Yucca Mountain News Clips - Thursday, December 15, 2005

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, December 15, 2005
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 15, 2005

Nuclear waste bills introduced

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Nevada and Utah lawmakers sought to spark new debate over nuclear waste storage in their states by introducing bills Wednesday that would force the Energy Department to keep radioactive spent fuel stockpiled at power plants.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a main sponsor, said the measures would stoke discussions about alternatives to the planned repository at Yucca Mountain, which has been set back by legal and technical questions since it won endorsement from President Bush and Congress in 2002.

"We have to move past Yucca Mountain," said Reid, a leading critic of the nuclear dump plan. "We believe there is an opportunity to change the direction of this government as it relates to the storage of nuclear waste."

The bills submitted in the Senate and House drew immediate opposition from the Department of Energy and from coalitions of nuclear utilities and regulators in states that have nuclear power plants and want to get rid of the waste they generate.

More than 40,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste generated by 103 commercial nuclear plants are kept in pools and dry storage at reactor sites in 35 states.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., a co-sponsor of the measure introduced Wednesday, said he doubted Yucca critics could win a vote outright in the Senate now, where most senators remain supportive of the repository.

Rather, he said, the bills' purpose is to sow doubts about Yucca Mountain and promote alternatives like on-site storage or waste reprocessing.

"We keep chipping away at this, and then people will think that is the reality," Ensign said.

Critics said they expect the bill will get an airing because of Reid's position as Senate minority leader. But, they said, the Nevadans are recycling arguments they advanced and lost three years ago.

"Reid's strategy for the last few years has been to leave the fuel on-site, which was an argument he was making during the 2002 debate," said Terry Freese, director of legislative programs for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main trade organization.

Freese said Reid has added "new spin" by requiring the waste to be placed in dry cask storage, but his bill raises questions about costs and how the waste would be monitored and regulated.

"We have consistently held (that) the federal government needs to move used fuel off-site and to take responsibility for its permanent disposal," Freese said.

The bill requires nuclear utilities to move spent fuel into above-ground steel and concrete reinforced casks within six years after it is removed from reactors and placed in cooling pools.

The Energy Department would take ownership title of the waste and assume responsibility for managing it.

Money for the effort would be drawn from a utility-funded nuclear waste account, and that's another provision of the bill that drew criticism from industry executives.

DOE spokesman Craig Stevens said the measure was merely "kicking the can down the road.

"This bill in no way resolves the issue of permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel," Stevens said. "We continue to use sound science in our mission to get Yucca Mountain licensed and eventually opened."

Reid began promoting the so-called "take title" bill more than a year ago, but held off submitting it formally until now.

Congress is expected to recess at the end of the week and reconvene in January.

"I think I have support for this now," Reid said, without elaborating.

As introduced, the bill was co-sponsored by Ensign and Sen. Orrin Hatch and Sen. Robert Bennett, both R-Utah. Hatch and Bennett are opposing a short-term nuclear waste site the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agreed to license on the Goshute Indian Reservation, west of Salt Lake City.

Senate sources said Reid is trying to persuade Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to sign on in support of his bill. That would provide a boost because Domenici is highly influential on nuclear power matters.

Reid and Domenici reportedly were talking during the fall about collaborating on nuclear waste legislation that would combine Reid's on-site storage approach with a waste reprocessing initiative favored by Domenici.

Congress passed Domenici-crafted legislation in November directing the Energy Department to step up efforts to identify a favored nuclear waste reprocessing technology and possible locations for a reprocessing factory.

Domenici could not be reached for comment; but spokeswoman Marnie Funk said he did not plan to comment on the legislation introduced Wednesday.

A similar bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. Rep. Jim Gibbons and Rep. Jon Porter, both R-Nev., and Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, were co-sponsors.

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Las Vegas SUN
December 14, 2005

Nevada, Utah lawmakers back plan for onsite nuclear waste storage

By Erica Werner
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Nevada and Utah lawmakers jointly introduced legislation Wednesday to store nuclear waste at reactor sites where it is produced.

The bills introduced in the Senate and House would block radioactive waste from being transported from sites around the country to the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada or a temporary site proposed for Utah.

The legislation had been long-planned by Nevada Sens. Harry Reid, a Democrat, and John Ensign, a Republican, who are trying to stop the federal government from completing the troubled Yucca Mountain dump in the desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The participation of Utah Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett was another sign of growing cooperation on nuclear waste issues between the neighboring states, which were once at odds over the issue.

Hatch and Bennett angered Nevada lawmakers by voting in favor of Yucca Mountain when Congress approved it in 2002, but now are trying to block a proposed temporary nuclear waste storage site in Utah's Skull Valley that's being pushed by a coalition of utilities.

Bennett announced recently that his support for Yucca Mountain was a mistake, while Hatch still says he favors it. But both senators have concluded that the onsite storage plan is the best way to keep nuclear waste out of their state.

