application by December 2004 to build a repository complex 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
But the review board, which was created by Congress to advise federal lawmakers and DOE, said new studies about conditions within the repository are casting doubt about whether Alloy 22 canisters will be able to resist corrosion and keep nuclear material from escaping into the environment.
A letter signed by the 10 scientists on the board said the Energy Department's design "will result in perforation of the waste packages, with possible release of radionuclides."
"We strongly urge you to re-examine the current repository design and operation," the scientists said in the letter to Margaret Chu, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. A copy of the letter was obtained Tuesday.
DOE's current design plan calls for canisters of nuclear waste to be spaced tightly within repository drift tunnels, so that heat from the decaying radioactive material will prevent corrosion by driving away water trickling through mountain cracks.
But the science panel said air moisture in the drifts will interact with dust and salts and form an acidic brine on the canisters, causing pitting, crevice corrosion and stress cracks.
Studies emerging from the Energy Department and a research arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission suggest that corrosion is likely to begin within a thousand years, which is relatively early in the repository's expected performance life, the board said.
Several board members differed on the significance of the report.
"We're basically telling the department that, look, here's an issue that's an important one that you should pay attention to," said board member David Duquette, a corrosion expert and head of the materials science department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
"Frankly, this is not a deal-killer and nobody should consider it a deal-killer," Duquette said. "It does say you have a possibility of breaching one of your lines of defense."
But Daniel Bullen, another corrosion expert who sits on the technical board, said the Energy Department faces "a significant problem. How they address it is up to them."
"If we don't ask the question, I'm sure somebody at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will ask it" during Yucca Mountain license hearings, said Bullen, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Iowa State University.
Chu was briefed Tuesday. Afterwards, DOE spokesman Davis said the new criticism will not alter plans to submit a construction license to the NRC by December 2004.
Davis said DOE scientists continue to believe their calculations of repository performance are conservative and that the Yucca design can meet environmental and safety standards.
"The board has asked us to clarify our scientific work," Davis said. "What's very clear is that the debate has evolved from whether we build the repository to how far apart we place the casks in the repository."
To win a license, the department must demonstrate the mountain's natural features and engineered barriers in the dump can keep radioactive materials from escaping into the environment for 10,000 years, a timeline set in law.
The state of Nevada and environmental organizations plan to contest the license application, charging the DOE plan is flawed and will jeopardize public health.
The review board findings were seized by Nevada elected leaders as evidence that should cause the repository effort to be delayed or ended altogether.
"This study is just he latest in a long line of scientific reasons for the abandonment of the Yucca Mountain project," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said. "But nothing seems to matter to DOE. They seem to bury their head in the sand and move forward with this."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the report "a prime example of just how unsafe Yucca Mountain is. Now we find out that scientists can't even guarantee these canisters won't leak."
In reports over the years, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board has given the DOE mixed marks. In a January 2002 report, it concluded DOE's technical basis for assessing the repository's anticipated performance "is weak to moderate at this time."
The review board's latest report resurrects a debate among government and independent scientists over a "hot" versus a "cold" repository design.
The technical board told Energy Department officials two years ago it had concerns with the so-called hot design, in which the decaying waste would heat surrounding rock to about 300 degrees Fahrenheit. That would cause water to move inside the mountain because it boils at 205 degrees at the repository's elevation, 1,000 feet beneath the crest of the flattop ridge.
Under the cold design, waste packages are spaced farther apart so that surrounding rock walls heat up to 180 degrees, or 25 degrees less than water's boiling point.
Now, the panel believes at higher temperatures, corrosion of the containers' Alloy-22 shell will happen faster.
Bob Loux, chief of Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency, said research by the state's consultants show the Alloy-22 containers will corrode under either scenario.
"We're able to show similar, or about the same results in a cooler environment," Loux said. "It will happen in our estimation if it's hot or cold."
One of the state's consultants, Roger Staehle, adjunct professor of chemical engineering and material science at the University of Minnesota, said mineral-rich water that trickles onto the containers could cause pitting or small holes in their 1- to 2-inch-thick alloy shells after two years inside the mountain.
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Las Vegas Review Journal
October 22, 2003
Rural officials to meet
Study includes route for nuclear waste
By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal
Lander County and Nye County officials will meet Thursday to discuss a transportation study that includes a potential rail route to the planned Yucca Mountain repository should the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approve the Department of Energy's license application.
