Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, October 7, 2004
---------------------------
Las Vegas SUN
October 07, 2004
Proponents cite missing waste as need for Yucca
By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Highly radioactive waste is missing at a closed California nuclear power plant, and critics and proponents of Yucca Mountain each say the issue bolsters their positions regarding the nuclear waste dump.
The missing waste signals a need for a single, permanent national waste repository, Yucca proponents say. They say it's a huge leap to suggest that lost waste at a few plants signals trouble ahead for Yucca.
But critics ask: If a single nuclear plant can't account for all its waste, how can the Energy Department keep tabs on 77,000 tons of highly radioactive material, loaded on thousands of shipments bound for Nevada, over decades?
"We know that's not possible, and a single accident or terrorist attack would be a disaster," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said.
At issue is the highly radioactive spent uranium fuel from the nation's 103 active commercial nuclear reactors, and the waste stored at closed reactors. The federal government for years has aimed to establish a single repository for the waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Meanwhile the waste is piling up in storage at the power plants.
This is not the first time a plant has lost waste.
-- The Vermont Yankee plant reported two missing pieces in April this year and found them in July -- right where they should have been, in the plant's waste pool.
-- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission fined the Millstone nuclear plant in Connecticut $288,000 after plant officials in 2000 realized that they could not account for two spent nuclear fuel rods, which contain uranium and plutonium. The rods were not found.
"These things are 15 feet long and fairly radioactive," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has called on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to better regulate used fuel. "It's hard to accidentally lose track of them."
But nuclear power industry officials said the incidents of lost waste are exceptionally rare in the 50-year history of commercial nuclear power. They say it is a stretch to argue that the incidents are a preview of waste losses and accounting errors in the massive effort to ship the nation's waste to Yucca.
The Humboldt waste was lost because of an accounting record mistake in 1968 or 1969, PG&E spokesman Jeff Lewis said. One set of old records said the waste was shipped away and other records said the waste went into the plant waste pool. More high-tech searching of the pool is planned, Lewis said.
"This is a decades-old issue that doesn't reflect the attention to detail that we have now," Lewis said.
There is no connection between the Yucca Mountain plan and a few scraps of lost waste, said Steve Kerekes, spokesman for Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top lobby group.
"Leading scientists for decades have said the best way to isolate the waste is a geologic disposal facility," he said. "To try to say we should turn that on its head because of the situations that occurred at these (three) facilities is ludicrous."
Private waste shippers and Energy Department officials who would manage the Yucca project have long said they can safely transport waste to Nevada. High-level waste has been shipped for decades without lost cargo or an accident that resulted in a harmful release of waste, department spokesman Joe Davis said. The department must adhere to a long list of federal shipping requirements, Davis noted.
But Yucca critics are skeptical.
"If the nuclear plants can't keep track of this material while it's stationary, how do they expect to keep track of it when it's in motion to Yucca Mountain?" Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., asked.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said, "They have had a lot of problems with the Yucca Mountain project already. I don't have a lot of confidence in the DOE."
Meticulous record-keeping and documentation is going to be required for Yucca, project critic Kevin Kamps said.
"And the Department of Energy and the industry are not showing that they can do it," said Kamps, nuclear waste specialist with Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
Nevada officials also don't buy the argument that waste could be better monitored in a central repository at Yucca. Waste will still accumulate at plants as long as plants operate, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Office.
---------------------------
Las Vegas SUN
October 07, 2004
Yucca issue lacks national appeal
By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
and Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- In August, when President Bush visited New Hampshire's Seacoast region, the Portsmouth Herald's editorial page wrote him a letter outlining a lengthy list of local concerns.
Included were issues ranging from the war on terrorism, Medicare reform and the No Child Left Behind Act to the future of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Canadian border security, and reviving small-boat fishing.
While a nuclear power plant in Seacoast has 246 tons of radioactive waste, the paper didn't mention a word about nuclear waste or Yucca Mountain.
Despite Yucca's brief moment in the national spotlight after recent Nevada visits by Bush and challenger John Kerry, neither candidate has discussed the proposed nuclear waste dump much outside the state.
Yucca barely registers at all as a campaign issue -- even in regions where nuclear plants generate electricity -- and where many voters would love to see the nuclear waste piling up in their backyards shipped off to Nevada.
"Not only have they not talked about it, they haven't even been asked about it, as far as I'm aware," said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire Bush adviser, long-time GOP insider and the state's national committeeman.
Yucca Mountain might seem like a salient issue for political activists in the nation's 34 nuclear-power states, and there are clear differences to be drawn. Bush approved the plan to create a national radioactive waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas; Kerry vowed to block it.
But state and local political activists told the Sun that Yucca Mountain has been virtually non-existent this election season in 10 "battleground" states with nuclear power -- Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.
They said the issue has been absent in heated advertising wars, in the news, at fund raisers and rallies, and in numerous visits by the two candidates themselves.
Officials for Bush and Kerry won't say why that is. But there are lots of theories: the voters don't care; the issue is too complex for the stump; it's a political hot potato for both.
Kerry critics say he can't trumpet an anti-Yucca stance in the nuclear-power states where waste-weary voters rely on plant jobs and the states receive hefty tax revenues and emissions-free energy.
And analysts say Bush would only help Kerry by raising the issue.
"You can imagine what Kerry would do, he would rush back to Nevada and quote the president," said Lawrence Jacobs, University of Minnesota political science professor, and director of an intensive study of 2004 presidential politics in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin. The study has tracked what issues are important to voters in those states and nuclear waste has not registered anywhere on the list, Jacobs said.
Kerry is using Yucca to "out-flank" the president in a rare instance in which a single issue tends to dominate the political landscape, Jacobs said.
"He's playing to the voters in Nevada," Jacobs said.
Two top Bush-Cheney spokespeople declined to explain why the campaign isn't hammering Kerry on Yucca outside Nevada. But they were quick to blast Kerry for "pandering" to Nevadans.
"What we have seen is John Kerry's eagerness to tout his newfound opposition of Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but he has refused to discuss it in the 39 other states where nuclear waste is currently stored," Tracey Schmitt, Bush-Cheney's Western states campaign spokeswoman. "It's disingenuous and it's disconcerting. Clearly, he is vulnerable, and that is why he hasn't talked about it outside Nevada."
