Yucca Mountain News Clips
Sunday, September 25, 2005
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Deseret News
September 25, 2005

Accept N-waste for a price - or keep on fighting?

By Frank Pignanelli & LaVarr Webb

Webb: Plan B. Those are swear words for a lot of Utah politicians. I may be ridden out of town on a rail simply for raising this issue, but it's time for Utah politicians to start thinking seriously about having a Plan B in case we continue to lose every battle in our war against storage of high-level nuclear waste on the Goshute Reservation.

Here's a question that's no joke: What would be worse than getting high-level nuclear waste in Utah?

Answer: Getting high-level nuclear waste and getting absolutely nothing in return.

Believe me when I say I'm dead set against storage of nuclear waste in Utah. I helped Gov. Mike Leavitt fight it back in the mid-'90s as his policy deputy. I come from a "downwinder" family and have seen four immediate family members suffer early (and awful) deaths from cancer as a result of eating radiation-laced vegetables and raw milk on a ranch outside of St. George in the '50s. I'm a walking cancer time bomb myself.

I agree with all the arguments against storage of this nasty stuff. I agree that if storage is so safe, then the fuel rods should remain on site at nuclear power plans or be reprocessedas is done by the European nuclear power industry.

But despite all of our great logic and reasoning against storage in Utah, we may still lose. We've lost every fight on every front so far. The nation wants some place to dump this stuff, and Utah is an easy victim. At some point, we have to face the fact that those spent fuel rods might be headed here. And to get them and receive absolutely nothing in return would be adding horrible insult to horrendous injury.

The nuclear power industry has been squirreling away multibillions of dollars to pay for waste storage. If the time comes when it appears the industry and the federal government are going to shove it down our throats, we need to be able to say, OK, we've fought to the bitter end. We've lost. But we get to determine where this junk is stored and you give us, say, $15 billion to go into our school trust and transportation funds.

Then we find a remote location near I-70 or a rail corridor that isn't upwind a few dozen miles of the highly populated Wasatch Front, that isn't adjacent to an Air Force bombing range (what insanity to put it there!), and that doesn't have to be transported through Utah's population centers. We get the junk, but it's far from urban areas and transportation is much safer. And we bring in $15 billion, enough so just spending the interest moves us into the middle of the pack in per-pupil spending. And we solve our transportation needs.

Fair trade? No. I'd still rather keep the stuff out, but at least we'd get something in return.

These suggestions are all very heretical, directly contrary to the strategy of the political establishment. But if a few years from now we get spent nuclear fuel rods slapped on a slab of concrete next to a bombing range, upwind of the Wasatch Front, and we get absolutely nothing in return, then politicians Huntsman, Hatch, Bennett, Bishop, Matheson and Cannon ought to be ridden out of town on a rail right behind me.

Pignanelli: What ever mind-altering substance LaVarr is consuming is certainly potent -- it has destroyed the remnants of his common sense. Our state leaders must fight on every front — the courts, Congress and the media — to prevent the dumping of nuclear waste in Utah. We may lose certain battles, but the war must continue so our opponents eventually choose another method of disposal. To simply surrender and accept the nation's poison with a smile, in exchange for monetary compensation, is a recipe for disaster.

No incentive will exist to develop safer means of containing radioactive and toxic byproducts where they were generated. Over time, our beloved state will become addicted on these garbage fees and not expand into other economic activities. National companies will perceive Utah the best locale for their trash, not their operations. "America's Latrine" is not a sound basis for our economy.

Congressman Jim Matheson was the first to lock arms with other Western congressional leaders to prevent the disposal at Yucca Mountain. With his usual clarity of thought, Matheson knew that Utah is a loser in the Yucca option because the waste will travel through or end up here anyway. (Remember, Utah and Nevada do not have nuclear power plants. Our fellow Americans are happy to share the remnants of their cheap electricity with us.) Gubernatorial candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. concurred with this approach, and other Utah politicians are now working with their Nevada compatriots to prevent the discarding of hot radioactive waste in this region. The recent announcement by Sen. Bob Bennett to reverse his prior stance of supporting the Yucca site is a huge development. Bennett is a respected political insider, and this change is a clear sign of a wrongheaded federal policy in trouble.

