Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
October 26, 2004
U.S. Nuclear Panel Closes Online Library
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has shut down its online document library, pending a review to determine what potentially sensitive documents should be removed because they might be useful to terrorists, the agency said Tuesday.
While the agency's Web site does not contain classified material, the NRC "is widening its review to remove additional information that could potentially be of use to a terrorist," the agency said in a statement.
The action came after a report by NBC that among the items found on the NRC Web site were detailed information on the location of radioactive substances, generally used in medicine and for industrial purposes, that could be used to make a so-called dirty bomb.
In some cases, the data included detailed building diagrams that pinpointed the location of the material in hospitals and other facilities, according to the NBC report.
As part of the review, the NRC said it temporarily closed public access to its online document library, its electronic hearing docket files, and to NRC staff documents related to NRC consideration of a high-level nuclear waste repository.
"This action, when completed, is intended to ensure that documents which might provide assistance to terrorists will be inaccessible while maintaining public access to information regarding NRC activities," the agency said.
After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, more than 1,000 documents were removed from the NRC's Web site. Additional documents disappeared in subsequent reviews.
"Agency guidelines provide that any information that could be useful, or could reasonably be expected to be useful, to a terrorist in a potential attack should be withheld," said the NRC statement.
On the Net:
NRC Web site: http://www.nrc.gov
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Las Vegas SUN
October 26, 2004
Yucca documents available on Internet
By Stephen Curran
Las Vegas SUN
Advocates on both sides of the Yucca Mountain debate now have a common database to support their claims, an Internet administrator for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday.
The Licensing Support Network database, which compiles the millions of documents included in the Energy Department's license application for the nuclear waste dump, is part of a multimillion-dollar investment in technology by the department. It is modeled after popular search engines that allow users to scan documents based on the precision of terms within the documents.
"We needed to make it so a bright 13-year-old could use it," Daniel Graser, the system's administrator, told a group of computer engineers at UNLV. "It levels the playing field."
The roughly $4 million database will eventually link more than 40 million pages of information from the 2.5 million individual documents that make up the application, Graser said.
More documents are expected to be added as the Energy Department moves forward with its license application for the proposed nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The system, which costs the NRC about $50,000 a month to maintain, is the latest form of a database initially set up in 1988.
The NRC is also expanding its "digital courtroom" technology that will link a yet-unbuilt hearing facility in Henderson to another in Rockville, Md. The computer technology, which Graser estimated costs about $500,000 for each hearing room, will provide real-time recording for the hearing impaired and allow expert witnesses to testify from thousands of miles away.
Funds are also allocated for improvements to the Maryland facility, he said.
The Energy Department has until Dec. 30 to submit its license application for the repository, which the department aims to open by 2010.
To access the Licensing Support Network database, visit www.lsnnet.gov. No passwords are needed.
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Platts
October 25, 2004
NRC's on-line document library shut for security review
Washington (Platts)
NRC shut down Adams to conduct a security review of documents posted there, the agency said late today. Given the large number of documents on Adams, NRC's on-line document library, "it is expected to be at least several weeks before Adams is partially restored, while the review of documents continues," the agency said. In its announcement, NRC noted that classified or safeguards material is not posted to Adams. But the agency said it is widening its document review "to remove additional information that could be of use to a terrorist." NRC spokeswoman Beth Hayden said the decision was prompted by recent discoveries by activists of potentially sensitive documents on Adams. She said the agency had hoped to shut down only part of the system but such a move apparently could compromise the data in the system, and the commission therefore decided to shut down Adams entirely, she said. The agency is trying to come up with a way to release information while the system is down, such as posting a list of newly-released documents elsewhere on the agency's site, she said. Users would then contact NRC's public document room to obtain the documents, she said.
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GCN
October 26, 2004
NRC yanks online docket amid terror concerns
By Wilson P. Dizard III
GCN Staff
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday suspended public access to its online docket, following reports that terrorists could use information from the database to steal radioactive materials and make dirty bombs.
