Yucca Mountain News Clips - Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
September 21, 2004

Experts question safety of Yucca casks

Water penetration, earthquakes among concerns

By Stephen Curran
Las Vegas SUN

A metal drip shield that would keep water from penetrating casks holding high-level nuclear waste at a proposed dump at Yucca Mountain may be less effective than originally thought, members of an independent oversight board said Monday.

Robert Andrews, a geologist for Bechtel SAIC, the project's main contractor, said scientists are still developing models to determine if water seeping into the mountain could penetrate the alloy shield roughly 980 feet below the surface.

He was one of several scientists with both the Energy Department and private contractors who addressed the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board on Monday.

But even if water does go through cracks in the protective layer, researchers still do not know if it could corrode the cylindrical casks that would store the 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in the mountain, Andrews said.

"The fact that it could crack is well known, but what happens when water comes in contact (with the cask) needs to be assessed," Andrews told the board, which met Monday at the Atrium Suites hotel on Paradise Road.

The scientists' concerns came as scientists continue a study on possible risks stemming from the proposed nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The study is part of the long-term license application process, which Energy Department officials say could lead to nuclear waste being shipped to Yucca as soon as 2010.

The department has until the end of the year to submit the license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

A team of geologists is studying whether water flowing on the surface could alter the chemistry of the rocks, which could cause the barrier to degrade. If enough water penetrates the shield, scientists worry that radioactive nucleotides could seep into the water table another 980 feet below the casks, he said.

Six teams with three geologists each are developing a plan to study the risks that could arise from a possible earthquake near the proposed repository, said Jon Ake, a geophysicist from the federal Bureau of Reclamation.

A key part of the plan, he said, is incorporating possible but unlikely scenarios about the potential endangerment of those living near the proposed dump. Little Skull Mountain not far from Yucca suffered a 5.6 magnitude earthquake in 1992 and the area was shaken by a 4.4 magnitude quake in June.

Ake and others are currently evaluating faults near the proposed dump to see how dangerous a similar quake would be for the nuclear waste, he said.

"We need to find a way to incorporate the unknown," Ake said.

The meeting came a day after a high-level Energy Department official said the government will likely miss the Dec. 30 deadline to submit the application.

Bechtel had a financial stake in finishing the application on time, as the DOE has promised to pay the contractor another $15 million if scientists for the company finish the application by Nov. 30. The company could also get another $22 million if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission puts the item on its docket by March.

The project has been on shaky ground since a federal court this summer ruled planners' 10,000-year radiation standard falls short of a stricter standard mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The next step for the Energy Department is to submit the application, which it plans to do by the end of the year.

If approved, a 319-mile railroad would carry the waste through much of rural Lincoln County to the nuclear waste dump.

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Las Vegas SUN
September 21, 2004

Nevada urges rejection of appeal

By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Nevada is urging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reject an Energy Department appeal regarding the first phase of the licensing process for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"The carefully reasoned decision of the (Pre-License Application Presiding Officer's) Board should be affirmed," Attorney General Brian Sandoval and the state's Yucca legal team wrote in a response filed with the commission Monday.

Sandoval told the commission that if it were to accept the department arguments, the whole of the document database would be "undermined."

"An essential part of the commission's regulatory design for conducting the Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding would be replaced by an unworkable scheme that aids and abets requests for extensions of time for filing critical pleadings and provokes needless controversy."

The commission licensing board decided Aug. 31 that the Energy Department did not comply with all of the commission's requirements when the department said it made all of the Yucca project documents available on June 30. The department has to make the documents available six months before submitting the license application. It wants to hand in the application by Dec. 30.

But last week, the department asked the board to revisit its decision on the document database. The department said the board should not tie validity of its database to the commission's ability to load documents onto its own Web site. The department created it own Web site to handle the documents, which Nevada says defeats the whole purpose of having a site run by the commission.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 21, 2004

Yucca guidelines at least several months away

EPA might propose new radiation protections early next year, panel told

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency might propose new radiation standards for Yucca Mountain early next year, prolonging uncertainties that could build sentiment in Congress to revisit alternatives to burying nuclear waste in Nevada, a science panel was told Monday.

EPA executive Jeffrey Holmstead said it will be at least several months before the agency develops new radiation standards for the repository after a federal appeals court threw out a set of protections in a July 9 ruling.