Indeed, Utahns and Nevadans have every justification to doubt promises by the federal government to safely transport and store the nuclear waste. Matheson frequently reminds us how his family and other Utahns were exposed to radioactivity in the 1950s. Although the government knew of harmful effects from testing nuclear weapons, they gave little warning and no protection to southern Utahns. The death toll from this negligence continues.

At least this controversy demolishes the tired argument that Matheson, because he is a Democrat, is not an effective representative for our state in Congress. Early in his first term, Matheson articulated the tactic of challenging the Yucca Mountain site to prevent the "temporary" storage of spent nuclear rods in Utah. His congressional colleagues hoped in vain for a reprieve from the Bush administration, which never came. (Indeed, Orrin Hatch is under attack from GOP challenger Stephen Urquhart for supporting Yucca.) The Matheson strategy of bipartisan cooperation with Sen. Harry Reid and other Western leaders has become the best defense for the Rocky Mountain region from becoming a giant toilet.

Republican LaVarr Webb was policy deputy to Gov. Mike Leavitt and Deseret News managing editor. He now is a political consultant and lobbyist. E-mail: lwebb@exoro.com. Democrat Frank Pignanelli is Salt Lake attorney, lobbyist and political adviser. A former candidate for Salt Lake mayor, Pignanelli served 10 years in the Utah House of Representatives, six years as House minority leader. Pignanelli's spouse, D'Arcy Dixon Pignanelli, is executive director of the state Department of Administrative Services in the Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. administration. E-mail: frankp@xmission.com.

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RedNova
September 25, 2005

Alternative?

The fear-mongering regarding nuclear power and spent-fuel storage seems to grow daily. It appears as though the underground depository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain might never be constructed, or if it is will not be functional for decades. So a recent permit approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to store at most 44,000 tons of spent rods in steel casks on concrete pads on an Indian reservation in Utah makes sense.

According to the NRC, the 103 nuclear power plants throughout the U.S. contain more than 50,000 tons of nuclear waste -- which remains on the reactor's grounds, in cooling pools or in steel casks. Only one-fifth has been transferred to the casks.

Usually sensible people, such as Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, scream bloody murder when it comes to their own back yard. Says the powerful senator, "This is a reckless, dangerous proposal, and I am pulling out all the stops to make sure the waste never makes a home in Utah."

And consider an argument by Utah's attorney general's office that F-16s from a nearby Air Force base could crash into the nuclear storage units. If the facility holds 44,000 tons of radioactive waste, then it could contain all nuclear waste already in such casks nationwide. Is it more effective to protect one place from terrorists or runaway planes than it is to safeguard 103 sites? After all, Dominion Virginia Power's Surry reactors are not too far from the F-16s at Langley and the F-18s at Oceana -- and Surry stores its spent fuel in exactly the same manner as the facility at Skull Valley Indian Reservation would.

In light of political and legal foot-dragging at Yucca, an alternative in Utah works fine -- not for centuries-long burial but for temporary hibernation.

Source: Richmond Times - Dispatch

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New York Times
September 25, 2005

New Leak Gives Lift to Indian Point Critics

By Lisa W. Foderaro

BUCHANAN, N.Y., Sept. 23 - Last week, there was a disappointing test of the emergency sirens at the Indian Point nuclear power plant here. This week, there was a leak from one of the pools containing the spent-fuel rods.

The storm of protest over the handling of the leak, with several elected officials expressing anger that they were not notified sooner, recalled the months and years following the Sept. 11 attacks, when the movement to shut the plant down had the most momentum.

