Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, November 21, 2003
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Las Vegas SUN
November 21, 2003

Aerial survey to look for volcanoes around Nevada nuke dump site

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Aerial surveys will look for evidence of hidden
volcanoes around the southern Nevada site tapped to be the nation's
nuclear waste repository.

The field studies, expected in February around Yucca Mountain, will
use aircraft equipped with magnetic sensing instruments to find where
workers should drill in search of geologic evidence of volcanic
activity, Energy Department geologist Eric Smistad said Thursday.

The effort will focus on Crater Flat, west of the desert site, which
sits about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"The question is, 'Are there indeed buried volcanoes?'" Smistad said
after presentations to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory
Committee on Nuclear Waste, which met in Las Vegas.

The studies were approved by the Energy Department even though
previous scientific work found that extinct volcanoes and cinder
cones near the mountain posed no credible threat to the government's
plans for burying spent nuclear fuel and highly radioactive waste at
Yucca Mountain.

Opponents of the project say they fear dormant volcanoes could become
active and spawn earthquakes that could rupture containers buried in
the repository, possibly releasing lethal radioactivity.

There are six basaltic volcanoes within about 12 miles of the planned
repository, said Michael Cline, a researcher for project contractor
Bechtel SAIC Co.

Smistad said U.S. Geological Survey overflights in 1999 found several
sites where buried volcanoes might exist. Even if they all turn out
to be hidden volcanoes, calculations show "very slight" impact on the
planned repository.

New field studies show that scientific work that was used to support
recommending the site last year by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham
wasn't finished, said Bob Loux, director of the state of Nevada's
Agency for Nuclear Projects, which has fought for years against the
Yucca Mountain dump.

"Everything points to the fact that the site recommendation was
premature," Loux said.

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UC Davis
November 21, 2003

Unusual Minerals Formed on Stored Nuclear Waste

Nuclear fuel waste in long-term storage could form mineral phases
that are not well understood, according to research by chemists at
the University of Notre Dame and UC Davis and recently published in
the journal Science.

Peter Burns, professor of civil engineering and geological sciences
at Notre Dame, and graduate student Karrie-Ann Hughes, with UC Davis
Interdisciplinary Professor Alexandra Navrotsky and postdoctoral
researcher Katheryn Helean, studied the stability of two minerals,
studtite and metastudtite, that contain both uranium and peroxide.

The researchers found that studtite and metastudtite may be readily
formed on the surface of nuclear waste under long-term storage,
possibly at the expense of other minerals, such as uranyl oxides and
silicates, which have been more thoroughly studied and are better
understood.

Studtites most likely form when radioactivity from uranium-rich rocks
or nuclear fuel converts water to peroxide, which reacts with the
minerals. Nuclear fuel waste under long-term storage, for example in
the proposed Yucca Mountain depository in Nevada, would remain
sufficiently radioactive to form studtite and metastudtite at the
surface for thousands of years.

Not enough is known about these minerals to know if they will make
radioactive wastes more stable or less, Navrotsky said.

"It means that the models used to assess fuel corrosion are
incomplete. Whether the end result will be more or less corrosion
than without studtite is a combination of thermodynamics and kinetics
which needs to be explored further," she said.

Studtite also has been found on the surface of spent nuclear fuel
stored at Hanford, Wash., nuclear site and on material at the site of
the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident in Ukraine.

Uranyl peroxides must be considered in assessing the impact of uranyl
materials on the release of radioactivity from nuclear waste in a
depository, the researchers said. The study was published in the Nov.
14 issue of Science.

Media contact(s):
• Andy Fell, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-4533,
ahfell@ucdavis.edu

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 21, 2003

Federal scientists to seek volcanoes near Yucca site

Earlier work showed dormant volcanic cones posed no threat

By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal

Federal scientists will explore land around the planned Yucca
Mountain nuclear waste repository looking for evidence of hidden
volcanoes, they told an advisory panel Thursday.

