Yucca Mountain News Clips - Thursday, February 16, 2006

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, February 16, 2006
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UPI
February 16, 2006

DOE unsure when Yucca nuclear dump ready
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- The U.S. Energy Department says it doesn't know when it can open the nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas.

Further, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman says the department may never have accurate prediction of how much it will cost, the New York Times reported.

Bodman told a nuclear power industry conference in Washington that his department was redoing research and design for the plant that had been expected to start accepting civilan power-plant waste in 1998. The last date given for its planned opening was 2012.

Cost estimates are running as high as $60 billion.

The department is facing lawsuits from utilities that want to recover extra costs created by the delay.

"There are problems with the U.S. Geological Survey work that was done, there are problems with the EPA standards that are there, there are problems with the efforts of the Department of Energy," Bodman said. "There's plenty of blame to go around."

Las Vegas SUN
February 16, 2006

DOE clueless on Yucca
By Matthew L. Wald
New York Times News Service
WASHINGTON - The Energy Department no longer has an estimate of when it can open the nuclear waste repository that it wants to build at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and it may never have an accurate prediction of the cost, the energy secretary said Monday.

Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said at a nuclear power industry conference that his department was redoing research and design for Yucca, which was supposed to start accepting civilian power-plant waste in 1998. But it is a first-of-a-kind project, making cost estimates difficult, he said, and the best that the department may be able to do is publish an estimate with a very wide range of error.

Last week Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell hinted for the first time that the money that the Energy Department had been collecting from the nuclear utilities since the 1980s might not be enough to pay for the project; the last published cost estimate was $60 billion, in 2001. The last date given for its planned opening, provided a year ago, was 2012. The department is facing lawsuits from utilities that want to recover extra costs created by the delay.

Bodman spoke Monday to hundreds of nuclear industry executives at a conference organized by Platts, an energy information division of McGraw-Hill. Other speakers said that various companies were considering building as many as 16 new reactors soon; none has been ordered in this country since the 1970s.

A lawyer in the audience asked how the industry could build new plants without assurances of a plan for the waste, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires.

Bodman did not answer, but instead began describing the problems of the Yucca project.

For one, he said, government scientists and their commercial contractors were trying to cope with research work that was done poorly by the U.S. Geological Survey. Another problem is a court decision that forced the Environmental Protection Agency to publish standards governing leakage of radioactive waste for 1 million years, he said; initially the Energy Department had planned on a timeline of 10,000 years.

In addition, he said, the project managers recently decided that they had to space the waste more widely to prevent temperature inside the mountain from reaching the boiling point because the effects of steam are more difficult to predict.

"There are problems with the U.S. Geological Survey work that was done, there are problems with the EPA standards that are there, there are problems with the efforts of the Department of Energy. There's plenty of blame to go around," Bodman said.

His comments came more than six years after the Energy Department issued a "viability assessment" asserting that the mountain could hold waste from power plants and nuclear weapons plants, and two years after the department had planned to submit an application to get a license for the project.

Bodman had been invited to talk about the Bush administration's new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a plan that includes reprocessing nuclear waste to reduce its volume and toxicity. Despite a spirited description of the program, he got no questions on that subject.

Some in the industry said, though, that the partnership introduced a new complication for Yucca. If used reactor fuel were put through a factory to recover reusable parts, as the proposal calls for, the new waste could not be buried at Yucca until the project was reanalyzed, they said.

Another complication is that the department recently told utilities that they should ship fuel to Yucca in containers that could go directly into the mountain for burial. But some of the waste is now packaged in other kinds of containers, in locations where the reactors have been torn down, which means there is no easy way to repackage the materials.

Other nuclear professionals present, including Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Nils J. Diaz, predicted that the nation would shift to a system of above-ground interim storage and perhaps the solution called for in the nuclear partnership: breaking up old nuclear fuel to recover reusable materials. But this could help spread material useful in nuclear weapons.

Duluth News Tribune
February 16, 2006

Nuclear waste storage in Monticello up for public discussionAssociated PressST. PAUL - State officials on Thursday planned to field public testimony about a $55 million proposal to store radioactive waste near the Monticello nuclear plant.

Xcel Energy is seeking state permission for the extra storage space, saying it's needed for the plant to remain running for the next few decades. Environmentalists, however, fear it will lead to further stockpiling of nuclear waste in Minnesota.

Xcel wants to store the waste in as many as 30 large canisters, each placed in a modular concrete vault about the size of a one-car garage. The vaults would sit on a large concrete pad near the plant, surrounded by security fences.

The storage is needed for the plant to remain running from 2010, when its current license expires, to 2030, said Jim Alders, Xcel's manager of regulatory projects. The plant now keeps its used nuclear fuel under water inside the plant, but the storage pool is nearly full.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission will decide on the renewal, but the state has authority to decide whether expanded storage of spent nuclear fuel is in the public interest.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission was sponsoring the hearings Thursday.