But even if the plant were to be shut, as some state and federal lawmakers continue to urge, the issue of what to do with the highly radioactive spent-fuel rods would not go away. With plans to accept spent fuel, at Yucca Mountain in Nevada delayed, those rods would most likely remain here in northern Westchester County for many years.

Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns the plant, is now developing a storage system using dry casks or silos to contain the spent-fuel rods, because the pools that now hold the rods will eventually run out of room. It was during excavation work earlier this month in preparation for the transfer of rods that workers found dampness along a hairline crack on the outside wall of the pool at reactor No. 2.

The leak was so small that it was difficult to collect enough water at first to test, and initial tests came back negative. But another test days later revealed low levels of radioactivity, and Entergy officials are now trying to determine its precise source, a process that could take weeks. It could be residual moisture from a much larger leak from the same pool that was repaired in 1992.

Engineers are also considering the possibility that there is a small hole in the pool's steel liner through which water is seeping.

Whatever its source, Entergy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that oversees the nuclear industry, have said that the leak poses no health risk to the public or to workers at the plant.

Tests show that the level of radioactivity in the leaking water is minimal - less than 1 percent of the amount in a household smoke detector. The level drops away to almost nothing 1 to 2 feet from the moisture

On Friday, workers - whose radiation exposure at the plant is meticulously tracked - toiled within feet of the leak, without protective clothing

Leaks are not unusual at nuclear power plants, Entergy officials say. For 15 years, water from a slow leak at another pool at the inactive Indian Point 1 reactor has been monitored, collected and disposed of.

But what incensed elected officials this week was the delay in notifying them. They learned on Tuesday, along with the news media, about the leak, which was discovered to be radioactive nearly two weeks earlier.

This week, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton called for Senate hearings. The Westchester County executive, Andrew J. Spano, asked for a meeting with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's chairman, Nils J. Diaz. And the State Emergency Management Office, with Gov. George E. Pataki's support, wrote to the commission to demand an investigation.

Entergy officials say they were taken aback by the official response, arguing that they followed all protocols in dealing with the leak. They said they would have alerted public officials sooner had there been any threat. Moreover, Entergy said, it needed time to assess the leak so that it had information. "If we were to try to communicate the minute we find evidence of something, we would be overwhelming the public with information," said Geoffrey E. Schwartz, the engineer in charge of the dry cask storage project.

Don M. Leach, Entergy Nuclear Northeast's director of engineering, said: "There is nothing other than a completely aboveboard, rigorous process at work here."

But Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky of Westchester, who has long been critical of Entergy, said the company should have alerted elected officials immediately.

"They should have said, 'Here's what we know and we can't draw any conclusions, so sit tight,' " he said in a phone interview on Friday. "If they were to start engaging in that sort of pattern, eventually there would be a sense that there's a cop on the beat."

On Tuesday, Representative Nita M. Lowey issued a statement voicing "outrage that Entergy left the public in the dark about this leak for over a week." She contended that Entergy would not have discovered the leak were it not for the construction work.

But Entergy counters that any major leak would be apparent from dropping water levels in the pools. And chemists and engineers periodically bore into the soil for samples and continually monitor the air. "We have a lot of data points to give us information that something's not right," Mr. Leach said.

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Sydney Morning Herald
September 25, 2005

Nuclear future

Despite the cost and the dangers of nuclear power, climate change is strengthening the case for its more widespread use, writes Tim Flannery.

"We hear the Secretary of State [John Foster Dulles] boasting of his brinksmanship - the art of bringing us to the edge of the nuclear abyss."

Adlai Stevenson,
The New York Times,
February 26, 1956.

It's often said that the sun is nuclear energy at a safe distance. In this era of climate crisis, however, the role of Earth-based nuclear power is being reassessed, and what was until recently a dying technology may yet create its own day in the sun.