NRC spokesman Dave McIntyre said the agency would keep the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System offline for about three weeks while employees check its content for information terrorists could use. After the review, NRC will begin restoring the ADAMS information, McIntyre said.
The agency also suspended access to documents concerning the planned Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
“No classified or safeguards information is now or ever has been permitted on the NRC Web site,’ McIntyre said, referring to data that could either be directly useful in building conventional weapons or in getting access to radioactive material that terrorists could use to make a dirty bomb.
NRC shut down its site immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and purged more than 1,000 documents that its decided contained sensitive information. “Since then, the agency has revised its policy regarding sensitive information that may be displayed and additional documents have been removed,’ according to an agency statement.
McIntyre said activists have from time to time alerted NRC to sensitive information in the public database, and the agency has sometimes responded by removing data.
The latest action follows reports by CNN and NBC News about ADAMS information detailing floor plans of hospitals, universities and businesses that store radioactive materials. NBC camera crews visited some facilities to demonstrate the ease of closely approaching radioactive material storage areas.
Paul Gunter, spokesman for the Nuclear Resources and Information Service, condemned the agency´s decision to suspend all public access to the site. He noted that since 1999, ADAMS has served as the public´s main access point to nuclear regulatory information. In 1999, NRC shuttered its regional public document rooms. It now maintains one public document room at its headquarters in Rockville, Md.
Gunter said NRC could have suspended access only to the docket for materials licensees, which are the medical, academic and industrial sites about which the media and antinuclear activists have uncovered sensitive information online.
“The concern is that they have put the public in an information blackout,’ Gunter said. “I don´t blame this on ADAMS. I blame this on the NRC´s failure to clearly define safeguards information and this newly defined area of sensitive information.’
Gunter added that NIRS fully supports the use of electronic docketing as long as the agency retains access to paper documents.
The Union of Concern Scientists, another nuclear watchdog group, condemned suspension of the online database and urged the agency to suspend all nonessential licensing actions until NRC restores public access to ADAMS.
McIntyre said NRC has been widening the scope of information it reviews to determine whether it should be posted online. “The current standard is that any information that would be useful or could reasonably expected to be useful to terrorists in a potential attack should be withheld.’
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Patriot-News
October 26, 2004
NRC shuts down Web site database
Nuclear-material locations disclosed
By Garry Lenton
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday shut down the public records database on its Web site until it can check hundreds of thousands of documents for information that could be valuable to terrorists.
The move comes on the heels of disclosures that some routine records posted on the Agency Documents Access and Management System, known as ADAMS, provided detailed information on the location and amount of weapons-grade nuclear materials.
The database will be closed to the public for several weeks to allow the agency to examine each record, said Beth Hayden, a spokeswoman for the agency.
The decision to shut down the database was made at the Commission level out of fear that terrorist groups might use the records to acquire nuclear materials to build a dirty-bomb, or nuclear device, she said.
The decision was made after The Patriot-News reported that detailed information about the amount and location of small amounts of nuclear materials was available on the NRC's Web site. Those documents included floor plans of buildings at universities and hospitals showing where materials were stored.
"This action, when complete, is intended to ensure that documents which might provide assistance to terrorists will be inaccessible while maintaining public access to information regarding NRC activities," the agency said in a statement released yesterday afternoon.
"The reasoning was, 'Look, let's just take it down rather than risk potential terrorists finding additional information,'" Hayden said.
The decision will make it difficult, if not impossible, for the public to monitor the actions of the NRC, said representatives of two watchdog groups, The Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"They have blinded the public's right to know and curtailed our right to due process," said Paul Gunter, director of nuclear safety for NIRS.
NIRS is involved in the federal government's effort to locate a high-level radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and in other cases around the country.
"One day is an inconvenience," Gunter said. "But when it gets into weeks and months, it becomes a serious problem."
David Lochbaum, of the UCS, said the agency should suspend license applications for as long as ADAMS is unavailable.
"When the agency takes actions like this, the public bears the brunt [of the inconvenience,]" he said.
"If they suspended licensing amendments and all non-essential activities until ADAMS is restored, then the burden would be shared."