"This country faces an imminent nuclear waste disposal problem. That's what led to the lame-brained Skull Valley plan in the first place," Hatch said in a statement. "This bill is a way to take the pressure off the need for Skull Valley."

The "Spent Nuclear Fuel On-Site Storage Security Act of 2005" mandates that nuclear power plants move waste into aboveground casks approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The commission says so-called dry cask storage is safe and environmentally sound, and already is in use at about half the nation's more than 60 active nuclear power plants.

Although the waste would remain at reactor sites, the Energy Department would take title to it. The government is facing mounting legal costs because it promised to accept utilities' nuclear waste beginning in 1998.

The on-site storage plan has been opposed by the nuclear industry and the Energy Department, though Reid and Ensign contend nuclear waste could safely remain in dry casks for at least 100 years.

"This bill is essentially kicking the can down the road. The bill in no way resolves the issue of permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel," Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said. "The department remains committed to the law, which states that we must develop Yucca Mountain as the site for a permanent repository."

Yucca Mountain, planned to store 77,000 tons of the nation's nuclear waste, has suffered a series of setbacks, funding shortages and delays. The government was forced to rewrite radiation safety rules for the site when a federal court threw out the first ones, and the final rules have yet to be issued.

"The Yucca Mountain project is never going to open," Reid said. "It is time we put the safety of this country first and approach the storage of nuclear waste in a way that is productive and realistic."

Companion legislation was introduced in the House by Nevada's representatives, Republicans Jon Porter and Jim Gibbons and Democrat Shelley Berkley, and Utah Reps. Rob Bishop and Chris Cannon, both Republicans, and Jim Matheson, a Democrat.

---On the Net:

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

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Reno Gazette Journal
December 15, 2005

Keep nuke waste on-site, senators urge

Lawmakers say feds should take control of storage at atomic plants

Doug Abrahms
dabrahms@gns.gannett.com

WASHINGTON -- Taking advantage of delays in the Yucca Mountain project, Nevada lawmakers called on the federal government to take control of nuclear waste and keep it stored at atomic power plants across the country.

"The Yucca Mountain project is never going to open," said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "Storing nuclear waste on-site is the safest, most reasonable and most effective way of allowing nuclear power companies to continue operating."

Reid's comment came after he and other Nevadans introduced a bill that would require the Energy Department to take title to nuclear waste at commercial power plants after the used fuel rods have been sealed in casks. Some power plants already have started storing their nuclear waste in casks next to their power plants while they wait for Yucca Mountain to open.

The bill also would allow utilities to get paid for their storage expenses from the Nuclear Waste Fund, which has been collecting money from electric customers for decades.

U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Reno, are co-sponsors. Utah lawmakers, who oppose a temporary nuclear-waste storage facility proposed for an Indian reservation about 50 miles west of Salt Lake City, also endorsed the proposal.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group of nuclear power companies, opposes the legislation. The group wants the government to move forward on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage project.

Congress overwhelmingly approved the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site in 2002 to satisfy the nation's need to store nuclear waste from atomic reactors, said Steve Kerekes, a Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman.

"The law requires that used nuclear fuel be taken from plant sites," he said. "All (the bill) does is defer that issue to future generations."

But Nevada lawmakers say the Yucca Mountain project is on the ropes. Congress continues to cut funding requested by the Bush administration for the project, located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

An appeals court decision last summer said that the project's radiation standard wasn't stringent enough, and the Environmental Protection Agency is still developing a new one.

Earlier this year, the Energy Department pushed back Yucca Mountain's opening date by two years to 2012. Now the department no longer forecasts a date.

Nevada lawmakers argue that the best solution is to leave nuclear fuel rods at reactor sites until a better technology can be developed to dispose of the uranium.

"Yucca Mountain is not feasible and it is not acceptable," Ensign said. "The dry cask storage technology exists to provide a viable, on-site alternative to shipping waste across the nation."

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Nevada Observer
December 14, 2005

Nevada Nuclear Projects Claims Federal Conspiracy Led To Yucca Rules

Interagency Skullduggery At The Least, Illegal Conspiracy At The Most

by Johnny Gunn

In a 45-page response to proposed rules issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency claims there was widespread coordinated and largely secret interagency efforts involving the Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the NRC. The report is dated December 2 and was sent to the NRC with copies to Nevada's Congressional Delegation, the Secretary of Energy, and the president of the National Academy of Sciences among others.

Executive Director Bob Loux claims in the report that "the conspiracy was designed to circumvent" a Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that invalidated previous EPA and NRC Yucca Mountain Standards. The District of Columbia court heard that EPA standards included a 10,000-year compliance period that the court held to be too short a time. National Science Academy (NSA) reports have suggested that the high level nuclear waste Yucca is supposed to hold won't reach its maximum strength until at least 250,000 years. NSA has said the 10,000-year limit would make compliance "rather easy" but had no basis in science.