The department is expected to submit a license application for the project by December 2004. After a three-year review, if construction of the repository is approved, nuclear waste shipments could start arriving at the mountain in 2010.
"What we're trying to do is determine the cost and the right route if a train rail was to be put in," Lander County Commissioner Mickey Yarbro said Tuesday.
He said one potential rail route is between Battle Mountain and Carlin that heads southeast to Nye County, where Yucca Mountain is.
The meeting in Pahrump, mentioned in a memo from Nye County representative Les Bradshaw, is another case of rural counties trying to work on nuclear waste transportation issues surrounding the planned repository, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
This month, at the suggestion of DOE civilian radioactive waste chief Margaret Chu, a draft agreement calling for a "Regional Transportation Cooperative Authority" was put out for consideration by Nye, Lincoln and Esmeralda counties and Caliente.
Nye County commissioners rejected the draft because it would have created a separate agency to funnel Yucca Mountain grant money for transportation studies outside of the commission's control.
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Pahrump Valley Times
Oct. 22, 2003
Cox lobbies for public input
PVT
The public is invited to a workshop to provide input on projects to pursue for federal dollars at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Bob Ruud Community Center.
Nye County Commissioners hired the Russ Reid Company, a lobbying firm, earlier this year. Lobbyists attempted to obtain $3 million from the Transportation Equity Act to chip-seal roads in Pahrump Valley and $500,000 for Tonopah Airport.
Another lobbyist, Rick Spies, was hired in January to lobby for Yucca Mountain funding.
Nye County Commissioner Patricia Cox drafted a letter addressed to local residents outlining a list of possible priorities for funding issues such as education, roads, health care, water and sewer, disposable public lands, flood control, emergency equipment, communication, a multipurpose recreation center, tipping fees for low level waste and a convention center.
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KRNV
October 22, 2003
Science panel questions safety of Yucca nuclear waste containers
An independent science panel is warning the federal government that special metal canisters might corrode and leak radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain.
That's what the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board is saying in a letter to federal project manager Margaret Chu. Review board scientists say they think that, over time, water seeping into tunnels at the repository in the Nevada desert will react with salts from the soil and damage the canisters. They say that could release deadly radioactivity into the environment.
Senators John Ensign and Harry Reid are citing the study as further evidence of their assertions that Yucca Mountain is scientifically unfit to store high-level nuclear waste.
“The storage of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain is, quite simply, scientifically unsound, as we in Nevada have been saying for years,’ Ensign said. “This study is just the latest in a long list of scientific reasons for the abandonment of the Yucca Mountain project. The problem is that the Department of Energy has chosen to ignore compelling scientific data in the past.’
“While I am anxious to see the full report, it appears to confirm that the project puts Nevadans at extreme risk, which is the very reason we´ve been fighting Yucca Mountain,’ Senator Reid said. “The only thing that would keep nuclear waste from threatening Nevadans are these waste canisters. And now we find out that scientists can´t even guarantee these canisters won´t leak. These results are a prime example of just how unsafe Yucca Mountain is.’
Ensign and Reid said they and their staffs are in the process of thoroughly reviewing the report before charting a possible course of action.
The federal Energy Department says it believes the Alloy 22 canisters will hold up, and safely contain spent nuclear fuel at the repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The DOE is going ahead with plans to apply for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license and open the repository in 2010. The site is supposed to remain safe for 10,000 years.
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Technology Review
October 22, 2003
Is the Yucca Nuke Dump All Wet?
The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository assumes geological stability over 10,000 years. Too bad the government didn't pay more attention to what geologists had to say.
By Allison Macfarlane
Last year, Congress and the President approved the lone site characterized by the Department of Energy as suitable for the disposal of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Now, large quantities of highly toxic waste produced at the nation´s nuclear power plants and the nuclear weapons complex may have a place to go—that is, if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves the location for licensing.
DOE intends to submit a license application to the NRC by the end of 2004, though that date appears to be, in DOE lingo, “slipping.’ (Actually, the law required the DOE to submit a license application within 90 days of the formal approval of Congress—that would have been September 2002—but who´s counting?) In light of the fact that many consider Congressional approval of the site to be the final word, let's examine whether the site will actually be able to perform properly and keep the public safe from radioactive contamination for 10,000 years. A group of scientists at MIT´s Security Studies Program has found a number of unresolved technical issues that may affect the safety of a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain.