Licensing will continue as normal, Hayden said. But the agency will try to make accommodations, where possible, for the public.
All actions by the NRC are posted in the Federal Register, which is required by law, she said.
However, she indicated that some licensing decisions may be stalled.
"We certainly do not want to take licensing action that involves public input and do that in the dark," Hayden said. "We want to be able to make sure that whatever participation by the public is needed in these licensing process are accommodated."
GARRY LENTON: 255-8264 or glenton@patriot-news.com
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 26, 2004
JOHN L. SMITH: Being undecided on president unlikely as Bush, Kerry unalike
Nothing ruins a restaurant meal faster than dining with people who refuse to read the menu and make up their minds.
I'd rather have something move in the chow mein than be forced to eat supper with a person who can't decide between tastes as different as steak and lobster.
While they fiddle, I burn at the thought they can't even decide between a cow and a crustacean.
Perhaps you know the sort of person I'm talking about. For them, menus are as intriguing and as dense as Tolstoy in the Russian.
First, they silently scan their selections. Then, they recite them aloud. Their exotic pronunciations give me French class flashbacks. By the third run through, they've added editorial comments and personal anecdotes for each entree.
By the time they've narrowed their selection to a half dozen, the hired help is turning up the lights, pulling out the vacuums and passing out doggy bags.
Please excuse my political manners, but this is precisely the way I feel about the percentage of Americans who still consider themselves "undecided voters" in the rapidly approaching presidential election.
It's understandable that voters would be confused about the best candidates on the long list of jockeys vying for judgeships. All judges look pretty much the same, and you never want to find yourself standing in front of one.
Even Assembly, Senate and County Commission candidates tend to blur after the 263rd sensational mail piece has been delivered to your door. (From the look of things, commission candidate David Goldwater is on the FBI's Most Wanted list, and Lynette Boggs McDonald has horns growing out of her hairdo.)
But there should be no such indecision on the office of the presidency, where incumbent George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry represent dramatically divergent views of America. From the war in Iraq and the economy to same-sex marriage and stem cell research, they really agree on nothing.
This is why I believe recent presidential polls showing up to 5 percent of Americans still undecided not only don't give an accurate picture, but likely bode ill for the favorite, Bush. Beyond some privacy concerns -- some of those surveyed just don't like surveys -- why else would voters say they're undecided, if not to conceal the fact they're not going to cast a ballot for the man who got their vote four years ago?
The New York Times on Monday devoted a front-page story to the plight and personality of the undecideds, so I presume such people actually exist.
In caves, mostly.
I doubt the nation is undecided, but I can understand why it's divided. That division is especially evident in toss-up states such as Nevada, where the anti-Yucca Mountain candidate Kerry is scheduled to speak today. That's also why "war President" Bush's team has saturated mailboxes with millions of blistering salvos during early voting.
They're getting out some voters and encouraging others to stay home, but I doubt they're fretting over the "undecided."
"Even people who can't tell you much about government know the president is the No. 1 spot," veteran Nevada Democratic strategist Gary Gray says. "And they make up their minds about that one first. ... The presidential race is a lockdown at this point."
That's not to say he knows who will win, only that, polls to the contrary, there aren't busloads of undecided voters on a desert caravan bound for Election Day.
And Republican strategist Jim Denton agrees.
"I think that in the past 20 years of presidential politics, never has there been a clearer choice than we currently have between President Bush and Senator Kerry," Denton says.
He adds, laughing, "I have no idea how anyone could call themselves 'undecided.' "
The candidates have defined their positions and priorities. Now they're attempting to take advantage of early voting.
Gray says his sources have observed a dramatic increase in Democrat turnout during early voting, and Denton is confident "we will have the highest voter turnout we've ever had in the history of Nevada."
Surf or turf, Kerry or Bush, just make a decision before closing time.
John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 26, 2004
EDITORIAL: A scarlet letter
When Sen. John Kerry visits the valley today, he'll bear the scarlet letter of endorsements: the political backing of the Sierra Club.