Holmstead, the agency's assistant administrator for air and radiation, said EPA will be challenged by the task, which involves projections of radiation dangers to Nevadans from decaying nuclear waste for periods that could reach hundreds of thousands of years.

"We're dealing with time periods different from anything else we've done at EPA," Holmstead said. "Going beyond that is a challenge."

Holmstead commented at a meeting organized by the Board of Radioactive Waste Management, part of the National Academy of Sciences. The board assembled experts to review the July ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

A three-judge panel invalidated an EPA regulation requiring DOE to prove radiation protections at the repository site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for a 10,000 year-period. The judges ruled EPA failed to take into account the recommendations of a 1995 Academy of Sciences study that concluded repository radiation doses may not peak for thousands of years longer.

The ruling has thrown the Yucca program into jeopardy. The Department of Energy now is reconsidering whether it can meet a December deadline to submit a repository license application, a spokesman confirmed.

"We're reviewing where things stand," DOE spokesman Joe Davis said. "We're looking at the total picture of the entire program with respect to the court rulings, congressional action and interaction with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

Deputy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow, DOE's No. 2 leader, last week told an energy newsletter, The Exchange Monitor, that the federal court ruling and an NRC board ruling against DOE's certification of an online document database for Yucca Mountain is causing the evaluation.

"I have to be realistic. It's going to affect the application process," McSlarrow told the trade publication. "I am not prepared to write off any goals and objectives right now. But I'm now an optimist with a dose of realism. We have a whole lot of unanswered questions."

Energy Department officials have said repeatedly they intend to have a license application submitted by the end of this year.

But when asked Monday in Las Vegas if that goal is still intact, DOE's civilian radioactive waste management director, Margaret Chu, said, "I can't say" if it is likely or unlikely if the agency will submit an application before 2005.

"We are preparing one and reviewing it, and it's important that we submit a high quality one," Chu said during a break in a meeting of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.

Because the massive collection of documents in the licensing support network must be certified six months before the NRC can docket a license application, it appears inevitable that DOE can't meet its self-imposed deadline in December.

In Washington, Sam Fowler, a senior U.S. Senate adviser on nuclear waste, told members of the science academy Monday there is "some sympathy in some corners in Congress" for lawmakers to pass a bill that would help the Yucca project by overruling the court and keeping the 10,000-year radiation standard intact.

But, Fowler said, that might not work politically.

"There may be an appearance to the lay public that Congress was now trying to dumb the standards down to where Yucca Mountain can pass the test," said Fowler, who was once an aide to then-Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, D-La., who promoted the 1987 legislation singling out the Yucca site for study.

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Nevada Appeal
September 21, 2004

EPA hopes to have new Yucca radiation standard early next year

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Trying to overcome a possibly crippling court decision, the Environmental Protection Agency hopes to have a proposal by early next year on new radiation exposure limits at a proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada.

Jeffrey Holmstead, chief of EPA's air and radiation programs, told a panel of scientists Monday that a wide range of options is being considered that would not require Congress to intervene in the politically charged issue.

The future of the waste project at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert was put into jeopardy when a federal appeals court rejected an EPA radiation exposure standard in July that was tied to 10,000 years into the future, even though some of the waste will be at its most dangerous thousands of years later.

The court said EPA failed to take into account a 1995 National Academy of Sciences recommendation that the standard be set at periods of peak-radiation, although Congress required that the recommendations be followed. Opponents of the project have argued that the design of the waste site as it is now contemplated cannot meet a standard set that far into the future.

At a meeting Monday, members of the Board of Radioactive Waste Management, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, examined implications of the court case and possible options for future action. The board frequently offers a forum to examine waste management issues.

Robert Fri, chairman of the National Academy panel that wrote the 1995 report cited by the court, suggested the EPA satisfy the court's objections only by significantly altering its standard more in line with what his group had recommended.

That would involve going well beyond 10,000 years, but not necessarily so far into the future that risk modeling, or even the proposed Yucca design, might be useless, Fri suggested.

EPA would have to adopt a less conservative approach to determining public risks from exposure, said Fri, a scholar at the environmental think tank Resources for the Future.

Holmstead said the EPA is "at the beginning of the process of determining what options might be" available but would not discuss specific proposals. Going beyond 10,000 years for a radiation standard "is a real challenge," he conceded.