Alders said without the extra storage Xcel would need to shut the nuclear plant and replace it. "That would require a coal or natural gas power plant which would be much more expensive for our customers, and would result in significant increases of pollutants," he said.

But environmental leaders said allowing more waste to be stored at Monticello would simply add to the stockpile of radioactive material that may never leave Minnesota. A permanent waste disposal at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been planned, studied and partially built, but U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman said Monday that he doesn't know when it will open.

State Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFL-St. Paul, said it was "completely immoral and irresponsible" to continue to allow more radioactive waste to be produced in Minnesota with no assurance that it will ever leave the state.

That was a major issue in 1994 when the Legislature allowed expanded storage of radioactive waste at Xcel's Prairie Island nuclear plant in Red Wing, she said, and it's more of an issue now when both nuclear plants are seeking 20-year license extensions.

Alders countered, "You don't move that process along by shutting down a perfectly good nuclear plant that serves our customers well."

Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com

KARE
February 16, 2006

State holding hearings on Xcel's desire to expand waste storage in Monticello

State officials on Thursday planned to field public testimony about a $55 million proposal to store radioactive waste near the Monticello nuclear plant.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission will decide on the renewal, but the state has authority to decide whether expanded storage of spent nuclear fuel is in the public interest.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission was sponsoring the hearings Thursday.

Alders countered, "You don't move that process along by shutting down a perfectly good nuclear plant that serves our customers well."

Asbury Park Press
February 16, 2006

Spent fuel likely to stay indefinitely

By Nicholas Clunn
Staff Writer

LACEY — About two football fields away from Route 9, highly radioactive waste from the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant slowly decays inside airtight casks.

The protective packaging and the prisonlike security at the plant's outdoor storage pad provide what the federal government says is a safe location for the most lethal product of industrial society.

But Oyster Creek, which has more radioactive waste than some government weapons facilities, wasn't designed to store such material forever. Neither were 71 other nuclear plants from New Hampshire to southern California.

Waste storage areas … Oyster Creek has two … are supposed to be temporary. The cement and steel casks at Oyster Creek, for instance, are designed to remain intact for at least 100 years, according to the manufacturer, TransNuclear.

And plant critics say the casks could tempt terrorists because the containers are in the open and vulnerable to an airborne attack.

The plant's operator, AmerGen Energy Co., has applied to the federal government to run the plant to 2029, or 20 years past the end of its current 40-year license. Even if Oyster Creek shuts down tomorrow, the hundreds of tons of radioactive spent fuel will likely remain in this bayside township for decades to come.

AmerGen officials say they want to remove the nuclear waste from Oyster Creek but are stuck with it until a planned federal repository opens.

The $58 billion federal repository for radioactive waste, located at Yucca Mountain, an isolated Nevada desert peak 100 miles outside Las Vegas, is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Oyster Creek, like most of the 103 commercial nuclear plants in the United States, cannot remove its waste until the repository is opened.

The construction is being paid for by consumers of nuclear power, not taxpayers. Ratepayers who've used Oyster Creek's energy have paid $77.4 million into the fund.

Even if Yucca Mountain opens in 2012, its earliest completion date, the federal government could take up to 20 years to move all of Oyster Creek's waste to the desert.

Waste buildup a concern

The mounting nuclear waste at Oyster Creek is an issue that concerns opponents of the plant's relicensing efforts but not the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which will decide if the plant will run until 2029. The issue of spent fuel, and its vulnerability to terrorist attacks, will not be considered by the NRC during the upcoming relicensing hearings.

Doris Piserchia of Tinton Falls, whose daughter and grandchildren live in Lacey, said she realizes that the plant provides jobs for the area. But the waste may represent "a threat to a lot of people.''

"You have to be careful to make sure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. It has to come to the point where you have to trust human nature,'' she said.

Rep. H. James Saxton, R-N.J., and Gov. Corzine have said the NRC should consider nuclear waste during the hearings.

Saxton and Corzine, who was in the U.S. Senate last year, posted separate bills in Congress last year that would expand all renewal reviews to include, among other areas, the safety and security of stored nuclear waste.

But little has happened since the bills were introduced. Both are bottled up in committees.

The plant's current legacy includes about 960 metric tons of radioactive waste, the equivalent to the weight of about 700 midsize cars, according to figures provided by AmerGen. That amount includes the fuel in the reactor now, spent fuel in the casks, and more recent waste that's cooling in a pool inside the reactor building.

Tons of additional waste would be generated if the plant runs for the next two decades.

That provides little comfort to opponents of Oyster Creek's license renewal.

"We can't keep adding to it,'' said Peggi Sturmfels, a Jackson resident and chief Oyster Creek watchdog at the New Jersey Environmental Federation. "We don't have a plan for what's there now.''

This week, the Asbury Park Press has examined several facets of Oyster Creek, including human errors at the plant, the aging of critical equipment, evacuation uncertainties, economic impact and the threat of terrorism.