It is important to understand the enormous scope of the task at hand: namely, determining whether any particular site is suitable to host a nuclear waste repository. For one thing, we will never know whether the site has been successful because of the time scales involved. Moreover, the job of predicting repository performance over time is not an engineering endeavor—it is a science project based on the geological sciences. Geology explains the past but does not predict the future with any precision.
DOE maintains that it chose Yucca Mountain because the area was dry—the climate is arid and the water table deep—and therefore waste packages would be preserved. There are two problems with that. First, Yucca isn´t really that dry. Secondly, it turns out that wet conditions are actually better for extending the life of spent fuel; in fact, the United States is the only country pursuing a dry setting for a long-term nuclear storage repository. As a result of its policy, DOE has neglected to explore a number of significant issues associated with the corrosion of spent fuel.
There are other unanswered questions that could affect the performance of Yucca Mountain for holding nuclear waste. For one, it´s not clear that DOE has correctly predicted the increase in precipitation over the next ten centuries, leading to uncertainty about the probability that water could infiltrate the repository. In particular, DOE has not adequately accounted for the likely increases in temperature and rainfall that will occur due to anthropogenic climate change.
Moreover, DOE´s understanding of water transport through the rock above the water table remains in its infancy. In current models, water moves rapidly along fractures in the rock and much more slowly via grain boundaries. The question is: How is water transported along fractures—and which fractures would transport that water?
DOE relies heavily on the performance of Alloy-22, a chromium-nickel-molybdenum alloy, to endow the waste packages with a predicted 10,000 years of resistance to corrosion. This reliance stems from two years´ worth of corrosion research in the laboratory. But there is good reason to be skeptical about these results. No natural analogs were studied, because there are none. No long-term studies were conducted. And the complex conditions that will evolve over time around the waste package are still poorly understood.
DOE assumed that radionuclides in the nuclear waste, such as plutonium, would not move far from the repository because they are not soluble in water. This may be wishful thinking, however. We know, from evidence collected at the nearby Nevada Test Site, that plutonium can adhere to tiny particulate material called colloids and thus be transported long distances. But very little work has been done to investigate this phenomenon at Yucca Mountain, so a number of important technical issues are unresolved. In particular, we know very little about how radionuclides would be transported in the so-called saturated zone (that is, below the water table)—simply because we know very little about the saturated zone itself. This ignorance stems from the paucity of test wells in the area.
Nor is water the only major source of uncertainty. The potential for volcanism at Yucca Mountain remains a contentious issue as well. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission puts the probability for volcanism at the repository an order of magnitude higher than does DOE.
On the basis of these few issues, it is clear that DOE has much more work to do to show that Yucca Mountain is a suitable location for the long-term storage of nuclear waste. There is actually no great hurry in moving spent fuel away from reactors—it can be stored safely for many decades in dry casks. The United States should take its time to ensure that it has selected a reasonable location for nuclear waste disposal: the issue is too important to rush.
- Allison Macfarlane is professor at Georgia Tech´s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. She holds a PhD in geology from MIT and is he is co-editing a book on the safety of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository
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Wisconsin State Journal
October 21, 2003
Wisconsin should rejoin nuclear club
It's time to retire Wisconsin's 20-year ban on building nuclear power plants. <
Gutsy state Rep. Michael Huebsch, R-West Salem, has introduced legislation that would overturn this outdated moratorium, and this week, UW-Madison engineers will host a conference expected to outline nuclear power's promising future in the state and nation. <
It's a little-acknowledged fact that Wisconsin and the nation already depend on nuclear power for about a fifth of all electricity production. More than 100 nuclear reactors remain in operation today. <
And it's now apparent that Wisconsin's fast-growing appetite for power will demand a mix of new energy sources and improved power lines. Utilities and private power producers already plan new coal-burning and natural gas-fired plants, and a wind power farm is in the works, too. <
But mention nuclear power, and even the folks who already run a couple of Wisconsin's nuclear units, We Energies, start mumbling into their coffee cups. They won't even say if they'll seek federal relicensing of their reactors when the review comes due. <
This ambivalence about nuclear power is based mostly in liberal Hollywood fearmongering, not science or the public record. Everyone's heard about Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island reactor incident - that was 24 years ago, by the way - but nuclear plants nationally have a stellar safety record overall. <