The field studies, expected to begin in February, will use an
aircraft equipped with magnetic sensing instruments to find where
workers should drill in search of basalt materials that could be
evidence of volcanic activity.

The effort will focus on Crater Flat, west of the mountain 100 miles
northwest of Las Vegas, said Energy Department geologist Eric
Smistad.

"The question is, 'Are there indeed buried volcanoes?' " he said
after he and colleagues made presentations to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste.

The studies were approved by the Energy Department even though
previous scientific work found that extinct volcanoes and cinder
cones in the vicinity of the mountain posed no credible threat to the
government's plans for burying spent nuclear fuel and highly
radioactive waste there.

One researcher, Michael Cline of Yucca Mountain project contractor
Bechtel SAIC Co., said there are six basaltic volcanoes within about
12 miles of the planned repository, including Lathrop Wells, the
youngest volcano in the region. Molten rock last penetrated the
surface there about 75,000 years ago, he said.

After the session, Smistad said overflights by the U.S. Geological
Survey in 1999 found several locations where buried volcanoes might
exist. Even if they all turn out to be hidden volcanoes, calculations
show there would be only "very slight" impact on the planned
repository.

State Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob Loux said these new field
studies show that scientific work that was used to support
recommending the site last year by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham
wasn't finished.

"Everything points to the fact that the site recommendation was
premature," Loux said by telephone from Carson City.

Similarly, he said, other issues with the project remain unresolved
including the risk from military and commercial flights over the area
and answers about corrosion of waste canisters.

"In the real world, the project wouldn't go forward until these are
resolved," Loux said.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 21, 2003

Desert Research Institute to receive $10 million from feds

Money earmarked to go to several projects

Review-Journal

Desert Research Institute will receive $10 million in federal funding
for a number of projects including development of military training
tools and environmental monitoring systems for the Yucca Mountain
nuclear waste site.

In a statement Thursday, officials of DRI, the research arm of the
University of Nevada system, said $3 million is slated for
development of a three-dimensional video system to train military
personnel on operating helicopters, tanks and other equipment in
desert environments.

Known as CAVE, for Computer Automated Virtual Environment, the money
for the project was earmarked in a joint congressional appropriations
conference report.

"Another $3 million is designated to create an integrated, predictive
tool for forecasting desert terrain conditions to support military
tactical operations, testing and training in arid environments,"
according to the institute's statement.

In another conference report, about $1 million was designated for DRI
to launch development of air, groundwater and community monitoring
systems "for Yucca Mountain to ensure public health and safety if the
facility is used to store nuclear waste," the statement read.

"It will be to Nevada's advantage to have a state-based agency
monitoring environmental impacts of the project. This is a program
that will be essential to safeguarding the health and safety of
Nevada's citizens," the statement quotes the institute's president,
Stephen Wells, as saying.

Another $1 million will be used by DRI to develop technology with the
Army Corps of Engineers to reduce damage in flood control channels
and use computers to predict runoff in the Las Vegas Valley and other
places in the Southwest.

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Las Vegas SUN
November 20, 2003

Lieberman: Bush knuckled under on Yucca Mountain

By Jace Radke
<jace@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN

Sen. Joe Lieberman attacked the Bush administration during a fund-
raising stop in Las Vegas Wednesday, saying the president has broken
a promise to use sound science to determine if a national nuclear
waste repository should be based at Yucca Mountain.

"The scientific and environmental information out there has not
convinced me that (storing waste at Yucca) is the right and safe
thing to do," said Lieberman, of Connecticut, who has voted against
Yucca Mountain as a storage site. "It's above the water table, and
there are questions about the site and about transporting nuclear
waste across the country."

The Democratic presidential candidate met with reporters at McCarran
International Airport Wednesday before heading to a private fund-
raiser.

Southern Nevada has become a frequent fund-raising stop this year for
White House aspirants. Lieberman is the fifth Democratic presidential
candidate to visit Southern Nevada this year. Rep. Dick Gephardt of
Missouri is scheduled to visit Las Vegas on Friday.

