Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, December 17, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
December 17, 2004
More efficient handling of nuke waste is urged
By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas Sun
WASHINGTON -- Yucca Mountain managers need a better overall plan for handling high-level nuclear waste after it is hauled to the proposed repository, a project watchdog panel said.
The nation's most highly radioactive waste would be shipped from sites nationwide to Yucca for permanent storage under the Energy Department plan.
But the department does not have an "integrated" plan to efficiently deal with the waste when it arrives, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board chairman John Garrick said in an interview. The board was commissioned by Congress to conduct technical oversight of Yucca.
Nuclear reactor waste generates heat as it decays, which may affect the tunnel rock inside Yucca. Some waste likely would be stored temporarily at the Yucca surface facility after it arrives as workers sort it based on when it was removed from its reactor, and how long it has been cooling in pools or dry cask containers. Workers will sort waste and place it in the tunnels based on how "hot' it is.
It's also possible that once the waste arrives at Yucca it will have to be stored temporarily in an on-site storage container, then re-loaded into a permanent storage container, Garrick said.
Under current plans, highly radioactive waste could be handled up to four times before it is finally sealed away forever inside Yucca's underground tunnels, Garrick noted in a Nov. 30 letter to the Energy Department's Yucca director Margaret Chu.
The Energy Department needs a plan to minimize waste handling and to devise a more efficient system, the Garrick wrote.
"We are concerned that right now their act isn't quite together on integrated systems," Garrick said.
More analysis is needed to "identify possible safety and operational concerns, and optimize the system," Garrick's letter said.
Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said department officials were reviewing the letter and offered no response to it.
On an unrelated subject, the letter also cautioned the department to further consider the effects of molten rock, or magma, on the waste containers. Yucca critics have long said that volcanic activity was a possible threat, but the risk has been dismissed by many project supporters as an extremely remote possibility.
An early study conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute indicated that samples of a nickel-based metal called Alloy 22 -- a material likely to be used for waste containers -- held up well when exposed to magma.
But the chemical compositions of magma at Yucca would vary widely and more research is needed to know if the waste canisters could survive a flow of molten rock in the Yucca tunnels, the board noted in its letter.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 17, 2004
John L. Smith: Something To Talk About
The normally sleepy early days of the Legislature might hold a hint of intrigue thanks to the Senate Judiciary's plan to present an informational review of issues that should be of interest to everyone in the state.
The committee will spend a few hours discussing the major litigation facing Nevada, and that includes the status of the fight against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Then, there's the state's impeachment process, the probability of an actual medical malpractice insurance rollback for physicians following the passage of Question 3, and recent mergers by corporate gaming giants.
Of the bunch, it's the last one that holds the greatest potential for interest. I don't wonder whether there will be any talk of Gaming Inc.'s obsession with the gross receipts tax, but it will be interesting to have Gaming Control Board and Gaming Commission officials join with industry bosses to chat up the committee. There will be time for that later.
"It's an important issue for the state," said judiciary committee Chairman Mark Amodei, R-Carson City. "It's an important issue for the industry. I think it's appropriate that we go ahead and discuss it.
"I think the Legislature has the duty to at least say we've had an opportunity to have a discussion, even in an informational sense."
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Reno Gazette-Journal
December 17, 2004
Letter: Waste site hasn´t been proved safe
This letter is in response to Gary L. Benefield´s letter from Dec. 13 [“Yucca Mountain fight is a lost cause; give up’]. The Yucca Mountain fight is not a lost cause. Benefield comments that he is “sick and tired of people whining’ about the issue, and suggests that we all “accept it.’
No one debates the fact that radioactive waste, currently stored at different locations across the country, needs to be moved to a long-term storage place. However, Yucca Mountain has not yet been determined by scientists a safe place for nuclear waste to be stored.
It is my understanding that Sen. Reid, scientists and others are concerned about the human (public health) consequences of this project. These concerns should be heeded, not ignored.
I think that more than anything, as part of the younger generation, I find Benefield´s attitude disheartening. I know that our relationship with the environment will never be ideal, any more than we will live in a world without wars, poverty and intolerance. But, not to strive for good, to simply give up, seems like a life without purpose or meaning.
Adrienne Davich
Reno
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San Francisco Chronicle
December 17, 2004
Where is that darn uranium?
David Lazarus
It's tempting to get in a few licks against Bob Glynn, who announced the other day that he's stepping down as chief exec of PG&E Corp.