For more than a week, the environmentalists have been airing radio commercials in Southern Nevada that support Sen. Kerry's presidential campaign. The doomsday ads allege that Sen. Kerry, acting alone, can save the state's children from the certain illness or death that would accompany nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain.
The group used similar fear mongering in the junk science lawsuit that has delayed the widening of U.S. Highway 95, arguing that making room for traffic to flow more smoothly on Las Vegas' busiest stretch of expressway will somehow cause cancer.
Although Sen. Kerry had nothing to do with the creation of the ads, they say a lot about his campaign.
First, just like Sen. Kerry and the state's Democratic Party, the Sierra Club is incapable of recognizing that the planned Yucca Mountain repository has no bearing on this year's election. Although scientific polls show myriad other issues are of greater concern to Nevadans, they are content to spread hollow warnings of misery.
But more importantly, the ads illustrate the eager embrace of an organization that would sacrifice our economy for preposterous pollution controls, that would put Draconian limits on development and eliminate the automobile if its wishes could be granted. The Sierra Club's endorsement is not given to friends of progress and prosperity.
State officials have learned one thing about the Sierra Club in their haggling over the group's U.S. 95 lawsuit: There is no room for reasonable compromise.
Valley voters stuck in traffic would be wise to remember that the next time they hear those commercials.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 26, 2004
Letter: Yucca vote
According to a Review-Journal opinion poll on national election issues, only 3 percent of Nevada voters consider Yucca Mountain the most influential issue in determining support for federal candidates.
If this poll is accurate, why are we spending millions of our tax dollars fighting this cause? How can our elected politicians spend our money without a vote by the people? It's time to give up the fight or put it to a vote.
Sharon Lyons
Mesquite
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The State
October 26, 2004
Oconee waste tank discharge underscores storage problem
Associated Press
GREENVILLE, S.C. - An accidental discharge of 10,000 gallons of water covering spent nuclear fuel rods at an upstate reactor raises concerns about the future storage needs for the material.
The incident occurred when operators at the Oconee Nuclear Station tried to add water to one pool while simultaneously draining another. A valve left open allowed water to drain into a storage tank at the Duke Power facility, said Mel Shannon, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's senior resident inspector.
A shift manager, who was supposed to make sure the two operations didn't overlap, "missed it," he said. The plant had a bad procedure, he said.
Duke Power is analyzing what happened.
"We're going to do whatever we need to do to prevent it from happening again," Duke Power spokeswoman Rose Cummings said.
Even if 40,000 gallons drained from the tank to the level of the drain, several feet of water would still cover the rods, Shannon said.
Still, the incident underscores the national problem of handling spent nuclear fuel. The Environmental Working Group, for instance, warns that waste might have to stay at Oconee Nuclear Station longer than expected because it will have no other place to go.
The Washington-based organization says Oconee Nuclear Station could end up stuck with the 1,095 metric tons of waste. The group says a nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain will fill up shortly after it opens in 2010 or 2011 as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission continues to renew reactor licenses across the country. That will generate more waste that has nowhere for it to go, the Environmental Working Group says.
Plans call for Yucca Mountain to take 77,000 metric tons of waste, but it can hold closer to 120,000 metric tons, Nuclear Energy Institute spokeswoman Thelma Wiggins said. The industry group says another repository may be necessary, but not for several decades.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says he expects Yucca Mountain will have enough room to hold nuclear waste for the next 100 years. Earlier this year he won approval for a plan to solidify and permanently store nuclear material dregs in tanks at the Savannah River Site in an effort to reduce removal and storage costs.
The United States could follow France's lead by expanding reliance on nuclear energy and cutting down on radioactive waste through reprocessing, Graham said. About 90 percent of spent fuel rods at Oconee Nuclear Station can be reprocessed, Graham said.
"That's probably not the most economical way to generate new fuel, but it does help you in the waste stream," Graham said.
Wiggins expects to see more, not fewer nuclear plants.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has awarded new licenses to 26 of the nation's 103 power plants, and the rest are expected to seek renewals, Wiggins said. At the same time, the industry has an "aggressive" plan to expand by as many as 50 plants by 2020, she said.