President Bush is scheduled to make his first trip to Las Vegas on
Tuesday for a fund-raiser. Vice President Dick Cheney was in Las
Vegas in July to raise campaign money.

The state, which went to Bush three years ago, is expected to carry
more importance in the 2004 presidential election than it has in the
past as candidates seek its now five electoral votes. Bush won the
last election by four electoral votes, when Nevada had four votes.

Lieberman told reporters that if he is elected he would need to be
convinced that the site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was
suitable.

Lieberman said that when Bush signed legislation last year to store
77,000 tons of radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, the president was
"knuckling under to special interests."

"I would take a look at it as president, and if I wasn't convinced it
was safe, I would not let it go forward," Lieberman said. "We've
gotten a lot smarter since the site was first proposed 25 years ago,
and we should be able to come up with some way to recycle nuclear
waste and not have to transport it across the country."

His Wednesday fund-raiser was scheduled for Ruth's Chris Steakhouse,
and was hosted by former Sen. Richard Bryan and former Las Vegas
Mayor Jan Laverty Jones.

When asked if he planned to gamble while in Las Vegas, Lieberman
said, "I will before I leave. I promised (Sen.) Harry Reid that I
would contribute to the local economy."

"Nevada is my kind of state," he said. "It's moderate and independent-
minded, and that's the kind of Democrat I am."

Lieberman also criticized Bush on the economy, health care and the
war in Iraq, saying that the efforts of the military have not been
followed up with an effective restructuring of government in Iraq.

"The thing that went right in Iraq was the American military,"
Lieberman said. "Unfortunately the Bush administration has done a
terrible job of moving from the military victory to reconstruction.

"An Iraqi self-government needed to be put in place, and we're
finally doing that."

Lieberman also said that he was troubled with federal law enforcement
agencies using the Patriot Act in investigations that do not involve
terrorism, which happened in Las Vegas when FBI officials requested
financial records of current and former politicians in connection
with an ongoing political corruption investigation.

"I think a lot of us recognized that we were working in an emergency
climate (when the Patriot Act was passed) and that we had to give
emergency power to law enforcement," Lieberman said. "The thing about
the Patriot Act is that a lot of the powers sunset in 2005. The act
will undergo an extensive review in Congress next year."08

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Pahrump Valley Times
October 19, 2003

In support of YMP

There is no doubt that Yucca Mountain is a national issue because we
are helping the country solve a national environmental challenge.
Yes, the spent fuel and high-level waste will have to be transported
to Yucca Mountain but the safety record of the industry is hard to
match. Over the last 30 years there have been over 2,700 shipments of
spent fuel traveling some 1.6 million miles and there has never been
a release of radioactive material harmful to the public or
environment.

Right now the spent fuel is sitting at 131 locations in 39 states. I
think the remote location of the Nevada Test Site makes all the sense
in the world, especially with the history of the test site managing
nuclear projects.

With that being said and seeing the intent of Congress to solve this
challenge, our elected officials should be fighting to keep the waste
out of the metropolitan Las Vegas valley. So why isn't Sen. Reid and
the rest of our delegation doing just that, and why has the media
ignored the lack of leadership of our elected officials to solve the
transportation issue related to Yucca Mountain?

I know that low level waste going to the test site doesn't go through
Las Vegas and with the authority the governor has in the national
policy on Yucca Mountain, being able to designate an alternate route
to Yucca Mountain, I know rural Nevada will bear the burden of the
Yucca Mountain shipping campaign. Let's be solution oriented, keep it
out of Las Vegas but prepare rural Nevada to respond and let's give
them the best darn emergency response equipment and training
available.

Bill Vasconi

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St. George Daily Spectrum
November 21, 2003

State dodges radioactive waste bullet - for now

In Our View

Envirocare's decision not to pursue another class of radioactive
waste appears to have put an end to the debate of whether Utah should
provide storage for toxic refuse from other states.