The revival began in earnest in May 2004, when environmental organisations around the world were shocked to hear the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis, James Lovelock, deliver a heartfelt plea for a massive expansion in the world's nuclear energy programs. Lovelock did so, he said, because he believed that climate change was advancing so rapidly that nuclear power was the only option available to stop

it. He compared our present situation with that of the world in 1938 - on the brink of war and nobody knowing what to do. Organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth immediately rejected his call.

Yet Lovelock has a point, for all power grids need reliable "baseload" generation, and there remains a big question mark over the capacity of renewable technologies to provide it. France supplies nearly 80 per cent of its power from nuclear sources, while Sweden provides half and Britain one-quarter. Nuclear power already provides 18 per cent of the world's electricity, with no carbon dioxide emissions. Its proponents argue that it could supply far more, but even the Bush Administration's energy forecasters believe that its share will in fact fall - to just 10 per cent of production - within a decade.

In discussing nuclear power as a means of creating electricity, we must keep in mind that nuclear power plants are nothing more than complicated and potentially hazardous machines for boiling water, which creates the steam used to drive turbines.

As with coal, nuclear power stations are very large, about 1700 megawatts, and with a starting price of $US2 billion ($2.6 billion) apiece they are expensive to build. The power they generate, however, is at present competitive with that generated from wind. Because they are large, and many factors relating to safety must be considered, the permitting process for a nuclear power station can take up to a decade, with construction taking about five years. With a 15-year gestation period before any power is generated, and even longer before any return on the investment is seen, nuclear power is not for the impatient investor. It is this, as much as concerns about safety, which explains why no new reactors have been built for 20 years in either the US or Britain.

Three factors loom large in the minds of the public, however, whenever nuclear power is mentioned - safety, disposal of waste and bombs. The horror of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine was a catastrophe of stupendous proportions whose consequences keep growing. Thyroid cancer is a rare illness, with just one in a million children developing it spontaneously. But a third of children under four years old who were exposed to fallout from Chernobyl will develop the disease. Seven per cent (some 3.3 million people) of the population of Ukraine have suffered illness as a result of the meltdown, while in neighbouring Belarus, which received 70 per cent of the fallout, the situation is even worse. Only 1 per cent of the country is free from contamination, 25 per cent of its farmland has been put permanently out of production, and nearly 1000 children die each year from thyroid cancer. Currently, 25 per cent of the Belarus budget is spent on alleviating the effects of the disaster.

In the US and Europe, safer reactor types predominate but, as the Three Mile Island incident shows, no one is immune to accident, or to sabotage. With several nuclear reactors in the US located near large cities, there are real concerns about a terrorist attack. In summarising the situation for nuclear power as it stood late last year, the US National Commission on Energy Policy said: "One would want the probability of a major release of radioactivity, measured per reactor per year, to fall a further tenfold or more [before considering a doubling or tripling of nuclear power capacity]. This means improved defences against terrorist attack as well as against malfunction or human error."

The management of radioactive waste is another issue of concern. The nuclear industry in the US long looked to the proposed high-level radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as a solution. But the waste stream has now reached such proportions that even if Yucca Mountain were opened tomorrow it would be filled at once and another dump would be needed. In reality, the opening of the Yucca Mountain dump looks to be delayed for years as challenges drag on through the courts. And the problem of what to do with old and obsolete nuclear power plants is almost as intractable: the US has 103 nuclear plants that were originally licensed to operate for 30 years, but are now slated to grind on for double that time. This ageing fleet must be giving the industry headaches, especially as no reactor has ever yet been successfully dismantled, perhaps because the cost is estimated to be about $US500 million a pop.

The majority of new nuclear power plants are being built in the developing world, where a less tight-laced bureaucracy and greater central control make things easier. China will commission two new nuclear power stations a year for the next 20 years, which from a global perspective is highly desirable, for 80 per cent of China's power now comes from coal. India, Russia, Japan and Canada also have reactors under construction, while approvals are in place for 37 more in Brazil, Iran, India, Pakistan, South Korea and Finland. Providing the uranium necessary to fuel these reactors will be a challenge, for world uranium reserves are not large; at the moment a quarter of the world's demand is being met by reprocessing redundant nuclear weapons.