But Kerry's campaign hotly disputes that Kerry is vulnerable on the issue of nuclear waste.
"This is an important issue in this election outside Nevada," Laura Capps, a top Kerry spokeswoman, said. "This is a classic example of President Bush breaking his promises."
Capps said it was highly unusual for a candidate to make a state-specific issue like Yucca Mountain the "message of the day" for more than 50 media covering a campaign, as Kerry did in Las Vegas in August.
State and local campaign coordinators for Kerry and Bush said people in other states generally just don't think or care about Yucca as much as voters in Nevada do.
Eric Schultz, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign in New Hampshire, said Yucca had not been a campaign issue in the state, despite the Seabrook nuclear plant. Seabrook generates 57 percent of the state's electricity and has produced 246 metric tons of radioactive waste awaiting shipment to Yucca.
Both Bush and Kerry have visited New Hampshire since Kerry's big anti-Yucca speech in Nevada, but neither mentioned waste.
Locals believe the waste piling up at the Seabrook plant is a real problem and their general feeling is: "We certainly need something quickly, and if it's Yucca Mountain,it's Yucca Mountain," Portsmouth Herald managing editor Shir Haberman said.
But local voters are simply focused on other issues such as Iraq, the economy and the nearby shipyard, he said.
The newspaper has not written any editorials on Kerry's anti-Yucca stance.
Other observers said Yucca Mountain just isn't a sexy campaign issue for either party.
Nuclear waste policy and the long history of the Yucca project are complex and technical compared to any number of splashier stump subjects.
Still others said Yucca Mountain isn't an easy issue for Bush or Kerry because it begs thorny questions.
For Kerry: Isn't the waste more safely stored in a single, secure repository? And: If not Yucca, where?
For Bush, there are the tricky issues of a controversial 10,000-year safety standard and the nagging question of transportation: How do you move the waste to Nevada, without accidents or sabotage?
Plant officials say waste can be shipped safely. But many voters are worried about waste traveling through the state, environmental activists said.
"There is a great deal of concern about cask safety and the irradiation of communities where people live and work and go to school by the tracks," said Janet Zeller, director of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League in North Carolina, home to some of the biggest waste stockpiles in the country.
Lots of people are more concerned about waste shipping than living near waste, several plant-region locals said.
"People have learned to live with having waste around them," said Dan Trevas, communications director for the Ohio Democratic Party.
Still, several state Bush activists said Yucca Mountain could be a winner if it were forced into the public discourse, saying that nuclear waste is a sensitive issue to many people who live near plants.
Terry Lowe, chairman of the Republican Party in Ottawa County in Ohio, home to the Davis-Besse reactor, agreed. He said he had no idea that Kerry has vowed to stop Yucca.
"If he (Kerry) ever came to Ohio and came out against Yucca Mountain," Lowe said, "there would be fallout."
---------------------------
Las Vegas SUN
October 07, 2004
Democrats say Bush deceiving Nevadans on Yucca
By Kirsten Searer
<searer@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
Recent comments in a science magazine prove that President Bush is deceiving Nevadans about the Yucca Mountain project, top state Democrats said Wednesday.
In the October edition of Physics Today, Bush's science adviser wrote that the Bush administration has "made a strong commitment to resolving the nuclear waste challenge and making the construction of a long-term geologic repository at Yucca Mountain achievable.
"We are moving ahead with the submission of a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the end of this year."
The comments show Bush is aggressively pursuing the nuclear waste dump despite telling the state he is taking a wait-and-see role while the courts and regulatory commissions determine if it is safe, the Democrats said.
Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, said Bush is "going to see what he can do to make it happen."
Democrat Tom Gallagher, who is running for Congressional District 3, called Bush's comments "another George Bush flip-flop."
They also pointed to papers filed in late September indicating the Department of Justice might appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a lower court ruling against Yucca Mountain.
"It seems as though George W. Bush is still stringing Nevadans along," Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said.
Bush-Cheney spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said Bush has been consistent on the issue and is not allowing politics to play a role in his decisions.
She pointed out that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry voted in favor of investigating the project but now says he opposes it.
"The President has been clear and consistent on this critical issue," Schmitt said. "He understands that some Nevadans may disagree, but John Kerry has attempted to turn this critical issue into a political poker chip. He has clearly worked to mislead the state on his votes."
Bush told Nevadans while campaigning here in 2000 that he would rely on "sound science" when making decisions on the proposed nuclear waste repository.
And in an August trip to Las Vegas, Bush told a crowd that "I will allow this process to be appealed to the courts and to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and I will stand by the decision of the courts and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."
In the lower court decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency's 10,000-year radiation standard for the site doesn't meet recommendations set by the National Academy of Sciences.
While the EPA has said it doesn't want to appeal the decision, Bush administration officials have kept the option open and have until Nov. 30 to file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kerry wrote in the Physics Today questionnaire that he would dispose of waste only after peer-reviewed science and analysis has lead to "public understanding and confidence."
Kerry also told the magazine that he would reject a license for Yucca Mountain and initiate a study to examine whether geologic disposal is the best way to contain waste.
---------------------------
Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 07, 2004
EDITORIAL: More waste at Yucca
And the folly continues ...
The flushing sound from 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, ever-present for nearly two decades, is getting louder.
A federal audit found the Department of Energy last year threw out 1,300 pieces of Yucca Mountain Project materials -- about 9,000 metric tons of taxpayer property -- with a potential value of $1.75 million. The department did not offer to transfer the property to other federal agencies. And rather than sell it at auction, the department paid a contractor $73,000 to haul it away.
Among the equipment deemed ready for the scrap heap: a refurbished rock-boring machine valued at $792,000. The contractor, realizing the machine was akin to a choice antique or rare sports trading card found at a garage sale, pitched it on the Internet as being "in very good condition with only 165 hours of use."
The Yucca Mountain program, which has carved out miles of tunnels in the ridge and aims to excavate more to entomb the nation's most lethal nuclear waste, apparently has gear to spare.