But most of these plants are aging. We need a new generation of efficient and safe nuclear power stations to help reduce dependence on foreign oil and ensure that we'll be able to reliably supply a growing economy's energy needs. <
Rather than duck and cover, environmentalists ought to embrace nuclear power. Nuclear plants produce radioactive waste, but you can seal it in a mountain - the proposed national waste depository is Yucca Mountain in Nevada - where it won't harm anyone. That compares pretty favorably when you consider that coal and gas plants discharge their waste into our air. <
On the downside, nuclear plant construction costs a fortune. But over the long haul, UW-Madison experts say, nuclear power won't be any pricier than other common types of energy. Experts cite regulators' estimates that current nuclear plants are cheaper, measured by cost per kilowatt hours produced, than gas and wind, and may become cheaper than coal-burning plants if they are required to meet tougher pollution standards. <
Of course, any type of power plant brings the not-in-my-backyard crowd out in protest: Witness the ongoing imbroglio over proposed Oak Creek coal burners and the dustup over UW-Madison's recently approved gas-fired plant. But companies interested in expanding nuclear power would be most likely to add reactors where others already are in operation, such as the Kewaunee and Point Beach sites in Wisconsin. <
Thankfully, the rigid anti-nuclear policies and politics that have held sway for two decades finally seem to be waning. An energy bill pending in Congress may boost plans for several new nuclear plants, and a few future-focused states are expected to welcome proposed reactors. <
Wisconsin should join the nuclear club. Let's clear the way for clean, safe and reliable power by lifting our outdated ban on nuclear plants.
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Newsday
October 22, 2003
West Valley cleanup plan would delay shipping encased waste
WEST VALLEY, N.Y. -- The federal plan for completing the cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project would leave encased high-level nuclear waste in western New York for several years.
The U.S. Department of Energy probably will adopt a policy for the former fuel reprocessing plant, 35 miles south of Buffalo, similar to one used in closing nuclear plants, field office manager Bob Warther said.
Under that approach, the high-level liquid nuclear waste, which was removed from rotting underground tanks, solidified and put in steel canisters, would remain at West Valley, behind the concrete walls of the former reprocessing center, until the government builds a planned storage facility in Nevada.
Completion of the vault under Yucca Mountain isn't expected before 2010.
Meanwhile, much of the lower-level waste on the West Valley site would be trucked to an off-site waste-handling building now under construction, Warther said. Most other buildings on the site would be removed. Projected completion is 2008.
The plan was outlined Tuesday night to the Citizens Task Force monitoring the cleanup, The Buffalo News reported.
Between 1966 and 1972, the private Nuclear Fuel Services reprocessed nuclear fuel rods at the Cattaraugus County site.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed the West Valley Demonstration Project Act, making the state and federal governments partners in the cleanup.
The vitrification program, begun in 1996, solidified 600,000 gallons of waste into glass, resulted in safe storage of 277 glass-filled 2.5-ton canisters, immobilizing 24 million curies of radioactive waste, the federal agency reported last year.
The Department of Energy and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority have been at odds over long-term stewardship of the site. The state and federal agencies currently are partners in the cleanup.
NYSERDA acting president Peter Smith said the federal plan would limit decontamination work and delay the eventual closing of the site.
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New York Times
October 21, 2003
Flaw Is Found in Plan to Bury Nuclear Waste
By Matthew L. Wald
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 — The Energy Department's design for burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, near Las Vegas, would cause corrosion that would perforate the waste containers and allow leaks, an expert panel is preparing to advise the department.
Nuclear waste gives off heat as well as radiation, and the Energy Department is considering taking advantage of that, by spacing the waste containers closely. That would heat the tunnels to nearly 300 degrees Fahrenheit in the first few decades, a factor that, the department says, would keep the metal dry and thus prevent corrosion.
But the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a panel created by Congress to advise the department, believes otherwise, according to a letter the members have drafted. Members said changes to the letter were possible before it is submitted to the department, but the draft, circulated on Monday, said two new sets of laboratory tests "cast doubt on the extent to which the waste package will be an effective barrier under the repository conditions that have been presented to the board."
One board member, Thure E. Cerling, a professor of biology and of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah, said that the problem was that "most reactions take place faster at higher temperatures," and that this included rust.