The state agency says, "This interagency effort included secret meetings and exchanges of draft rule language between the regulators (NRC and EPA), meetings and exchanges with the regulated entity itself (DOE), and even the direct interference of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)." The OMB is part of the executive office of the president.

The state believes OMB, which has no nuclear regulatory experience, "apparently ran last minute interference on behalf of DOE to further limit NRC's ability to raise legitimate safety issues in its review of the Yucca Mountain license applications." The report goes on to say, "As Nevada's November 2005 comments to EPA explain in detail, this secret interagency effort produced an EPA proposed rule that is arbitrary, unsupported scientifically, and unlawful in virtually every important respect."

According to the Nevada Nuclear Projects report, "NRC's currently proposed rule is similarly arbitrary, unsupported scientifically, and unlawful. It has a tainted and disgraceful origin." The report says NRC violated its own principles of good regulation when it participated in secret negotiations with DOE, its regulated entity to limit NRC's own ability to raise legitimate and substantial safety issues.

For a complete look at the report in pdf form, click here. The report is called the "State of Nevada's formal comments on NRC's implementation of a Dose Standard After 10,000 Years (10 CFR PART 63). The NRC's standard was posted in the Federal Register on September 8, 2005 (Federal Register/Vol. 70, No. 173/Proposed Rules, Page 53313-53320).

As we go to press there is no response from any of the agencies mentioned in the report.

DOE's Railroad project gets even more expensive

The Department of Energy (DOE) has been working on the railroad for more than a livelong day and the expense factor has now skyrocketed to more than $2 billion. The 319-mile road has been on paper to extend from Caliente in eastern Clark County north into Lincoln County, west through Nye County, south through Esmeralda County, and back into Clark County ending at the unyet licensed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository.

Initial plans said the project would only cost some $800 million and be ready for use in a matter of a few years. Now, DOE projects costs well more than twice that, and no projected dates for trains on the rails. Some projected costs for Yucca alone are closing in on $60 billion and there is no projected date for that facility to be open either.

Plans change radically depending on current bad press, but at the latest word from DOE, trucks and trains will bring high level nuclear waste to Caliente where it will then be sent on trains to Yucca on the new rail line. Safety factors from points of origin, that is nuclear energy power plants across the country take a back seat to getting things like a railroad built across the expansive Nevada desert.

Yucca is facing budget cuts in the current Congressional session, there is continuing fallout from representatives and senators, and Nevada's arguments in court are being heard and understood. How much longer DOE is going to continue the boondoggle is unknown at this time.

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Nevada Observer
December 14, 2005

Opinion: Conspiracy At The Highest Levels Charged By Nevada Nuclear Agency

It's High Time For Congressional Investigation That Should Lead To Criminal Charges

by Johnny Gunn

Charges of collusion, conspiracy, even secret negotiations between the regulated and the regulator(s) have emerged in a response issued by Bob Loux of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, the state organization formed to fight the concept of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. Loux's charges even involve the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) getting into the nuclear regulatory business.

A conspiracy in which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (these are the regulators) work with the Department of Energy (DOE) (this is the regulated) to establish the rules under which the Yucca project works is about as close to criminal as it can get.

To put it into terms that might be better understood, this would amount to La Cosa Nostra being tutored by the FBI in how best to get around laws and regulations.

This isn't simply a case of trading information, it is a working conspiracy in which those who are by law deemed the regulators are working to create the rules of operation with the agency they are supposed to be regulating. "Nuclear regulation is supposed to be the public's business." Those are the words of a principle endorsed by the NRC. Secret negotiations are not in the best public interest.

The rules being established will have an affect on life. High level nuclear waste is one of the most dangerous products on earth today and it should be treated with the utmost respect. The DOE, NRC, and EPA, working in collusion are playing with the lives of generations of Americans. Why?

There is no obvious answer to that question. The DOE has made a financial disaster of the Yucca project. According to most reports coming out of Washington, the Yucca project is billions of dollars over budget, and there seems to be no timetable to even get licensing for the project. There are congressional investigations underway to determine if DOE-contracted scientists have been involved in fraudulent activities dealing with water mitigation assertions.

The EPA and NRC standards initially in place for DOE and the Yucca repository were tossed out by a Federal Judge, and it appears that only saving face is involved in the current set of standards as outlined by the conspiracy. In the words of the Nuclear Projects Agency report, "NRC's proposal grew from a closely coordinated and largely secret interagency effort involving DOE, EPA, and NRC to circumvent the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals invalidation of previous EPA and NRC Yucca Mountain standards."

If even the least percentage of these charges is true, a full-scale congressional investigation must take place. This isn't a political football or pork barrel financing, this is a situation in which millions of people's health and safety is at risk. Transportation plans seem to change as radically as the Washoe Zephyr, standards of radiation emissions seem to fluctuate from 10,000 years to one million years, and now we have the OMB, an agency that has never been in the nuclear regulatory business, working in collusion with the DOE to create standards.