The audit's findings are the latest footnote in the multibillion-dollar boondoggle's history of mismanagement and lack of accountability to the U.S. taxpayer.
In 1986, the federal government told the nation's nuclear energy industry it would take possession of growing heaps of spent fuel by 1998. Utility customers have paid billions of dollars in surcharges over the years to finance the transition. Almost 20 years after that promise was made, the Department of Energy is no closer to fulfilling its obligation.
After singling out Nevada for the "study" of suitable repository sites in 1987, the government promised the mountain's geology would safely contain the intense heat and radiation that would result from sealing off the waste. After realizing that wouldn't work, in 2001 the Energy Department hedged, alleging the creation of thick containers and additional man-made barriers would get the job done. There is no evidence to convincingly demonstrate those measures will hold up into the distant future.
The Energy Department's supervision of this project, purportedly based on years of scientific research and planning, is a bouncing ball that adjusts to whatever idea allows the government to keep digging -- and keep spending. It comes as no surprise, then, that such disregard for taxpayers has spread from the layers of fat in Washington, D.C., to Yucca Mountain site workers.
In addition to the rock-boring machine, two trailers that belonged to the National Nuclear Security Administration for use at the Nevada Test Site were turned over for disposal. Tons of scrap metal, fencing, drill rigs, mining tools and water tanks also were thrown out with the trash.
Could such a cavalier approach to managing resources be found in the private sector? Any businessperson would at least attempt to have a junk hauler take the stuff away free of charge.
It's easy to understand why the Yucca Mountain Project has dire financial problems -- its once-flush budget is on the congressional chopping block. With the findings of this audit made public, federal lawmakers should grab their axes and swing freely.
---------------------------
Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 07, 2004
Letter: Yucca Mountain
To the editor:
Hoping Sen. John Kerry will stop the Yucca Mountain Project if he were elected president? Don't count on it. Congress will make the final decision.
The spent fuel to be entombed at Yucca Mountain is now stored temporarily at reactor sites all around the United States with less security than the mountain would provide.
Hal Shaw
Henderson
---------------------------
Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 07, 2004
Agency hunts new site to store nuclear waste
Energy Department tried to ship material to Nevada Test Site
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department has begun to look at new disposal choices for nuclear weapons waste it has been blocked from sending to the Nevada Test Site.
Department officials have told a cleanup contractor to identify other sites where special-category radioactive byproducts might be shipped out of three 20-foot-tall silos at the decommissioned Fernald uranium-processing plant 18 miles north of Cincinnati.
The government expects the contractor, Fluor Fernald, to submit a report by the end of the week with cost estimates and a timetable to conduct a search, said Johnny Reising, DOE associate director for environmental restoration at the plant.
In a Sept. 24 letter, a project director at Fluor Fernald was told: "Identify viable alternatives leading to either commercial interim storage or permanent commercial disposal of the silo materials. Permanent disposal is the preferred alternative."
Reising directed questions to headquarters as to whether the search means the department has abandoned plans to move the waste to the Nevada Test Site.
A DOE spokesman in Washington did not respond to a call and an e-mailed query.
Nevada has not received any notification from the Energy Department, said Marta Adams, an assistant attorney general. But Adams said state officials are taking the department's directive to Fluor Fernald as a sign the department might be moving on.
"That says to me they really are trying to find another site rather than the test site, which is quite delightful," Adams said. "We were on pretty solid legal footing."
Attorney General Brian Sandoval threatened to sue the government after the Energy Department in February announced plans to move 3,750 truckloads of the special type of radioactive waste to its low-level nuclear waste dump at the test site.
Sandoval said the Fernald material contained more potent levels of waste than what the test site is licensed to store safely.
The department has shipped 6.4 million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste from the Fernald site to Nevada since the early 1980s.
Energy Department lawyers said the waste could be buried at the test site but delayed shipments to Nevada after Sandoval's legal threat and said the state would be given 45-days notice before the department began any shipping.
Two of the silos contain 240,000 cubic feet of slurry tainted with byproducts of high-grade uranium that was used at the Fernald plant for 37 years until it was shut down in 1989. The third silo contains 137,000 cubic feet of powdery thorium waste.
---------------------------
Reno Gazette-Journal
October 06, 2004
Editorial: Promise won´t help Yucca
Nevadans shouldn´t depend on their vote for U.S. Sen. John Kerry, or any other candidate, to save them from the Yucca Mountain project. He and the anti-Yucca team working against the project might slow progress, but it will take much more than a campaign promise to halt the project. People should base their vote on some other issue.
President Bush already has demonstrated how easily a campaign promise can be broken. (Remember his father´s “Read my lips…’?) Even after a court ruling that plans are not safe enough for long enough, millions are spent to dig tunnels, bore through rock and plan transportation systems. Somebody in Washington obviously thinks the project is a fait accompli.
It is likely to take an act of Congress to get the right kind of help to stop Yucca Mountain, no matter how many times a candidate promises.
If this state is to keep up the fight, it should take place on Capitol Hill and in the courts, and votes should be based on other factors.
---------------------------
KESQ
October 07, 2004
Kerry would use budget, Cabinet influence to kill Yucca Mountain
RENO, Nev. Democrat John Kerry says if he is elected president he will refuse to fund efforts crucial to the construction of Yucca Mountain to keep the nation's nuclear waste dump from being built in Nevada.
Kerry told a Reno television station in a satellite feed from Iowa today that he does NOT think Yucca Mountain is safe.
He told KRNV-TV, quoting now, "I'll guarantee you, if I'm president, Yucca Mountain is not going to happen. Nevada can take that to the bank.
Kerry repeatedly has pledged to kill the high-level radioactive waste repository planned 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But Republicans argue he's powerless to do anything about it and that the federal courts ultimately will decide the fate of the project.
Kerry said today he has a number of ways to keep the dump from being built, beginning with his budget. He says refusing to fund things necessary to make Yucca Mountain a reality is a good place to start.
In addition, Kerry says the Department of Transportation, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency have to approve various health and safety standards for the dump to be built. As president, he says he would have the power to make sure those signoffs don't occur.
