Yucca Mountain News Clips - Wednesday, November 9, 2005

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, November 9, 2005
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Guardian
November 09, 2005

House Cuts Funding for Yucca Mountain

By Andrew Taylor
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The House voted Wednesday to cut the budget for the troubled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump well below this year's level and President Bush's request.

At the same time, lawmakers again rejected Bush's proposal to curb spending on water projects undertaken by the Army Corps of Engineers. But the president fared much better on his plans to send astronauts to Mars.

The moves came as the House adopted, by a 399-17 vote, a final House-Senate compromise on a $30.5 billion energy and water spending bill for the budget year that began Oct. 1. Reflecting tight budget times, the bill is $750 million below this year's levels.

In rapid succession, the House adopted a second $57.9 billion compromise measure funding the budgets for the departments of Commerce, Justice and State, awarding a $260 million budget increase to NASA, funding Bush's plan to send astronauts back to the Moon and on to Mars.

The Commerce, Justice and State bill passed by a 397-19 vote. The programs funded by the bill would receive a 3 percent increase over 2005 funding levels. The FBI won a 10 percent budget increase but state and local governments would receive a 10 percent cut in law enforcement grants. Bush had sought far deeper cuts.

Negotiators on that measure also killed a House provision to block the FBI from routinely gaining access under the Patriot Act to library materials and bookstore sales. But a renewal of the Patriot Act before year's end is likely to achieve the same purpose.

The Yucca nuclear waste repository would be funded at $450 million for the 2006 budget year, $127 million below the level for each of the past two years. Bill negotiators also ditched a controversial House plan to supplement Yucca with interim storage sites for nuclear waste.

The final figure was also less than the House and the Senate passed during earlier debates. More delays in the oft-delayed project caused lawmakers to curb Yucca Mountain's budget.

Those cuts helped free up funds for the Corps of Engineers, which received $5.6 billion, $1 billion above Bush's request. That includes $8 million requested by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., for the Corps to design a plan to bring south Louisiana up to Category Five hurricane protection.

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Las Vegas SUN
November 09, 2005

Federal judge dismisses Indian tribe suit against nuclear dump

By Ken Ritter
Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) - An Indian tribe will try again to get a federal judge to stop plans for a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada based on a 19th century treaty after its initial lawsuit was dismissed, a lawyer for the tribe said Wednesday.

The Western Shoshone National Council will appeal a ruling that the U.S. government had sovereign immunity from the tribe's lawsuit, the Las Vegas federal court lacked jurisdiction, and the case was premature because the Yucca Mountain project has not been built, said Robert Hager, a Reno-based lawyer who represents the tribe.

"The U.S. government has spent $8 billion and hollowed out a sacred mountain, yet the court found that the government's actions are still merely 'hypothetical,'" said Hager, who received notice of U.S. District Judge Philip Pro's ruling this week.

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department, which had argued the government's case, declined immediate comment.

An Energy Department official in Las Vegas said Yucca Mountain project administrators welcomed the ruling.

It came two days after congressional lawmakers agreed to slash the 2006 budget for development of the repository to $450 million from $577 million - just the latest in a series of setbacks that have included a required court-ordered rewrite of radiation safety standards and an investigation into possible falsification of scientific data.

The tribe filed suit March 4, citing the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863. Tribal members said the treaty allows only specified uses of Western Shoshone ancestral lands - including settlements, mining, ranching, agriculture, railroads, roads and communication routes. They maintained that entombing 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive nuclear waste was not among the approved uses.

The same judge in May declined the tribe's request for an injunction to stop the federal government from applying to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an operating license and from planning a railroad line across Nevada to reach the $58 billion repository.

In his ruling filed Nov. 1, Pro rejected outright the tribe's contention that it had standing to sue the government because the two parties were equal signatories to the 1863 treaty. The treaty recognized vast stretches of territory in present-day Nevada, California, Utah and Idaho as Western Shoshone tribal land.

However, an Indian Claims Commission decided in 1946 that the tribe lost the land through "gradual encroachment."

The date for opening the Yucca Mountain project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas has been pushed back from 2010 to 2012 or later after the Energy Department postponed submitting an application for an operating license to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"The challenged actions in this case are not final because the decision-making process regarding whether Yucca Mountain will become a nuclear repository is not completed," the judge said. "Additionally, (the Energy Department) has not completed its decision-making process regarding methods for transporting waste to Yucca Mountain, should it be licensed."

---On the Net:

Western Shoshone Defense Project: http://www.wsdp.org/

Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov

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Las Vegas SUN
November 09, 2005

Editorial: Yucca is falling from grace

Congress rejects Bush's budget for this flawed project, opting instead for a lesser amount

A few years ago those in support of turning Yucca Mountain into a dump for nuclear waste talked of the project with certainty. The word "inevitable" came up frequently in their conversations. They were bold in saying that Nevada should kneel and beg the federal government for benefits in exchange for exposing its residents to the waste site's dangers. The project will be built anyway, so the state should should stop fighting it and get whatever it can, they would argue.

Today it is doubt, not certainty, that characterizes the prospect of Yucca Mountain ever getting built as a permanent, underground burial facility for high-level nuclear waste. Owing to the fight that Nevada has waged over the past two decades, a fight that has exposed the multiple health and safety flaws of the project, Yucca Mountain opponents are the ones who have reason for confidence these days.

The latest blow against the project came this week from Congress, where both the House and Senate decided to cut the budget for Yucca and at the same time fund an alternative to burying the waste. President Bush had asked for $650 million for continued work at the site, which is 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Congress approved $450 million. In each of the past two years it had approved $577 million. This willingness to cut the budget in a year that Bush had asked for a significant increase suggests that the president's support in Congress on this issue has weakened.

At the same time it cut the Yucca budget, Congress approved $50 million to promote the recycling, rather than the burial, of spent nuclear fuel. This would never have happened in Yucca's heyday. We regret, however, that Congress appropriated any money at all for this outrageously flawed and apparently doomed project.

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Las Vegas SUN
November 09, 2005

Editorial: Patriot Act's probing problem

Congress rejects Bush's budget for this flawed project, opting instead for a lesser amount

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ENS
November 09, 2005

Nuclear Waste Funding Slashed in 2006 Energy Budget

WASHINGTON, DC, November 9, 2005 (ENS) - Plans for the nation's first permanent high-level waste repository appear to be faltering. Legislators agreed Monday to a $30.5 billion energy and water budget for Fiscal Year 2006 that cuts spending for storage of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada and requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to assess risks of storing spent nuclear fuel at the power plants where it was used.

The Senate and House joint conference report provides a total of $450 million for Yucca Mountain, the nation's first permanent geologic high-level waste repository at a desert location 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, on the grounds of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site.

Language is included directing the Department of Energy to begin a spent nuclear fuel recycling plan and to set up a competition to determine if there are communities or states that want to volunteer to be the site for a recycling reprocessing facility. The lawmakers allotted $50 million for these activities.

A test tunnel bored into the rock deep beneath Yucca Mountain (Photo courtesy YMP)

"No matter what side of Yucca you're on, the truth of the matter is Yucca is not on the schedule that even was predicted the last time. It's behind schedule," Senator Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's energy and water subcommittee.