How much money has to be flushed down the Yucca Mountain hole before someone with just a tad of empathy for future generations demands a stop to the process?

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Environment News Service
December 15, 2005

Bill Would Require High-Level Nuclear Waste Storage On-Site

WASHINGTON, DC, December 15, 2005 (ENS) - Highly radioactive nuclear waste would be stored on-site where it is produced and the federal government would be required to take responsibility for possession, stewardship, maintenance, and monitoring of the waste, under a bill introduced Wednesday by two U.S. Senators from Nevada.

Senators Harry Reid, a Democrat, and John Ensign, a Republican, say that for decades, under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, the federal government has focused only on the proposed Yucca Mountain site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas as a central repository for nuclear waste generated at plants around the country.

But the two senators say "conclusive evidence has shown that the Yucca Mountain project is fraught with safety, scientific and budgetary problems, making it a near certainty that the site will never be approved for use."

They object that any high-level nuclear waste storage plan the includes only one waste site would require transporting radioactive material from sites all over the country across thousands of miles, "greatly increasing the chances of an accident or terrorist attack."

The Ensign-Reid legislation would require nuclear power companies to store nuclear waste in what is known as dry cask storage containers. As approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, dry cask containers can safely store waste for at least 100 years and are already used at 33 nuclear power site throughout the country.

The bill would eliminate the need for a single repository, ensuring nuclear waste can be safely stored on-site and under control of the federal government. The legislation would increase safety at all nuclear power plants by providing funding for additional security to guard against accidents or terrorist attack, the senators said.

"The Yucca Mountain project is never going to open," said Reid, the Senate Democratic Leader. "It is time we put the safety of this country first and approach the storage of nuclear waste in a way that is productive and realistic. There cannot be any weak links in the chain of security of our nation´s nuclear power infrastructure."

"Storing nuclear waste on-site is the safest, most reasonable and most effective way of allowing nuclear power companies to continue operating while keeping the health and safety of Americans as our top priority," Reid said.

"What we are proposing today represents the safest and most responsible course of action available for storing nuclear waste," Ensign said. "The dry cask storage technology exists to provide a viable, on-site alternative to shipping waste across the country and it is time we make use of that technology for the health and safety of Americans everywhere. Yucca Mountain is not feasible and it is not acceptable. This is a safe and real solution for nuclear waste storage."

Reid and Ensign pointed to a long list of set backs for the Yucca Mountain project including a July, 2004 court decision that the radiation standard for the site was not stringent enough to protect the public from the risks associated with nuclear waste, and a November 2004 announcement by the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board that there is no plan for safely transporting nuclear waste to the proposed repository.

In February, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board called for hearings to review concerns over the corrosion of the titanium drip shields that are supposed to keep water from leaking into casks inside Yucca Mountain.

On March 16, 2005, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced the falsification of document and models about water infiltration, a key issue, at Yucca Mountain.

On July 18, 2005, the DOE announced that if Yucca Mountain were to open, high-level nuclear waste would be shipped by train, regardless of the fact that about one-third of reactor sites are not capable of shipping fuel by rail.

The legislation was cosponsored by Utah Senators Robert Bennett and Orrin Hatch, both Republicans.

"I´ve always said that storage on site is the right scientific answer, but differing state laws have made it impossible. The Reid legislation resolves this problem, and buys us time to craft a sensible national policy on nuclear energy," said Bennett.

Companion legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives Wednesday by the Nevada contingent - Republicans Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter, and Shelley Berkley, a Democrat, and Utah Representative Republican Rob Bishop.

The Spent Nuclear Fuel On-Site Storage Security Act of 2005 amends the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 by requiring requires commercial nuclear utilities to transfer nuclear waste from spent nuclear fuel pools into dry storage casks within six years after enactment or six years after the waste is produced, whichever comes first.

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KLAS-TV
December 14, 2005

Yucca Mountain Health Concerns

Paula Francis, Anchor

Some of the strongest objections to the Yucca Mountain repository revolve around health concerns. The Eye on Health team spoke with a county planner about some of those concerns.

If the planned repository becomes a reality, shipments of spent nuclear fuel will hit the highways and railways headed for Nevada. Ideally, trains would carry most of the radioactive waste, but trucks may also be used. Spent nuclear fuel is a collection of small ceramic pellets. The transporting of this material is highly regulated and shipment containers are largely impregnable, but not everyone is impressed by the safety features.

Irene Navis is the planning manager for the Clark County Nuclear Waste Division. She says that health and transportation concerns still go hand-in-hand. "Radiation can be contained to some extent, but there's always going to be some emission no matter what kind of container it's in."

Navis says the amount of radiation emitted from a sealed container over an hour would be equivalent to two x-rays. She said, "For at-risk populations, it could be a concern."