But the most lasting issue … one that will outlive everyone at the Shore by a million years or so … is what to do with the nuclear waste, which is composed of spent fuel rods and the thimble-sized uranium pellets inside.

When they are in the reactor, the pellets produce immense power through a controlled nuclear chain reaction. The ensuing heat turns water to steam, which drives the turbines that spin the generator that produces 636 megawatts of electricity … enough power for 600,000 homes.

During this process, the uranium becomes highly radioactive, more so than when first placed in the reactor. Parts of the waste will remain radioactive for up to 1 million years.

Despite the spent fuel issue, surging demand for electricity and concerns about reducing air pollution from fossil fuel plants have prompted a renewed interest in nuclear technology.

By the end of the decade, the NRC is expected to license the first new nuclear plant in 27 years.

Nine sites have been proposed, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry policy group. None are in New Jersey.

Dump behind schedule

Much of the reason for the buildup of nuclear waste rests at the feet of the U.S. Department of Energy, whose plan to store up to 77,000 tons of the waste beneath Yucca Mountain is 14 years behind schedule.

The repository was supposed to open in 1998, but a string of engineering difficulties and setbacks has delayed the opening to 2012, at the earliest, according to the department.

For the repository to open, the DOE needs a license from the NRC.

Regulators have been preparing to review DOE's application since the end of 2004, said David McIntyre, an NRC spokesman.

"It is more important that any application submitted by the DOE be complete and scientifically sound than it meet some schedule,'' he said. "In other words, do it right. Don't do it fast.''

Yucca Mountain could absorb as much as 3,000 tons of waste per year, according to a report published in 2003 by Science and Global Security, a research group out of Princeton University with a focus on nuclear nonproliferation.

There's about 54,000 tons of waste now in 31 states and about 2,000 tons being produced each year. Moving the waste to Yucca Mountain could take decades.

With the ultimate destination of the spent fuel uncertain, Oyster Creek plans to more than double the size of its waste storage pad near Route 9.

Today, the pad holds about 293 tons of waste. The expansion would allow for nearly 10 times that amount … 2,125 tons … the equivalent weight of about 1,417 midsize cars. Plant officials said it would be enough room to meet the plant's needs through the end of 2029.

Gov. a critic of storage

Recent spent fuel at Oyster Creek is stored in a water-filled pool. All fuel rods taken from the reactor cool there for at least five years before being inserted into casks.

Plant critics point out that the pool is 119 feet above the ground in the reactor building, which is covered by a metal roof. That makes the storage area susceptible to an airborne terrorist attack, according to critics and nuclear power experts.

If such an attack were successful, it could result in an intense fire and a release of large amounts of radiation, according to a report released last year by the National Academy of Sciences, an independent government advisory group.

Oyster Creek is among 32 plants nationwide with an elevated pool within the reactor building.

Despite the report's findings, Oyster Creek's project manager Wayne Romberg said a commercial airliner would have a hard time getting past the roof, which is reinforced with heavy steel girders. The fuel, he said, is 20 feet underwater, and the pool's reinforced concrete walls are 4 feet thick.

Fumes from burning jet fuel may pose the only public health threat, he said.

The idea of storing nuclear waste in Lacey has always been controversial, but plant critics raised the issue again after AmerGen applied for a license renewal.

Those critics included Corzine and Saxton.

In the federal legislation proposed by the lawmakers, the bills also would require that the National Academy of Sciences assess the safety of Oyster Creek and require regulators to take its findings into account.

An NAS study would be the "most compelling development'' for opponents of Oyster Creek's license renewal plans, said Michele Donato, a Lavallette lawyer working pro bono for groups opposed to the relicensure.

"I think a blue-ribbon panel of independent experts would find serious problems with this plant,'' she said.

Donato said the likelihood of such a review taking place would increase if lawmakers critical of the NRC's review process pushed harder. Corzine, she said, should help sharpen the focus on Oyster Creek before the NRC makes a decision.

Through Anthony Coley, his press secretary, Corzine said he wants to have the NRC review all the critical safety issues surrounding the plant, including the vulnerability of the spent fuel to terrorist attacks.

"The process is about having an open and transparent dialogue,'' Coley said.

Donato said a lot of pressure may have to be brought to have these issues heard.

"The NRC is going to need a lot of convincing,'' Donato said.

Nicholas Clunn: (609) 978-4597 or nclunn@app.com

Asbury Park Press
February 16, 2006

Activists, Nevada don't want waste site

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 02/16/06

By Nicholas Clunn
Staff Writer

YUCCA MOUNTAIN, Nev. — When John Hartley wants to convince people that burying 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste under this mountain is a good idea, he takes them to the peak 4,950 feet above sea level and asks them to use their senses.

This geologist and tour guide for the federal government's Yucca Mountain Project then fills in the blanks.

The dry desert air gives you cotton mouth, but the infrequent rain will help keep the nuclear waste from degrading.

The desolate and dusty landscape below has little but hard rock and scrub brush. The mountain's remote location 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas means that people will be kept at a safe distance.