The $450 million budget is "just barely enough to keep it alive," said Domenici, a Yucca Mountain supporter.

Senator Harry Reid, a longtime opponent of Yucca Mountain, said he was successful in slashing the budget for the Yucca Mountain project, planned to contain 77,000 tons of the country's most highly radioactive material - waste from Defense Department sites and spent nuclear fuel. The Department of Energy had previously said the agency would need $1.2 billion to keep the project on track.

"The Yucca Mountain project is fraught with inadequate science and insidious mismanagement," Reid said. "The project is never going to open and each year we grow closer to killing it."

Last year Energy Department officials had hoped to quickly submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and open Yucca Mountain by 2010.

But a series of stumbling blocks have slowed the project, including the discovery of employee emails showing falsification of scientific data and a court ordered rewrite of radiation safety standards.

Opponents, including all Nevada's elected officials, argue that the site cannot safely contain the highly radioactive waste. They fear the transport of 77,000 tons of waste by road and rail from 139 sites around the country cannot be accomplished without a nuclear accident.

Currently, there is no date set for submission of the Yucca Mountain license application and no scheduled date for opening the repository.

Yucca Mountain, Nevada is about 100 miles northeast of the gambling resort city of Las Vegas. (Photo courtesy Nevada DEP)

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Monday that the administration is committed to both Yucca Mountain and spent nuclear fuel recycling.

In a speech at the Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference in Washington, Bodman said, "Solving the problem of how to store spent fuel will reap tremendous benefits for America's future and will help set the stage for an expansion of nuclear power."

"And permanent geological storage at Yucca Mountain offers the safest, most secure solution for dealing with this challenge," he said.

In other matters, the conference report drops funding for a proposed bunker-buster nuclear warhead at the request of the Energy Department. Opponents had argued that development of the weapon that could destroy deeply buried targets, such as bunkers drilled into solid rock, could add to nuclear proliferation. Instead the administration plans to pursue a conventional weapon that can penetrate underground targets.

For nuclear energy, the House-Senate conference report provides $557.57 million; $226 million is included for nuclear energy research and development of next generation nuclear power plants.

The conference report provides $3.63 billion for scientific research, which is $170 million above the request sent to Congress by President George W. Bush and $32 million above last year's level. Almost 10 percent of these funds restores funding for domestic fusion research at $290 million to harness nuclear energy that fuses atoms to create energy as the Sun does instead of splitting atoms to create energy as we do today.

Part of the $3.6 billion goes to fully fund the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Lab in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This accelerator based neutron source is being built at Oak Ridge by the Department of Energy to provide the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development. At a total cost of $1.4 billion, construction began in 1999 and will be completed in 2006.

The budget approves $15 million to initiate a Nanotechnology Technology Transfer fund for developing the techniques of creating materials molecule by molecule or atom by atom.

The conference report provides $1.83 billion for energy conservation and conservation, which is $81.5 million above the President´s request and $24 million above the Fiscal Year 2005 level. Funding of $157 million for hydrogen technology development and $184 million for advanced vehicle technologies are included.

A spent nuclear fuel pool at the Savannah River Site (Photo courtesy DOE Office of Independent Oversight and Performance Assurance)

The legislators agreed to spend $220 million to build the nation's first facility where weapons-grade plutonium would be processed into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for use in commercial power reactors. The $4 billion plant is to be built at the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina by the consortium Duke, Cogema, Stone & Webster.

The purpose of the MOX program is to ensure that plutonium produced for nuclear weapons and declared excess to national security is converted to forms that are resistant to proliferation.

The conference report supplies the $337 million budget President Bush requested for the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab in California. Senator Domenici had attempted to cut construction funding for the giant laser being built to simulate the explosion of a hydrogen bomb.

The lawmakers agreed to fund the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the $5.4 billion level, $1 billion above Bush's request. The $8 million requested by Senator Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, for the Corps to design a plan to bring south Louisiana up to Category Five hurricane protection.

For nuclear nonproliferation activities, the House and Senate conferees allotted $1.63 billion, which is $6 million under the President´s request but $138 million above last year'sfunding level. The funds will be used to increase research and development of nuclear detection technology, address emerging threats, and to further the Global Threat Reduction Initiative. This initiative repatriates all Russian and U.S. origin fresh highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel and the replacement of it with low enriched uranium that cannot be used to make nuclear weapons.

After the conference report is approved by the full House and Senate, it goes to the President's desk for his signature, which enacts the measure into law.

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Monterey County Herald
November 09, 2005

Utah asks court to reject nuclear dump

Paul Foy
Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY - Utah asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to overturn the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's approval of a nuclear waste storage site in the state's western desert.

The petition, filed by lawyers in Washington, D.C., challenges a license authorized but not yet issued by the commission. It allows a group of nuclear-power utilities to stockpile 44,000 tons of spent fuel rods at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

Gov. Jon Huntsman directed lawyers to file the petition, which was filed at the District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"We're just going to keep fighting as hard as we can until it's dead," the governor's general counsel, Mike Lee, said Wednesday.

The commission authorized the license in September for Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of utilities, rejecting Utah's arguments that the site was too dangerous.

Lee said the petition asserts the commission underestimated the risk of a fighter jet crashing into the site and releasing radiation. Hill Air Force Base uses Skull Valley as a flight path to a training range in Utah's western desert.

Utah's petition also argues that Private Fuel Storage plans to keep spent nuclear fuel rods in welded steel casks that won't be accepted for storage at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, where the Energy Department is working to open a federal repository for nuclear waste. Private Fuel Storage plans to use Skull Valley as a temporary way station for nuclear waste pending work at Yucca Mountain.

"All along we have encouraged the state of Utah to do what they need to do in protesting this project because we have always said, 'If it's not deemed to be safe, then it won't be built,'" said Bruce Whitehead, a spokesman for the utility consortium.

"But we have passed every criteria, every test, put up by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We have proven all of our points along the way. Our opposition really has yet to prove their points."

Huntsman has vowed to "stop at nothing" to keep the nuclear waste out of Utah.

"We are urging Congress, the Bush administration, and the courts not to let PFS force us to accept nuclear waste that we didn't produce, we don't want and shouldn't have to take," Huntsman said.

Lee said Utah wasn't asking for a court injunction because even if the NRC issues the license, Private Fuel Storage won't immediately be able to deliver any waste to Skull Valley.

The Bureau of Land Management is refusing to grant a right of way for a rail spur that would carry the waste across government land to the reservation.

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Las Vegas SUN
November 07, 2005

Lawmakers cut funding for Yucca Mountain to $450 million in 2006

By Erica Werner
Associated Press

Lawmakers cut funding for Yucca Mountain to $450 million in 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawmakers agreed Monday to cut 2006 spending for Yucca Mountain well below past-year levels and President Bush's budget request, reflecting the faltering prospects for locating the nation's nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert.

House and Senate negotiators also ditched a House plan to supplement Yucca Mountain with interim storage sites for nuclear waste, settling instead on spending $50 million to promote recycling spent nuclear fuel.