Kerry says he intends to be back in Nevada at least once before the election to campaign in Reno.
---------------------------
San Francisco Chronicle
October 07, 2004
George Bush and John Kerry on the environment
Jane Kay
The candidates' positions on key environmental issues:
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Bush: Supports first-time oil drilling in the Arctic refuge. Favors increasing oil production to the west of the refuge in the National Petroleum Reserve and expanding gas production in the Rocky Mountains and Alaska.
Kerry: Opposes drilling in the Arctic refuge, the only Arctic region off- limits to drilling. Favors development in the National Petroleum Reserve and on millions of acres of public land in the West already available for leasing.
Oil drilling
Bush: Denied California's request to buy back 36 oil-drilling leases already sold off the Santa Barbara coast.
Kerry: Opposes new offshore oil drilling in areas with existing moratoria, which includes California.
Energy
Bush: Proposed an energy bill offering tax breaks and regulatory relief for the coal and oil industries and subsidies for nuclear power and ethanol. Opposed a federal mandate requiring utilities to produce 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Favors developing small nuclear plants. Has committed $2 billion for clean-coal technology.
Kerry: Opposes Bush's energy bill. Supports a federal mandate on utilities to produce 20 percent of their electricity from such renewable sources as solar, wind and geothermal by 2020, already a requirement in California. Promises $10 billion for clean-coal technology. Opposes permanent storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Promoted higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks.
Global warming
Bush: Opposes the Kyoto Protocol on the grounds that the United States can't afford to cut carbon dioxide below 1990 levels by 2012 and that the pact doesn't demand enough reductions for developing nations. Opposes mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide. Has committed to reducing by 18 percent over the next decade the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to gross domestic product. Commits to increases in research funds, but distances himself from government studies linking global warming to human activities. The Bush administration decided the EPA didn't have authority to regulate carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, as an air pollutant.
Kerry: Opposes the Kyoto Protocol, saying the United States cannot meet the cuts assigned to it by the deadline; wants to meet again with other nations to come up with a practical response for reducing greenhouse gases. Wants mandatory reductions of carbon dioxide emissions, including from power plants and vehicles.
Endangered species
Bush: Supports a major change of the Endangered Species Act, saying it hasn't succeeded in recovering species and creates an adversarial relationship with farmers, ranchers and other private property owners who face regulation.
Kerry: Favors more money to support the Endangered Species Act, and believes that the law is valuable in protecting threatened and endangered species.
Wetlands
Bush: Changed a Clinton-era regulation that required power plants to use the best technology available to prevent sucking up about a trillion fish a year and, instead, allows operators to make up damage by providing new wetlands or hatchery fish. Citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision, limited the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from regulating the filling or polluting of millions of acres of wetlands not directly connected to larger water bodies. Pledged to seek more money in next budget to create and protect at least 3 million more wetland acres over the next five years.
Kerry: With other senators, signed two letters to the president asking him to rescind the directive limiting wetland protection, saying the administration went far beyond the court decision in limiting regulation. Opposed measures to weaken wetland protections under Bush's "Contract With America."
Clean air
Bush: Proposed major changes to the Clean Air Act, one of which would allow industries and utilities to expand without installing new pollution controls if emissions don't exceed their highest level in the last 10 years; another would let plants conduct repairs that may increase emissions without upgrading pollution controls. Supports "clear skies'' legislation that calls for a 70 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury by 2018; the measure allows a cap-and-trade provision as a market-based approach that would allow dischargers to buy and sell emission allowances. Kept Clinton- era diesel rule to require low-sulfur fuel and retrofit engines in big trucks and buses, and adopted diesel standards for off-road equipment, marine engines and locomotives.
Kerry: Joined nine senators in supporting a lawsuit filed against the EPA by 50 state, county and city attorneys charging that the proposed changes to the Clean Air Act subvert its intent, and would make it easier for older plants to avoid installing modern pollution controls. Opposes the "clear skies'' legislation, saying it's too weak and doesn't include regulating carbon dioxide. Opposes cap-and-trade for mercury emissions, saying it would cause hot spots of mercury and allow a continued flow of fish-contaminating emissions.
Forests
Bush: Won congressional support for an initiative opening 20 million acres of national forests to logging, saying it would promote forest health and resistance to catastrophic wild fires. Repealed the Clinton-era "roadless rule," which banned road-building in nearly one-third of the nation's forests; under the Bush proposal, governors may petition the federal government to retain protections on national forests in their states.
Kerry: Says Bush's proposed "roadless rule'' jeopardizes critical habitat in the national forests. Wants to put back protections removed from the Clinton rule, citing overwhelming support by scientists and the public.
Superfund
Bush: Opposes the "polluter pays" principle, a tax on oil and chemical companies to pay for the cleanup of abandoned toxic-waste sites, in effect since the program's start in 1980. Congress allowed the tax to expire in 1995, and last year the trust fund ran out of money. Cleanups have fallen by nearly half since Bush took office. The budget projects nearly all cleanup funds coming from taxpayers.
Kerry: Supports the polluter-pays principle, and wants to reinstitute the tax on oil and chemical producers.
---------------------------
Pahrump Valley Times
October 6, 2004
Yucca realist
Get real, people. If you think that that big hole in the mountain is going to get plugged and everybody walks away you are definitely living in Never-Never Land. I quote the article (PVT July 28) and then make my comments.
"Nevada is running short of money to challenge the government's licensing bid for a Yucca Mountain repository, a state official and attorneys said Thursday as they applied for a $13.75 million grant to continue their efforts."
Hmm, grant? That money would come from where? Would it be the federal government? You know what a grant is: fill out the paperwork correctly and you get other people's money. Our tax dollars at work?
"The financial squeeze comes at a bad time for the state." Why would that be? The state is loaded with extra dough because of the illegal taxes laid on its citizens from the last legislature get together.
"Nevada had relied heavily on federal appropriations to pay for its Yucca work, but only got $1 million from Congress last year."
Politicians and/or lawyers are expensive and they only got $1 million.
"Attorney General Brian Sandoval is suing the Department of Energy for more funding."
So, he sues the feds to get more money from the feds to fight the feds. Right?