Eliminating plants could drive up electricity costs, Wiggins said.
"When you start looking at the cost to consumers, nuclear is the cheapest form of electricity we have, second only to hydro," she said.
Information from: The Greenville News, http://www.greenvillenews.com
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Nevada Appeal
October 25, 2004
Las Vegas, Reno papers endorses Democrat John Kerry for president
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS - Two of the state's largest newspapers endorsed Democrat John Kerry for president Sunday, believing the Massachusetts senator would do everything in his power to block the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.
The Las Vegas Sun said President George W. Bush has pushed for building the nuclear storage site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas despite hundreds of scientific questions that remain unanswered.
"In contrast, Kerry has been vocal in his opposition. This is good news for the whole nation, which will be imperiled if Yucca Mountain opens and nuclear waste is transported daily for the next several decades on public roads and railways that are not safe for such deadly material," the Las Vegas Sun wrote.
The Reno Gazette-Journal, which is in the heavily Republican Washoe County, said voters should put stock in Kerry's pledge to stop Yucca if they are to believe U.S. Senator Harry Reid, D-Nev.
"As to Kerry's leadership abilities and honesty, northern Nevadans should take the word of Sen. Harry Reid. He has known Kerry for 20 years and has seen him in action close up. When Kerry says that he will not allow Yucca Mountain to be used as a nuclear waste repository, Reid says that Nevadans can believe him," the Gazette-Journal said.
In its endorsement, the Las Vegas Sun said it was confident that Kerry had the will and strength to deal with a hostile world.
"He says he will root out the real terrorists and either capture or kill them. We are impressed with Kerry's resolve in this area, which we cannot imagine being diluted or diverted as was the case with President Bush when he switched his focus to Iraq, a country that had posed no external threat but which is now a breeding ground for hate and terrorism."
The Gazette-Journal said Bush has mishandled the post-war struggle in Iraq.
"The war was conducted well. It was the aftermath that showed the administration at its worst. The administration was ill-prepared for what happened after the war ended, and the need to rebuild the infrastructure and rebuild army and police forces has contributed greatly to the troubles we still face there," the Reno newspaper wrote.
The Las Vegas Sun said Kerry is the only choice for president.
"He would be a president who would restore America's respect in the world. There would be a positive resolution to the war in Iraq. Our country would be safer, as our focus on fighting terrorism would not waver. The economy would be more oriented toward ordinary Americans. And Nevada and the country would be far safer without Yucca Mountain," according to the Las Vegas Sun.
The Gazette-Journal explained voters face a wrenching decision when they go to the polls in Nevada, a battleground state, but said it's difficult to deny that the "administration of George W. Bush largely has been a failure."
Bush, the Reno paper said, doesn't deserve to be re-elected.
"Whether Kerry can reverse these failed policies remains to be seen, but it would be foolish to reward the administration for its failures with four more years in office."
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Las Vegas SUN
October 25, 2004
Reid goes on offensive in support of Gallagher
By Kirsten Searer
<searer@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has come out swinging for struggling congressional candidate Tom Gallagher, saying that Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., has indicated he is giving up on the fight against Yucca Mountain in Congress.
Porter has said in two television debates that the fight against Yucca Mountain will not be won in the halls of Congress, saying too many states support the project. The best way to fight it, Porter said, is through the court system, pointing to recent successes by Attorney General Brian Sandoval.
Reid called the comments "foolishness."
"Congress has tremendous power," Reid said, adding that the comments signalled "ignorance or total lack of understanding of what Congress is all about."
"Jon making the statement he did is just really kind of scary," Reid said.
In the congressional candidates' final television showdown on Sunday, Porter pointed out that he has fought Yucca Mountain since 1983 and helped stop Congress from sending waste to Yucca Mountain as an interim storage place.
But he once again pointed out that most states want to put waste at Yucca Mountain, making it difficult to win the battle in Congress.