And the silence here simply adds to the notion that Yucca Mountain's seclusion may make it an ideal place to store waste from 72 nuclear power plants … including hundreds of tons from the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Lacey, N.J. … for the next million years.

But there's another view, one that may delay indefinitely the opening of this site as a national nuclear waste repository and force the nation's nuclear power plants to store radioactive fuel on their individual sites.

Activists and virtually all Nevada state and federal officials oppose the federal government's plan to use the site as a radioactive waste dump. They say health rules proposed for the site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would fail to protect the public from the harmful effects of radiation.

A bill introduced in December by Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada would require the federal government to keep nuclear waste stored at the plants, rather than having it consolidated at Yucca Mountain.

Jean Treichel, a member of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Taskforce, which opposes the repository plan, said she fears the federal government will rush to open the repository so the public would be more likely to accept an anticipated wave of new power reactors.

"They can't push for more nuclear power plants until they get rid of the waste,'' said Treichel, a software consultant who's lived in Las Vegas her entire life.

The $58 billion plan for storing the country's nuclear waste was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy. It includes boring rows of tunnels … 18 feet in diameter and 41 miles in all … to hold containers of radioactive waste 1,000 feet underground.

The repository could open as soon 2012, but that's uncertain. Storage can't begin until the project is approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which would determine if the site's design meets EPA standards. If the standards are approved, the NRC would have to make sure the site could remain safe for 1 million years.

No other public project has been devised to protect public health for such a long period of time, said Elizabeth Cotsworth, who directs the EPA's radiation office.

Stigma, water safety

Entrances to the mountain's tunnel system open up on the Nevada Test Site, property of the U.S. government. At 1,375 square miles, the restricted area is larger than Rhode Island. Some of the abandoned buildings used for nuclear weapons tests still stand along the road to the mountain. Signs warning of radiation hang on nearby fences.

"I wouldn't want to walk through some of this,'' said Hartley, the project geologist, during one recent tour.

About 220 people work at the Yucca Mountain site today. They work in a makeshift office complex composed of trailers and are told not to feed the coyotes that come looking for scraps of food.

Each weekday morning, all of Yucca's workers file onto buses for the 90-minute commute from Las Vegas. On their way in, they pass a golf course run by Native Americans, a mountain range called Mummy Peak … it resembles a mummy laying on its back … and a legal brothel.

Workers have been coming this way since the 1980s, when Congress selected Yucca Mountain as a possible repository site. Work has since slowed, though testing continues.

The key to a success story at Yucca Mountain is keeping the waste as dry as possible for as long as possible, according to officials. Water could break down the waste into tiny radioactive particles and then seep into the groundwater.

Yucca Mountain Project engineers say they've designed the site against such a scenario. Even if radiation tainted the water underground, residents drinking from taps in Las Vegas would be safe: The aquifer that supplies the city's water is separate from the water basin beneath Yucca Mountain.

But the people in the town of Amargosa Valley, about 15 miles to the south, may not be as fortunate.

In the unlikely event that radiation contaminates the underground water basin 1,000 feet below the waste and 2,000 feet below Yucca Mountain's surface, their water could become contaminated, according to the Yucca Mountain Project. Such an event would not only jeopardize public health but also threaten the livelihood of farmers.

Pistachios and alfalfa grow in the valley today. In this mostly brown landscape whose contours appear more lunar than earthly, the green of a valley farm's field is incongruous when seen from atop Yucca Mountain.

About 1,300 people live in the valley today. But Ed Goedhart, who manages 1,200 cows and 150 employees at the the Ponderosa dairy farm in Amargosa Valley, said people may not want to live there much longer.

The potential for water contamination, he said, has him less worried than the stigma his hometown could develop from being a neighbor to the nation's nuclear waste repository.

"I'm thinking more about the possible impacts to the businesses here and to the property values,'' said Goedhart, 43, who plans to run for the Nevada Assembly as a Republican in November.

Not everyone in the valley shares Goedhart's passionate opposition. About half the population doesn't care because they see the issue as beyond their control, he said. Another 15 percent believe the jobs that the repository would bring would be an economic boon to the town.

Site studied for 28 years

Project supporters hope to bank on a claim made by Yucca Mountain Project scientists, who say that nuclear waste can be safely stored by keeping it 1,000 feet underground, beneath layers and layers of volcanic rock.

The waste would be stored in double-thick nickel-alloy cylinders and brought into tunnels by rail cars, the same concept used to transport coal from underground mines.

Designs also call for corrosive-resistant metal sheets to shield the casks. Covering the tracks and shaped like Quonset huts, the sheets would keep the casks dry from rainwater that could percolate through the mountain.

Project scientists say the shields add an extra level of protection. In this part of Nevada, only 7.5 inches of rain falls on average each year, they say, about 40 inches less than what New Jersey sees. About 95 percent of the rain on Yucca Mountain either runs off, evaporates or is absorbed by thirsty vegetation.

