Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
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Las Vegas SUN
March 01, 2006
EPA: Yucca radiation standards to be completed by year's end
By Erica Werner
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency will issue a final rule by the end of the year on how much radiation can be released from the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, an agency official told senators at a hearing Wednesday.
William Wehrum, acting assistant administrator of EPA's office of air and radiation, defended the agency's proposed rule against criticism from Nevada lawmakers and a Democratic senator from California who said it wouldn't adequately protect human health.
"Our job at EPA is to set standards for the Yucca Mountain repository that are fully protective of human health and safety," Wehrum said at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.
He received strong support from the committee's chairman, Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who asked whether the rule might be "too conservative" compared with approaches taken in Europe. Wehrum said the standard was consistent with international approaches.
Inhofe also said after the hearing that he'd be open to voting to increase the storage capacity of Yucca Mountain, which by law is supposed to hold 77,000 tons of radioactive waste. Because of waste already waiting at reactor sites nationwide, the repository will be full soon after it opens.
The EPA in August proposed limiting radiation exposure near the planned dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas to 15 millirems a year for 10,000 years, then increasing the allowable level to 350 millirems a year for up to 1 million years.
That higher level is more than three times what is allowed from nuclear facilities today by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A standard chest X-ray is about 10 millirems.
The EPA issued the rule under consideration after a federal court said the agency's first standard was inadequate because it didn't establish exposure limits beyond 10,000 years. A public comment period for the rule ended Nov. 21, and the agency is reviewing comments and will finalize the rule by year's end, Wehrum said.
Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign criticized the standard in testimony. Ensign, a Republican, called it "a farce."
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., cited a study that she said showed cancer risks at the 350 millirem level increasing to one in four for women and one in five for men.
"This is such a nightmare that we're abandoning ... what we consider to be an acceptable cancer risk," Boxer said.
But a scientist who testified before the committee, Dade Moeller, former president of the Health Physics Society, said his estimates show a smaller increase of cancer risk under the proposed rules - perhaps 1 percent or less. Moeller's company has done contract work for the Energy Department.
The radiation issue and other problems with the project have caused a series of delays. The Energy Department originally was supposed to submit its application for a license to operate the dump to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by December 2004.
Paul Golan, acting director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, couldn't provide senators a new date but said the department would release a schedule this summer.
---On the Net: Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov
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Reuters
March 01, 2006
Gov't plans steps to advance Nevada nuclear dump
By Lisa Lambert
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is planning steps to advance its long-stalled proposal to build a nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert, officials told Congress on Wednesday.
The government's plan to build an underground waste dump in the Nevada desert about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas is more than 10 years behind schedule and still plagued by scientific foul-ups and political stonewalling.
Paul Golan, an acting director at the Department of Energy, did not tell the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee when the department will send its proposal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That step was originally planned for 2004.
But Golan said the department will publish a schedule of when it intends to make such a submission "later this summer."
"We believe that submission of our license application should not be driven by artificial dates," Golan said.
The NRC must sign off on the plan before Yucca Mountain can begin accepting waste from the nation's 103 nuclear power plants.
Spent fuel from U.S. nuclear plants -- which supply about 20 percent of U.S. electricity -- is piling up. More than 50,000 tons (45,500 metric tons) of it is stored at over 100 temporary locations in 39 states.
The administration hoped to open the site in 2010 and allow 77,000 tons (70,000 metric tons) of waste to be stored deep underground.
On another front, the Environmental Protection Agency hopes to issue a proposal by year-end that would assure safe radiation doses from the site for 1 million years, which would satisfy a court order that threatens to derail the project.
Bill Wehrum, acting assistant administrator for air and radiation for the Environmental Protection Agency, told the committee his agency hopes to finish its proposal by year end.
Sen. Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat and ardent opponent of the site for safety reasons, told the panel that the repository "will never be built because the project is mired in scientific, safety and technical problems."
Reid proposed handling nuclear waste through "dry cask storage," a process that would allow nuclear reactors to store waste on-site. He and Senator John Ensign have introduced a bill requiring nuclear utilities to use the casks.
Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate energy panel, said the project needs to move to the licensing stage, and issued a report titled "Yucca Mountain: The Most Studied Real Estate on the Planet."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 01, 2006
Government must pay damages to utility
DOE failed to meet nuclear waste disposal deadline
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A federal judge has ordered the government to pay $34.9 million to the operator of two nuclear power plants in Alabama and Tennessee after the Energy Department failed to meet a 1998 deadline to dispose of their nuclear waste.