Congress also could intervene by passing legislation to free the EPA from having to take into consideration the 1995 National Academy recommendations.

Sam Fowler, the senior Democratic staff member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told the scientists such a move could appear to the public as Congress "trying to dumb down the standard" for political reasons. Strong opposition to the Yucca project by Nevada's congressional delegation also would make it difficult to pass such legislation.

Whether the impasse over an acceptable radiation standard eventually could scuttle the Yucca Mountain project remains to be seen. Nevertheless, supporters acknowledge it casts serious doubt on the Energy Department's plan to open the waste site by 2010.

Trying to establish public risks tens of thousands of years into the future is a staggering undertaking, scientists acknowledged at Monday's meeting.

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New York Times
September 21, 2004

Expert Faults Court's Ruling About Waste From Reactors

By Matthew L. Wald

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 - The court that derailed the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in July, concluding that the government had not set strict enough rules on radioactivity leakage, based its decision on an incomplete reading of a National Academy of Sciences study, the chairman of the committee that wrote the study said on Monday.

The judges, on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, decided that Congress had intended the rules governing the repository to be in accordance with a 1995 National Academy of Sciences study that said they should cover the period of peak risk, which would be hundreds of thousands of years. The Environmental Protection Agency had written a rule that the repository must meet release standards for only 10,000 years to be licensed.

The court told the agency to rewrite the rules. The E.P.A. has not decided what to do and has asked Congress to override the ruling.

But at a meeting of a National Academy of Sciences committee on radioactive waste, Robert W. Fri, who led the group that wrote the 1995 study, said on Monday that it had based its exposure estimates on the probability that people would live in the places most polluted by the repository, while the E.P.A. had made "extreme assumptions" that people were certain to live there, and to draw polluted water from wells for drinking and for irrigating the crops they would eat.

"That is a place where the committee specifically decided they did not want to be," Mr. Fri said.

The fate of the repository is now before a Congress that is unlikely to take up the issue before the November elections, and depending on their results, may not do so afterward, participants at Monday's meeting of the Academy's Board on Radioactive Waste Management said.

The discussion at the meeting reflected the repository's highly uncertain future.

Mr. Fri said that concluding that Yucca Mountain could not meet federal standards would not make the waste disappear, and that if placing the waste there was better than leaving it where it is now, perhaps the repository should be built anyway.

But Judy Triechel, an official with the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, a state agency, said: "Supposing the best solution isn't good enough, that's easy. The answer is, You're not ready yet. If Yucca Mountain isn't good enough, we shouldn't proceed with it."

Referring to the debate over guarding against leakage for 10,000 years versus several hundred thousand years, Ms. Triechel said, "There cannot be an expiration date on safety."

Some experts at the meeting were pessimistic that Congress would grant the Energy Department's request to change the rules.

"The appearance of such an action to the lay public might well be that Congress, having realized that Yucca Mountain could not meet the existing standards, was now trying to dumb down the standards to the point where Yucca could pass the test," said Sam Fowler, the chief counsel for the Democratic minority on the House Energy Committee.

Others said that question would be much clearer after Election Day.

Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, has pledged not to proceed with Yucca Mountain. But even if the White House does not change hands, a Congress that is only slightly less sympathetic to the project than the current one would probably derail the project.

The radioactive waste board also heard an extended discussion of whether the Energy Department should be allowed to define some nuclear waste created in weapons production in a way that would allow it to be covered with cement and left in place, instead of sealed in glass and prepared for burial. The department is seeking to define some of the waste as "waste incidental to reprocessing," meaning it could be left behind.

Environmentalists say the material is high-level waste that under the law that established the Yucca Mountain program must be readied for "deep geologic disposal."

In July 2003, in a case brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a federal district judge in Idaho ruled that the department could not change its responsibilities by the way it defined the waste. The department appealed, and an appeals court will hear arguments next month in Seattle.

But as with Yucca Mountain, the Energy Department has also turned to Congress to ask to have the decision overridden. The Senate, in a tie vote, agreed to leave a provision in a military appropriations bill that would overturn the decision for wastes in South Carolina, and the House Armed Services Committee has approved the idea as well.

Geoffrey Fettus, the lawyer at the environmental group that brought the suit, complained on Monday that he had been unable to obtain even a copy of the House legislation.