Transport workers, including truckers, could be vulnerable to overexposure. Another issue is the possible contamination of groundwater. Although it's still is not clear if or when the Las Vegas water supply would be effected. Navis says, "Even after 20 to 25 years of study that is not clearly understood."

There are still a number of hurdles for the Department of Energy to overcome before a Yucca Mountain repository opens for business. But Navis says planning for a related medical crisis must continue -- regardless. "While the agencies that are participating -- whether it's the health district or University Medical Center -- the different agencies of Clark County are investing in impact assessment. That is to be prepared should the time come that we have to actually have to deal with shipments and the repository."

Navis encourages local residents to be proactive in learning more about the project. A Yucca Mountain science center is open to the public where tours of Yucca Mountain can be arranged.

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KLAS-TV
December 15, 2005

New Legislation Proposed For Yucca Mountain

Cindy Cesare
Reporter

Nevada senators have teamed up to propose legislation to keep nuclear waste from being brought to Southern Nevada. If the bill is approved, it would remove the need for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. Eyewitness News looks at what makes this plan different from others proposed in the past, and if this one would give the federal government ownership of the waste.

The plan for Yucca Mountain -- the nation's single repository -- is that the waste from the 103 nuclear energy facilities would be permanently stored there. The site is two hours north of Las Vegas and has been questioned for years regarding transportation, water and earthquake concerns.

Senator Harry Reid, (D) Nevada minority leader says, "Their procedures and processes have fallen apart in recent years and we believe there's an opportunity to change the direction of this government as it relates to the storage of nuclear waste."

The Nevada senators' plan is to simply leave the waste where it is.

Senator John Ensign, (R) Nevada says, "Dry cast storage on site is safe for 100 to 200 years. We've been saying that for the last several years. The difference with us introducing the bill today is we take title. The federal government actually takes title of the waste, which is significant to the nuclear power industry. It helps them get rid of some of their liability."

The Department of Energy, of course, is moving forward to create a single nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain despite Wednesday's announcement from Nevada senators.

Craig Stevens, Press Secretary for the Department of Energy, says the bill is essentially kicking the can down the road. The bill in no way resolves the issue of permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel. The DOE remains committed to the law, which states that we must develop Yucca Mountain as the site for a permanent repository.

Senators Ensign and Reid plan on introducing their bill to Congress while trying to gain more support in Washington.

The bill was also co-sponsored by Utah senators Robert Bennett and Orrin Hatch. Members of the Nevada and Utah delegations introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives.

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KLAS-TV
December 14, 2005

Reid, Ensign Expected to Introduce Yucca Legislation

Senator Minority Leader Harry Reid and Senator John Ensign are expected to unveil their legislation for an alternative to Yucca Mountain. They want to leave the nuclear waste at the power plants that produced it.

The senators have been working for the past year trying to gain support for their bill. The legislation is only expected to have three sponsors. Reid, Ensign and Senartor Robert Bennett of Utah.

The Department of Energy is still working on its plan to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The D.O.E. is also crafting its own nuclear waste policy changes that could include storage at interim sites or plans to pursue recycling nuclear waste.

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Deseret News
December 15, 2005

House, Senate bills call for on-site nuclear waste storage

Utahns hope passage will doom a Skull Valley site

Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret Morning News

WASHINGTON — Nuclear waste would stay in containers at nuclear power plants, versus moving it to Utah or Nevada, under identical bills introduced Wednesday in the Senate and House.

Utah GOP Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch and the state's three House members hope the bills' main intent — to stop the proposed federal nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas — will also stop waste from moving to Tooele County's Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation as well.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., have worked to finalize details on the legislation for a year. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, introduced the House version, with the rest of the Nevada and Utah House members as co-sponsors.

"I've always said that storage on site is the right scientific answer, but differing state laws have made it impossible," Bennett said in a statement. "The Reid legislation resolves this problem and buys us time to craft a sensible national policy on nuclear energy."

Matheson said keeping it on site for the next few decades is the right decision. "The locations are going to have waste anyway," Matheson said.

He said that when Congress passed the law in 1982 creating the Yucca site, dry cask storage was not even an option. He said new technologies for storing waste came on in the 20 years since Congress passed the law and more efficient ways can come in the future.

The Spent Nuclear Fuel Security Act of 2005 would allow utilities to use money now earmarked to move waste to Yucca to transfer waste to dry storage. The Energy Department would take responsibility for the waste once stored in the dry cask, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would have to create rules on how to transfer the waste.

Nuclear utilities have been waiting since 1998 for the Energy Department to take responsibility for used fuel and move it to Nevada, but financial, legal and scientific problems have delayed this for years. Nuclear power users have been paying a fee into the Nuclear Waste Fund, an account created in 1982 to fund the repository, but $17 billion remains that has not been spent. Meanwhile, the power plants have had to find other ways of storing their waste, including creating a temporary storage site proposed by Private Fuel Storage for Skull Valley.