"Loux said the Nevada Protection Fund that Gov. Kenny Guinn established for a Yucca Mountain fight contains about $800,000 and that also is being tapped.
Gee, I'm surprised they didn't say ONLY $800,000. So, what's the problem? A fund of our tax dollars, again. Not enough? What did it start with? Who's in charge of this "fund?"
Think about this: You pay your federal income tax, it goes to WDC via the IRS and the sitting congress "appropriates" your dollars. In this case they appropriate dollars to the state of Nevada to fight Yucca Mountain. Is there something seriously wrong with this picture?
Maggie Lawson
---------------------------
Pahrump Valley Times
October 6, 2004
Audit Results
Yucca waste
DOE Gave Away Equipment in Lieu of Auction Sale
By Steve Tetreault
PVT Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - The Department of Energy in 2003 gave away 1,300 pieces of equipment no longer needed at Yucca Mountain, including a refurbished rock boring machine and thousands of tons of iron and steel that could have raised more than $450,000 for the financially strapped nuclear waste project, according to federal auditors.
A conveyer belt feeder that was never used and a generator listed as new were among the items turned over to a disposal contractor rather than sold at auction or offered to other federal agencies through normal procedures.
A refurbished rock-boring machine called a roadheader valued at $792,000 was put up for sale on the Internet by the contractor who advertised it as being "in very good condition with only 165 hours of use."
The property disposals were detailed in a Sept. 27 report by the Energy Department inspector general that was made public on Monday.
Auditors estimated DOE lost $458,000 from "poor property management practices" when it rid itself of excess inventory after largely completing site studies for the proposed nuclear waste repository.
DOE gave the contractor about 9,000 metric tons of property "and the government received no monetary benefit from the sale of potentially reusable property," auditors said.
"With the uneconomic disposal of Yucca Mountain property, the department lost the potential to recover funds that could have been used to satisfy pressing mission needs," they said.
Additionally, auditors said, two diagnostics trailers that belonged to the National Nuclear Security Administration for use at the Nevada Test Site were mistakenly turned over for disposal. And a drilling rig was sold even after Test Site manager Bechtel Nevada requested it for transfer.
The critical report comes as the Energy Department is scrambling to avert financial shortfalls that could cripple the Yucca Mountain Project.
Responding to the audit, DOE officials said they were revising their property management. But they defended their actions as the most cost-effective way to dispose of material they contended had little value.
The property included 4,580 tons of scrap metal, plus fencing, piping, drill rigs and other heavy equipment, mining implements, water tanks and other industrial material that was stored in equipment yards and remote locations on the Yucca site, according to a DOE official.
Critics said the report highlighted ongoing management problems in the Yucca Mountain Project.
"You've heard the phrase 'waste, fraud and abuse.' Now you can add mismanagement to that," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. "We're not talking about chump change, this is a half million dollars."
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., was researching ways that Congress could force DOE to repay $458,000 to taxpayers, spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer said.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said the report "highlights the ongoing mismanagement of the Yucca Mountain Project and is further evidence the project is misguided and unmanageable."
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said, "I can assure you that the half-million (dollars) is just the tip of the iceberg. The more auditors probe they will find millions and millions (of dollars in) waste."
Government rules normally require offering excess equipment to other federal agencies or selling it at auction. But auditors said DOE paid $73,000 to a specialized contractor to dispose of the material.
A DOE spokesman identified the contractor as Toxco, Inc., a metals recycling firm in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Responding to the audit, John Arthur, the Yucca project's deputy director, said DOE chose the most cost-effective method to get rid of the material. He said some of it had been sitting around after being shipped to Nevada when DOE abandoned repository studies in Texas and Washington state in 1987.
The equipment had little value after "years of non-use and harsh exposure to the desert environment," Arthur said, adding the material that did have value was limited because of its age, remote location and lack of maintenance records.
But inspectors said they found that, contrary to DOE's claim, 70 percent of the equipment was less than 10 years old and still had value. The department's financial estimates were unreliable because of failure to properly inventory the age and condition of the equipment, they said.
"The financial advantage of disposing of excess property was shifted, essentially in its entirety, from the government to the disposal contractor," auditors said.
Arthur also said disposal rules would have required the equipment to have been surveyed for possible radiological contamination at a cost of more than $250 per metric ton.
"Since there was 9,000 metric tons of property, these radiological release surveys would have cost the program over a million dollars, which exceeded any estimated value of the property," he said.
Auditors said the disposal contractor identified only five items that were contaminated out of 1,300 turned over for disposal.
---------------------------
Pahrump Valley Times
October 6, 2004
State low-level waste target
The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS - Nevada is worried the federal government might want to find new sites in the state to dispose of low-level radioactive waste, the governor's top anti-nuclear administrator said.
"Nevada has done its share in this arena," said Bob Loux, Nevada Nuclear Project Office executive director.
His comments came after Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said Thursday that the federal government might have to find sites because states have failed to open facilities for disposal of low-level radioactive waste.
The materials include contaminated clothing, tools, machinery and laboratory equipment from industry and research sites, and hospital waste from nuclear medicine.
Aides to Domenici, the Republican Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman, and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said legislation could come next year.
The hearing came after a recent report by the federal General Accounting Office that the nation's three commercial low-level waste dump sites in South Carolina, Utah and Washington might no longer meet national needs.
"While not an immediate problem, we must now pay close attention to prevent a potential future crisis," Domenici said in a statement prepared for a hearing in Washington. He did not mention possible locations.
The federal government already has a low-level radioactive waste repository at the Nevada Test Site 50 miles northeast of Pahrump, for waste generated by the Energy Department.
The Energy Department also plans to develop the nation's only dump at nearby Yucca Mountain for high-level radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactors in 39 states.
---------------------------
Pahrump Valley Times
October 6, 2004
Collegian Notes
University for Pahrump receives strong support
By Doug McMurdo
PVT
Dr. Richard Carpenter, the relatively new president of the Community College of Southern Nevada, was in Pahrump last week to tour the valley and meet with members of the Pahrump Higher Education Coalition Task Force.