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KVBC
September 21, 2004

Environmental Groups Urge Lawmakers To Consider Yucca

Put up or shut up. That's the message activists are sending to elected leaders on the issue of Yucca Mountain. Today, letters are going out to politicians all over Nevada asking them to sign a pledge to protect the state from nuclear waste. News 3's Denise Rosch tells us why environmental groups are making this move now.

Some think Nevada's unified front is crumpling, and that during this election season, Washington and the voters, are getting mixed signals about what our leaders think when it comes to Yucca Mountain. Now, volunteers are doing whatever it takes to keep our highways waste free.

"I just feel the whole idea of nuclear energy is crazy." Bill Jacobs is a man who gets attention. "Sometimes we get a thumbs up, sometimes we get another finger up." Last week, the retired auditor became the official driver for Citizen Alert's mock waste cask, visiting small towns with a big message. "I mean we'll probably get out of it okay, but what about people's children and grandchildren, their children?"

Now, opponents of the Yucca Mountain project are making some noise with elected leaders, sending out a letter asking Nevada politicians to sign a pledge to fight the proposed site. Peggy Maze Johnson is with Citizen Alert. "We need to make sure the wins we've had in court don't back down."

Environmental groups say it's wrong to think Nevada will reap financial benefits from the approval of Yucca Mountain. They say any deal worked out today won't necessarily be honored by a future president. Dan Geary is with the National Environmental Trust. "There's no such thing as a long term agreement."

As for Bill Jacobs, he worries about any perceived split in Nevada's resolve. But that isn't why he volunteers. "It's a matter of conscious. I know its an evil thing to have on this Earth."

Former Governor Bob List takes great exception with what these groups are doing. List is working to negotiate benefits for Nevada and believes most lawmakers will throw this pledge form in the trash. He calls it politically transparent. List also says, like it or not, Yucca Mountain is inevitable and he's confident the federal government will keep any pledge made to Nevada, giving our state money for schools, roads and public safety.

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KLAS
September 20, 2004

New Call to Oppose Yucca Mountain

Cindy Cesare

There is now a new call to oppose Yucca Mountain. Environmental and citizens' groups are asking local and federal politicians to state their position on the national nuclear repository in this election year. But a new poll says that Nevadans may already believe the fight is over.

Environmental and citizens' groups are hitting the road again with an anti-nuclear repository truck. They will go to 26 Nevada cities in an effort to remind residents that the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository is not a done deal. They will also be sending letters to Nevada politicians to clearly state their opinion on the project.

Dan Geary, with the National Environmental Trust, said, "We're going back to our federal and state elected officials and asking them to reaffirm to the people of the state that the process of choosing Yucca Mountain is a political process, not a scientific one."

But a recent poll conducted for the Las Vegas Review Journal showed that many Nevadans might have already given up the fight. This month, 50-percent of 625 registered voters said they still want to fight the project. But46-percent said the state should deal for benefits from the federal government. That's up from the same poll taken in July when only 39-percent wanted to negotiate.

A spokesperson for the Yucca Mountain Project would not speak on camera in regards to this story because of the political sensitivity in this election year. But the Yucca Mountain information office, which has been open for 14 years now, may be the reason that many Nevadans have changed their minds about the project.

But citizen and environmental groups say they don't believe that Nevada will ever see federal dollars for Yucca Mountain. "Whatever this Congress gives, the next Congress can take away. Whatever money to be negotiated, it should've been negotiated by now," commented Sally Maze Johnson with Citizens Alert.

The Yucca Mountain information office gives free tours to the site. To make an informed opinion yourself about the potential site, call: 821-8048 for a tour.

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KRNV
September 21, 2004

Nevada reporters query Kerry, not Bush

Nevada has been deluged this presidential election year with numerous visits from candidates, millions of dollars in television ads and dozens of outside groups registering voters.

But the two campaigns have taken different approaches in media accessibility.

In three visits to Nevada this year, President Bush has done no local media interviews. He did smile and wave when a question was shouted to him during his tour of the International Carpenter's Union Training Center in Las Vegas.

In four visits to Nevada this year, Senator John Kerry has made himself available to media each time. That included one-on-one chats or interviews with small groups of reporters.