In finishing work on a $30.5 billion bill to fund energy and water projects, lawmakers agreed to spend $450 million in 2006 on Yucca Mountain, the planned underground repository for 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive nuclear waste.

The project's budget was $577 million in each of the past two years, and Bush asked for $650 million for the dump in his 2006 budget request.

The final figure also was less than the House and the Senate agreed to separately earlier this year, but lawmakers and aides said delays on the project kept the number low.

"No matter what side of Yucca you're on, the truth of the matter is Yucca is ... not on the schedule that even was predicted the last time. It's behind schedule," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's energy and water subcommittee.

"We think that this will keep what should be done on schedule," he told reporters.

Two years ago, the Energy Department projected needing $1.2 billion for Yucca Mountain in 2006. That was when officials were hoping to quickly submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and open the dump by 2010.

Since then, a series of setbacks - including a required rewrite of radiation safety standards - have slowed the project.

Now it's not clear when the license application will be submitted, and the projected opening date has slipped to 2012, at the earliest.

"While this funding decision may force us to go at a slower pace, it will not deter us from our principles of using sound science to develop a high-quality license application and a disposal facility that is safe and reliable to operate," Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has opposed locating the dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, said the project is "fraught with inadequate science and insidious mismanagement."

"The project is never going to open and each year we grow closer to killing it," he said.

Lawmakers deleted a House proposal to spend $10 million for the Energy Department to produce a plan for temporary aboveground storage for spent reactor fuel from commercial nuclear power plants.

Instead the bill contains $50 million for spent fuel recycling, including $20 million for states or localities to compete to host a recycling facility and $30 million for research and other work.

The bill, expected to be approved later this week by the full House and Senate, also:

-Meets Bush's $337 million budget request for the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab in California. Domenici had sought to slash construction funding for the project, a giant laser being built to simulate the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. Already $2.8 billion has been spent on it.

---On the Net:

Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov

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Las Vegas SUN
November 08, 2005

Yucca dump may be losing support

Latest budget cuts show some are rethinking nuke dump

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

WASHINGTON -- The slashed Yucca Mountain budget could be the latest example of the proposed nuclear waste repository steadily losing steam and favor.

The $450 million budget is "just barely enough to keep it alive," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., a Yucca supporter and member of the panel that met Monday to finalize a broader energy and water projects spending bill.

The Yucca budget was trimmed as Congress scrambles to make spending cuts in a tight budget year, and as lawmakers rethink whether permanent burial in a geologic repository is the nation's best nuclear waste strategy.

Domenici said the Yucca budget cut was not the beginning of the end for Yucca, but he hinted that there would be soul-searching in Congress over the nation's nuclear waste policy, which now focuses squarely on Yucca.

"It's a beginning of a re-evaluation of a bigger policy, which will include Yucca," he said.

The amount approved is a significant decrease from what was requested -- President Bush asked for $651 million, and the Senate approved $577 million. The program has been around $570 million in each of the last two years.

"This is pretty significant," said Michele Boyd, an analyst for Public Citizen, which opposes Yucca. "It's a pretty clear acknowledgement that the Yucca Mountain program is in deep trouble."

Yucca critics noted that the House-Senate panel earmarked $50 million to pursue the establishment of a waste reprocessing, or recycling, plant. Waste recycling ultimately could reduce the amount of radioactive material destined for an underground geologic repository such as the one proposed at Yucca.

That earmark is being seen by critics as a tacit acknowledgement by Congress that a revamped nuclear waste policy is needed.

"It really is telling," Tessa Hafen, Sen. Harry Reid's spokeswoman, said. "It's an admission that something needs to be done differently."

Critics say Yucca has lost momentum in both Congress, where lawmakers are mulling Yucca alternatives, and inside the Energy Department, which appears to be retooling its Yucca program. In addition to ongoing legal snares and an e-mail controversy that challenged whether Yucca scientific information was falsified, critics point to other evidence:

** Domenici, traditionally a leading Yucca advocate, appears to have cooled in his enthusiasm for Yucca. Last month Domenici cryptically said Yucca "must remain alive," but then added, "I didn't say what it (Yucca) should be." In September, longtime Yucca advocate Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, publicly scrapped his support for Yucca, saying the underground repository no longer made sense. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., has said other lawmakers are quietly saying the same thing this year, calling it a "dirty little secret" in Congress that Yucca is dead.

** The Energy Department appears to be looking for ways to reinvigorate the delay-plagued Yucca program. On Oct. 25 the department issued a directive that would require waste to be shipped to Yucca in a standardized container capable of storing waste above-ground. The department denied that the move was a step away from Yucca and toward storing waste at interim, above-ground sites. But Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman also has said no final decisions have been made about the potential for establishing interim sites.

** Energy industry trade publications have been speculating that Domenici and Reid, the Senate minority leader, are quietly negotiating plans for a major shift in waste policy away from Yucca, although staffers for both senators downplay the reports. Domenici told the trade publication Energy Washington Week that he believes the Bush administration is also at work on a new waste strategy.

But Energy Department officials and Yucca advocates in Congress and in the nuclear industry insist that Yucca is on track -- and as vital as ever.

"There are a lot of demands for funding in Congress this year," said Jason Bohne, spokesman for top Yucca contractor Bechtel. "To make a unilateral statement that a cut means a loss of support (for Yucca), I'm not sure that's fair."

Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said the budget cut would "slow" the project, but he declined to say if any jobs would be cut. Stevens sharply denied charges that Yucca is losing favor in Congress, adding that the department hopes that lawmakers will "continue to look favorably" on Yucca.

"It allows us to do what we need to do," Stevens said of the $450 million. "A half a billion dollars is not chump change. It's a significant investment."

Since 1983, the nation's waste policy has been centered on constructing a repository, and nuclear power officials are not about to abandon Yucca just because it has been slowed by years of delay, budget cuts and controversy.

Yucca advocates say the dump site is important to an ambitious industry plan to construct a new generation of U.S. nuclear power plants to feed the nation's growing demand for electricity.

Nuclear industry officials strongly oppose the proposal by Nevada lawmakers that waste be left on site at power plants. That was never a workable long-term solution, industry officials say.

And they say that recycling waste is not an alternative to Yucca because the technology would not erase the need for a geologic repository.

The administration is committed to both Yucca and recycling, Bodman said in a speech Monday at the Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference in Washington.

"Solving the problem of how to store spent fuel will reap tremendous benefits for America's future and will help set the stage for an expansion of nuclear power," Bodman said in prepared remarks. "And permanent geological storage at Yucca Mountain offers the safest, most secure solution for dealing with this challenge."

He said that pursuing recycling technology "must be considered not just a worthwhile, but necessary, goal."

Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at grove@lasvegassun.com.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 08, 2005

Lawmakers move to cut funding for Yucca Mountain

Legislators work on bill for energy and water projects

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers in Congress on Monday moved to cut spending for Yucca Mountain while adding money to next year's budget to explore other strategies to manage nuclear waste.

Negotiators approved $450 million for a scaled back 2006 work plan on the Nevada waste repository, substantially less than the $651 million the Bush administration had requested at the beginning of the year.