The ruling in favor of the Tennessee Valley Authority is the first one in which the department has been told to pay specific damages to a utility that is keeping highly radioactive spent fuel stored on-site while delays continue to hamper plans for a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Utilities that run most of the nation's 103 nuclear plants and some that have been mothballed have filed 61 lawsuits seeking similar damages.
Attorneys expect utilities to win judgments in many of the cases, since an earlier round of lawsuits established that DOE had breached long-standing contracts to take ownership of thousands of tons of their spent fuel by Jan. 31, 1998.
Industry officials have speculated damages could climb well into the billions of dollars, particularly since there appears to be no nuclear waste solution in sight while utilities continue to pile up waste and would be allowed to seek further compensation through the courts.
The Tennessee Valley ruling comes as Congress awaits legislation from the Energy Department in a new effort to jump-start Yucca Mountain. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has scheduled a hearing today on the project.
The decision, issued Jan. 31 by Judge Charles Lettow in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, underscores the need for Congress to fix Yucca Mountain, or at least relocate spent fuel away from power plants, said Steve Kraft, nuclear waste director at the Nuclear Energy Institute.
"The government is starting to take money out of your pockets as taxpayers and paying utilities for their failure to move fuel from our sites, so that is what we are suggesting that Congress deal with," Kraft said.
The lawsuit involved the three-reactor Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Limestone County, Alabama, and the two-reactor Sequoyah facility in Hamilton County, Tennessee.
The TVA, a federal corporation and the nation's largest public power generator, operates two other nuclear power complexes, but they were not part of the damage lawsuit.
TVA officials claimed costs of $35,683,438 to build "dry storage" facilities at the plants, including modifications so spent fuel assemblies could be loaded into steel and concrete casks and transported to storage pads. Lettow allowed all but $859,304 of the costs.
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KVBC
February 28, 2006
Senate to hear Yucca Mountain Testimony
The head of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects is expected to testify on Capitol Hill Wednesday during a hearing on the Yucca Mountain Project.
Bob Loux plans to tell the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that the repository and it's radiation standards are flawed. The hearing will help determine the status and future of Yucca Mountain which is 90 miles from Las Vegas.
Nevada Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign are also expected to testify.
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Las Vegas SUN
March 01, 2006
Flashpoint for Mar 01, 2006
By Jon Ralston
<ralston@vegas.com>
Las Vegas Sun
Here, in a nutshell, is Jack Carter's problem. And it has nothing to do with Jack Carter. The Democratic U.S. Senate contender's problem is embodied in this sentence from a joint release on a Yucca Mountain hearing today from Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid AND his friend and colleague, GOP Sen. John Ensign: "Reid and Ensign have led Nevada's fight against the Yucca Mountain nuke dump for years." It's even conversational. Nuke dump! These senators are friends, pals. They walk alike; they talk alike, and they even testify alike. What a crazy pair. And they're senators, identical senators. Except on pure partisan issues, of course. But that's the way they like it. And that is Jack Carter's biggest problem.
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Pahrump Valley Times
March 1, 2006
New Faces In Nye
Commission appoints officials
Frankovich Named County's First Building Official
By Phillip Gomez
PVT
Several new people have been hired of late or have come on board as a volunteer for Nye County government in Pahrump.
Planning
Mark D. Kimball was named as the replacement commissioner for the late Sheldon Bass on the six-member board of the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission, which oversees planning and zoning development issues.
Bass was the vice chairman of the commission, and Commissioner Butch Borasky was recently named the new vice chairman of the RPC.
Kimball has more than 30 years experience as an administrator and headmaster of three private schools, which he helped to build. As president of a homeowners' association, he supervised three lawsuits involving planning and building code compliance issues.
Kimball has a bachelor's of science degree and a master's degree in history from the University of Utah. He is a distinguished graduate of the United States Air Force ROTC program and a member of Phi Alpha Theta, the national academic honor society.
Before he went into education, Kimball was an intelligence officer with the U.S. Air Force in Southeast Asia.
Kimball stated his position on zoning succinctly: "Zoning is an important and essential part of the regional planning process. Properly done, it balances the various interests in a community and enhances the quality of life for everyone."
On code compliance, Kimball said, "Codes exist to protect the health and safety of our citizens. They must be carefully thought out and scrupulously followed."
Asked what he saw as Pahrump's most serious growth problem, Kimball replied: "The most immediate problem is traffic. It has increased greatly in the last 18 months and is already affecting the community in a negative way.