Topics included Yucca Mountain, Iraq, gambling, foreign relations, the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind and homeland security.

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Salt Lake Tribune
September 21, 2004

Leavitt looks to end-run Yucca

2010 opening: The EPA chief and former Utah governor may seek a safety law rewrite

By Christopher Smith

WASHINGTON - With plans to bury the nation's nuclear waste in Nevada looking more uncertain, Environmental Protection Agency head Mike Leavitt may ask Congress to rewrite a critical radiation safety law so the dump can open as planned in 2010.

But the National Academies of Science Board on Radioactive Waste Management - charged with advising Congress on radioactive waste policy - was told Monday there may not be much political appetite to waive another set of regulations for the sake of keeping the proposed Yucca Mountain repository alive.

Utah lawmakers, who have supported entombing the 77,000 tons of high-level waste, now scattered in 39 states, at Yucca Mountain, are concerned continued delays in the Nevada repository could mean more pressure to license temporary storage at Utah's Skull Valley.

Adding to the uncertainty is the race for the White House. Democratic nominee John Kerry has pledged to stop waste from being buried in Nevada, while President Bush signed the decision that cleared the way for the Yucca Mountain repository.

"That is rhetoric, since Kerry could have stopped it when he was in the Senate if he wanted to, but if so, Skull Valley becomes a primary temporary site, and temporary can be up to 100 years," Utah Republican Congressman Rob Bishop, whose district includes Skull Valley, said in an interview. "I had one Nevada politician tell me that if there's only a temporary reprieve that lasts 100 years, they don'tcare, they'll be happy."

The trouble now is a federal court ruling that EPA's 10,000-year limit on the amount of radiation released from the dump should have followed a National Academies recommendation for a limit on releases over hundreds of thousands of years. The Department of Energy designed Yucca Mountain to meet EPA's 10,000-year radiation standard, not the longer term the court says is required by law but that some lawmakers feel is virtually impossible to comply with.

The ruling means Leavitt, who as Utah's governor crusaded against temporarily storing Yucca-bound waste on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Skull Valley, must decide whether EPA should write a new set of radiation limits to protect future generations or ask Congress to rewrite the 1992 Energy Policy Act to uphold the EPA's 10,000-year standard.

"The appearance to the public would be that Congress, having realized Yucca Mountain could not meet existing standards, was trying to dumb down the standards to meet Yucca Mountain," Sam Fowler, Democratic chief counsel to the Senate Energy Committee, told the board Monday.

Whatever the federal government does, the state of Nevada vows it will continue to fight.

"As a matter of actual morality, you shouldn't have a repository that you know will eventually be unsafe," said Joe Egan, lead attorney for the state.

Fowler said Yucca Mountain faces "a number of potentially fatal problems" on Capitol Hill, includinga chance congressional budget writers could slash funding for Yucca Mountain this year to the point "there's not even enough to decently shut it down."

The DOE still intends to file a licensing application for Yucca Mountain in December based on EPA's 10,000-year protection standard. EPA Assistant Administrator Jeff Holmstead said "it's certainly possible we would go back to Congress" and ask lawmakers to rewrite the law, but no decisions have been made yet.

"We are committed to developing an appropriate regulatory response," said Holmstead. "The direction I've received from my boss, the administrator, is we want to respond to the court as quickly as we can."

Asked by Radioactive Waste Management Board memberNorine Noonan just when EPA plans to decide what to do next, Holmstead said the internal discussions will "take a number of months, but we will have a decision in less than 10,000 years."

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Federal Register
September 21, 2004

Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board

NOTICES Meetings: Yucca Mountain, NV, 56464

Federal Register:
Volume 69, Number 182
Page 56464
DOCID:fr21se04-84

Panel Meeting: October 13-14, 2004--Salt Lake City, UT: The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board's Panel on the Waste Management System Will Meet To Discuss Issues Related to the U.S. Department of Energy's Planning for the Possible Transportation of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste to a Proposed Repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada

Pursuant to its authority under section 5051 of Public Law 100-203, Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1987, the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board's Panel on the Waste Management System will meet in Salt Lake City, Utah on Wednesday, October, and Thursday, October 14, 2004. The panel will discuss issues elated to planning for the potential transportation of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The meeting will be open to the public, and opportunities for public comment will be provided. The Board is charged by Congress with reviewing the technical and scientific validity of activities undertaken by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as stipulated in the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act.