"We're going to keep fighting it in the halls of Congress, of course," Porter said. "Because there's going to be attempts by different members of different parties to fund Yucca Mountain, there's no question that that's going to happen. At the end of the day we're going to win this in court."
Gallagher said he expects Congress to take up the issue again after the election, when he said President Bush likely will ask Congress to loosen EPA standards on the project. Porter, he said, cannot continue supporting the administration while fighting Yucca Mountain.
Porter said he disagrees with President Bush on Yucca Mountain but agrees with Bush on issues including education and getting people back to work.
He pointed out that Democratic Presidential contender John Kerry voted for the so-called "Screw Nevada bill" that designated Yucca Mountain as the site where the country wanted to store nuclear waste. Kerry has since said he would stop Yucca Mountain if elected president.
"I think its a draw -- both of those men are against Nevada when it coes to Yucca Mountain," Porter said. "We just have to continue the fight and work with our delegation, work with our attorney general."
A new energy bill also provides subsidies to build new nuclear power plants that will generate more nuclear waste, Gallagher said.
Porter countered that the energy bill was the first comprehensive energy plan passed in two decades, and it provides incentives for Nevada to develop new energy from geothermal, wind and solar sources "to make sure we can create additional revenue, additional jobs for Nevada."
Porter continued to try to prove that Gallagher is not well versed in Nevada issues, asking Gallagher if he knew about the Nevada Plan, which funds education, and the state's air quality division.
Gallagher shot back that he knew the Bush administration has placed tight regulations on educators through the No Child Left Behind Act without giving them the proper funding to comply.
"The fundamental problem that we have is we have children in high school that have no textbooks," Gallagher said.
And he said he worked on clean air and clean water legislation when he was chief counsel for former California Sen. John Tunney in the 1970s.
"My history on clean air and clean water goes well back into the early 1970s when we were passing the legislation that has in fact been the basis of a lot good work that's happened in the meantime," Gallagher said.
Later, Porter said the point he is making is that the state deserves representation from someone who has lived here longer than seven years, as Gallagher has.
"I just firmly believe that you have to spend time in our community," Porter said. "You have to spend time in our schools, you have to understand our water issues, you have to understand our energy issues."
Bringing up the issue again, Porter added: "I'm just disappointed that there isn't some understanding of all these things that affect our family -- especially air quality."
Porter's television advertisements have criticised Gallagher for renting a home in Congressional District 3. Gallagher said he lived six houses down from the district lines and decided to rent a home while he was busy campaigning.
"I think its a slap at every person who has moved here over the last few years to say that somehow you have to be here for 20 years in order to understand the issues," Gallagher said, adding that he knows the district because he has walked it end to end for the past eight months.
Porter said he is glad that Gallagher is living the American Dream by having several homes, including on Lake Tahoe and one in Summerlin.
"We want to make sure people move here," Porter said. "But when it comes to making decisions running for Congress or an elected position I think you need to have an understanding. You need to make sure that you understand."
Gallagher also continued to press Porter on a vote he made against a $1,500 pay increase for troops serving in Iraq. Porter had said the money had to be earmarked for body protection and hydration equipment for troops.
"The $1,500 sounds good on the surface but the $1,500 had to come from someplace," Porter said, adding that he voted for two other military pay increases.
Gallagher balked, pointing to a Congressional record showing that the money for the bonus would have come from money set aside to import petroleum products into Iraq.
"Jon, you're simply not telling the truth," Gallagher said.
Polls continue to show a wide gap between Porter and Gallagher, who has seen his numbers drop as Porter has run ads against him, including ads saying that Gallagher took more than $3 million in salary and stocks as CEO of Park Place Entertainment soon after the company laid off 2,100 workers. Park Place Entertainment is now Caesars Entertainment.
Porter's campaign officials argue that those might be the most devastating ads against the former gaming executive.
That's one area where Reid has taken umbrage, saying Gallagher was only rivaled by gaming executive Steve Wynn in how well he treated his employees.
"All these allegations about what Tom did when he was at Caesars Palace are draconian double talk," Reid said.