That is, the decision ended the debate for now.

In the latest attempt to make Utah the dumping ground for radioactive
waste from across the nation, Envirocare sought a license with the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to accept 15,000 tons of hazardous
waste. The license application was withdrawn because, the company
says, it couldn't meet the federal agency's deadline.

That gets Utah off the hook for now. But the reality is that the
Legislature and our representatives in Washington, D.C., have to work
in tandem to ensure that our state doesn't become the nation's
nuclear waste landfill.

First, two myths have to be dispelled. The waste that Envirocare was
seeking to accept is not the ultra-lethal materials slated for
storage in Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert. The materials that
would have been stored in the Tooele depot are toxic, to be sure, but
not of the same magnitude as the waste from nuclear power plants.

The second myth is that a victory in this latest fight means that the
state will not face this issue again. That simply isn't true.

Envirocare's decision has no effect on plans to ship nuclear waste to
Yucca Mountain. And there is nothing in place to prevent more lower-
level waste from coming into the state at a later date.

To ensure that the state is protected, the Legislature must act in
the next session to place restrictions on the kinds of materials the
state is willing to accept. Rep. Stephen Urquhart of St. George
already is working on legislation that would assist in helping the
state avoid becoming a dumping ground.

On the federal level, our lawmakers have a responsibility to their
constituents to protect them from the storage of radioactive waste.
Envirocare serves an important purpose in an area of desert that
might not be usable for much of anything else. But state residents
have indicated through surveys and polls that they don't want any
"hotter" materials in the state. Our senators and representatives
have to work to ensure those wishes are carried out.

In short, the fight is only beginning. Nuclear waste likely still
will travel down our highways to Yucca Mountain. There might not be
much we can do about that issue.

But we can prevent other kinds of waste from entering the state. And
that effort starts with our legislators and congressmen.

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Brattleboro Reformer
November 21, 2003

Demolition of shuttered Yankee Rowe continues

By Toby Henry
Reformer Staff

BRATTLEBORO -- Explosions may be heard around southern Vermont and
northern Massachusetts on Saturday as demolition work slated for the
decommissioned Yankee Rowe nuclear plant in Rowe, Mass., continues,
officials warned on Thursday.

"We'd just like residents in southern Vermont to know that there are
going to be explosions because people need to be warned in advance in
case they hear something about it on the radio," said Duncan Higgins,
deputy director of Vermont Emergency Management.

"They may hear the explosions, they may not hear them but we don't
want anyone to think there is something wrong."

Kelley Smith, a spokeswoman for the plant, said the demolition work
is designed to help break and loosen a 1,470-ton steel-and-concrete
pedestal which once supported the 185-megawatt plant's turbine-
generator system. Demolition experts from Controlled Demolition Inc.,
will use about 860 pounds of explosives in a series of three-phased
detonations to fracture the pedestal.

"This is the preparation for the destruction and removal of the
turbine building, which will be torn down by the end of the year,"
Smith said.

A statement said the detonations will sound like "a heavy, repeated
gunshot blast or back-to-back thunderclaps." The 12-acre plant area,
located on the Deerfield River just a few miles from the Vermont
border, will be cleared of all personnel except for demolition and
security workers. Smith said the explosions will take place during
normal daylight working hours on Saturday and will probably begin in
the late morning.

State police in Vermont and Massachusetts, as well as emergency
management departments and police dispatchers in those states, have
been notified that the explosions will take place, she said.

"In a post 9/11 environment, we want to make sure that people know
this is a planned, controlled event," she said.

Smith said the area of the plant where the demolition work will take
place is similar to other electricity generating areas in coal and
gas plants and does not contain high levels of radiation. Potentially
radioactive pieces of machinery, along with some 21 miles of piping
and an estimated 1,000 pumps and valves, have already been removed
and disposed of in accordance with state and federal standards for
low-level radioactive waste, she said. The reactor vessel was removed
in 1997, she said, and the steam generator was removed about 10 years
ago.