But Glynn, who made millions while overseeing the bankruptcies of two of the San Francisco parent company's divisions, will be sticking around as chairman for another year. So there's no hurry.
Instead, let's focus today on something else that PG&E would prefer you didn't think about -- its failed efforts to track down highly radioactive materials that have been missing for months.
The utility is now preparing to bring in an outside firm to carefully vacuum a storage pool containing nuclear waste. It's a last-ditch effort to turn up the missing uranium before finally calling off the search next month.
John Nelson, a spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric Co., acknowledged to me that the utility -- of which Glynn will also remain as chairman until the end of 2005 -- may never know for sure what happened to the missing materials.
"It's possible," he said. "We've found some fragments in the pool, but we aren't sure those are the fragments we're looking for."
PG&E has been scouring its mothballed Humboldt Bay nuclear power plant near Eureka since July in hopes of turning up the missing materials -- three 18-inch segments of a spent nuclear fuel rod.
Humboldt Bay's storage pool contains about 15,000 fuel rods. Each rod in turn holds nearly 200 uranium pellets.
The Humboldt Bay plant was shut down in 1976. PG&E is now preparing to decommission the facility and move all spent fuel rods from the pool into so- called dry casks for long-term storage.
The utility realized while conducting an inventory of the pool's contents this summer that it couldn't account for the whereabouts of the segments of one rod.
At the time, it blamed the snafu on shoddy record keeping and said it expected to locate the missing pieces within just a few weeks.
Now, five months later, PG&E officials are still scratching their heads.
"The fragments that we've found so far in the pool add up to more fuel than the amount we're looking for, so it's hard to say if these are (the missing segments)," Nelson said.
"We've also reached out to all the external repositories that could have received them," he continued. "None of them said, 'Oh yeah, here they are. They were sitting in the corner all the time.' "
PG&E's troubles notwithstanding, this doesn't bode well for the proposed national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The facility, which still faces licensing and funding hurdles, has been harshly attacked by critics on environmental grounds. It's also drawn fire because of the potential danger of transporting millions of tons of nuclear waste by road and rail from throughout the country.
"If an established company like PG&E can't keep track of fuel rods, that does not inspire a lot of confidence in terms of Yucca Mountain," said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, a San Francisco advocacy group.
PG&E's Nelson countered that nuclear materials probably won't go astray at Yucca Mountain because "the level of record keeping and tracking even the smallest piece of fuel is much more precise now than it was 40 years ago."
Because Yucca Mountain remains in limbo, though, PG&E is proceeding with plans to build an above-ground radioactive waste storage complex at its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo.
The utility cleared its final regulatory hurdle last week when the California Coastal Commission gave its approval in return for PG&E granting public access to 3 miles of coastline north of the plant.
The new storage facility will cost $26 million in ratepayer funds. Nelson said PG&E has no problem assuring customers that careful records will be kept for all fuel rods stashed there.
In 2000, a Connecticut nuclear plant mislaid a pair of fuel rods containing uranium and plutonium. The rods were never found and the plant was subsequently fined $288,000 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Earlier this year, a nuclear plant in Vermont said it had lost two pieces of radioactive waste, but they turned up again a couple of months later.
PG&E hopes that vacuuming its Humboldt Bay storage pool will give utility workers a better look at what may be littering the bottom.
If the missing segments turn up, swell. If not, the utility says it will keep searching until the end of January and then get off a report on the failed search to federal authorities.
So, should we be worried?
Nelson says no. "There isn't enough (missing uranium) to make a nuclear weapon, if that's what you wanted it for," he said.
But what about a so-called dirty bomb intended to contaminate a populated area?
"It would not release enough radiation to cause significant radiation- related damage," Nelson replied. "The explosion would do more damage."
Still, PG&E would like its uranium back, in case anyone knows where it is.
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Las Vegas SUN
December 16, 2004
Yucca security clearances being expanded
By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
WASHINGTON -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday announced that it would accept applications for security clearances to classified Yucca Mountain documents.
The agency is expanding the types of people who could obtain the clearances under a new regulation published in the federal register Wednesday. The regulation is set to take effect Feb. 28.
The security clearance applications would be accepted from Yucca project "stakeholders," such as Clark County and other Nevada officials, the agency announced.
The NRC will grant the clearances to people who meet "need to know" criteria determined by the agency, NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said.
That was good news for Nevada officials who have sought to obtain the clearances, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency. The NRC has not indicated that it would refuse access to state officials, he said. "At least right now, for us, this hasn't been a big problem," he said.