The panel meeting will be held at the Sheraton City Center Hotel; 150 West 500 South; Salt Lake City, Utah 84101; (tel.) 801-401-2000; (fax) 801-534-3450. The panel is scheduled to meet from 8 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. on October 13 and from 8 a.m. until approximately 12 noon on October 14. Meeting times and agenda details will be confirmed approximately one week before the meeting dates. Copies of the agendas can be requested by telephone or obtained from the Board's Web site at http://www.nwtrb.gov.

The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the DOE's transportation planning and the experience of regional groups involved in transporting spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste (Wednesday) and to review the experiences of Private Fuel Storage, LLC, in planning for transportation of spent nuclear fuel to its proposed facility in Utah (Thursday). On Thursday, the panel also will review issues of risk perception in the transportation planning process.

Transcripts of the meetings will be available on the Board's Web site, by e-mail, on computer disk and on a library-loan basis in paper format from Davonya Barnes of the Board's staff, beginning on November 29, 2004.

A block of rooms has been reserved at the Sheraton City Center Hotel for meeting participants. When making a reservation, please state that you are attending the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board meeting. Reservations should be made by September 20, 2004 to receive the meeting rate.

For more information, contact the NWTRB: Karyn Severson, External Affairs; 2300 Clarendon Boulevard, Suite 1300; Arlington, VA 22201-3367; (tel.) 703-235-4473; (fax) 703-235-4495.

Dated: September 8, 2004
William D. Barnard,
Executive Director, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.

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Guardian
September 20, 2004

EPA Seeking New Yucca Radiation Standard

By H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Trying to overcome a possibly crippling court decision, the Environmental Protection Agency hopes to have a proposal by early next year on new radiation exposure limits at a proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada.

Members of the Board of Radioactive Waste Management, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, examined at a meeting Monday the implications of the court case and possible options for future action. The board frequently offers a forum to examine waste management issues.

That would involve going well beyond 10,000 years, but not necessarily so far into the future that risk modeling, or even the proposed Yucca design, might be useless, Fri suggested.

EPA would have to adopt a less conservative approach to determining public risks from exposure, said Fri, a scholar at the environmental think tank Resources for the Future.

Holmstead said the EPA is ``at the beginning of the process of determining what options might be'' available but would not discuss specific proposals. Going beyond 10,000 years for a radiation standard ``is a real challenge,'' he conceded.

A panel member, Norine Noonan, dean of the School of Science and Mathematics at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, asked whether EPA might assume a standard based on risk that was envisioned in the 1995 National Academy study. Holmstead said it was an option on the table with others.

After the session, Holmstead told reporters that the agency is working as quickly as it can to develop a standard to meet the court's misgivings, and it would be possible to have a standard ready by early next year.

Congress also could intervene by passing legislation to free the EPA from having to take into consideration the 1995 National Academy recommendations.

Sam Fowler, the senior Democratic staff member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told the scientists such a move could appear to the public as Congress ``trying to dumb down the standard'' for political reasons. Strong opposition to the Yucca project by Nevada's senators, a Democrat and a Republican, also would make it difficult to pass such legislation.

Trying to establish public risks tens of thousands of years into the future is a staggering undertaking, scientists acknowledged at Monday's meeting.

More than 45,000 tons of used reactor fuel already are in temporary storage at commercial power plants and defense facilities in 34 states awaiting shipment to a central repository.

``What do you do if the very best solution you can think of doesn't meet the (radiation) standard?'' environmental scholar Fri asked. ``The stuff is not going to go away.''

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Las Vegas SUN
September 20, 2004

DOE may miss goal for Yucca license

By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department may not meet its longstanding goal of submitting an application for a Yucca Mountain construction license, a department official said today.

Department officials have long said they plan to submit the application by the end of the year, but Deputy Secretary of Energy Kyle McSlarrow said that goal was now uncertain.

"We're reviewing where things stand," McSlarrow said today after a press conference in the Capitol. "I just don't want to say. We're taking a look at all this right now."

Energy Department officials have tried to maintain an ambitious timeline for the project, despite delays and budget woes. The department aims to open Yucca, a first-of-its-kind repository for the nation's most radioactive waste, by 2010.

The next step for the department is submitting the license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year.