Before his brief visit was finished, Carpenter indicated to college campus proponents that he would support the group's efforts to bring a full service institution to the valley.
His backing could go a long way when the Legislature meets for the 2005 session, especially now that Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., have sponsored legislation that would provide 280 acres of Bureau of Land Management property in southern Pahrump that is currently tapped for disposal.
Other factors that figure to bolster the campus is a $1.5 million funding commitment from Nye County, and roughly $500,000 worth of infrastructure leading businesses in Pahrump have pledged to provide.
According to coalition spokeswoman Vicki Hafen-Scott, Gov. Kenny Guinn has promised his support if the group successfully lobbied regents of the University and College System of Nevada to prioritize funding the campus. Regents in March, following a presentation offered by the coalition, voted to place the $5.3 million - the system's share - project within its top five items they would fund.
Carpenter indicated key staffers in Clark County are not supportive of a Pahrump campus, saying they're focus is limited to funding Las Vegas projects. Based on comments made Sept. 29, Carpenter hasn't taken those objections to heart.
"The best way to get information is to get out in the community," said Carpenter, who described himself as a well traveled educator who has worked as a college president, chancellor, or vice president for the past 24 years.
"I'm learning a lot (about the Pahrump campus)," Carpenter said. "I'm excited to see how organized and how passionate you are." While the Pahrump project is an effort six years in the making and one that has frustrated proponents, Carpenter said support from Sens. Reid and Ensign in getting land for the campus was huge. "I've been a party to building campuses before," he said, adding he could "envision" success, but only if a solid partnership exists between the community college system, Nevada State College in Henderson, and the Nye County School District.
Carpenter said most students become dropouts at the "seams" - between middle school and high school, between high school and community college, and between community college and a university. "We need to get people through that pipeline," said Carpenter.
The establishment of a campus that would allow students to earn an associates' degree after two years and a bachelor's two years later through Nevada State College would "pay dividends we're not even seeing yet," Carpenter said.
The dramatic growth in enrollment at the Community College of Southern Nevada Pahrump Learning Center - the student body has doubled in the past year and now boasts nearly 2,000 students - made it "impossible not to get caught up in the excitement," he said.
Hafen-Scott said Richards has a background in workforce development, something that proponents believe would be essential in Pahrump given the very real possibility the Yucca Mountain repository and Nevada Test Site programs have announced labor projections in the coming years. Skilled technicians will be required and the push is on to provide that training at the Pahrump campus.
Carpenter said one of the "upsides" to being a college president for so long is that "you get to pick and choose what projects to get involved in." He said the creation of customized curriculums for major employers is something he's been involved in the past.
He also said he would work to change the current manner in which the various colleges and universities in Nevada compete for funding. It is a rather nasty business, one that Carpenter believes would work better if the different entities worked in partnership instead of with an every college for itself mentality. An edict handed down by regents to do that very thing could help Carpenter convince the powers that be at UNLV and the University of Nevada-Reno.
The next big step that needs to be taken occurs in the spring, said Hafen-Scott. "We need to get Gov. Guinn to move us up on the public works (funding) list," she said. "He said he would help us if we got through the regents."
---------------------------
Pulse of the Twin Cities
October 06, 2004
20 More Years of Nuclear?
XCel Energy seeks to extend license of state's three reactors
Carey L. Biron
Minnesota´s three nuclear plants, the source of three decades of bitter political fights between Xcel Energy and grass-roots coalitions, will keep on running 20 years past their expiration dates if the company gets its way.
The nuclear facility in Monticello and the two at Red Wing´s Prairie Island have been operating for more than three decades, and are nearing the end of their federally-licensed life spans—currently scheduled for 2010, 2013 and 2014. For the conservation and Native American groups who despise the use of nuclear power and the local storage of radioactive waste, those dates were the light at the end of the tunnel.
Then, on the first of this month, the plants´ owner, Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy, announced it will seek approval to keep on running the plants for 20 more years.
To keep the plants going, Xcel needs two things: federal approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and somewhere to put all the waste. The first is not expected to be much trouble for the company, as the NRC has never rejected a re-licensing application. The second requirement might also have become easier for the company since last year, when the legislature gave away its power to the governor-appointed Public Utilities Commission (PUC).
“The people of Minnesota have a lesser ability to influence PUC´s decisions,’ than the decisions of elected officials, warned Scott Elkins, the Sierra Club´s state director. “So the public will get less of an opportunity to be heard both in the relicensing process, as well as in the nuclear waste storage process than they did in the past.’
The author of last year´s bill putting the PUC in charge of regulating Xcel was Sen. Steve Murphy (DFL-Red Wing)—a paid employee of Xcel Energy at the same time he was writing a legislative bill to help the company.
In 1994—the first time the energy company came to the state with a storage request, to stockpile high-level nuclear waste in temporary casks at the Prairie Island facility—there were political fireworks. Although Xcel has more lobbyists than any company in the state, grassroots groups were able to force a compromise; the company could store some waste if it invested in alternative energy.
“Now it appears that they´ve totally thrown in the towel on making that sort of transition,’ suggested Elkins.
Current projections by the Minnesota Department of Commerce estimate that Minnesota´s energy consumption needs will increase by 2,700 megawatts in the upcoming decade —assuming that the current nuclear plants continue operating. Xcel´s Jim Alders, manager of regulator projects, says that this extraordinary increase in need is where the conversation for renewable resources needs to begin.
“Nuclear power plants are part of our baseload facilities; they operate around the clock,’ he said. “We´re going to have to add hundreds and hundreds of megawatts of new power plants, just to keep up with the demand for electricity. That´s where there should be a vigorous debate about how much of that should be in renewables. You don´t increase the potential for renewable resources by doing away with nuclear power plants. What you do instead is make the cost of electricity more expensive.’
For the people of Monticello, any misgivings about the plant and stored waste seem to have been snowed under long ago. Monticello City Administrator Rick Wolfsteller recently told the Monticello Times that Xcel will pay just under half of the city´s taxes this year. Back when the plant first opened, that figure was closer to 75 percent.