At the same time, the Energy Department will be directed to spend $50 million on a new push into nuclear waste reprocessing, technology that scientists say holds promise over time to wring more use out of spent nuclear fuel rods while compressing the amounts of material that would require disposal.

The bill, which sets spending for the Energy Department and a handful of other agencies for 2006, reflects growing thinking in Congress that with the Yucca repository mired in delay, policy makers should see whether emerging nuclear waste management techniques might be worked into the mix, said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., one of its authors.

"No matter what side of Yucca you are on, the matter is that Yucca is not moving, its not on a schedule," Domenici said.

The Department of Energy has postponed 1998 and 2010 repository opening dates, and is in the process of a design and management revamp with no new set deadlines.

Senators and Energy Department officials say other nuclear waste initiatives -- yet to be detailed -- are being considered at the White House.

DOE will be given money to keep the Yucca project alive and moving forward, but "there's no need to fund it at an accelerated pace while we are looking at the big picture," Domenici said.

Details of the spending bill still were being written late Monday. Senate aides said it will include $30 million for a push to develop advanced technologies to "recycle" nuclear waste into further usable reactor fuel, with only smaller amounts needed to be disposed at a repository.

Another $20 million will be set aside for grants of $5 million apiece. The money would be given to communities interested in hosting a nuclear waste reprocessing factory.

The Energy Department had no immediate response to the reprocessing initiative, spokesman Craig Stevens said.

As for the spending cut, Stevens said the allocation "may force us to go at a slower pace." He said he did not know whether layoffs may result. Contractors were told this summer to prepare for cuts in the range of 30 percent.

Since the Bush budget was sent to Congress in February, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and acting Yucca program director Paul Golan have initiated changes that Stevens said will increase efficiencies.

"This gives us plenty of money to do the work we need to do in the entire picture of what the secretary and (Golan) had been looking at doing," Stevens said.

Bob Loux, a Nevada official who monitors Yucca Mountain, said the reduced spending "clearly reflects a lack of confidence by Congress that (the Energy Department) is doing anything.

"None of this reprocessing talk would be coming along if Yucca Mountain was going well," Loux said.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a leading critic of the Yucca project, said he had mixed feelings about the reprocessing initiative.

Believing nuclear waste is dangerous to transport, Reid has promoted the idea of keeping the highly radioactive material stored at commercial power plants.

But Reid said Congress is realizing that something has to be done "to change the dynamic surrounding the failed Yucca Mountain project."

"I think onsite storage is a better, safer answer but I applaud my colleagues for being willing to try something different," Reid said.

The Yucca program was one of the big ticket items in a $30.5 billion spending bill for energy and water projects that appropriations negotiators completed on Monday and sent to the House and Senate for final votes later this week.

Written in part by Reid, a senior Appropriations Committee member, the bill also contains $285 million in earmarked spending for projects in Nevada.

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Los Alamos Monitor
November 08, 2005

DOE funding hammered out

Roger Snodgrass
roger@lamonitor.com
Monitor Assistant Editor

House and Senate conferees split the $1.5 billion difference between their respective energy and water appropriations bills, they reported Monday. The House went up $748 million to reach agreement on the $30.5 billion measure; the Senate came down $750 million.

"There were significant differences between the House and Senate on this bill, but I believe we have come up with a package that will maintain key lab missions without personnel or facility disruptions," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM, chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee.

"I want to be clear that our increased investments in science, nonproliferation, nuclear energy and the like will keep our labs strong. And when you consider the Homeland Security funding going to our labs, we are in good shape," he said.

The House-passed cuts and Senate-approved increases revealed fundamental differences in the two bodies' approaches to funding the Department of Energy, which was cut by $179 million overall to reach the $24.3 billion recommended.

The two houses of Congress must now endorse the agreement, before it is forwarded to the President for approval.

"I am very pleased with the energy and water conference bill," said Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Robert Kuckuck in a prepared statement. "Sen. Domenici has once again helped secure the laboratory's position as a world leader in national security, science and technology."

Key projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory met with mixed results.

One winner, as expected: Environmental Cleanup at the laboratory will increase significantly, from about $80 million last year to $142.2 million in FY2006.

Noting its importance to maintaining scientific integrity at the national laboratories, Domenici said the conferees had agreed to his effort to raise the Lab Directed Research and Development level from 6 percent up to 8 percent. This key item supports a variety of independent scientific projects, fosters recruitment and enables collaborations with many other institutions.

Another installment in developing the proposed Chemical and Metallurgy Research Replacement facility was fully funded at $55 million.

"It is obvious that as federal budgets continue to constrict, that we will be faced with more difficult choices on the direction of the labs and some projects related to ensuring the safety, reliability and future of our stockpile," Domenici said. "In that light, we've built in a number of reforms and directives to force DOE to take a critical look at projects like Yucca Mountain, DARHT, pit production and other ongoing projects."

While the bill denies funding once again for construction of a modern pit facility, it instructs NNSA to improve the existing manufacturing capability at LANL, a move that nudges the laboratory closer to assuming a major long-term responsibility in that area.

LANL's Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility won its budget request of $27 million, but the bill calls for an independent study by the JASONS research group, to see if the unfinished second axis is on budget and capable of providing its expected function.

Gregg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, said he believes the hard decisions have been postponed for next year.

"Sen. Domenici has succeeded in getting money to Los Alamos, but a price has been paid in overall coherence," he said. "Horsetrading has resulted in a fragmented approach to the program."

In the broader weapons community, the bill restores full funding for Lawrence Livermore's National Ignition Facility, which Domenici had tried to cut. Domenici expressed his continuing doubts that the facility would meet future milestones.

The bill also continued the declining fortunes of Yucca Mountain, now dipping to $500 million for the year, but including a $50 million fund to reduce the spent fuel bound for the repository by setting up a recycling plan and campaign to find local governmental entities who want to volunteer to accept a reprocessing facility.

Despite the apparent resolution of budget uncertainties, LANL will continue to scrutinize its hiring activities through the current contract, which expires May 31.

"The council will closely review and consider each proposed hiring action to insure that priority is given to hiring positions that are crucial to mission and science capabilities, safety and compliance needs and internal efficiencies," said James Rickman, a laboratory spokesman. "The hiring council will help insure that the lab maintains a stable workforce and a sound fiscal profile from now through the transition to a new prime contract."

Also included in the bill, another $5 million will go to Los Alamos County to stabilize the airport landfill and $500,000 has been earmarked for Manhattan Project site preservation.

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Guerrilla News Network
November 08, 2005

Reaching the Point of No Return

By Nancy Jack Todd

A renewable energy manifesto

Summer arrived on Cape Cod with uncharacteristic punctuality this year. Just three days before the Solstice the sun´s warmth achieved an intensity unknown and almost unremembered since last year. Until then the season had withheld its favors with lingering severity. One of our hardships actually began as long ago as last fall when, prior to the onset of the cold, swarms of winter moths arrived. Their fluttering produced dread in all of us who witnessed their nightly forays.