"As development continues, the infrastructure that it requires should be planned as part of the process. Sewers, roads, parks, intersections, etc. are all important but sometimes neglected.
"I think the most important point is this: Development is going to happen. Properly managed it will make this valley a prosperous and pleasant place to live. Unchecked, it will damage or destroy the character of Pahrump and make it a very different place than the one which has drawn so many of us here in the first place."
In answer to why he is interested in Pahrump's future, Kimball said, "I live here. I have a stake in the future of the community. I have the time and inclination to serve the people of Pahrump in an open, honest and objective manner."
Kimball added, "I have a lot of experience in dealing with people and public issues. I believe I would be a good contributing member of the commission." He said he had no political aspirations.
Building oversight
County Manager Michael Maher and the Nye County Commission named Daniel J. Frankovich the county's chief building official. Frankovich is responsible for the county's building programs, including permitting, inspecting and insuring code compliance.
The commissioners created the new position to help interpret and explain county building and safety codes, regulations, policies and procedures to developers, engineers, architects and the general public.
Frankovich has a master's of science degree in business and management from Cardinal Stritch University, an independent Franciscan Catholic institution located in Milwaukee. His bachelor's degree in civil engineering is from Marquette University, a Catholic Jesuit institution also located in Milwaukee.
Frankovich also has professional training in business management and operations, business development, staff development and training, organization and communications and sales and marketing.
His work history has been as a project manager and owner's representative for corporate standards, technical design and the development of properties. He worked as an estimator specializing in steel stud, drywall, plasterwork and exterior insulation and finish systems.
He was a project manager for a design-and-build construction company, reviewing and analyzing client requirements. There he worked with architects on project design parameters, reviewing and awarding construction subcontracts. He has overseen onsite construction activity, including that for an airport renovation at an international airport.
Frankovich has worked with an airport authority, airlines and service providers in operations management where he was responsible for ensuring public safety.
He has managed large databases for a major hospital and nature center. He worked as a member of a historic preservation commission and as a staff instructor at a technical college, where he assisted with preparations for new programs in the building trades.
Frankovich was also an instructor of basic college mathematics, critical thinking, drafting and building and interior systems.
Yucca Mountain
Dale Hammermeister was selected a few months ago to head the Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office, which oversees Yucca Mountain-related activities in which the county is invested. A full report on Hammermeister's appointment and background appeared in the Feb. 10 Pahrump Valley Times.
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Pioneer Press -
March 01, 2006
Dry casks now, bigger vision soon
By asking for permission to extend the operating life of its Monticello nuclear power plant and to store waste there in dry casks, Xcel Energy is renewing near-term and long-term questions about electrical power. Both public policy questions arise because Minnesota is in a jam.
Near-term, the reality is this: Xcel generates 10 percent of its power from the Monticello plant, and replacing that supply from other coal-fired or gas-fired plants quickly would be expensive. The logistics are challenging, and, as a business decision, extending the life of Monticello makes sense.
If Monticello runs for 20 years longer than its current license period, which ends in 2010, the waste has to go somewhere outside the plant. As this and 138 other nuclear power plants around the United States await a permanent federal repository, local storage has become a necessity. As it did with its plants at Prairie Island, Xcel wants dry casks nearby to hold the profoundly toxic material. The casks planned at Monticello are 20-ton steel canisters that are put in concrete vaults for storage above ground.
The utility is seeking a permit from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to establish up to 30 casks for spent nuclear fuel adjacent to the Monticello plant. Xcel wants to extend operation of the plant to 2030 and is asking the federal government for that re-licensing.
The most pressing question is that of spent fuel storage. The PUC should give a temporary answer in the form of a certificate of need to allow Xcel to proceed with dry casks at Monticello. But when this dry cask expansion gets to the Legislature, the long-term questions about electrical power in Minnesota need to be addressed more fully.
Critics of continuing to produce nuclear waste without the long-promised federal permanent storage site are wisely skeptical that the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada will ever be viable. Minnesota utility ratepayers have put about $500 million into Yucca so far, but the science, politics and costs have bogged this project down since it began in 1978.
Xcel's more hopeful outlook about Yucca is understandable. There has been progress in the form of 20 years of study and a huge excavation at the site, 100 miles from Las Vegas. The federal government is persisting in the effort over strenuous objections by the state of Nevada.
