Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, May 26, 2005
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Nevada Appeal
May 26, 2005
Yucca opposition espoused at business breakfast
Dripping water, EPA requirements, staff e-mails discussed
Becky Bosshart
Appeal Staff Writer
bbosshart@nevadaappeal.com
MINDEN - If the proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository never holds a single container of high-level radioactive waste, perhaps it could instead store bottles of Bordeaux.
Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, was joking when he said the repository would be better suited as a large wine cellar, which got a laugh from members of the Northern Nevada Development Authority during its Wednesday breakfast meeting at the Carson Valley Inn, but he's serious about keeping nuclear waste out of Nevada.
Located 90 miles from Las Vegas on the Nevada Test Site, the Yucca Mountain Project has been studied for the last 20 years and debated just as long. The opposition contends there is too much water in fractures in the mountain, which could drip onto the containers and cause nuclear waste to flow into the environment.
A Department of Energy spokesman said in a phone interview Wednesday the storage of the nuclear waste 1,000 feet under Yucca Mountain is the right location because of its "significant distance from population centers as well as its extremely dry climate."
But many also oppose the $8 billion already spent on Yucca Mountain, and the total $100 billion it'll cost to complete it.
The last time Loux spoke at a development authority meeting - which was about three years ago - it was a grim time for the Yucca Mountain opposition. In February 2002, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham formally recommended to President Bush that the Yucca Mountain site be used as the repository.
Speaking briskly during his nuclear update, Loux said optimistically that the project is dead, and it'll be less than a year before legislators discontinue the project
He cited several recent events, including a court action that threw out the Environmental Protection Agency's radiation standards for Yucca Mountain, saying the standards don't protect the public health and safety.
The DOE must submit an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but that can't be done until the EPA decides on a new standard for Yucca Mountain, Loux said.
Mike Waldron, an Energy Department spokesman, said when the EPA issues radiation standards this year, the application will be submitted.
"The Yucca Mountain Project is a heavily engineered project that we're sure will protect public safety due to its remote location, but also due to the tremendous engineering that has taken place," he said.
"An American flying from the East Coast to the West would receive a higher dose of radiation than they would by walking on the ridge of Yucca Mountain."
Loux also read a few selections from the Yucca Mountain e-mails, sent between the Energy Department and contractors from 1996 to this year. The e-mails received media attention recently because they document doubts that scientists and managers had about the Yucca Mountain Project.
Loux read a line from one of the e-mails: "I don't have a clue when these programs were installed. So I've made up the dates and names. This is as good as it's going to get. If they need more proof I will be happy to make up more stuff."
This was received with nervous laughter from the audience.
The Energy Department has said the e-mails are simply water cooler chatter.
Loux said if data were falsified according to these e-mails, it's possible other things concerning Yucca Mountain were also falsified.
- Contact reporter Becky Bosshart at bbosshart@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.
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Birmingham News
May 26, 2005
Letters, faxes, and e-mail
The nuclear industry generates tons of deadly radioactive waste yet has devised no safe way to dispose of it. The proposed national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is not a solution. Not only is it geologically unsound, but by the time Yucca opens - if it opens - we'll already have more radioactive waste than storage space for it. The soonest the dump may be operational is 2012. But the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that 70,000 metric tons of radioactive waste - the maximum capacity of Yucca - will have been produced by U.S. nuclear plants by 2011.
Further, while new jobs would be a welcome addition to any community, the security and safety hazards - particularly in an age of terrorism - that accompany nuclear power plants are not worth the risk. Instead, more new jobs could be created if we were to invest in renewable and energy-efficient technologies.
Cheaper, safer and cleaner options exist for meeting our energy needs.
Wenonah Hauter
Director, energy program
Public Citizen
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Greenville News
May 26, 2005
State may get more nuclear waste
By Paul Alongi
Staff Writer
palongi@greenvillenews.com
More nuclear waste could be headed for Savannah River Site under a bill the U.S. House has approved.
Legislation leaves it up to the U.S. Department of Energy to select one or more interim storage sites for commercial nuclear waste, according to The Associated Press. A plan to put the waste at a proposed storehouse in Nevada's Yucca Mountain has hit delays.
In the meantime, spent rods are stacking up at nuclear power plants around the nation.
A report accompanying the bill suggests the temporary sites could be Savannah River Site near Aiken, the Hanford complex in Washington state and an Idaho facility, according to the AP.
U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-S.C., said that while Congress and the Energy Department should consider interim storage for nuclear waste, he's against putting it at Savannah River Site, which is in his district.
"We don't want South Carolina to be turned into a dumping ground," he said.
By law, the Energy Department was supposed to begin taking commercial and used reactor fuel in 1998, according to the AP.
Former Gov. Jim Hodges said the bill reminded him of the fight over plutonium from the Rocky Flats site in Colorado. The state ended up taking six tons of the material even after Hodges threatened to lie down in front of the trucks carrying it.
Hodges said that once dangerous material from around the country is in one location, the pressure to get anything done disappears.