This brings us to the issue of nuclear weapons getting into the wrong hands. As the current dispute over the proposed Iranian reactor indicates, anyone who possesses enriched uranium has the potential to create a bomb. As reactors proliferate and alliances shift, there is an increasing likelihood that such weapons will be available to those who want them.

The nuclear industry hopes that technological developments will lead to foolproof reactors that produce electricity at a cost equivalent to coal. New reactor types include pebble-bed reactors, which utilise low-enriched uranium and can be built on a smaller scale than conventional plants, and pressurised water reactors, one of which will be built soon in Normandy, France, a plant which promises to produce power more cheaply than coal. As with geosequestration, however, these technologies are still to be developed.

What role might nuclear power play in averting the climate change disaster? China and India are likely to pursue the nuclear option with vigour, for there is currently no inexpensive, large-scale alternative available to them. Both nations already have nuclear weapons programs, so the relative risk of proliferation is not great. In the developed world, though, any major expansion of nuclear power will depend upon the viability of new, safer reactor types.

Humanity is at a great crossroads. Trillions of dollars will need to be invested to make the transition to the carbon-free economy and, once a certain path of investment is embarked upon, it will gather such momentum, it will be difficult to change direction.

So what might life be like if we choose one over the other? In the hydrogen and nuclear economies the production of power is likely to be centralised, which would mean the survival of the big power corporations. Pursuing wind and solar technologies, on the other hand, means that people could generate most of their own power, transport fuel and even water (by condensing it from the air).

If we follow this second path, we will have opened a door to a world the likes of which have not been seen since the days of James Watt, when a single fuel powered transport, and industrial and domestic needs, with the big difference being that the fuel will be generated not by large corporations, but by every one of us.

Edited extract from The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change by Tim Flannery (Text Publishing, $32.95, published today).

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Las Vegas SUN
September 23, 2005

EPA extends comment period

Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency extended the public comment period for the proposed radiation standards for the Yucca Mountain project by 30 days.

Nevada officials and Yucca critics have called for additional time since the EPA last month issued new radiation protection standards for Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The EPA sent a letter Thursday to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and others that requested additional time.

"We agree that it is important to allow adequate time for public information to readily reach more rural areas, particularly in Nevada, which may be affected by decisions related to Yucca Mountain," according to the letter sent by Acting Assistant Administrator William Wehrum.

The public comment period will now end on Nov. 21, giving three full months of public comment time, according to the EPA.

A coalition of environmental groups, including Nevada-based Citizen Alert and the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, demanded an additional 180 days and public comment hearings in places other than Nevada and Washington, D.C.

The EPA letter said nothing about additional public hearing locations.

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Las Vegas SUN
Hatch to revive nuke waste options

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

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Orrin Hatch is planning to breathe fresh life into a bill aimed at seeking options to Yucca Mountain.

Hatch, R-Utah, unsuccessfully tried to attach the legislation as an amendment to the energy bill approved by Congress earlier this year.

Now he plans to introduce it again, likely next week, in the wake of his colleague's surprising call for abandoning Yucca as a permanent waste repository.

In a Senate speech Tuesday, Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, said the nation should leave waste where it sits in storage at nuclear plants and shift U.S. waste policy away from the 18-year-old, $58 billion plan to develop Yucca.

Bennett called for development of waste reprocessing, or recycling, technology as an alternative to permanent burial. Reprocessing involves recovering plutonium from highly radioactive spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors.

The senator's comments came after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a Indian reservation in Utah as a temporary nuclear waste storage site.

Hatch did not join Bennett and stuck by the Bush administration, although he left the door open for a change in stance. For now he is not calling for an end to Yucca, although he told the Sun, "I never had a lot of support for it (Yucca)."