At issue are thousands of Yucca documents that the Energy Department plans to submit to the NRC as part of its application for a license to construction Yucca.
Some of the documents may contain sensitive information, such as transportation information for the highly radioactive waste that would be shipped on roads and rails to the underground repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The documents might also include information about security at Yucca, or military waste, including plutonium, said Joe Egan, the lawyer who is leading legal battles against Yucca for the state.
State officials believe the NRC should grant key people access to relevant documents from the beginning of the application review so that they are not constantly thwarted in their efforts by blanket refusals of access to all classified documents, Egan said.
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Las Vegas SUN
December 16, 2004
Editorial: Standing up to the boss
Last week President Bush made a surprise choice in nominating Samuel Bodman, deputy secretary of the Treasury Department, to succeed Spencer Abraham as secretary of the Energy Department. Bodman doesn't have a lengthy track record in dealing with energy matters, making his selection puzzling to some energy experts. "Sam who? I've never heard of this guy," one energy industry lobbyist told Reuters news service upon learning of his nomination, adding that Bodman was essentially unknown to other Washington energy policy insiders as well. Nevadans are especially interested in learning more about Bodman and his views on nuclear power, because the Energy Department is the agency seeking a license to build a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, just 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Bodman does have impressive credentials. He was a professor of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before leaving there in 1970 to work for a venture capital firm. He later joined Fidelity Investments, ultimately becoming its president. Bush said Bodman is "a problem solver who knows how to set goals and he knows how to reach them." One of the biggest issues facing Bodman is the Yucca Mountain project, which recently was dealt a setback when a federal appeals court ruled that the dump's design would contain radiation for just 10,000 years, even though a much longer period was required by law. One way of "solving" this problem would be for Congress to pass legislation relaxing this radiation protection standard at Yucca Mountain, paving the way to build the dump. While that would move the project along quickly to the nuclear po wer industry's delight, it would be disastrous because gutting safety standards is the worst possible solution in dealing w! ith man's deadliest waste.
We're not naive enough to think that the president, who already has thrown his support behind the Yucca Mountain project, will suddenly reverse course. But Bodman, if confirmed by the Senate, should take a look at the Yucca Mountain project with a fresh set of eyes, listening to the concerns of Nevada's congressional delegation and even visiting Las Vegas to get a real sense of how devastating a nuclear waste dump would be for our safety and to our economy. And while the president's Cabinet in the next term consists largely of "yes men," we hope that Bodman gives Bush straight advice based on science, not information that's tailor-made to fit the president's own preconceived views. That would make Bodman a true problem solver.
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NY NewStandard
December 16, 2004
Bush´s Pick for Energy Secretary Has Polluted Record
by Marjo R. Moore
If he is confirmed, the man chosen by the White House to oversee one of the industries that is most influential in Republican politics will be a corporate insider with a sketchy list of achievements and a controversial mission.
Dec 16 - Bush's pick for the next Energy Secretary, Sam Bodman, spent fourteen years at the helm of Cabot Corp., a Boston-based chemical company with a spotty environmental record, leaving many conservationists worried about the effects his tenure there may have on the nation's natural resources.
Bodman, 66, called his appointment the culmination of his life's work when President Bush made the announcement last week. "I started as a teacher in chemical engineering at MIT, spent seventeen years helping create and manage Fidelity Investments, and then spent fourteen years managing Cabot Corp., a global chemical company. Each of these activities had to do with the financial markets and the impact of energy and technology on those markets," he said.
Refrains of "Sam who?" echoed through the Capitol following the announcement. Currently deputy secretary of the US Treasury, Bodman is a mystery to Washington insiders. Some believe his selection is strategic, virtually assuring Vice President Cheney's continued grip on the department.
Karen Wayland, legislative director for Natural Resources Defense Council, told Reuters, "I think it's pretty clear over the last four years that the energy plan the administration is pushing is taking its direction from the Vice President's office."
Cheney heads a special task force created by Bush early in his first term. The National Energy Policy Development Group boasts high-ranking administration officials as members and has met frequently with energy executives behind closed doors. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group that tracks the effect of money in politics, Bush received almost $4.5 million from the energy/natural resource industry for his 2004 election campaign.
As Energy Department chief, Bodman will be charged with pushing the administration's energy agenda and policies with likely high environmental impact.
With current energy head Spencer Abraham's impending departure, long-time Bush ally Don Evans championed Sam Bodman to fill the post. Analysts say liquefied natural gas, with which Bodman has extensive experience, will be a large part of future energy supplies -- an idea strongly pushed by the current administration.