Then came a winter of record-setting snowfall. It was followed by a spring that advanced hesitantly, almost sluggishly. According to one authority, its unfolding was three weeks slower than average. It also brought near constant rain. In May a nor´easter, almost unheard of at that time of year, raged through. This was said to be a major factor in triggering the massive red tide that engulfed much of the New England coast, closing shellfish beds for weeks and jeopardizing the livelihoods of the people whose economies depend upon them. When the trees came into leaf, predictably in the wake of the winter moths, the young shoots were promptly devoured by their larvae. In some areas mid-June brought trees almost as starkly bare as January. As the ongoing rain swelled ponds, the waiting mosquito population hatched and moved into attack position on a near twenty-four hour alert.

And yet…. And yet… With the kiss of the sun that first truly summery morning many of the stricken trees began to put forth a second round of leaves. Azaleas and rhododendrons blazed. Roses wild and domestic burst into bloom, perfuming the air with lingering sweetness. And for reasons unknown to us, the tangled green and largely untamed valley below our house attracted a greater than usual number of very colorful birds.

Joining our well established population of cardinals, robins, blue jays and stridently capped red-bellied woodpeckers who share the area with more soberly clad titmice, chickadees, cat birds and sparrows, two families of Baltimore orioles settled in to flash regularly through garden and orchard. Although we seem to be missing our resident and bossy Carolina wren, we frequently receive a small flock of goldfinches and a miniscule yellow warbler has become ridiculously tame and visits outside the windows almost daily. Less regular but equally welcome are the hummingbirds, occasionally ruby-throated, that hover over the flowers and once or twice perch on branch or wire.

Our senses were bombarded. Birdsong by day was followed at sunset by a tireless chorus of frogs rejoicing in the dampness and the bountiful supply of insects. In the vernal pond, which stayed full into August, a mother mallard, defying racoons, foxes, and coyotes, to our relief, brought at least eight of her ducklings through to gawky adolescence. As the season advanced and daisies and strawberries gave way to mid-summer ripeness, in spite of the cooler and wetter than normal season, on lovely days we basked once again in the glory of a Cape Cod summer.

Is it possible that the contradictions so apparent in our small corner of the world are merely mirroring those raging around the globe? Any comment on the war in Iraq at this point would be outdated by the time this issue goes to print, and there is no satisfaction whatsoever in having known it to be a misguided tragedy in the making from the outset. I have a comparable disagreement with the Bush administration – and others—about nuclear power, and here, with the aging Pilgrim plant just over the bridge off the Cape, I feel I have no choice but to weigh in to oppose the folly and the danger the nuclear path represents.

We attempted to put the subject to rest in Annals a year ago. It is once again in the public forum because a number of leading environmentalists see the danger of climate change as so imminent as to render nuclear power the only sufficiently widespread alternative to the burning of fossil fuels. The argument is being made in England as well. While in complete agreement on the looming catastrophe posed by climate change I still see turning to nuclear technologies as an unacceptably unaccountable risk.

My own nightmarish scenario goes like this. Suppose some people, intellectually brilliant but fanatically fundamentalist in their religious beliefs, were to train at the nuclear university in India. Suppose some of them were then to get jobs in the nuclear industry in countries holding beliefs and values contradictory to their own. Would it not be possible for such people to design and carry out means of sabotaging the facilities in which they work? Is it any more unimaginable than what happened on the eleventh of September four years ago? One morning in July on National Public Radio´s Morning Edition I actually did hear a young man from India speak glowingly about coming to the U.S. to study nuclear technologies.

Fortunately I am not alone in my concerns. The sub-heading for the lead editorial in the British publication New Scientist for May 14th asked, “Is going nuclear the only way to halt catastrophic global warming?’ The editors went on to state the obvious, namely that sources must supply energy requirements on a broad scale with minimal environmental impact. They then added that the cost should be low and the method of generation safe and in reliable supply.

According to the International Energy Agency, two-thirds of the extra energy demand over the next twenty-five years will come from developing countries, so sources must also be tradable on a global scale. Although admittedly in low in carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear technology´s legacy of high-level radioactive waste will last for tens of thousands of years. New Scientist states flatly, “Despite forty years of assurances from the nuclear industry that this is an ‘engineering problem´, no one has solved it.’

Another and telling argument against nuclear power—although according to New Scientist its costs have never been calculated to everyone´s satisfaction—is that it is proving to be very expensive. This is partly because government subsidies make accurate estimations difficult and partly because the costs for such things as waste disposal are uncertain. As New Scientist pointed out, “Nuclear power has certainly not won over free-market investors: no plants have built within deregulated electricity markets.

In late June the Rocky Mountain Institute posted the results of its most recent calculations on its web site. Pointing out that in a market economy, private investors are the ultimate arbiter of what energy technologies can compete and yield reliable profits, it suggests that in order to understand nuclear power´s prospects, one should follow the money. The RMI report maintained that private investors have flatly rejected nuclear power while enthusiastically buying its main supply-side competitors, namely decentralized co-generation and renewables. By the end of 2004, these supposedly inadequate alternatives had more installed capacity than nuclear, produced ninety-two per cent as much electricity, and were growing five point nine times faster and accelerating, while nuclear was fading.’

Rocky Mountain Institute co-founder and international energy authority Amory Lovins states flatly, “The world´s nuclear plant vendors have never made money, and their few billion dollars dwindling annual revenue hardly qualifies them any more as a serious global business. In contrast, the renewable power industry earns twenty-three billion dollars annually by adding twelve gigawatts of capacity every year. 2004 brought on eight gigawatts of wind, three of geothermal/small hydro/biomass wastes, and one of photovoltaics.’

Photovoltaics and windpower markets, respectively doubling about every two and three years, are expected to make renewable power a thirty-five billion-dollar business within eight years. And distributed fossil-fuel co-generation of heat and power added a further fifteen gigawatts in 2004. Although co-generation releases carbon, it does so at thirty per cent less than the separate boilers and power plants it replaces.’

“Europe aims to get twenty-two per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2010. One-fifth of Denmark´s power now comes from wind. Both Germany and Spain are each adding as much capacity each year – two gigawatts—as the global nuclear industry is annually adding on average during 2000–10. The market increasingly resembles a 1995 Shell scenario, which forecast half of global energy and virtually all growth coming from renewables by mid-century—about what it would take, with conservative efficiency gains, to stabilize atmospheric carbon.’

According to Australian physician, anti-nuclear activist, and founder and president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, Helen Caldicott, there are also grave health risks that must be factored into the debate. Nuclear reactors consistently release millions of curies of radioactive isotopes into the air and water each year. These unregulated isotopes include the noble gases krypton, xenon and argon, which are fat-soluble and if inhaled by persons living near a nuclear reactor, are absorbed through the lungs and migrate to the fatty tissues of the body, including the abdominal fat pad and upper thighs, near the reproductive organs. These radioactive elements, which emit high-energy gamma radiation, can mutate the genes in eggs and sperm and cause genetic disease.