He told the Salt Lake Tribune, "Our only chance of getting rid of this (Utah proposal) is with the administration. It isn't with the Senate. It isn't with Harry (Reid)."

The White House and federal agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management, the Energy Department and Homeland Security Department still could take actions that block the proposed site in Utah, and Hatch wants to keep those options open, he said.

"This is a continuing dialogue and I'm going to continue to talk" to the White House, Hatch said at a news conference Thursday.

Hatch's bill would launch a study of whether the government should take ownership of waste and then either leave it on-site at plants or ship it to another government site.

The legislation also would direct the Energy Secretary to request a National Academy of Sciences study of reprocessing technology.

Hatch's legislation is designed to protect his own state's interests because it seeks alternatives to the proposed temporary nuclear waste storage site in Utah. A consortium of eight nuclear utilities won NRC approval earlier this month to develop that project on Goshute Indian land 50 miles from Salt Lake City.

But Hatch's legislation has potential to help Nevada in its fight against Yucca Mountain. Nevada lawmakers have long argued that waste should be left at plants until recycling technology or another better option to Yucca is developed.

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Las Vegas SUN
September 23, 2005

Nevada wins fight over draft license application

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

WASHINGTON -- Nevada has won its fight against the Energy Department's attempt to keep the Yucca Mountain project's draft license application out of its hands.

The Atomic Safety Licensing Board ruled Thursday that the department must turn over the 5,800-page draft when it finalizes it document collection in a Nuclear Regulatory Commission database.

"It's an absolute, overwhelming victory, both symbolically and for our team," said attorney Charles Fitzpatrick, partner of the Virginia firm that represents the state on Yucca issues.

Fitzpatrick acknowledged it is not the final version that the department will submit to the commission sometime next year, but it will be a tremendous help to the state to know what direction the Energy Department is taking. He said some areas within the application will change, but many components will not.

"Absent this decision, we would not have had any access to any draft," Fitzpatrick said. "It is not final, but it is a very valuable document. We will see a lot of what will go to the NRC."

Fitzpatrick said this also proves there are "obstacles in front of the juggernaut" because a fair and impartial licensing board will evaluate credible arguments in this case.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said this serves as a reminder to the department that the state is watching and will challenge assertions that certain documents are off-limits.

"Getting this information has always been like pulling teeth, and DOE has a long track record of trying to hide unfavorable materials behind a veil of secrecy," Berkley said.

"They would prefer that Nevada be kept in the dark, and this is not the first time they have refused to hand over documents, nor will it be the last. While it may not seem like a giant victory, access to this data will help our fight to keep nuclear waste out of Nevada."

Last year Bechtel, the project's main contractor, delivered a draft license application for the license. The department intended to turn a final application into the commission by the end of last year, but several issues stood in its way.

Gov. Kenny Guinn demanded the draft from the department in February after it denied Freedom of Information Act requests by the state's attorney general to access it, but the Energy Department would still not turn it over.

Nevada wants the draft license application to learn more on the repository's exact design and specifically how it planned to meet the Environmental Protection Agency's radiation standard of 15 millirem per year for 10,000 years.

A federal court threw out the standard last year, but the agency proposed it again last month, along with a second tier that would limit exposure to 350 millirem per year up to 1 million years.

In July attorneys for the state and the Energy Department argued over the draft license application before Atomic Safety Licensing Board, an administrative court within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Attorneys for the department argued that the draft Bechtel delivered last year was not a final document and is still in various stages of review. Department officials only took 'sneak previews' of the draft or asked for feedback, but no official review took place. This disqualified it as a document that would have to go into the database.

But Nevada lawyers insisted that once Bechtel finished the draft and department management began reviewing it last year, it qualifies under commission rules as a document that should be made public.

In a 57-page order handed down Thursday, Judges Thomas Moore, Alex Karlin and Alan Rosenthal said the draft met the criteria needed to be put into the Licensing Support Network, a database run by the commission to hold all documents related to the project. More than 90 people saw the draft in some form among other aspects that made it suitable to do public.