Any available water would be mixed with salt, present in the tunnels' dust, the experts said. And just as salt prevents water from freezing, it also makes it harder to boil. The salty water could lead to pitting and perforation, the experts said.
Another board member, David J. Duquette, head of the department of materials science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, remarked, "We basically raised a flag and said, `If you're going to do this, you've decreased the possiblity of your container being a real barrier."
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Capital Times
October 20, 2003
Nuclear moratorium important to protect public
Colleen F. Moore & Kristin Shrader-Frechette
Imagine a source of electrical power that could:
* Totally destroy an area the size of Pennsylvania, according to a government report.
* Require 65 percent of all government energy subsidies.
* Increase our susceptibility to terrorism.
* Alter the genetic makeup of all living things on the planet.
* Destroy our homes and health, yet be immune from lawsuits.
There is no need to imagine; nuclear power is here today and is capable of doing much more than that.
UW emeritus Professor Max Carbon and his colleagues argued in this newspaper on Oct. 8 for ending Wisconsin's moratorium on nuclear power plants. Quite the opposite, we think that a national moratorium on nuclear power makes both economic and safety sense. Instead of nuclear power, we should use distributed (stand-alone) electrical sources, such as onsite solar thermal and onsite wind, and develop solar photovoltaics.
Here we focus on the exorbitant costs of nuclear-generated electricity, the alleged safety of nuclear waste disposal, and the human impacts of even minor nuclear accidents.
Economics: No new U.S. nuclear plants have been ordered since 1974 because they are too expensive. According to 2001 U.S. Department of Energy data, nuclear fission is more expensive, per kilowatt hour, than (in order of ascending cost) large hydroelectric, natural gas, geothermal, biomass, coal, small hydroelectric, wind, solar thermal with gas backup, and solar thermal. Only solar photovoltaic is currently more expensive than nuclear fission.
Nuclear waste: The DOE admits that the biggest risk from Yucca Mountain is transporting dozens of rail cars or truckloads of lethal waste daily across the United States for the next 30 years. Terrorist assault on any one of these shipments would be enough to wipe out populations in several states.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says existing waste can be stored safely, at each reactor site, for at least 100 years. Let's do that, and find a better plan for dealing with the waste.
The DOE, in alleging that Yucca Mountain is safe, did not confirm its radiation exposure estimates with standard methods. A peer review by the pro-nuclear International Atomic Energy Agency showed the DOE conclusions about radiation doses to the public could be wrong by a factor of anywhere from 100 million to 1 trillion.
Yet even if the DOE were wrong by a much lesser factor, say a thousand, it still means millions of people could die, even without a waste accident. Besides, if nuclear power and nuclear waste disposal are so safe, then why did the nuclear industry demand the Price-Anderson Act, which makes nuclear power plant owners liable for only about 1 percent of the worst accident damages they cause? (Homeowners, check your insurance polices: They all have nuclear-exclusion clauses.)
Three Mile Island: Carbon et al. repeated initial government claims that there was no harm from the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.
The latest epidemiological studies show that Three Mile Island area residents have elevated rates of cancer incidence and mortality. There is no dispute about the elevated cancer rates, only about whether the cancer rates are due to radiation from the accident, or perhaps to altered immune function from the psychological stress of the accident.
Approximately 386,000 people voluntarily evacuated the area within 20 miles of the plant. Residents suffered long-lasting psychological effects from the accident such as chronically higher stress hormones and sleep disorders. Mothers of young children living near the plant still had an elevated rate of depression almost six years after the accident. Yet the government has ignored the mental health effects of this and other nuclear accidents.
The safety of the entire nuclear fuel cycle is in question. Tailings from uranium mining have been mishandled, and miners (mostly American Indians) are more likely to get lung cancer. Criticality accidents (which involve very dangerous self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions that create large amounts of radiation) have occurred throughout the history of the nuclear industry, including one that killed two workers in Japan in 1999. Nuclear engineers are excellent at calculating the conditions under which nuclear materials will "go critical," but 70 percent to 80 percent of all accidents are caused by human error.
Proponents of nuclear energy need to answer at least four questions:
If nuclear plants are so safe, why does the industry demand a liability limit that protects it from 99 percent of total possible damages?
Since the DOE says nuclear power is more expensive than solar thermal, wind or biomass, why not use these safer technologies?
How can thousands-per-year of rail/truck shipments of nuclear waste for the next 30 years be made safe from terrorists?