Next door to the Prairie Island plants, the Mdewakantonwan community—paid $1 million per year as long as the plants continue operating—“has been a reluctant neighbor of the plant and storage,’ said Jake Reint, a spokesman for the community. Reint says that, while the tribal council is not surprised by the news, “the council does still believe that there needs to be a permanent storage solution before we get too far down the line of operating the plant indefinitely.’
That appears to be significantly easier said than done. Although the federal government did finally name Nevada´s Yucca Mountain as the only option for long-term waste storage, it has encountered legal and logistical problems.
“We found that radiation release standards wouldn´t protect the health of future generations,’ said the Public Citizen´s Michelle Boyd. “They arbitrarily gerrymandered the site boundary so that radiation release standards would go 18 kilometers to a control area,’ Boyd argued. “According to their own standards, for 10,000 years no one´s supposed to drink the water or grow food on that land. However, there are already wells on that land and there is farming just south of there.
Boyd says that this 10,000-year period doesn´t even get to the waste material´s most dangerous period. “It´s ludicrous: according to the National Academy of Sciences, the maximum doses are likely to occur at 30,000 years or more,’ she said.
Even if Yucca Mountain were to open today, the Sierra Club´s Scott Elkins says that it wouldn´t even be big enough to handle all of the waste material. “So there´s the concern on the part of a lot of folks that these storage sites on the flood plain of the Mississippi River will in essence become permanent nuclear waste storage facilities,’ he said.
Not only is Xcel shirking its legal mandates by not investing in more renewable energy sources, says George Crocker of the North American Water Office, but doing so would be significantly easier and more economical than the public is usually told.
“Minnesota exports about $10 billion to import its energy; about a third of that is for electricity,’ he said. “In other words, the money train leaves each year with about $3 billion … There are so many ways that we could channel that money—that we are spending on energy anyway—and use it instead for local economic development with locally available community based renewable energy. That´s exactly what Xcel is trying hard not to do.’
The state´s reactors account for about 20 percent of Xcel´s overall capacity, Crocker emphasizes. “We could easily have a system in which 20 percent was wind and still not be in the way of reliability of the system. So that means that wind, all by itself, could displace the energy and the capacity that these reactors produce.’
Since the 1994 agreement, Crocker says that progress made in Minnesota´s energy infrastructure has been backsliding. He says that he´s not surprised by Xcel´s decision to renew their nuclear licenses, but he is saddened.
“The reason we´re not doing [renewables] and instead are doing nuclear is because that´s the way that the people running Xcel make their money,’ he said. “It has everything to do with privilege and the sunk investment that´s already made into these obsolete and terribly, increasingly dangerous nuclear technologies. What´s probably even more disturbing, though, is that there are so many people in this state that are functionally illiterate about how their utility services are delivered that Xcel could even dream of trying to do such an irresponsible development.’
---------------------------
Christian Science Monitor
October 06, 2004
Plutonium: rising terror threat
Mark Clayton
Staff writer
The biggest threat facing the United States - and the world - is the spread of nuclear material to rogue states and terrorists. So say terrorism experts. Both major American presidential candidates concurred in last week's televised debate.
So why is the US moving plutonium from military to less secure civilian control? And why, critics ask, is it embarking on research programs that teach other nations how to use plutonium in nuclear power plants after a quarter-century of opposing such moves? That's what Tom Clements wants to know.
Lurking beside major highways that cut through the heart of France, Mr. Clements and other antinuclear activists from Greenpeace usually watch for unmarked white trucks carrying plutonium-based fuel to French nuclear power plants. Their aim is to dramatize how easily terrorists could spot the trucks and steal their contents. This week, however, they hope to track more dangerous quarry: a convoy laden with about 275 pounds of plutonium oxide shipped from the US. Unlike nuclear fuel for power plants, which terrorists would have to convert to make a bomb, this plutonium is weapons grade - enough dark, coarse-grained powder that could be used immediately to make 15 to 20 atom bombs the size of the one dropped on Nagasaki in World War II.
Knowing terrorists are seeking nuclear material, nations have made strides to secure bomb-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU). But they have paid far less attention to an alternative: plutonium.
The US shipment of weapons-grade plutonium to France, its first overseas, is not only a security threat but also clouds America's nonproliferation message, critics say. Moreover, it focuses attention on plutonium from another source - nuclear power plants. This "separated" plutonium can be converted into a weapon and poses a threat comparable to HEU, most experts say.
"The big risk we face with separated plutonium is from theft by terrorists at a factory making reactor fuel - maybe an inside job," says David Albright, a researcher at the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a Washington think tank. "You always have to worry about the physical protection of plutonium. Nations always tell you their protection is good. But it may not be enough." Consider:
• The world is swimming in plutonium. Although military stockpiles have stabilized, the amount of civilian-held plutonium has doubled in the past 13 years, says a new ISIS report. At the end of 2003, 14 nations' civilian reactors held 235 metric tons of the most dangerous variety in terms of a terrorist threat - separated plutonium. That's enough material to fashion some 40,000 Nagasaki-sized weapons; the amount is growing by five to 10 tons a year.
• France annually converts tons of this plutonium to a mixed-oxide or MOX fuel, which is trucked to its nuclear power plants. Despite its "reactor grade" label, MOX could make an effective bomb - as a US test in 1962 revealed. Even if a weapon "fizzled" because its plutonium was only reactor-grade, it would still yield a one-kiloton explosion that would "rip the heart out of a city," says Leonard Spector, deputy director of the Monterey Institute's Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
• While it's far simpler to make a bomb from HEU, it's conceivable that terrorists could build a plutonium-based device with expert help, observers say. Just 15 pounds of the material, a baseball-sized chunk, would be enough to wipe out a large portion of a major city. Last month, Kyrgyz security agents arrested a man trying to sell 60 small containers of plutonium.
The US has carefully protected the onetime shipment of plutonium to France, counters Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, an arm of the Department of Energy. "There are efforts and procedures in place we're not going to discuss publicly."
By developing new technology to reprocess the plutonium in nuclear fuel, the US can boost its energy independence and reduce the volume of nuclear waste, the administration argues. It contends this could make unnecessary a second nuclear-waste repository beyond Yucca Mountain.