If Sam Bodman wins Senate approval, the former president of Fidelity Investments will administer a multibillion dollar budget, one third of which is earmarked for the Energy Department's environmental responsibilities like clearing the nation's nuclear waste. Bodman will manage development of "clean coal" technologies and hydrogen powered automobiles, both items on the president's agenda. He will also be in charge of helping Bush circumvent a court order and push through completion of a nuclear waste disposal center in the Yucca Mountains of Nevada (previous coverage).
Bodman's biggest challenge, however, will be convincing the public that the way to independence from foreign energy is through an oil rig in Alaska. Whether or not the public is convinced, Bodman will have to acquire Congressional approval for President Bush's long-term goal of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Drilling in the 19 million acre sanctuary has been intensely debated for two decades. The idea of choosing a minimal increase in oil reserves at the expense a virtually untouched, ecologically rich region has enraged conservationists. Drilling in the Wildlife Refuge is also seen as a slippery slope by environmentalists who say that it could open the door to placing other protected lands at the energy industry's disposal.
Industry leaders are detailing other ideas for Bodman's tenure. Scott Segal told Waste News: "First he must act to maintain fuel diversity, including the robust use of coal in our economy. This means supporting clarification of [air pollution rules] and the adoption of Clear Skies legislation on Capitol Hill. Second, the new secretary must provide leadership to adopt comprehensive energy legislation." Segal is the head of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a lobbying group started by FirstEnergy, Duke Energy, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. FirstEnergy was a top Bush contributor in 2000 and gave $306,950 to Republicans in the 2004 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
As Energy Secretary, Bodman will have a tough time pushing through the controversial regulations. A program ridiculed by environmental groups as a political smokescreen, the so-called Clear Skies Act is a watered-down version of its landmark predecessor, the Clean Air Act. The Bush-Cheney package introduces generally lower air pollution standards. Incentives, not legality, pulse at the heart of the measure.
Questionable White House initiatives aside, Bodman's own environmental record has conservationists worried.
As Chair of the Federal Interagency Working Group on Climate Change Science and Technology, Bodman developed the administration's Climate Change Strategic Plan, an outline of industry regulations. Called "dense" by the Natural Academy of Sciences, many analysts criticized for lacking attainable goals and agency responsibilities.
Furthermore, Knight Ridder News Service reports that Securities and Exchange Commission filings show Cabot Corp. had a weak environmental record and paid hefty fines on two occasions on Bodman's watch as CEO and director.
Currently, Cabot's facilities in Boyertown and Reading, PA are at the center of legislation alleging decades old beryllium poisoning.
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Jacksonville Daily News
December 16,2004
Cabinet shuffling drains confidence
It's halftime for the Bush administration - a moment to pause, take a breather and fine tune the game plan to ensure a strong second half. But we're not sure the roster changes being made by the White House bode well for President Bush's next four years.
The aborted nomination of former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to head the Homeland Security Department suggests an administration that is sloppy, in too much of a hurry and thus vulnerable to taking bad advice (in this case, from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani).
Kerik probably was ill-suited to the homeland security post regardless of the skeletons in his closet. But the lack of pre-nomination vetting on Kerik was astounding.
Also odd was the choice of former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt to head the Department of Health and Human Services, after he served only a year at the Environmental Protection Agency. As someone with a proven ability to achieve compromises on environmental issues, Leavitt seems a better natural fit at EPA than HHS.
Leavitt's job hopping, combined with the cluelessness of former EPA administrator Christine Whitman, means the agency has effectively been leaderless for most of Bush's presidency. We wish we could believe benign neglect was the president's secret strategy for neutralizing this most overbearing of federal agencies. But no one in this White House, including political guru Karl Rove, is that clever.
Almost as troubling as these missteps is the lackluster quality of the replacement players filling out Bush's second string roster. The first-term Cabinet wasn't packed with political superstars. But we are now seeing the ineffective or innocuous replaced with the almost anonymous.
And this makes us wonder whether the weak lineup betrays a certain timidity and insecurity on the president's part.
The replacement of outgoing Cabinet officers with recognizable Bush loyalists or relative nobodies suggests to us that the president prefers not to be overshadowed by strong and independent advisers. The new crew's relative lack of stature may also limit the president's ability to act boldly in a second term.