If Americans want to be safe from terrorists' attacks on centralized electricity-generating facilities, shouldn't the United States use distributed and onsite energy facilities?
Colleen F. Moore is a professor in the UW-Madison psychology department and is the author of "Silent Scourge: Children, pollution, and why scientists disagree" (Oxford University Press, 2003). Kristin Shrader-Frechette is a professor in the departments of biological sciences and philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, a member of many National Academy of Science boards, and author of 15 books and 300 articles, most on quantitative risk assessment, radiobiology or ethics.
Published: 7:00 AM 10/18/03
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Wisconsin State Journal
October 19, 2003
Rethinking Reactors
End Nuclear Moratorium
Max Carbon
Wisconsin is fighting for energy independence with one hand tied firmly behind its back. Nuclear power is clean, safe, reliable and cost-effective.
If they were free to decide based on the science, many policymakers in Wisconsin would come out swinging for nuclear power. They are handcuffed, however, by a 25-year-old law that is no longer needed.
The logic behind the 25-year-old moratorium, enacted due to a mix of cost and waste storage concerns, has passed. The moratorium is a barrier to meeting the state's long-term energy needs.
* Nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases, which have been steadily accumulating in our atmosphere throughout the Industrial Age and which threaten to cause severe climate changes in this century. Nuclear power can help avert that crisis.
* Nuclear waste can be stored safely. With the planned opening of the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada on the horizon, nuclear waste disposal will become practical and environmentally safe. The geologic disposal of high-level nuclear waste is almost entirely a political problem, not a technical one.
* The transportation of spent nuclear fuel is safe. The shipping casks that will carry spent nuclear fuel from power plant sites to Yucca Mountain are nearly indestructible. Prototypes have been tested against collisions, explosives, fire, water and being dropped from an airplane.
* Nuclear plants are safe against terrorists. The nuclear power industry has spent nearly $400 million on additional security since the Sept. 11 attacks. A study by the Democratic Leadership Council notes that "nuclear power plants have always been extremely secure."
* Nuclear power is economical. New nuclear plants would produce electricity at about the same cost as would new coal plants designed to meet the 1990 Clean Air Act requirements. If a large carbon-dioxide-emissions tax were imposed on coal plants to meet the Kyoto Protocol goals, nuclear electricity would be much cheaper than electricity from new coal plants.
Finally, nuclear power is safe. The reliability of the U.S. nuclear plant fleet of 104 licensed reactors (as measured by plant capacity factor) has reached an all-time high of over 91 percent. This, combined with the lowest levels of on-site worker-related accident frequencies in the U.S. industry (more than 10 times lower than the manufacturing average), demonstrates that nuclear plants are a very reliable and safe form of electrical power production.
In fact, there have been no known radiation-induced deaths from commercial nuclear power in North America in its 45-year history.
A very serious accident at the Chernobyl plant in the former USSR in 1986 claimed more than 30 lives of plant operators and emergency workers, as well as possibly the lives of well over a 100 children from thyroid cancer. Most of the latter deaths could have been prevented.
Even though present-day nuclear power plants in the western world have proven extremely safe, new "generation IV" designs, being developed under the leadership of the U.S. Department of Energy, will decrease by a factor of 10 or more the chances that reactor accidents will occur.
Wisconsin is too dependent on fossil fuels for electricity. It only makes sense to diversify with more nuclear power and to insulate the state against likely cost increases in natural gas and coal electricity.
It's ironic that Wisconsin has a moratorium on adding nuclear power, when there is an imminent, practical solution for handling wastes, but the state has no moratorium on fossil-fueled power plants, for which there is no practical waste-handling solution in sight. It's time to end the nuclear construction moratorium and use this technology to provide clean, safe, and reliable power for Wisconsin.
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Capital Times
October 21, 2003
UW nuke backers ruffle feathers in Nevada
By Mike Ivey
So what's with the UW and nuclear power?
First, it was Chancellor John Wiley taking heat over a UW-sponsored nuclear power conference that begins Wednesday.
Now, it's UW engineering professor Michael Corradini catching flak in Nevada over comments he made about the viability of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.
Corradini, who chairs the U.S. government's Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, recently co-authored an op-ed piece for The Capital Times. In it, the authors said that spent fuel "can be stored safely at Yucca Mountain."