"It is our hope that this technology will ... provide the benefits of recycling spent fuel without increasing proliferation risks," Kyle McSlarrow, deputy secretary of Energy, told Congress in July.
Two forms, one menace
Plutonium is created when uranium fuel is irradiated within a nuclear reactor. Reprocessing extracts the plutonium from spent fuel, which may then be fabricated into more fuel for reactors. Civilian plutonium comes in two basic varieties: the separated plutonium and irradiated plutonium, which is embedded within spent nuclear fuel rods.
Ironically, irradiated plutonium is less worrisome because it is so radioactive. Terrorists typically wouldn't be able to handle spent rods without fatal consequences, though desperadoes could steal it for use in a dirty bomb. But separated plutonium could be diverted within a plant or stolen en route and readily transformed back into metal plutonium suitable for bombs, nonproliferation experts say.
The arrival in France Wednesday of US weapons-grade plutonium - destined for fabrication into commercial reactor fuel - highlights these concerns.
During the 1960s, it was thought that future shortages of uranium would make it economical to extract plutonium from reactor waste and use it for fuel. Some nations forged ahead, Britain, France, Japan, and the Soviet Union among them, despite the higher cost of reprocessing. So did the US - until India in 1974 conducted a "peaceful nuclear explosion" using a device created with plutonium culled from a research reactor.
Recognizing the danger of nuclear proliferation, presidents Ford and Carter discouraged the use of plutonium as a fuel in civilian reactors. The US government withdrew its support for a "plutonium economy," throttling back America's use of plutonium as reactor fuel.
So while the US military has plenty of weapons-grade plutonium, America has refused to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium for civilian use. Therefore, the US does not have a growing stockpile of civilian plutonium - which some would say is a huge blessing, given the costs involved in disposing of it.
Even so, the idea of using plutonium for civilian use gained a toehold during the Clinton administration. The US and Russia in 2000 signed a disarmament treaty to dispose of "excess" military plutonium by following a dual-track approach. Some of the 34 metric tons of military plutonium from each country would be mixed with nuclear waste and put into canisters for burial - while the rest would be made into MOX for use in the US and Russia.
Russia had resisted the burial option, declaring plutonium a valuable resource. In January 2002, the Bush administration dropped the idea, too. Instead, Energy secretary Spencer Abraham announced all 34 tons of excess US weapons plutonium would be made into MOX for power plants.
"The US and Russia have agreed to dispose of 34 tons each of weapons plutonium through the Russians' preferred method of conversion to MOX," says Mr. Wilkes, whose agency oversees the joint weapons-to-MOX program. "We need the Russians on board."
The US plan calls for France to create a limited amount of reactor fuel from the weapons-grade plutonium and then ship it back to South Carolina's Catawba nuclear-power plant for a test next spring. After that, the plan is for MOX to be made on US soil at a new $2.2 billion fabrication plant in South Carolina. The facility is to be completed by 2008 by a US subsidiary of Areva, the French company that's supplying the MOX to Catawba.
The plan faces some obstacles. Environmentalists have filed suit in a bid to block the use of MOX fuel in the Catawba plant. A bigger obstacle is a dispute between Russia and the US over who would be liable in case of an accident or terrorist act involving US contractors working in Russia on the new MOX plant there. Absent an agreement, the whole plan will grind to a halt, analysts say.
Murky policy
Officially, the US still discourages other nations from using plutonium-based fuels in civilian reactors. But shipping plutonium to France to make MOX undercuts any US efforts to discourage the likes of Iran and North Korea from reprocessing spent reactor fuel, several experts say.
Even for disarmament purposes, the use of MOX in US power plants "sets a terrible example for the world" when burying the material is still an alternative, says Paul Leventhal, head of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington. "You don't want to in any way legitimate the use of bomb-grade fuels to generate electricity - because you can do that with low-grade fuels. So why allow it?"
The US has in recent years begun promoting nuclear fuel-reprocessing technology for extracting plutonium, experts note. In May 2001, the Bush administration's new National Energy Policy emphasized the use of nuclear power to meet energy needs. At the same time, it also endorsed and promoted reconsideration of "advanced reprocessing" of spent reactor fuel. Despite the administration's hopes, this futuristic material would not significantly decrease terrorists' ability to use it to make a bomb, critics say.
"The Bush administration has explicitly changed its policies," says Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist in the global security program of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It is actively promoting recycling spent fuel at home and abroad."
The US has spearheaded the Generation IV International Forum with some 10 nations to develop new generation nuclear power plants. At least three of the five reactor designs under consideration would use recycled plutonium, Dr. Lyman says.
The US has also contracted with South Korea and other nations to work on the International Nuclear Energy Research Initiative, which includes new technologies for recycling plutonium. South Korea revealed last month that in 1982 some of its civilian researchers, without permission, had separated plutonium.
From power to bombs?
The revelation caused an uproar among nonproliferation experts, who worry about civilian programs developing reprocessing expertise that can lead to weapons development. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei called the experiments "of serious concern."
Meanwhile, Japan has a new reprocessing plant seeking certification. India wants to expand its reprocessing capacity. China has said it, too, wants to reprocess for civilian purposes.
"Plutonium production is a machine that just won't stop," says Dr. Spector of the Monterey Institute. "The nuclear establishment is so powerful in some countries, it just drives forward by its own inertia."
The spread of reprocessing technology, combined with the move to use MOX fuel in US reactors, comes at a time when the world is desperate to corral loose nuclear material before terrorists can get it.
Plutonium is especially hard to track. When it's being reprocessed or fabricated, it sticks to nearly everything it comes in contact with. Last year, for example, international nuclear inspectors reported that the Tokaimura nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant north of Tokyo could not account for some of its plutonium - enough to make 25 nuclear weapons. Similarly, France's COGEMA Cadarache plant where the US is shipping its excess military plutonium, was found by EURATOM in 2002 to have "an unacceptable amount of material unaccounted for," according to a recent report in Nuclear Fuel, a trade publication.
"It's like seeing an accident in the future and pressing on the accelerator.," says Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. "We're all human, and we make mistakes in government. But on this we should just cease and desist."
---------------------------
State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
---------------------------