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Plain Dealer
October 24, 2004
Elizabeth Sullivan
Energy fight? Not this year
The guys on the campaign trail keep trying to ig nore the trillion-pound rhinoceros in the room.
But soaring oil prices thunder the obvious: America had better prepare for a possible fall in world oil output if it doesn't want to be left without affordable energy options.
The world isn't running out of oil, yet.
There are still more than 1.3 trillion barrels of proven and probable oil reserves in the ground. Most of it is in the Middle East, but vast amounts also lie in the Western hemisphere and in Russia. Locked in hard-to-reach areas, tricky deposits or partially unexplored regions could be even more oil that will become profitable as oil prices soar.
But wars, miscalculations, politics and outright lies about proven reserves have the po tential to inflame fears and lead to embargoes, oilfield sei zures, trade disruptions and a loss of investor confidence.
Already, some major oil pro ducers have cut back their esti mates of their own "proven re serves" in effect saying that the oil they thought they could pump cheaply and quickly won't be so easy to get at.
Oil worker strikes, terrorist attacks and political unrest recently have depressed output and sent oil prices to non-inflation-adjusted records.
Oil futures have risen 80 percent in a year.
Meanwhile, China is buying up all it can, blowing apart previous calculations for demand and pinching oil markets further.
During the oil price shocks of the 1970s, America imported about 40 percent of its oil. Today it's closer to 60 percent, and we're beginning to import significant amounts of our natural gas, too.
Many Americans will have to pay hundreds of dollars extra this winter for heating fuels, while energy costs are pounding the bottom line for U.S. airlines, and beginning to act as a drag on consumer spending.
Yet U.S. energy policy is the issue that virtually no candidate wants to discuss. The best options are seen as too draconian and politically suicidal - among them, forcing up average fuel-economy standards for SUVs, for instance, raising gas taxes or leaning on businesses to conserve.
Sen. John Kerry co-sponsored an energy amendment two years ago that would have raised average fuel standards to 36 miles per gallon, but "has since backed off mentioning any specific miles-per-gallon figure, although his platform and a spokeswoman stressed fuel efficiency was a cornerstone of his energy and environmental plan," reports the Boston Globe.
Other possible measures have significant downsides, such as President George W. Bush's proposal to drill for oil in the Alaska wildlife refuge, or building more coal-fired plants that will pollute even with expensive gasification or scrubbing techniques, and nuclear plants that generate waste that stays radioactive for 10,000 years.
The result this campaign season is political opportunism trumping solutions.
Kerry is the culprit of the moment, as he panders to Nevada voters by trashing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site (a spot that should be suspect because of the area's volcanic history, not because of electoral votes) and remakes himself as an advocate of "clean coal" to please the folks in southeast Ohio.
But President George W. Bush earns potentially blacker marks if he took this nation to war in part over oil, without ever acknowledging it.
The evidence is circumstantial, but compelling: One of the great conundrums of the coming oil crunch is how to diversify away from the Saudi spigot. Iraq, sitting on the world's second-largest proven oil reserves, and Afghanistan, a potential gateway to the Caspian Sea region, provide some answers.
Earlier this year, the New Yorker magazine revealed a "top-secret" Feb. 3, 2001, National Security Council document, that the magazine said "directed the NSC staff to cooperate fully with [Vice President Dick Cheney's] Energy Task Force as it considered the 'melding' of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy: 'the review of operational policies towards rogue states,' such as Iraq, and 'actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.' "
Now that loaded word "capture" could mean acquisition through friendly persuasion or deals, not conquest.
But the Bush administration's refusal in the teeth of repeated requests from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office - which resorted to legal action to try to elicit information - to reveal even the most basic details about the 3½-month energy task force feeds suspicions that all was not as it should have been.
The GAO couldn't even get plausible data from Cheney's office on how much the energy task force cost. GAO backed off its legal challenge after receiving a judicial rebuff on jurisdictional grounds, but outside groups still are trying to force the files open.