That remark, not surprisingly, found its way back to Nevada, where a lot of the locals are not too excited about having radioactive waste trucked in and stored in their fair state for the next half-life or so. Among the most vocal critics has been Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who fired off a statement saying he was considering federal legislation to terminate the $3.2 million science board chaired by Corradini.
"This guy is out of control," said the Democrat Reid. "Anyone with a sense of fairness would tell the guy to leave."
Corradini, chairman of the physics engineering department at the UW-Madison, was appointed by President Bush in June 2002 to head the board whose members are academic experts in engineering, geology, materials science and ecology. The board monitors how the Energy Department is performing on technical aspects of the Yucca Mountain Project and reports its findings to Congress.
This isn't the first time Corradini has expressed a public view on the Yucca Mountain project that ruffled some feathers.
Last February, other members of the panel asked him to resign over similar remarks. Board member Norman Christensen, an ecology professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University told the Las Vegas Review Journal last week that other members were "very troubled" by Corradini's latest comments.
The article in question was written by Corradini; Max Carbon, UW professor emeritus; researcher John Murphy; and professor Paul Wilson. Arguing that Wisconsin should end its moratorium on new nuclear plants, the authors maintain that nuclear power is safe and economical. They also say nuclear waste can be stored safely at Yucca Mountain and that the transportation of spent nuclear fuel is safe because shipping casks that will carry waste to Nevada "are nearly indestructible."
The problem is that no final decision has been made on the viability of Yucca Mountain or the plan to transport waste there. There also are growing fears that trucking spent nuclear fuel for thousands of miles across the nation's public highway system will invite a terrorist attack.
Certainly the recent focus on the nation's energy problems has sparked renewed discussion of the future of nuclear power. New technologies have made nuclear a viable source of generation in countries like Japan and France, without the air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions you get from burning coal.
Still, you wonder if the UW nuke crew would be signing the same tune quite so loudly if Iron County in northern Wisconsin was being eyed for a nuclear waste dump.
Just like home: As if there weren't enough troubling stories coming out of Iraq, how about the reports that U.S sub-contractors rebuilding the country are using cheap migrant labor from southern Asia?
This comes despite the fact that the unemployment rate in Iraq is around 60 percent, with some seven million people out of work, and despite claims from Bush that the key to rebuilding a democratic Iraq are the Iraqi people themselves.
Officials of the Iraqi Governing Council are also concerned that large American contractors, including Halliburton and Bechtel, may be inflating the cost of the reconstruction projects. The Iraqi governors told members of the U.S. Congress recently that Iraqi companies could be doing the work at 10 percent of the cost.
Let's see. Inflating the costs of government work. Using imported cheap labor. Sounds like business as usual.
Mike Ivey is a business reporter at The Capital Times. He can be reached at 252-6431 or at mivey@madison.com
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Clean Wisconsin
October 21, 2003
Perspectives for a High-Level Nuclear Waste Facility in Wisconsin
Tammy Rauen
This 63 page document is available at:
http://www.cleanwisconsin.org/publications/nuclear_waste/
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Las Vegas SUN
October 20, 2003
Yucca ads anger Reid
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department's ads offering free Yucca Mountain tours to the public counters what officials have told Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in the past.
Ads appear in today's Las Vegas Sun as well as this morning's Las Vegas Review-Journal inviting residents to "Get answers to your questions" and tour the Yucca Mountain facility.
Reid has objected to the tours in the past, saying money should be focused on the science and research associated with the facility set to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and not "propaganda" trying to convince people to support the site, spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said.
The senator included language in a previous energy spending bill that prohibited the use of funds for advertising the tours.
Hafen said Margaret Chu, the department's civilian radioactive waste chief, told Reid's office they would no longer place the ads.
Allen Benson, te Energy Department's Yucca Mountain Project spokesman, did not know of this agreement but pointed out the law only limited the ads from running in 2001 and no discussion has taken place to limit tours or ads for this year.
Benson said the Energy Department fully compiled with the law in 2001 and that he even took the tour information off the project website.
Ads ran also ran in August 2002.
The "Open House" ads costs about $2,000 and are only done once a year, Benson said.
The tours cost $30,000 for the day, he said.
Reid is still evaluating what to do next, Hafen said.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 18, 2003
Tribal payment gets OK
Senate approves $143.9 million for loss of lands
By Samantha Young
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Friday approved legislation paying Western Shoshone Indians $143.9 million for land taken from their ancestors by the U.S. government.