The department cannot turn in the application until six months after it declares its document collection is done. It tried to do this last year, but Nevada objected, saying it left out key documents. The board ruled in Nevada's favor.

The department said in a Sept. 1 monthly status report that it could finalize its documents by the end of the month, but that board's decision on the draft could change that goal.

The department could not specifically say how the decision would affect things on Thursday.

"Department lawyers are currently reviewing the document, and once the review is complete, the department will assess its options and go from there," said Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens.

The commission staff was also reviewing the ruling, according to the press office.

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Las Vegas SUN
September 23, 2005

Yucca advocates remain resolute on nuke storage

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

WASHINGTON -- Yucca Mountain's destiny as the country's final resting place for used nuclear fuel, either in its current form or after reprocessing, has not changed, site supporters say.

Utah Sen. Robert Bennett, a Republican, pushed Yucca into the congressional spotlight this week, calling for the country to move away from storing waste in the West and to rethink nuclear waste reprocessing or storing it onsite, in an 18-minute speech on the Senate floor.

Discussions on interim storage and reprocessing nuclear waste can -- and should -- take place, but nothing will substitute for the country's plan to store nuclear waste inside rock, according to one House member and one nuclear industry expert.

"At the end of the day, something has to go somewhere and that somewhere is Yucca Mountain," said Steve Kraft, director of waste management of the Nuclear Energy Institute at a nuclear conference in Washington Thursday.

Kraft said it could take years for a reprocessing plan to be researched, developed, located, built and actually implemented while nuclear waste would continue to pile up at nuclear power plants.

"The federal government must remain committed to moving the program forward," Kraft said.

Kraft said the department should stick to the current plan, stick to the current design and get the licensing process at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission going.

For two decades, the Energy Department has been figuring out a way to store 77,000 tons of used nuclear fuel, also known as nuclear waste. It was supposed to take waste in 1998, with another target set for 2010 but several obstacles have pushed the department to no longer declare any specific opening date.

Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who is head of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that writes the energy and water spending bill, said Yucca still needs to be funded and still needs to move forward.

"This is more important than building any stupid little bunker buster." Hobson said.

He supports reprocessing - which he prefers to call recycling -- and is the catalyst for renewed interested in interim storage, but he insists Yucca will still be needed.

"We are going to need more than one repository," Hobson said.

There will be enough waste at nuclear power plants by 2010 to fill the legal limit of 77,000 tons inside Yucca. Hobson said it will be just as difficult to find another repository, let alone the estimated eight needed to hold all future nuclear waste so reprocessing needs to be explored.

But reprocessing still produces radioactive waste that would eventually need to go to Yucca or some type of repository, Hobson said, so the need for one is not gone.

Kraft said the industry has longer argued that without progress on the country's proposed repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, it would be hard to build new nuclear powers plants.

Now, Kraft said Thursday, the argument is changed.

"We've got to solve the nuclear waste problem, because new nuclear plants are coming," Kraft said. "It is now reversed."

He said the Nuclear Waste Policy Act already allows for high level nuclear waste and spent fuel to be stored at Yucca. If spent fuel was reprocess, high level waste would be left. It could be treated and still sent to Yucca.

"These are not new concepts," he said.

Hobson said it would be "folly" to move forward with new nuclear power plants and not have the waste problem solved.

"I think people need to face reality and not hide in fiction," Hobson said, referring to the fact that Yucca is already full once it opens.

Blocks away from the nuclear conference, a consortium of nuclear power companies held a press conference announcing that it will apply for new nuclear power plant licenses in Mississippi and Alabama, partially funded by the Energy Department. Known as NuStart, the consortium will work on the license applications and aims to turn them into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by 2007 or 2008. There is no decision to build a new plant yet.

Entergy, another power company, also announced its plan to prepare a license application for a new plant in Louisiana.

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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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