One of them - the nonprofit group Judicial Watch - last year made public a densely annotated Iraq oil map dated March 2001, along with charts of Iraqi oil and gas projects and a list of "foreign suitors" for Iraqi oil, that it received as part of its legal efforts to open up the energy task force documents.
Such materials should not be considered in isolation.
That's why this administration must reveal the full range of deliberations of Cheney's task force and those who advised it.
Not only is such transparency part of what elected representatives owe those they serve, but it would help put to rest the inevitable speculation that the Cheney group was plotting, as early as 2001, hostile action to seize Iraq's oil fields.
Sullivan is The Plain Dealer's foreign-affairs columnist and an associate editor of the editorial pages.
Contact her at: bsullivan@plaind.com, 216-999-6153
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Greenville News
October 21, 2004
Some fear, some accept nuclear plant's radioactive legacy
By Paul Alongi
palongi@greenvillenews.com
Sue Yant lives in Mauldin but likes to spend weekends hiking and kayaking on Lake Keowee.
A few miles up the shoreline from where she plans to build a lakefront home sits a storehouse of nuclear waste. And it could be there longer than expected, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.
Duke Power's Oconee Nuclear Station could be stuck with 1,095 metric tons of nuclear waste because it will have no other place to go, the Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group says.
"Obviously, no one wants it in their back yard," Yant said. "People are afraid of it."
A national repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain will fill to capacity shortly after it opens in 2011, according to the group. But Oconee Nuclear Station and 14 other nuclear power plants will continue to produce nuclear waste that will have to be stored on site if the U.S. Congress doesn't expand Yucca Mountain, the group contends.
Duke Power spokeswoman Rose Cummings called the group "anti-nuclear" and said the Oconee plant safely stores waste in spent-fuel pools and above-ground dry storage facilities. She said the company doesn't comment on storage capacity issues for "proprietary" reasons.
"There are lots of vendors out there who want to sell you storage systems," Cummings said.
Margene Bullcreek, a member of the Skull Valley band of Goshutes, said assurances of safety don't comfort her. She's trying to keep a nuclear storage facility from being built on the Utah Indian reservation where she lives. If the facility is built, she expects the waste would stay on site and never make it to Yucca Mountain.
"There has to be some decay," Bullcreek said.
After Yucca Mountain fills up, South Carolina's four nuclear power plants will accumulate the most waste in the nation with 2,423 of the nation's 8,870 metric tons, according to the group.
John Stewart, who caught a bucketful of spotted bass in Lake Keowee on Thursday, said nuclear waste doesn't bother him. Stewart said that as a concrete finisher he helped build Oconee Nuclear Station.
"It's the way it's built," Stewart said while helping haul a fishing boat out of the water. "They haven't had any accidents yet, and it's been how long?"
George Crocker, executive director of the Lake Elmo, Minn.-based North American Water Office, said storing waste at reactors can lead to catastrophes worse than the Chernobyl disaster. For example, he said, oxygen and hydrogen can mix and lead to an explosion while waste is being transported from pools to above-ground casks.
"We haven't even talked about sabotage and security," Crocker said.
Oconee Nuclear Station, eight miles north of Clemson, received its first operating license in 1973. The National Regulatory Commission granted extensions in May 2000 that will allow the plant's three reactors to continue operating until 2034.
The commission has granted 20-year operating extensions for 26 nuclear reactors at 15 power plants nationwide since 2000, according to the group. The analysis was based on U.S. Department of Energy numbers, the group says.
Dave Morris, who lives in Greenville, said he has no problem with the plant and that he planned to boat on the lake Thursday.
"They've regulated things so well they don't have a problem with the way they're storing," he said.
The group says that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved license extensions at nuclear reactors nationwide after the U.S. Senate approved the Yucca Mountain site in 2002. No license has been turned down and licenses for 18 reactors are pending, according to the group.
Barbara J. Nix, who lives in a blue house on a hill about two miles from the plant, said she didn't know that nuclear waste may stay at the plant longer than expected. Having nuclear waste up the road makes her want to sell her house, she said.
"You never know what's going to come out of there," Nix said.
Paul Alongi can be reached at 298-4746.
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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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