The unlikely chance of an earthquake powerful enough to damage the subterranean network also makes Yucca Mountain an attractive waste site, according to project geologists. The mountain has changed little over the past several million years. Large sharp rocks that have longed teetered on the edge of cliffs stand as testimony to the desert's seismic stability, they say.

For Bruce Reinert, a former Yucca Mountain Project engineer, the repository represented one of the most challenging projects he has worked on. The amount of scrutiny, he said, has compelled scientists to make their work as thorough as possible.

"I've never been questioned or held to task more,'' he said. "This is really where science and society meet.''

The reason scientists know so much about Yucca Mountain is because they've studied it for 28 years. Since 1997, they've donned hard hats and headlamps to work in an underground laboratory housed in a 5-mile-long tunnel.

The lab was dug by a machine nicknamed the "Yucca Mucker.'' With a 720-ton cutting head, the $17 million borring machine slashed through rock at 18 feet per hour.

Much of the project's money has come out of the Nuclear Waste Fund, an account created by Congress in 1983 to fund the repository until it's filled and sealed.

Other funding comes from the federal government because the repository also would store high-level radioactive waste generated by national defense programs.

New Jersey residents who get their electricity from a nuclear plant have paid $482 million into the waste fund, according to project figures.

Consumers of Oyster Creek's power have paid $77.4 million … a small contribution considering that the federal DOE has estimated the project to cost $57.6 billion.

The repository is designed to remain open for 100 years, though it could stay open for as long as 300 years. An open repository means future decision makers will have the option to withdraw the waste for reprocessing into new reactor fuel. Around 2312, it will be sealed from the outside world for about 1 million years.

Nicholas Clunn: (609) 978-4597 or nclunn@app.com

Asbury Park Press
February 16, 2006

Closing Oyster Creek would be anything but simple

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 02/16/06

By Nicholas Clunn and Todd B. Bates
Staff Writers

LACEY — By 2017, the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant could be gone, its iconic stack toppled and radioactive parts shipped away for disposal.

In its place could rise the Oyster Creek Mall, a new hi-tech power plant, or hundreds of homes with access to both a creek and a river.

Those are several scenarios if Oyster Creek closes in 2009 when its 40-year license expires, and it does not win a 20-year extension from the federal government.

But a shuttered plant, along with its 1,416 acres, could stand virtually untouched for decades, a ghostly reminder of Lacey's atomic past.

Dangerous possibilities also exist, said Bradley M. Campbell, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection until Jan. 17, when he left office.

"I think the public needs to recognize that there are both safety and certain security risks associated with decommissioning," he said. "There are some security experts, for example, who think that a decommissioned plant may present greater risks because there isn't the same level of on-site security."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that oversees the permanent closure or decommissioning of reactors, recognizes that public safety is a concern when it comes to shutting a plant. But regulators also believe that the potential for hazards and accidents is much less than when a plant is operating.

Decommissioning involves reducing the radioactivity of a plant site as much as possible. Otherwise, plants could degrade and become hazards, according to the NRC.

The task costs hundreds of millions of dollars since it includes emptying nuclear waste from reactors, dismantling buildings and shipping radioactive parts to facilities that can store or process such waste.

It would cost about $480 million to immediately decommission the 636-megawatt Oyster Creek plant, according to a March 2005 report by its operator, AmerGen Energy Co.

To decommission the 900-megawatt Maine Yankee plant, it took eight years and less than $500 million. The cleanup, which was completed in October, exceeded the NRC's target for reducing radioactivity, according to the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co.

If the NRC denies a 20-year license renewal for Oyster Creek, now pending, AmerGen would have enough money in a dedicated trust fund to cover decommissioning costs.

By 2009, the fund would hold an estimated $586 million, according to the study.

Though AmerGen could mothball Oyster Creek for decades, "prompt demolition once the license is terminated is clearly the most appropriate and cost-effective option," according to TLG Services, which performed the study.

Utilities most often mothball reactors when they have other reactors still generating power within the same plant, according to the NRC.

TLG also estimated that it would cost AmerGen $142 million to load spent nuclear fuel into casks and manage the outdoor cask storage pad at Oyster Creek over the long term.

Utilities will be responsible for handling plants' spent fuel until the U.S. government opens a national repository for it. Spent fuel around the country will likely stay put until at least 2012, the earliest a repository could open at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Jill Lipoti, director of the DEP's Division of Environmental Safety and Health, said AmerGen also should promise to clean up the site according to state rules, which cover chemicals and generally go beyond what the NRC requires.

"They need to meet the New Jersey standards for decommissioning," she said.

Oyster Creek's operating license also has strict guidelines for its owners to follow during decommissioning, said Peter C. Resler, a spokesman for Exelon, which owns AmerGen.

"Basically, it requires us to return the site to greenfields, the way it was before we started construction," he said.