The government faces hefty liabilities for leaving waste with the utilities. Commercial utilities have filed numerous lawsuits against the department for failing to take the waste. Companies also are frustrated with paying into a fund for a site that has yet to open while also spending money to solve their individual waste problems.

The bill would remove the liability because the government would take responsibility for the waste and give the utilities the means to store waste on-site. On-site storage is said to be safe for at least 100 years, according to Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen, so this will buy the country time to find a real nuclear waste solution.

"In fact, it is clear that Yucca Mountain will never open," according to Reid's summary of the bill. "Taking title to spent nuclear fuel fulfills the federal government's obligation and commitment to retake control over nuclear materials."

If signed into law, commercial power plants would have six years to move nuclear waste from storage pools to dry cask storage or six years after the waste is produced, according to the bill.

In a proposed nuclear waste amendment to the energy bill earlier this year, Hatch and Bennett included a provision to study feasibility of the department "taking possession" of nuclear waste on-site at nuclear reactors but postponed the amendment, and the bill was passed without it.

"This bill is a way to take the pressure off the need for Skull Valley," Hatch said in a statement. "My support for it does not change my support for Yucca Mountain, although it is clear that I am pursuing other reasonable or acceptable approaches to solving the disposal problem. Rather, it shows that I stand with the senators from Nevada and Utah in signaling that the government must develop a nuclear waste disposal policy, the sooner the better."

Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, said the bill is a good idea and a good first step, but more needs to be done.

"We need to adopt a national policy of reprocessing this material, or the political tug-of-war over where this stuff should be stored will not end," Cannon said. "And, as long as that debate continues, Utah and other Western states will remain at risk of becoming dumping grounds."

Cannon said he plans to introduce a bill next year that would have the government take responsibility for the waste on-site but also establish a reprocessing plan.

"We can then stop haggling over where to best let it pile up. Only then will we be safe from the political temptation to make the west desert a solution to storage problems," he said.

Yucca Mountain supporters oppose the bill filed Wednesday, saying it does nothing to solve the waste disposal problem.

Brian J. O'Connell, the director of the Nuclear Waste Project Office at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, said this does not permanently dispose of the waste and does nothing for the Energy Department and Defense Department waste, mainly from nuclear weapons construction. Weapons waste is destined for Yucca as well.

O'Connell said there is no indication of how much this will ultimately cost or how it would be run. He estimated about 40 people might be needed for security and management at the power plants just for the waste portion. He said the government would likely hire contractors to do this, which in the end could end up being the power plant itself.

"This makes security more difficult," he said.

O'Connell said using Nuclear Waste Fund money for this "cripples" the repository program and could have large implications for the future of nuclear power.

"This, in effect, says we're not going to solve the waste problem," he said.

In addition to pursuing the bill filed Wednesday, Utah's members of Congress say they will continue to work other avenues to thwart the temporary storage facility proposed for Skull Valley.

E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com

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Provo Daily Herald
December 15, 2005

Third utility abandons proposed waste site

The Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY -- A third utility in the Private Fuel Storage consortium has announced it will withhold future support of the nuclear waste storage site proposed for western Utah.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the announcement Tuesday by Florida Power & Light means 57 percent of the PFS investments are now on hold, and he believes the remaining companies will not be able to move to the construction phase.

"It would be a tremendous costly burden for them to do this on their own," Hatch told the Deseret Morning News.

PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said the repository proposed for the Goshute tribe's Skull Valley Indian Reservation about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City always was going to be done in phases, and there are a lot of other companies with storage needs that could sign on in the future to move the project to its next stage.

"The future of the project is not in the hands of these eight (utilities making up PFS)," she said "We always knew they were either going to sign on as customers or not."

She said like any big project, the market will ultimately decide when the right time would be for PFS to be built.

Florida Power & Light said it would not help pay to build the site as long as progress is being made toward solving the nuclear waste problem.

"After carefully evaluating our goals, FPL has concluded that at this time PFS is no longer in our strategic interest and that for the foreseeable future we will put no further effort into developing that project," said Lew Hay, CEO and president of the FPL Group in a letter to Hatch that was released by Hatch's office.

Last week, Southern Co. announced it was dropping out of PFS entirely and XCel Energy reaffirmed that it no longer needed the storage space and said it would not provide any money for construction.

Some other PFS partners told The Salt Lake Tribune in September, after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted a license to the site, that licensing had taken too long and they no longer needed the storage space.

In a 2002 letter, six of the partners, including Southern and FPL, said they would not pay for construction as long as progress is being made on a permanent site in Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

Southern California Edison spokesman Ray Golden said the company has not made any financial contributions to PFS since 1999. It originally joined because it did not have dry storage for nuclear waste on site, but now it does, so the need for PFS is not as great.

"We have no immediate plan to store at PFS," he told the News, adding that a decision on whether to move forward with investments in construction would have to be made at that point.