Tritium, another biologically significant gas, is also routinely emitted from nuclear reactors and can be incorporated into the DNA molecule, where it is mutagenic. Plutonium is another of the deadly byproducts of nuclear power production. It is also the fuel for nuclear weapons. Only five kilograms are necessary to make a bomb. Each reactor produces more than two hundred kilograms per year. Therefore any country with a nuclear power plant can theoretically manufacture forty bombs. Plutonium can last for as many as five hundred thousand years, and live on to induce cancer and genetic diseases in future generations of humans, animals and plants.

A large per cent of the world´s uranium is enriched at Paducah, Kentucky. The electrical output of the two coal-fired plants required to do so there emit large quantities of carbon dioxide. The leaky pipes of this plant and another one at Portsmouth, Ohio, release ninety-three per cent of the chlorofluorocarbon gas, now banned internationally by the Montreal Protocol, emitted yearly. CFC gas is the main culprit responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion. It is also a global warmer, ten to twenty thousand times more potent than carbon dioxide. Contrary to the nuclear industry´s propaganda, Dr. Caldicott maintains that nuclear power is therefore not green and it is certainly not clean.

Corroborating Dr. Caldicott´s findings and my own misgivings, according to New Scientist, nuclear´s biggest disadvantage is still international security. The level of confidence in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and in nuclear safeguards is low. North Korea is the latest country to show how easy it is to divert nuclear fuel to make weapons, while nuclear sites are likely to remain targets for terrorists. Such concerns limit where plants can be built. Already more than eighty thousand tons of highly radioactive waste sits in cooling pools next to the hundred and three U.S. nuclear power plants, awaiting transportation to a storage facility that, since Yucca Mountain was declared unsuitable, has yet to be found. And again, echoing my concern, as Dr. Caldicott points out, “This dangerous material will be an attractive target for terrorist sabotage.’

In fact, a study release by the National Academy of Sciences shows that the cooling pools at nuclear reactors, which store ten to thirty times more radioactive material than that contained in the reactor core could be subject to catastrophic attacks by terrorists. Such attacks could unleash an inferno and release massive quantities of deadly radiation significantly worse than the radiation released by Chernobyl. Since the nuclear meltdown there, more than two thousand children in Belarus have had their thyroids removed for thyroid cancer, a situation never before recorded in pediatric literature.

Countering the criticism that renewables cannot supply energy on the scale needed, New Scientist corroborates Amory Lovins findings, stating, “It is true that wind power alone will never do the job. But add in tidal power, micro-hydro and biomass, and the problem starts to disappear. Wind power and biomass are nearly as cheap as coal while other renewables, such as wave power and photovoltaic cells, are moving steadily towards competitiveness.’

The editors cite Germany as offering the best evidence for the potential of renewables. Intending to phase out nuclear power by 2025, it already generates more than eight per cent of its electricity from such renewable sources as wind and biomass. It is the world´s largest user of photovoltaic cells and is on target for renewables supplying half of all its energy needs by 2050. New Scientist´s conclusion is unequivocal. “Given our limited resources, we must put our money behind the best global solution. Rather than reinvent nuclear plants, we must move towards leaner, more localized, sustainable ways to generate energy. That means more research and development into energy efficiency and renewables and a determined campaign to deploy them.’

The editors of New Scientist admit to the adoption of renewable as not being without problems and list complaints like wind farms spoiling rural views. In this arena Cape Cod again reflects the larger world although, in our case, it is the aesthetic of the seascape that is being debated. Currently a large off shore wind farm is being planned for Nantucket Sound. Opposition from some quarters has been vociferous, declaiming the eyesore it will pose to the vista of the open sea. A recent visitor to Denmark countered with a report on a wind farm that stands just over six miles offshore in the Baltic. Its location deters neither boaters nor tourists. Apparently when an observer on land extends an arm with a raised thumb, the array is about half the size of a thumbnail on the horizon. Extrapolating from that experiment, it is estimated that Cape´s wind´s turbines might measure two-thirds of a thumbnail.

On June 29th, in Britain´s The Guardian, journalist Paul Brown gave an account of another development on the energy front. The news there concerned household microgenenerators for heat and electricity. He cited a study by the New Economic Foundation that compared the costs of nuclear energy and renewables and found renewable energy to be “quick to build and abundant and cheap to harvest. It is also flexible, safe, secure and climate friendly.’

The greatest advantage of microgenerators is that they produce electricity at the point of use, reducing the need for large-scale grid connections and short circuiting the ten per cent loss in transmission associated with big power plants. Widespread adoption of such technologies would foster new industries and could provide more jobs, with cheaper and faster results than nuclear energy. This report was published during a week in which the British government had decided to encourage microgeneration for residences, offices and for whole streets. It stated that one million new gas-fired boilers are installed every year in the UK. If half these boilers were microgenerators that combined heat and power they would produce the equivalent electricity of a new power station each year, removing the need for new large-scale power plants

Another advantage to micro-power is that, because it draws on solar, wind, hydropower and tides depending on location, it provides security of supply, The costs of renewable energy vary enormously, with onshore wind and landfill gas being the cheapest. Surplus electricity can be put into the local grid. Because the generators use little or no fuel, the report estimates that the probable net benefit of microgeneration to the UK would be about thirty-five million pounds annually.

The report called on the government to withdraw subsidies to nuclear power which “feather-bed’ its prospects. It speculated that “It is possible that nuclear power has only survived for as long as it has because its true costs have been hidden from us, and because its radioactive emissions are invisible.’ It further claimed that an unacknowledged benefit of microgeneration is that it puts people back in touch with where energy comes from, and the need to live in balance with the ecosystems on which we all depend.’

Now, on to that river in Egypt…

A paradoxical advantage to the nuclear debate is its irrevocable connection to the repercussions of climate change. It is thereby forcing discussion in this arena rather than the obstinate denial or leaden silence that has characterized the Bush administration´s response. The British government´s chief scientist, Sir David King, has declared global warming to be a more serious danger than terrorism. Although French president, Jacques Chirac, chose to declare President Bush´s grudging admission at the close of July´s G8 Summit that there actually is such a phenomenon as climate change a breakthrough, it has not it brought this country any closer to acting to forestall it. As The New York Times tactfully phrased it, “ But he (the president) did agree to language in the final communiqué that, while hedged, acknowledges that the burning of fossil fuels contributes to global warming, a position that his administrations has at times avoided endorsing.

The Nation for July 18th was not so restrained. Environmental author, Mark Hertsgaard, wrote of “humanity drifting toward unparalleled catastrophe. “Climate change is on track to kill millions in the twenty-first century,’ he claimed. “The victims will die not in the sudden bang of radioactive explosions but in the gradual whimper of environmental collapse, as soaring temperatures and rising seas submerge cities, parch farm lands, crash ecosystems and spread hunger, disease, and chaos worldwide.’

Such predictions, widely shared by most reputable scientists, render the Bush administration´s position beyond absurd. It is immoral. But the problem goes deeper than their willful ignorance. Environmental journalist George Monbiot has written: “The denial of climate change, while out of tune with the science, is consistent with, even necessary for, the outlook of almost all the world´s economists. Modern economics, whether informed by Marx or Keynes or Hayek, is premised on the notion that the planet has an infinite capacity to supply us with wealth and absorb ourpollution. The cure to all ills is endless growth. Yet endless growth, in a finite world, is impossible. Pull this rug from under the economic theories, and the whole system of thought collapses.’