"As of now, all the buildings on the site are empty," she said.

The only radioactive materials still on site are 533 spent fuel rods,
she continued. The rods have been placed in fuel assemblies, and from
there, have been permanently sealed inside a "cask" of 312 inch-thick
carbon steel surrounded by 21 inches of reinforced concrete. This
method of storage, referred to as "dry cask storage" was completed at
Yankee Rowe in June, she said.

On-site storage will continue at the decommissioned plant until a
permanent location, such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, becomes
available, she said, adding that the federal Department of Energy has
estimated that the location will become available between 2010 and
2015.

If all goes as planned, Smith said, all of the buildings formerly
used by the pressurized-water-reactor should be demolished and
removed by 2004. Only the dry-cask storage building will remain, she
said.

Yankee Rowe, the third commercial nuclear power plant built in the
United States, operated for 31 years and was shut down in early 1992.
The plant had been owned by a coalition of about 10 utility groups,
said Smith. The plant's output of 185 megawatts was modest in
comparison to the generating capacity of facilities built in later
years, she added, but in its prime, the plant was large enough to
feed the energy needs of a city the size of Springfield, Mass.

Rowe resident Deborah Katz said she isn't particularly worried about
the Saturday demolition, but said that the prospect of the on-site
storage of some 40 million microcuries of radiation in the spent
nuclear fuel at the plant site is a cause of concern for her. Katz
said she lives about four miles from the plant.

"We're glad the buildings are coming down, but we're concerned about
the waste," she said. "Since that waste has been on-site for decades,
it's like living next to a hazardous waste dump."

Toby Henry can be reached at thenry@reformer.com.

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Popular Science
December 2003

The bad things that would happen if we launched nuclear waste into
the sun.

by Michael Moyer

A reader inquires: Why don't we just take all the nuclear waste,
throw it into a rocket, then launch the rocket into the Sun? Would
this make the Sun explode?

Let's start with the last part of the question first: Would all the
nuclear waste on Earth cause any sort of damage to our Sun? The
answer is an emphatic no. The Sun would not care one whit about
anything we could throw its way, primarily because the Sun is large,
and we, in cosmic terms, are quite small. The Sun already contains
far more uranium (a major component of high-level nuclear waste) than
we could ever dig up here on Earth. Measurements of solar composition
put the amount of solar uranium at as much as one hundred billion
billion (1020) tons, which is, even as an upper bound, a whole lot of
uranium. Makes our little nuclear waste problem seem positively
trivial by comparison.

Except that it's not. There are currently about 45,000 tons of
nuclear waste stored in 131 sites across the country. By 2035 the
total amount of nuclear waste is expected to grow to more than
115,000 tons. This waste -- mainly in the form of spent commercial
fuel rods -- is highly radioactive and dangerous and will be for tens
of thousands of years. Most scientists and policymakers advocate
storing the waste deep under Nevada's Yucca Mountain, which will, it
is hoped, hold the material, undisturbed, until the effective end of
time. Yet the first shipment of waste will not arrive in Nevada
before 2010 at the earliest.

Until that time, all the waste produced at nuclear powerplants will
continue to be stored at those plants, which has raised fears that a
terrible malfunction -- accidental or not -- could release nuclear
waste near populated areas. And so we turn to other options, such as
our reader's solar launch plan, to get rid of this stuff.

One hitch: The vehicles we rely on for space transport have a
terrible tendency to explode at the most inopportune times. A series
of six rocket failures within nine months in 1998 and 1999 destroyed
about $3.5 billion worth of military, communications and imaging
equipment. In the tail stretch of that streak, four exploded in five
weeks. And while overall rocket failure rates are far lower --
depending on the program, rockets launch successfully about 95
percent of the time -- the explosion of any rocket holding a
significant amount of nuclear waste would be, to say the least, far
more problematic than the loss of a weather satellite.