Todd Schneider, spokesman for First Energy, based in Akron, Ohio, said the company's commitment through the licensing phase is still valid, and it would look at PFS's potential and Yucca's progress before making any other decisions.

Diane Park, a spokeswoman for Entergy Nuclear, told The Associated Press last week that her company is an active PFS partner and has not decided what its future relationship with PFS will be.

Consortium member Genoa Fuel Tech, a subsidiary of Dairyland Power Cooperative, has a nonoperating nuclear power plant along the Mississippi River that it wants to decommission, but it has no place to put the waste.

Charles San Crainte, Dairyland Power vice president of generation, told the News that it "judges PFS to be a better decision for us." He said over the 11 years the site has been in play, the storage needs of those involved have changed, but his company still has an immediate need for a storage option.

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Salt Lake Tribune
December 15, 2005

Reid bill: N-waste shouldn't be moved

Utahns, Nevadans unite: They aim to keep the hot stuff out of the two states

Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune

WASHINGTON - Congressional delegations from Utah and Nevada united Wednesday to introduce legislation aimed at preventing shipments of high-level nuclear waste to either state and instead seeking to store the material at the reactors where it was produced.

The prospect of on-site storage could significantly reduce the attractiveness of a proposed temporary storage site on Utah's Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation.

The bill's sponsor, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., says it would relieve energy companies of the burden of managing the waste, reduce the risk associated with shipping nuclear material across the country, and would buy time to develop workable alternatives to a proposed permanent waste facility beneath Yucca Mountain, Nev., which is badly behind schedule.

"The Yucca Mountain project is never going to happen," Reid said in a statement. "Storing nuclear wastes on-site is the safest, most reasonable and most effective way of allowing nuclear power companies to continue operating while keeping the health and safety of Americans as a top priority."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said the steel casks that Reid's plan envisions containing the waste - like those that would be used to hold 44,000 tons of spent fuel at the proposed facility in Utah - can safely store the radioactive material for a century.

The casks already are used at 33 nuclear power sites across the country.

However, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the largest industry organization, was critical Wednesday of Reid's proposal, saying it doesn't solve the larger problem. The U.S. Energy Department also said the Reid proposal adds new costs without providing a permanent solution to nuclear waste disposal.

Utah Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch joined Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., in introducing the Senate bill. Utah Rep. Jim Matheson introduced a similar bill in the House, co-sponsored by Rep. Rob Bishop and Nevada's three House members.

Hatch said it was an imminent nuclear waste disposal problem that "led to the lame-brained Skull Valley plan in the first place. This bill is a way to take the pressure off the need for Skull Valley."

Hatch's support is notable, since he maintains that the Bush administration, not Reid, holds the key to defeating the Utah plan promoted by a consortium of nuclear power companies. His staff said Hatch has worked with Reid on the bill and supports it, but will not reject Yucca Mountain as Bennett publicly did in September.

"My support for it does not change my support for Yucca Mountain, although it is clear that I am pursuing other reasonable or acceptable approaches to solving the disposal problem," Hatch said. "Rather, it shows that I stand with the senators from Nevada and Utah in signaling that the government must develop a nuclear waste disposal policy, the sooner the better."

Under Reid's plan, the Energy Department would be legally responsible for the casks of waste, relieving the utilities of the liability and allowing the nuclear plants to continue operating.

"I've always said that storage on site is the right scientific answer, but differing state laws have made it impossible. The Reid legislation resolves this problem, and buys us time to craft a sensible national policy on nuclear energy," Bennett said.

Matheson said the bill seeks to show nuclear companies that "you don't need to be moving this away, and we're setting it up in a way that discourages moving it off site."

"This hopefully will put a roadblock in place to dumping this waste on the West, one would hope, in the intervening decades," Matheson said.

But a spokesman for the Energy Department said Reid's plan would not eliminate the need for Yucca Mountain.

"It does add substantial additional costs, but it does not in any way resolve the permanent disposal issue, which Yucca Mountain is designed to do," said DOE spokesman Craig Stevens.

Stevens said the department would have to study whether on-site storage could be part of a broader storage plan.

The nuclear industry will not support Reid's plan, said Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute.

"Taking title without physically removing used fuel from plant sites does not demonstrate the progress in used fuel management that our country should, nor does it meet the government's obligation to develop a geological repository at Yucca Mountain," Kerekes said.

Reid proposalThe legislation introduced Wednesday would amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to do the following:

• The act would require utilities to transfer nuclear fuel from cooling pools into storage casks within six years.

• It would require the Energy Department to take control of all spent fuel stored on site in dry casks within 30 days.

• Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations would govern on-site storage sites and casks.

• The Nuclear Waste Fund, created through a fee paid by nuclear reactor operators, would compensate utilities for transfer, storage and security costs.