"When they say temporary, they could mean 30 or 40 years," Hodges said.
The Senate must still consider what the House has passed. The attached report said the Energy Department should consider other federal sites, including closed defense bases for temporary storage, according to the AP.
It calls on the energy secretary to produce a plan for interim storage four months after the bill becomes law and begin accepting waste before the end of next year, according to the AP.
This was all part of a $29.7 billion measure funding the Energy Department, according to the AP.
Glenn Carroll, coordinator of Georgians Against Nuclear Energy, said the waste could stay at Savannah River Site permanently because there's no clear plan of dealing with it.
"Yucca Mountain is a failure, but they haven't admitted it," she said.
Energy Department spokesman Mike Waldron said, "At this point we are not working on an interim site. We continue to believe that a permanent geological repository located at Yucca Mountain is the right policy for America."
U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., said it's unacceptable to store more nuclear waste at Savannah River Site. But he's fine with the site receiving more spent nuclear rods as long as they're reprocessed into fuel.
"We are an excellent place for reprocessing," Inglis said. "We have the capacity to do that at SRS."
A movement in Washington has focused on turning Savannah River Site into a nuclear power hub that could include more than one new reactor and a place to recycle plutonium into fuel for nuclear power plants.
An attempt by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., to strip the bill of $10 million for the interim storage program failed 312-110, according to the AP.
Lawmakers from South Carolina and Washington objected to the bill.
"The state of Washington does not want to become ... a nuclear waste dump more than we already are," said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., according to the AP.
Staff writer Paul Alongi can be reached at 298-4746.
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The State
May 26, 2005
Report grabs Spratt´s attention
Congressman wins assurances about nuclear waste storage
By Lauren Markoe
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Fearing South Carolina would become a dumping ground for tons of homeless nuclear waste, U.S. Rep. John Spratt won assurances this week that the federal government would not send the waste to the state without Congress´ permission.
Spratt, D-S.C., worried about a report accompanying a $29.7 billion energy bill, which passed the House on Tuesday. The report suggests that the Energy Department set up interim storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel because the nation´s long-term storage site — Nevada´s Yucca Mountain — will not be finished until 2012.
Aiken´s Savannah River Site is one of the suggested interim depositories.
There are more than 54,000 tons of highly radioactive waste at commercial nuclear plants around the country that cannot yet be sent to Yucca Mountain.
“The problem with interim storage is that it is not built to last forever, yet interim could very well become permanent,’ Spratt said.
The York Democrat filed an amendment to the bill that would have specifically prohibited sending the waste to SRS. He noted that federal law prohibits interim storage sites before Yucca Mountain is complete.
He also pointed out that the report attached to the House energy bill — even if the bill is passed by the Senate and signed by President Bush — would not amount to a change in law, and so could not legalize interim storage.
U.S. Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Committee, asked Spratt to withdraw his amendment in exchange for several assurances.
Spratt agreed, and Hobson entered into Congress´ official record that it would take a change in the law to set up interim storage sites and that his committee´s guidance on interim storage was not actually part of the energy bill itself.
“It´s an important concession, which says that the law must be changed before interim storage facilities can be sited at Savannah River,’ Spratt said.
Reach Markoe at (202) 383-6023 or lmarkoe@krwashington.com.
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Brattleboro Reformer
May 26, 2005
Agreement reached on VY waste storage
By Ross Sneyd
Associated Press
MONTPELIER, Vt. -- A deal has been reached that negotiators said Thursday should mean the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, source of a third of the state´s electricity, will continue operating at least through 2012.
State government would get as much as $28 million in return that it would use to encourage creation of renewable energy generators. The agreement will “provide an economic benefit for the people of Vermont and allow us to operate this station safely through the end of this license,’ said Ken Theobald, a regional executive for plant owner Entergy Nuclear.
The agreement, reached after weeks of talks among Entergy, state lawmakers and the Douglas administration, calls for the Legislature to grant Entergy authority to store its spent nuclear fuel above ground at its plant in Vernon, as long as the state Public Service Board approves the specific storage plan.
In return, Entergy would increase the amount it already has agreed to pay the state in connection with its plan for boosting electricity production at Yankee by 20 percent. That payment would rise from $2 million a year to $4.5 million a year.
The estimated $28 million that would be collected would be deposited in a “clean energy fund’ that would be used to encourage development of new renewable energy generators.
“It leads us toward a Vermont where increased energy efficiency is a priority in Vermont, where good jobs are created,’ said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Robert Dostis, D-Waterbury, who was the Legislature´s lead negotiator on the deal.
A bill allowing Entergy to apply to the Public Service Board for what´s known as dry cask storage of its spent nuclear fuel has been drafted and must work its way through the Legislature before adjournment, which leaders said could come as early as next week.
Passage appears likely because House Speaker Gaye Symington was intimately involved in the negotiations and Senate President Pro Tem Peter Welch was involved, as well. They both said they were satisfied with the deal and they organized a news conference announcing it.
“Did we get as much as we wanted? No,’ Welch said. “Did we get more than was originally offered? Yes.’
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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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