But the truth cannot forever go unmasked. This spring in the New Yorker in a three part series entitled The Climate of Man Elizabeth Kolbert reported comprehensively on current scientific thinking “ The climate shifts that affected past cultures predate industrialization by hundreds …or thousands of years,’ she wrote. “They reflect the climate system´s innate variability and were caused by forces that, at this point, can only be guessed at. By contrast, the climate shifts predicted for the coming century are attributable to forces that are now well known. Exactly how big these shifts will be a matter of both intense scientific interest and the greatest possible historical significance. In this context, the discovery that large and sophisticated cultures have already been undone by climate change presents what only can be called an uncomfortable precedent.’

Elizabeth Kolbert concluded: “It may seem impossible that a technologically advanced society could choose in essence to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.’ Yet even she admits to the possibility of “finally fashioning a global response.’ It is equally possible that Elizabeth Kolbert´s series may one day come to be regarded in the same light of Rachel Carson´s The Silent Spring. It too was first published as a series in the New Yorker. It went on to energize a generation of environmentalists.

At last some discussion of climate change has reached the mainstream. The cat is out of the bag and is unlikely to be put back in. In addition to Elizabeth Kolbert´s series, another widely read and extremely important contribution to public understanding of the gravity of the environmental threat has been Pulitzer prize winner, Jared Diamond´s latest book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed_. The popularity of the author and the fact that it has been on the New York Times best seller list for many weeks cannot not help but lead to greater understanding of the perils that lie ahead.

Toward the end of the book he states, “Thus, because we are rapidly advancing along this non-sustainable course, the world´s environmental problems will get resolved, in one way or another, within the lifetimes of the children and young adults alive today. The only question is whether they will become resolved in pleasant ways to their own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice, such as warfare, genocide, starvation, disease epidemics, and collapses of societies. While all of these grim phenomena have been endemic to humanity throughout our history, their frequency increases with environmental degradation, population pressure, and the resulting poverty and political instability.’

Jared Diamond´s account of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, an event most of us can remember, provides a telling example. Apparently the twenty or so years preceding had been remarkably peaceful and stable. This had resulted in a rapid expansion in population. By 1993 there were over two thousand people per square mile. This had led to farms having to be divided into smaller and smaller acreages as the land passed from one generation to another. The land was also overworked. Land disputes arose. Poverty began to spread. This was exacerbated by drought – a change in climate—and hunger became endemic. Landless young men enlisted in warring militias. Although the rivalry between the Hutus and Tutsis was largely the heritage of colonialism, as people became desperate they struck out. Of all that I had read about Rwanda, none had accounted for the environmental changes. Jared Diamond concludes, “Severe problems of over population, environmental impact and climate change cannot persist indefinitely: sooner or later they are likely to resolve themselves, whether in the manner of Rwanda or in some other manner not of our devising, if we don´t succeed in solving them by our own actions.’

The book ends on a hopeful note, although it does read a bit like a note of forced cheer. Jared Diamond pronounces himself a “cautious optimist’ and maintains that he and his wife decided to have children seventeen years ago because he could indeed see grounds for hope. He cites the increasing growth of the environmental movement as a major factor. He defines our present situation as being in “an exponentially accelerating horse race of unknown outcome.’ But because we did create most of the problems we are facing, he still thinks they are not insoluble.

Although it seems all the more unlikely in the wake of the G8 summit, Jared Diamond feels that it is necessary to summon the political will to tackle them. To do so we will have to develop long-term thinking. He does not see that trend in the present administration obviously, but in a number of successful corporations. He advocates that we collectively must gather, in his words, “the courage to make painful decisions about values.’ In this area, he points to post World War II Great Britain where people were “coming to terms with the outdatedness of cherished long-held values based on Britain´s former role as the world´s dominant political, economic, and naval power. He further cites European countries for “subordinating to the European Union their national sovereignties for which they used to fight so dearly.’

In the issue of The Nation cited above Mark Herksgaard pointed to the error of equating the Bush administration with the country as a whole and cites “the many major American institutions taking meaningful action on climate change.’ He reported that the US Conference of Mayors voted unanimously to meet or exceed Kyoto limits on greenhouse gas emissions and that New York and seven other states are establishing a carbon-trading system to further curb emissions. Many universities and other large institutions are also establishing similar agreements for carbon trading and carbon sequestering.

California, ranking as the world´s fifth largest economy, comes in for special mention in Mark Herksgaard´s article. It has taken the lead in requiring cars to emit thirty per cent less greenhouse gas. Six other states have followed. Joined by eight other states, California is also suing electric utilities in a case that, in his opinion, could become the greenhouse equivalent of tobacco industry litigation. He further reports a number of institutions holding three trillion dollars in investment assets have demanded that Americans borrowing from them first demonstrate how they are reducing greenhouse emissions. Mark Herksgaard pronounces such actions a real movement by a global powerhouse. He concludes by urging other countries to bypass the administration and make common cause with such American states and institutions because “together they could drive global climate policy.’

There is more good news along the same lines from elsewhere. Again it comes from New Scientist this time from the issue for the week of June 4th. Further indicating the occurrence of urban-based initiatives, that week city mayors from five continents met in San Francisco where they drew up a set of twenty-one environmental goals. Their urban environmental accords cover energy, waste reduction, and urban design and have an accompanying score card to monitor progress. The article goes on to report that the American mayors´ agreement to meet the Kyoto guidelines started with a flash of insight on the part of Greg Nickels of Seattle who, realistic about the Bush administration, asked, “Why can´t we just do it at the local level?’ More than a hundred and forty American cities have signed on.

North of the border, the Canadian province of Quebec has become known as the most environmentally aware area in North America. To its west, Toronto has gained the reputation of the greenest city. Formerly smog-bound in summer, it is now using cold water from deep in Lake Ontario to cool buildings. This uses ninety per cent less electricity than standard air conditioners. The city has also established an Atmosphere Fund to support local investment in energy efficiency and renewables. Toronto officials are now advising London mayor, Ken Livingston, who wants every large new building there to be equipped with solar panels.

Worldwide the distinction of greenest city still belongs to Curitiba in Brazil. Under the leadership of former mayor, Jaime Lerner, in addition to its well known and innovative public transportation system, it has established a pedestrian city center, planted millions of trees, and dug ponds in parks to absorb storm run-off and prevent floods. It has also developed an efficient recycling system, one with a human face. When the poor people of the city bring in a bag of trash they are rewarded with groceries and bus passes

Informed concern for the environment came from an unexpected quarter recently when French president, Jacques Chirac availed himself of the “Comment and Analysis’ page in New Scientist. Alarmed about dwindling biodiversity, he has proposed setting up a global network of the world´s leading scientists who would establish an interdisciplinary basis upon which to mobilize international cooperation under the aegis of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. In sharp contrast to presidents Bush senior and junior, who point blank refused to question the U.S. economy or lifestyles, President Chirac made a radical commitment.