If Oyster Creek is dismantled, township officials looking to make up for lost property tax revenue from the plant — the plant paid $1.7 million last year — would likely try to fill the vacant land with taxable properties, said economist James W. Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

Housing or a large mall would be ideal for the plant's large plot, which straddles Route 9 and abuts the Garden State Parkway, he said.

But Township Administrator John Adams says another power plant would be a smart choice. Adams reasons that the value of the right of way for transmission lines near Oyster Creek must be high since they run through protected Pinelands and wetlands areas where a new route would not easily pass environmental reviews.

When Atlantic City Electric built its new transmission line to link Oyster Creek with Atlantic County in 2004, it needed to submit its route for state Pinelands Commission approval, so the company could avoid an even more costly and protracted fight with homeowners who didn't want power lines near them.

Government and industry won't likely abandon such an investment, Adams said.

Staff writer Kirk Moore contributed to this story. Nicholas Clunn: 609-978-4597 or nclunn@app.com; Todd B. Bates: (732) 643-4237 or tbates@app.com

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KVBC
February 15, 2006

Richard Bryan to lead Yucca Mountain opposition

Former Senator Richard Bryan will lead Nevada's efforts to oppose the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. Member of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear projects voted unanimously to name Bryan Chairman.

The former US Senator was already on the seven member commission. He'll replace former Chairman Brian McKay, who recently resigned.

Former state assembly woman, Joan Lambert, filled the vacancy on the Board when Governor Guinn appointed her last week.

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Las Vegas SUN
February 15, 2006

Letter: We must step up our opposition to Yucca

"Give them an inch and they'll take a mile."

The federal government, like some uneducated Nevadans, seems to think that since we hosted the Nevada Test Site from 1951 to 1992 and since that ground is polluted, we should readily accept a Yucca Mountain nuclear dump, with all its scientific deficiencies.

Will these same complacent citizens now accept 4,000 metric tons of mercury at Hawthorne?

I hope Gov. Kenny Guinn will not give in and that he will redouble his administration's opposition to an unscientific, unnecessary and fraudulently examined Yucca Mountain.

We need a renewed campaign against a federal government that considers debate and dissent as obstructionism.

Frank Perna
Las Vegas

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Pahrump Valley Times
February 15, 2006

Community Viewpoint

Yucca Mountain essential to the nation

By Paul J. Miller

There are forces at work ravenous to destroy American power. The goal is clearly to reduce the United States to a common member of global socialist mediocrity. Those who desire this outcome are not simply foreign villains but a great many actual American citizens who are ashamed of their own country or deeply disloyal at best.

Of course there are also those who have been temporarily led astray. Such a situation is obviously not set in stone and it is time we all become aware of it. We who have not been deceived are waiting for our brothers and sisters to return to our side. The understanding of this condition always lurks in the back of our minds but many or perhaps most don't see it yet. Propaganda against our own country emanates constantly from the press and splashes all over the place. Of course it isn't an accident. Internal and external enemies of the United States constantly plot to undermine the power of our country.

Those leading this sick and treasonous attack apply a constant destructive hammering through propaganda against any proposed improvements in the storage of depleted nuclear material. For several reasons this material must be stored for a time, probably years, following its use. Eventually it will be cost effective to reprocess it into a form that is again useful. Enemies of our country have tricked many in the public into opposition to this crucial storage.

A wise person can normally understand that secure storage is best. Such storage in special hardened underground sites, located in a few relatively remote places around the country, being something good for our country, is especially targeted to be stopped. Those who despise America are behind this gambit but plenty of others, folks easily manipulated, also pile on.

Presently, the bulk of the so-called "waste" is contained in barrels sitting on the surface of the ground right beside the reactors where it was used. Please consider that transportation of this material to more secure and centralized locations is good logic, yet it is being strongly opposed by an assorted bunch of people mindlessly careless of our national security and the United States can only be weakened if these tactics are successful.

Politicians often realize that the public has been largely fooled by the propaganda. So, mindful of political considerations and upcoming elections, they will renounce the good storage plans best for our country. They will at least appear to join the mob screaming to stop utilization of these facilities. Even the most powerful politicians and other officials cannot apply the power the major media, newspapers and television primarily, can wield. The momentum of the misguided outcry against the excellent storage facilities such as Yucca Mountain (in Nye County) is powerful. Only the truth can begin to slow and eventually to stop this nonsense.

Nuclear power is essential to supply ample economical electric power for the greatest superpower the world has ever seen. Failure to fully utilize nuclear energy to provide the crucial cost-effective power would result in a gradual weakening of U.S. strength. This would not be completely destructive immediately but it would begin loading the U.S. economy unnecessarily to increasingly more painful levels. Eventually, the load would be destructive. Any actions designed to weaken the United States must be thwarted. We must all work to strengthen, not weaken, our country.

Those directing this plot and the many citizens who have been unwittingly swept up in the madness must now be recognized for who they are. Hopefully, as the truth is made available, the numbers of ordinary Americans previously confused will cease to be and will come to realize the trickery and to be able to identify the spoilers who have been manipulating them.