But a federal court this summer threw that goal into question when it ruled that the project's 10,000-year radiation safety standard, established by the Environmental Protection Agency, falls short of a much stricter standard advocated by the National Academy of Sciences. The nuclear power industry's lobby group, the Nuclear Energy Institute, has signaled it plans to challenge that ruling in the Supreme Court, although the EPA does not plan such an appeal.

The department's year-end goal faces another hurdle: department officials are still scrambling to win the NRC's stamp of approval on its massive collection of Yucca research documents, housed on a database known as the License Support Network. The regulatory commission cannot begin reviewing a Yucca license application until six months after it officially recognizes, or "dockets" those documents.

Department officials had hoped to have the documents certified shortly after it submitted them at the end of June. The department has challenged an commission ruling that the department violated rules in submitting the documents.

McSlarrow appeared today at a press conference held to unveil a new University of Chicago report that concludes that building new nuclear power plants in America can be economically feasible.

The nation's 103 commercial nuclear power plants produce about 20 percent of the nation's energy without harmful greenhouse gases -- unlike coal plants, which produce about 50 percent of the nation's energy.

But no new nuclear plants have been constructed for nearly 30 years.

The staggering cost of constructing new plants and investment risk attached to questions about a new plant's economic competitiveness have been the biggest obstacles.

The report concludes those concerns can be overcome -- with some government help -- and that new plants can be economically feasible.

Two leading pro-nuclear lawmakers in Congress hailed the report as welcome news. Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill., said the report showed it was possible for America to enjoy a renaissance in nuclear power. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said he would continue to advocate for nuclear power production tax credits, which the report said would help reduce new plant construction costs.

There is finally new momentum behind a push for new nuclear plants in America, with the rising cost of oil and environmental concerns about coal plants, Domenici said.

"We are getting close to a groundswell," Domenici said. "We used to be over there treading water."

The question of how the nation will deal with nuclear waste has been seen by some nuclear critics as another concern for would-be investors in new plants.

The federal government for two decades has been moving toward geologic disposal as the best way to deal with waste, which is now piling up at nuclear plants nationwide.

But Yucca's uncertain future is not considered a major economic obstacle to constructing new plants, one of the report authors, George Tolley, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, said.

"The political obstacle is great, but it is not a big economic issue," Tolley said.

Nuclear Energy Institute spokeswoman Thelma Wiggins agreed. "From a technical standpoint, there is no nuclear waste problem. We have a solution. We just need the political ability to move forward with it."

McSlarrow expressed confidence. "We're going to resolve the waste issue," he said.

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Las Vegas SUN
September 20, 2004

Scientist says new time frame needed for radiation standards

By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Handling the federal court's decision on the Yucca Mountain project is more complex than simply plugging in a new time frame for the radiation protection standards, a scientist told a National Academy of Sciences board today.

Robert Fri said the agency has to deal with the time period of the radiation, where people are in relationship to the radiation and how the radiation travels.

Fri, who led the academy committee that created the technical standards almost a decade ago for nuclear waste storage planned at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, did not recommend what time frame should be used or how the Environmental Protection Agency should readdress the standard, but said his commitee used a different method than the agency did.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled on July 9 that the EPA did not follow the law when it established a 10,000-year standard, largely because it did not accept the National Academy of Sciences recommendation of a far higher standard of about 300,000 years.

The court threw out the 10,000-year standard and said Congress must either change the law that required the EPA to follow the academy's recommendations or the EPA must create a new standard.

Jeffrey Holmstead, EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation, said the agency is still evaluating exactly what it has to do next.

"We don't have a table of specific options at this point," Holmstead said. "We don't have a list of federal options.'

He said the agency has not ruled out going to Congress for help but right now it is not planning on doing that. Instead, the agency is looking at how it can respond to the court's order. He had no timeline for how long this would take and the court did not specify one.

Sam Fowler, a lawyer who works for the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, said just having the agency stick in a new year would give the impression of "remaking the pattern to fit the cloth."

Fowler said just changing the year and nothing else in the standard could create an unworkable standard and more questions need to be answered than just a new number of years.

"I think there are a number of potentially fatal problems facing the program at this point," said Fowler, who was not speaking on behalf of the committee. Fowler said the court's decision and the budget problems could have an effect on its progress.

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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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