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Nuclear Engineering
December 14, 2005

Xcel investment blow to Skull Valley

Midwestern utility group Xcel Energy has announced that it is to hold any further investment in spent fuel storage at Skull Valley in Utah.

The decision comes as a huge blow for the Private Fuel Storage (PFS) group, which has already seen Southern Company drop out of the project after suspending its investments back in 2002. Now only the Dairyland Power Cooperative, with less than 12%, will continue to fund the project, a move which some observers suggest effectively signals the end of the controversial development.

Xcel holds a 33% stake in PFS, which is developing the project, making it the single largest investor, and had originally expressed an interest in the project as it was facing a waste storage shortage for its Minnesota nuclear plants, where a state law prevented the creation of sufficient additional storage space. With the national waste repository at Yucca Mountain not ready in time, Xcel was forced to pursue alternatives.

However, in 2003, the state law was overturned and with the current administration expected to roll out legislation dealing with interim waste storage that could see action as early as next year, the key argument in favour of Skull Valley appears to be evaporating.

By maintaining a stake in the project, however, Xcel can monitor congressional developments while allowing the project to be resumed if a waste management solution should fail to appear.

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KSBY
December 15, 2005

Diablo Future Discussed

Andrew Masuda

Federal officials visit the Central Coast Wednesday night to discus security and the future of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, prompting a watchdog group has raised new concerns over the plant's security.

"We want to have a say on if we clone it. We ask the N.R.C. to shut it down." The "Singing Sirens" first sing their concerns for the safety of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. Then, with statements during a town hall style meeting with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"That's their right and we're here to listen to their concerns and answer their questions," says Victor Dricks of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Diablo opponents are concerned about Pacific Gas and Electric's plan to store used nuclear fuel at the plant. The N.R.C. has already approved the dry-cast storage project.

"It's a way to store the used nuclear fuel until Yucca Mountain, a permanent waste suppository is opened and can be transported there for a final resting place," says Diablo Canyon Vice President and General Manager David Oatley.

"They want to go ahead with projects and then answer questions, and it's really more prudent to answer questions and then go along with the projects," says Rochelle Becker from the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility.

With the Yucca Mountain project facing roadblocks, Diablo opponents fear the temporary on-site storage will become permanent fixtures and targets for terrorists. And that's real possibility according to one watch dog group.

"Whether it's true or not, it certainly raises interesting concerns," says Jane Swanson, who is with Mothers For Peace. She informed the Comission about an unconfirmed security breach at the plant told over the phone by an anonymous source. "This report says the individual was in an airplane that actually dive-bombed Diablo Canyon in the middle of may 2005. And the alarming thing is that nothing happened. There was no chase plane, there were no shots fired."

Swanson wants the N.R.C. to investigate the claim. They want assurances, even if it's not true, that it can't happen. Utility officials call the report unsubstantiated. But if something like it happened, a utility spokesperson insists measures are in place to protect the plant from the air and the ground.

The spokesperson says the plant also has one of the largest armed security forces in the county.

An N-R-C spokesperson says it will take the comments and concerns under consideration. Diablo opponents, however, are skeptical. They think N.R.C. members are not taking their claims seriously.

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Dayton Daily News
December 15, 2005

Hobson urges feds to consider nuclear energy as fuel source

Lawmaker faces opposition to plan for reactor material

Jessica Wehrman

WASHINGTON | The federal government should consider nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels as the nation wrestles with its dependency on foreign oil, Rep. David Hobson said Wednesday.

"There needs to be a dialogue," Hobson said. "There needs to be studies saying how do we take this country responsibly from energy dependence upon fossil fuels and get to something that will protect our way of life and our way to have jobs with relatively low cost energy."

Specifically, Hobson is pushing reprocessing or recycling spent fuel from a nuclear reactor to reuse plutonium for energy. In a speech organized by the Center for American Progress, a progressive Washington, D.C., think tank, the Springfield Republican said France is already reusing spent nuclear fuel effectively.

However, he said the United States needs to develop a better way of reusing the fuel, which could help diminish the urgent need for storage facilities such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Hobson's remarks are meaningful because his role as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on energy and water development gives him oversight and funding authority over energy issues, including nuclear energy and oil.

Hobson included $50 million in this year's energy and water development appropriations, and directed the Department of Energy to plan for and initiate a site selection process to develop spent fuel recycling facilities.

The United States 30 years ago decided not to extract plutonium from commercial high-level radioactive waste. Critics, including the National Resource and Defense Council and Greenpeace, say trying to reuse the fuel could contaminate the environment and be too costly. They argue French use of this technology has not been as successful as Hobson has made it out to be, and that reprocessing spent fuel creates even more dangerous waste.

"I can understand wanting to take waste and turn it into gold — we've been wanting to do that since Rumplestiltskin and alchemy — but the reality is this is a deadly material that should be removed from the biosphere and should be protected from terrorists," said Jim Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst with Greenpeace.

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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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