The primary angle being played by the enemy is the idea that transportation of "nuclear waste" to the storage sites would be too dangerous for the public. Secondarily, the locations of the sites are presented as also endangering the people living and working in each region where the sites are located. Great exaggeration in describing an imagined lack of safety is cunningly emphasized. These false claims are repeated constantly. In advertising anything, repetition is the key. In this case, the repetition is massive. It reminds me of the mindless saluting we have all seen in the old Nazi propaganda films wherein the crowds, having been swept away from decency and independent thought, as condensed mobs, repeat over and over their cheers for Hitler, perhaps the most evil individual of all time.

While such as Hitler constantly seek to enslave the world, the United States seeks to provide for a future, which is free of slavery. Our country cannot be secure as long as it must share the Earth with Hitlers, Saddams, and their kind. Lands ruled by these evil ones will always be refuges for terrorists and funds provided by these murderous despots will smoothly flow under the table to those terrorists until we end it. Always these dictators will threaten our country until they are eliminated. A strong United States can only exist if crucial electricity is plentiful and inexpensive. Nuclear power plants are the only way we can have this strength. And, the number we have today is far too few.

U.S. troops are now at war with terrorism in lands wherefrom it originates. The majority of people in these places are potentially our allies if they are freed from the oppression, which is the fertile soil feeding the terrorist plague worldwide. Americans will never be secure until terrorism is defeated and a strong America is essential to complete this task. All that Americans produce and provide is keyed to an efficient economical electrical system from coast to coast. So, here we are, back to nuclear production of electricity as an essential element for our strength and a bright future.

The truth is that everywhere in the world where nuclear material is mined, refined and transported to users, said material is conveyed to those places over the roads and by various other routes. This has been true ever since uranium was discovered. Have you ever asked yourself how the fresh ore, and material having been refined in stages, gets to the nuclear reactors all over the United States and where ever in the world such facilities operate? Think about it. The same is true regarding delivery of nuclear weapons to military facilities. This isn't the television fantasy series "Star Trek." Matter is not transported magically by being "beamed" from one place to another. It is proper and natural to transport the material we all need to make our country strong. Our nuclear power plants provide absolutely essential power at a price acceptable to the market. Do we really wish to pay several times the current rate for electricity?

Anyone foolish enough to say "yes" is indeed the maximum type of fool. If we breach the laws of economics by ignoring the vital need for cheap electricity, we will condemn our country to go the way of the Roman Empire. It is also most imperative that our military forces possess and maintain at maximum readiness all of the best nuclear weapons our great country can provide. Deterrence is still fundamental to our national security. These devices have always been transported by normal means as there are no other means. Every country in the world in possession of such materials and devices transports them the same way.

The bold red herring of a screaming fit being flung broadly by the creatures bound and determined to weaken the United States is primarily based in the bogus concept that the public is being endangered by the simple transportation and eventual secure storage of the somewhat depleted nuclear material. What balderdash!

Imagine the humiliating position our country would descend into, a downward spiraling condition, a pit from which there would be no escape if the enemies of our country were successful in their cunning method.

The Yucca Mountain (project) is an excellent place to store depleted material and associated items. Furthermore, the state and local economies are now and will continue to benefit from such utilization. The enemy seeks to divide and conquer the first free country on Earth over phony crises actually nothing more than extensively and artfully designed diversions from truth. But more and more of us refuse to be fooled.

Miller writes from Pahrump.

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Pahrump Valley Times
Februrary 15, 2006

New Yucca office director named

Hammermeister Selected for County's Top Position in Repository Oversight

By Phillip Gomez
PVT

After nearly a year, Nye County has settled on a new director for its nuclear waste repository project office, naming soils and water consultant Dale Hammermeister to the post.

County Manager Michael Maher named Hammermeister as the selected candidate for the job after a week of interviewing finalists and the selection panelists coming to a consensus.

The panel was made up of Nye County Commission Chairwoman Candice Trummell, Commissioner Garry Hollis, Comptroller Marie Owens, Washington, D.C., consultant and lobbyist Rick Spees and HR director Danelle Shamrell.

Under the direction of the county commissioners, Hammermeister will be responsible for all aspects of the county's involvement in the nation's nuclear waste repository program at Yucca Mountain, insofar as it pertains to Nye County.

Hammermeister has a Ph.D in soils science from Oregon State University, a master of science in chemistry from Denver University and a B.A. in secondary education from the University of Washington.

He has held teaching posts as a secondary school teacher teaching science, as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guyana and as an assistant soils science professor at the University of Wisconsin in River Falls, Wis.

Hammermeister was also a research chemist with the U.S. Geological Service in Menlo Park, Calif. He has been a hydrologist for USGS for Superfund cleanup sites and at the Nevada Test Site. He was a project manager for Yucca Mountain studies and at a mine in Silver City, N.M.

He has also held management positions at a laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M, was section chief with REECo. at the Nevada Test Site and technical director with GeoSystems Analysis Inc. in Tucson, Ariz.