Senators for the second consecutive year approved the distribution bill by a unanimous vote, but its future remained uncertain because of opposition among some lawmakers in the House.
The legislation would permit the Interior Department to distribute about $142 million that has been sitting in a trust fund account since 1979 to an estimated 4,500 Western Shoshone, according to tribal leaders. The remaining $1.4 million would be placed in an education trust fund.
Depending on the number of tribal members who qualify, individuals could receive around $30,000 apiece.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., the chief House sponsor of the bill, said congressional leaders have promised a vote on it but have not said when.
Western Shoshone have been waiting for money since the Indian Claims Commission in 1972 awarded them payment for 60 million acres of ancestral land, which spanned parts of Nevada and three other Western states.
The commission concluded that the Western Shoshone had gradually lost their land because of encroachment by the U.S. settlers despite the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley that recognized it as Indian territory.
In the past two decades, the issue has been tossed among courts and debated in Congress.
"It's been a long time coming," said Felix Ike, chairman of the Te-Moak Tribe. "Maybe soon we can put an end to this and have closure to the issue."
However, not all Western Shoshone want the money. Dissenters have been lobbying Congress to defeat the legislation, believing there are still opportunities to negotiate settlements for land and other benefits.
"This is payment for the land and I don't care what they say. This is not payment for damages," said Raymond Yowell, chairman of the Western Shoshone National Council, which opposes the bill. "It will make it harder for the Shoshones to seek justice after the payment."
Western Shoshone members Mary and Carrie Dann, the Winnemucca Indian Colony, the South Fork Band of the Te-Moak Tribe, and the Western Shoshone National Council, last month filed another lawsuit against the government, claiming up to 60 million acres of ancestral land.
"It's taking lands that don't belong to them under the guise of a payment of 50 cents an acre," said Carrie Dann. "To me it's the biggest theft ever in the United States of America."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate sponsor, and Gibbons say the legislation would not bar tribes from expanding their reservations through separate legislation. In a statement Friday, Reid said he would help tribes seek "a reasonable approach to meeting their land needs."
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Arizona Daily Sun
October 18, 2003
Green vs. Hayworth was good theater
Roxane George, outreach director for the Southwest Forest Alliance, really got to know Bruce Green in the mid-1990s when the issue of transporting nuclear waste through Flagstaff to a site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada first surfaced.
"Bruce was at every political or activist event that happened here," George said.
She remembered Green's run-ins with Congressman J.D. Hayworth.
"It seemed like any time Hayworth came to town, Bruce was going to be there challenging him on his policies," George said.
Once, Green had busted his ankle and was in a wheelchair, but attended a Hayworth political event anyway.
"Bruce went straight up to him like he always does and started to say something to him," George said. "Hayworth said something back that Bruce didn't like, and he put his hand up and said, 'I've heard enough of your nonsense on this.'"
Later, Hayworth was on a radio show to which Green was listening.
Green decided to call up to challenge Hayworth.
"And Hayworth said, 'No, I don't want to talk to him because he tried to assault me the last time that I saw him,'" George said.
Green was proud of that one.
Continued George, laughing, quoting Green: "There I was sitting in my wheelchair, trying to talk to Hayworth like I always do, and he says I tried to assault him."
And new Congressman Rick Renzi was not immune to Green's antics, George said.
During the last congressional race, Green attended a candidates forum. Renzi was there.
"After Renzi got done speaking, he came down to the audience," George said. "Bruce was sitting on the aisle, and he stands up and whips out a carpetbag and says, 'Is this yours?'"
His motivation for his action: "He had a huge heart and really cared passionately about social justice and environmental issues. And he had this really easy quality, which is that he was completely unself-conscious and unabashed about being exactly who he was and expressing that to everyone."
George added that people who knew Green felt like they belonged to a small, intimate circle of friends. Long conversations were a mainstay.
"A lot of us thought we were amongst a few people who got that kind of attention from Bruce," George said. "But what we found out was that there were probably hundreds of people who Bruce maintained that kind of contact and constant friendship with."
Green never drove; he rode a bike everywhere. Everything he owned was reused. And he was never averse to helping others. When he came across a load of clothes, or food, he shared the booty, George said.
"I'll miss him," she said.
--Larry Hendrick
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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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