Typical is Bush's nomination of Samuel L. Bodman to replace Spencer Abraham as energy secretary. Bodman isn't exactly a household name - not even households inside the Washington Beltway. He's been a deputy secretary at the departments of Treasury and Commerce.
But he has no discernible background in energy policy, the management of national labs, nuclear weapons programs or maneuvering around Capitol Hill - to name just a few usual prerequisites for the job.
Yet Bodman takes the job at a pivotal time for the department and nation. Another battle looms in Congress over national energy policy. Questions must be resolved about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, how to proceed with the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, whether to return to nuclear weapons testing, the direction and management of our national labs, whether the promise of "the hydrogen economy" will pan out.
With these and other issues on the table, the administration will need more than just a competent manager at the Energy Department. The president needs someone in that position with the background, stature and charisma to convincingly make his case to the American people, and to out-debate the energy-policy obstructionists in Congress.
Perhaps Bodman will rise to the occasion. But if he and other new Cabinet officers are simply content to be - or are meant to be - bench warmers, the Bush administration's second half could be a disappointing one.
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Detroit Free Press
December 16, 2004
In Our Opinion: Energy Choices
Hard realities fuel national panel's priorities
In commonsense and no-nonsense terms, a national panel of experts has delved deep into America's energy woes and come up with solutions that deserve far more attention than they've gotten. Most notably, this is a consensus report among a group that stretches from the National Resources Defense Council's senior attorney to the chairmen of two energy companies. That they agreed on anything is somewhat astonishing in itself.
The National Commission on Energy Policy recommends significantly slowing the demand for more oil over 10 to 15 years. That makes sense both for security reasons, because Middle East stability may never be guaranteed again, and for economic reasons, because global oil demand will soon strain production capacity.
Commissioner members are hardheaded about the fact that the United States can never sustain its own oil needs, although they do advocate environmentally sound increases in domestic exploration. They are equally adamant that renewable energy is only a relatively small part of the solution. In other words, they've looked all the wishful scenarios in the face and discounted a lot of them.
That includes hydrogen fuel cells, which the group estimates to be still a half-century away. Far more attractive in the shorter term are hybrid vehicles, ethanol from crop waste and non-corn sources, clean coal and nuclear power if the federal government can stay on track with Yucca Mountain or find another equally protective way to store nuclear waste. Although seeming to walk a tightrope on global warming, they consistently advocate measures that minimize its risks.
All of this takes focused commitment, which commission members will push when Congress returns next year with an energy bill high on its agenda. The commission has explicit goals for research spending, tax credits and corporate incentives to reach the targets it has set. Moreover, it has woven all the elements together so the blueprint has an overall balance that never existed in the Bush administration's energy bill, which Congress appropriately let die this term. The commission's work is a far better starting point for the next Congress.
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Concord Monitor
December 16. 2004
Letter: Nuclear argument ignored key fact
Re "Fight global warming by . . . nuclear plants,"ConcordMonitor, Dec. 10: I agree with Professor Berg's argument for building more nuclear power plants. However, his argument is incomplete.
Much of the public opposition to nuclear power stems from the generation of massive amounts of depleted nuclear fuel rods that are stored above ground, and the questionable adequacy of the nuclear waste dump in Yucca Mountain, Nev., on which we have spent (wasted?) billions of dollars. The problem is the long half-life, up to a quarter million years, of some wastes.
The public generally does not know that a complete and short-term solution to this problem, without long-term storage, exists.
It has been known and ignored from the time of President Carter's moralistic high-horse refusal to build breeder reactors. It was published in ScientificAmerican at that time and has been confirmed to me by military officers and others trained in nuclear power. Carter's objection was that breeder reactors could be used to create more plutonium. France has been using them for this purpose for decades.
However, breeder reactors can be used, if operated off-optimum, to transmute and destroy any and all radioactive elements in a reasonably short time. The ultimate products would be non-hazardous, non-radioactive materials. No long-term storage of dangerous materials would be involved.
Professor Berg must know this. Why didn't he buttress his argument for more nuclear reactors by pointing out that this short-term solution exists?
Admittedly, I don't believe this solution applies to the disposal of the radioactive components of such power plants after their useful lifetime, but these are massive integral metal components that cannot be used by terrorists to reclaim and create nuclear weapons. They can be buried or encased in concrete. They are not readily subject to being dissolved and disseminated by groundwater.
Build one or more breeder reactors, operate them off-optimum and consume all the nuclear wastes. That is the answer the public doesn't hear of. Solve the problem, don't store it for millennia.
Earl C. Klaubert
Northwood
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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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