More recently, Hammermeister was Nye County's site representative on geotechnical matters.

Maher said in a statement, "Dr. Hammermeister will make a significant impact in our community working with the internal and external partners of our nuclear waste repository program office."

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Pahrump Valley Times
Februrary 15, 2006

Strategic meeting today

Directions will be Given to Committee

PVT

The Nye County Board of Commissioners has scheduled a special meeting today to discuss the direction to be given to its new steering committee on long-term strategic planning.

The meeting starts at 3 p.m. in the commissioners' offices at 1510 E. Basin Ave. in Pahrump. The steering committee is to be given its task, goals and timeline for reporting back to the commissioners.

A budget workshop has also been scheduled for public participation at 6 p.m. Feb. 21 as a prelude to two further meetings on finalizing the county budget on March 8 and 20.

Commissioner Patricia Cox said she wanted to hear public input on priorities for how the annual Payments Equal To Taxes, or PETT funds, should be spent.

PETT funds are the annual appropriations from the U.S. Department of Energy in compensation for the government's usurpation of land that could have provided property tax revenue to Nye County, the host county for the Yucca Mountain repository.

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KLAS-TV
February 15, 2006

Brian Allen, Reporter

DOE Wants Yucca to be The World's Nuclear Repository

The Department of Energy is working on a plan to bring nuclear waste from around the country to Yucca Mountain. But a Nevada group working against the project says waste from other countries could also be brought to Southern Nevada.

The Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects met Tuesday to talk about their efforts to stop the project and discuss the possibility of Nevada becoming a dumping ground for the world's waste. This is a new plan the DOE unveiled just a few days ago. It comes as a total surprise to state and county leaders.

In essence, the DOE wants Yucca Mountain to be a clearinghouse for the world's nuclear waste. They claim it's a national security issue. But officials here aren't buying it. The DOE plan would expand Yucca Mountain's original intent and state leaders don't like it.

Bob Loux said, "If it did occur, sure that's what the government would like to do is turn Yucca Mountain and Southern Nevada into a dumping ground for the entire world."

Loux is executive director of Nevada's Commission on Nuclear Projects. He tells Eyewitness News the Bush Administration supports the plan, claiming it would boost homeland security by keeping nuclear waste out of the wrong hands.

Peggy Maze Johnson, said, "It's just absolutely insane to me." Maze Johnson with the nuclear watchdog group Citizens Alert believes bringing more nuclear waste into Southern Nevada increases the dangers to our community. And as for boosting homeland security, she says, " I am so tired of terrorism. Every time this administration wants something we're blaming it on terrorists."

Is homeland security the true reason behind this plan? Bob Loux believes it's not, that the entire thing is a smokescreen to keep the struggling project alive. "In my mind, in my view, the only reason they're proposing reprocessing is Yucca Mountain is failing. They're needing to talk about something to show they're doing something and cover up the failure of Yucca Mountain."

There's more to this: in addition to becoming a clearinghouse for the world's nuclear waste, the DOE plan also calls for some of the waste to be chemically treated at Yucca Mountain and then be shipped back to it's original source to be reused.

Clark County comprehensive planner Irene Navis calls this a bad idea. "I think if anything it's going to get folks charged up here locally. It's the idea that we'll become the world's dump as opposed to the nation's facility for nuclear waste storage."

By expanding Yucca Mountain's mission and tying in homeland security, this plan for Yucca Mountain may breathe new life into the project. State and county leaders say they will continue their fight to stop Yucca Mountain, but admit this change in focus may make it more difficult.

Yucca Mountain spokesman Alan Benson has no comment on this new plan other than to say once the Environmental Protection Agency establishes guidelines for Yucca Mountain, the licensing process will move forward.

In Dec. of 2005, Nevada senators Harry Reid and John Ensign introduced a bill that would stop nuclear waste shipments from coming to Nevada. Instead it would have the waste stay where it is now. So far the bill is still in committee.

Email reporter Brian Allen at ballen@klastv.com

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New Scientist
February 15, 2006

Trains the best way to carry US nuclear waste

IF YOU discount terror attacks and fires, then transporting spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain in Nevada or elsewhere for storage would be safe, or so said members of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) last week.

Disposing of waste from the US's 103 operating nuclear plants would require daily shipments for 20 years. According to the NAS study, the material could be moved in 55,000 truckloads, or 9600 dedicated trainloads and 1000 truckloads. The panel "much preferred the rail option", says its chairman Neal Lane, both because of the greatly reduced number of trips and because rail lines are less prone to disruptions such as traffic jams.

Concerns remained, however, over the safety of the casks containing spent fuel in the event of a hot, sustained fire. Such fires do happen: in at least two cases trains carrying petroleum-filled tankers burned for days before fire fighters got them under control. The only way to minimise that risk for now, the panel concluded, is to make sure such petroleum trains go nowhere near trains carrying nuclear waste.

The panel did not assess the dangers posed by terrorist attacks.

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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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