“Protecting biodiversity,’ he wrote, “like combating climate change, calls for radical changes in attitudes and lifestyles, France is resolutely committed to this objective with the inclusion of an environment charter in its constitution this year. This charter establishes biodiversity as a right and a collective heritage. It embraces the precautionary principle, which is vital when dealing with the deterioration of the living environment. To respond to the urgency of the situation, we have to step up the pace of action…. With our growing awareness that we are part of the biosphere and dependent on it as a whole, our civilization has come to appreciate its fragility. Now is the time to embark on the path of responsible ecology, and to include in our quest for economic and human progress an awareness of our duties to nature and our responsibilities to future generations.’

One can only add, “Vive la France!’ President Chirac´s call for a change in lifestyles reflects what can only have been a radical shift in world view on his part. This is absolutely fundamental to undertaking the actions essential to counter the dangers of climate change. He has obviously become a convert to what British philosopher Mary Midgley refers to as Gaian thinking. She means by that phrase, “a vision of nature as a tremendous whole that has given rise to our being, and of the Earth in particular as a magnificent system that supports life and is the immediate source of everything in it that we value.’

It is unlikely that even those of us long committed to a Gaian world view go about our daily lives with it in constant awareness but, once glimpsed, it is always there. I remember once such powerful moment many years ago. It took place when Ocean Arks had a project at the Town of Harwich “disposal area’ where we had installed a row of clear-sided tanks as an Eco-Machine for purifying some extremely polluted water. It occurred to me then that humanity´s ultimate line of defense lay not in the billions of dollars spent every year on military hardware but in the sun-powered, microbe-based ecosystems that are part of and contiguous with Earth´s living systems – of which we are not apart, but a part. It seems all the more true today in light of Sir David King´s assessment that climate change constitutes a threat greater than terrorism.

I had a flash comparable to that in Harwich much more recently in northwest India. There, in the shadow of the Himalayas, Indian physicist and environmental activist, Dr. Vandana Shiva, has established a small farm and education center that is a sister organization to Schumacher College in England. Vidya Pidjapeth, which is featured on pages fourteen and fifteen of this issue, offers courses in organic agriculture and environmental issues to farmers from all over India. International students come to workshops on the interconnections between spirituality and the living world. Vidya is also an experimental farm where researchers test various crops, with an emphasis on grains, for hardiness, resilience, and productivity.

Vidya Pidjapeth has yet another and equally important function. It is a seed bank. On the lower floor of an unprepossessing yellow house, in two small room lined with shelves are arranged assorted containers, neatly placed and carefully labeled. In the containers are seeds. They are native seeds, collected by farmers, as they have been for centuries. Dr. Shiva saw the need for such a facility when multi-national corporations like Monsanto and Cargill began to arrive in India with their hybrid, and more recently genetically modified seeds, and insisted that farmers now buy their seeds from them. And not only the seeds, the corporations demanded that they also invest in the chemicals required to fertilize the crops and stave off insects and weeds. It was then that Vandana Shiva, splendid warrior that she is, expanded the range of her activities from challenging the corporations on the international front and educating people at home and abroad on the injustice of their ways. She decided to protect and preserve traditional native Indian seed stock. Hence the seed bank. The director of Vija, Denyus Nevi, does not charge the farmers for their seeds.

The outer room of the seed room that leads to the two storage areas is a modest museum and folk art gallery. Murals on the walls portray people working the land with traditional tools. The same tools are displayed on the wall and on the floor along the edges of the room. It is a timeless and somehow peaceful place. And vastly reassuring. Like the solar tanks at Harwich, the age-old bond between the human realm and the living world is acknowledged and celebrated. It seems to convey that the seeds that have fed us will continue to do so as long as we care for them and honor their place in the scheme of things. The world is not only interconnected electronically. It is ineluctably interconnected through life and its countless and interdependent life processes.

As George Woodwell, founder and director emeritus of the Woods Hole Research Institute and pioneer in alerting the world to the crisis of climate change, maintains, “We have no option but optimism.’

Nancy Jack Todd is Vice President of Ocean Arks International and editor of its journal Annals of Earth; co-founder with John Todd of the New Alchemy Institute, which has been at the forefront of work in appropriate-scale technology; author and co-author of many works, including Bio-shelters, Ocean Arks and City Farming. Her new book, A Safe and Sustainable World : The Promise of Ecological Design, was released this Spring by Island Press.

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UPI
November 07, 2005

Energy Secretary: The future is nuclear

By Leigh Baldwin
UPI Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- The United States will continue its push toward increased reliance on nuclear power, with new reactors to be built by 2010.

"New advanced light-water reactors will be operational by the end of the decade," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told the Carnegie Non-Proliferation Conference in Washington Thursday.

The reactors will be the first to be built in the United States for over three decades.

"Our government is setting the stage for an expansion of nuclear power," said Bodman, explaining that the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island had caused an aversion to nuclear energy that was now being overcome.

"Nuclear power has proved not only safe; it is the cheapest means of producing energy. It is also the most efficient and produces no greenhouse gases," he said.

Bodman envisages a greater worldwide dependence on nuclear power, a trend which he endorses.

"We can extend the peaceful use of nuclear energy across the earth to increase stability and prosperity," he said.

But nuclear expansion must be accompanied by increased security measures, he said. Central among these would be the continuing development of the permanent nuclear fuel repository at Yucca Mountain.

Bodman also announced the removal of 200 tons of highly enriched uranium from the United States nuclear stockpile, which he called "a triumph for energy security and a triumph for non-proliferation. The fuel will be transferred to the Navy for use in its propulsion systems.

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Idaho State Journal
November 06, 2005

Energy experts warn of global crisis

By Casey Santee
Journal Writer

POCATELLO - World governments better do everything possible to develop sustainable fuel sources because a global energy crisis is on the horizon, according to Leonard Bond.

Bond and other experts spoke at the Idaho Energy Symposium Saturday morning at Idaho State University.

“We're going to need everything this planet can give us,’ Bond told the crowd gathered in the university's Physical Science building.

Bond, the Director of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies in Idaho Falls, made grim predictions for current energy sources. He said global oil production will peak this year or next year and the supply could be exhausted by 2070. He said natural gas could be gone by 2025 and coal by 2150.

His solution? Nuclear energy.

“The rest of the world is going to go nuclear whether we like it or not,’ he said, adding that China has plans to build two new atomic power plants per year for the foreseeable future.

Bond said the main problem with nuclear power in the United States is more political than technical, citing a collective “scare factor’ in the minds of Americans. He said contrary to popular belief, the waste can be stored safely underground at facilities such as at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. By harnessing the power of the atom and recycling the spent fuel, he said people could generate enough energy to last the planet for hundreds of years.

Bond also mentioned hydrogen technology for cars and other alternative sources such as biomass, geothermal and wind power. He said many will provide important niche roles in the future.

Harold Blackman, an official with Idaho National Laboratory, spoke about the connection between energy and water. And Susan Capalbo, a Montana State University professor of agricultural economics, talked about storing carbon waste from fossil fuels underground.

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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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