Take, for example, the Delta 4, one of the newest and most powerful
rockets on the planet. In its Heavy configuration, the Delta 4 can
lift nearly 29,000 pounds into geosynchronous orbit (most rockets
can't lift half that). But even with this huge capacity, it would
still take about 3,100 flights to lift the 45,000 tons of nuclear
waste now in storage out into the solar system. Give the rocket a
generous 99 percent success rate, and you'd still expect to see 31
rockets carrying 450 tons of nuclear waste explode in the upper
atmosphere before the job was done. This is risk analysis, and in
this case, serious catastrophe is nearly guaranteed.

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NRC
November 20, 2003

NRC Considers Improvements Related to the Availability and Submission
of Documents for a Potential Hearing on Yucca Mountain

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering changing its
regulations on how potential parties to any hearing on a high-level
radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, should place
their documents on their Internet web servers to make these materials
accessible via the NRC´s Licensing Support Network (LSN) and submit
documents to the NRC adjudicatory docket.

The proposed changes, which are to Part 2, Subpart J, of the
Commission´s regulations in Title 10 of the Code of Federal
Regulations, specify how large and complex documents should be
submitted, clarify that LSN participants must continue to augment
their original information but need not provide duplicates of
documents provided by other participants, and add a category of
material that may be excluded from the LSN.

The agency´s current regulations require all potential participants
in the license application hearing process for a potential high-level
nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain to make their documents
available to other potential participants and the public in
electronic form through the Licensing Support Network (LSN) website,
http://www.lsnnet.gov .

The proposed revisions to the regulations would specify that large
documents (electronic files of more than 50 megabytes) submitted to
the adjudicatory docket must be transmitted electronically in
multiple transmissions of no more than 50 megabytes each. Complex
documents (such as maps, databases, video files, and executable
programs) that are not amenable to electronic transmission could be
delivered on optical storage media. All electronic submissions would
have to be free of author-imposed security restrictions.

Current regulations require participants to certify that the required
documentary material has been identified and made electronically
available through the LSN at the initial times specified in the rule.
The Department of Energy (DOE) must make its material available no
later than six months in advance of submitting its license
application to the NRC to receive and possess high-level radioactive
waste at the Yucca Mountain geologic operations area. The NRC must
make its material available no later than 30 days after the DOE
certification of compliance with the submittal requirement. And other
potential parties must make their material available no later than 90
days after the DOE certification. The proposed revisions clarify that
potential parties must continue to make available to other
participants LSN documentary material created after the initial
submittals.

The proposed changes specify that any general correspondence between
a potential party and the Congress of the United States need not be
submitted to the LSN. The Commission noted that much of this
Congressional material either relates to budgetary issues or is
merely a reiteration of an agency primary document. It would normally
not be the source of material that a party would rely on for its case
in the hearing. Other types of material not required to be submitted
under the current regulations include text books and press releases.

The proposed amendments would also allow an LSN participant to
exclude from its collection a document created by another LSN
participant if that document has already been made available by the
LSN participant who created it. If an LSN participant identifies a
document that the creator of that document has not included on its
LSN document collection server, the participant who identified the
document should include it on its own LSN document collection server,
in addition to notifying the creator of the document that such action
is being taken.

The Commission noted that reports and studies relevant to issues
addressed by the DOE´s environmental impact statement on Yucca
Mountain must be made available on the LSN. It further recommended
that LSN participants use the NRC “Yucca Mountain Review Plan’ (NUREG-
1804, Rev. 2, July 2003) as a guide for identifying documentary
material that should be submitted.

Further details of the proposed changes to the regulations are
contained in a Federal Register notice to be published shortly.
Interested persons are invited to submit comments, within 45 days
after publication of the notice, to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001, Attention:
Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff. Alternatively, comments may be e-
mailed to SECY@nrc.gov or hand-delivered to 11555 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, Maryland 20852, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on Federal
workdays.

---------------------------
State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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