But for the foreseeable future, there is no "there" at Yucca Mountain. It will not receive spent nuclear fuel that power plants across the country continue to accrue even as the Bush administration backs the building of more nuclear power plants.
The long-term ambiguity argues strongly for Minnesota to expect a more aggressive long-term shift.
Since the first debate over storage at Prairie Island in 1994, the goal of relying on nuclear reaction for a substantial amount of power has become less widely controversial. Above-ground dry cask storage has produced no accidents.
And, just as there is no proof of an imminent national solution, there is no proof that Yucca won't materialize as the place to off-load from Prairie Island or Monticello. So the path of least effort has been to keep on with nuclear generation. Yes, Minnesota has been moving toward more renewable fuel generation, notably with wind. And, yes, the demand for electricity can be better managed, as the Pawlenty administration's forward-looking conservation and renewables programs show. And, yes, at the federal level the idea of allowing spent fuel from commercial sources to be reprocessed adds an important dimension to considering whether there is another secure, effective solution to the waste proliferation problem.
But what is going on in Minnesota is more tactical than visionary. The longer the view, the more deliberate the needed adjustments from a late-20th century power supply to a late-21st century one.
Critics of the status quo are pushing for energy policy planning that puts the state on a 20-year or even 40-year process that emphasizes homegrown renewables with a robust consideration of true costs and benefits.
A way to put more rigor into planning is for the state to commit to a renewable energy standard, not just a series of goals. The working concept for a renewable standard is to expect 20 percent of the state's power from renewables by 2020. Now is the time, too, to cultivate a culture of conservation. Saving is the most cost-effective tactic for both individual pocketbooks and the whole electrical energy economy.
The short-term need to keep operating the Monticello nuclear plant speaks to granting dry cask storage there. But doing so must also energize Minnesotans to find more long-term, environmentally safe, efficient ways to power the future.
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Wisconsin State Journal
March 01, 2006
Door reopens for nuclear energy, if only slightly
Ben Fischer
bfischer@madison.com
The reinvigorated worldwide campaign for new nuclear power plants comes to Wisconsin today, when lawmakers will again consider abolishing the state's moratorium on new plants.
After 22 years without a nuclear plant license issued in the United States, advocates say it's time to start building again as an alternative to fossil fuels.
But since 1984, Wisconsin has effectively banned new nuclear plants until a permanent storage facility for radioactive waste is constructed and builders can prove it's cost- competitive.
The Republican-authored proposal before the Assembly Energy and Utilities Committee today would eliminate that clause, lifting a major roadblock to new plants.
Currently, two nuclear plants operate in Wisconsin - both built in the early 1970s - and provide about a fifth of the state's energy.
It's not the first time lawmakers have tried to lift the ban, and the current incarnation (AB1053) has little chance of becoming law, chief author Rep. Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, conceded.
But this latest push comes amid new momentum for nuclear projects elsewhere in the country, bolstered by industry- friendly provisions of the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005, and developments overseas, where European countries and China have recently announced major new investments.
"The simple reason is, this country needs a lot more electricity production in the next 20 years," said Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the industry-funded Nuclear Energy Institute. "The country is facing a lot of environmental concerns, and it's the largest source of emission-free energy available."
Groups fighting to retain the moratorium said that the reasons for the law in the first place haven't changed. Nuclear developers still rely on generous subsidies and incur cost overruns, said Charlie Higley, the executive director of the Citizens Utility Board.
"There are those who believe in building nuclear power before it can stand on its own two feet, and before there's a place to put the waste," said Higley. "That's just crazy."
At issue is the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada, where the federal government hopes to permanently store dangerous radioactive waste from nuclear plants. But the project is still far from accepting waste.
Despite that, Singer said the industry expects the facility to be ready by the time any new plant would be producing waste. He said efficiencies that would decrease the amount of radioactive waste are improving.
None of Wisconsin's utilities have any plans to build nuclear plants, and some have been taking steps to get out of the business. In 2005, Alliant Energy and Wisconsin Public Service Corp. sold their jointly owned Kewaunee Nuclear Plant to Virginia-based Dominion.
We Energies, which owns the Point Beach nuclear plant, is considering the same step as part of a broader strategic assessment.
Caryl Terrell, director of the Sierra Club's John Muir Chapter, said the legislation would lift "sensible" burdens of proof for a technology that creates uniquely dangerous byproducts.
"They create a very toxic, long-lived waste product that has to be handled very carefully," Terrell said.
Should Wisconsin's moratorium be lifted, out-of-state power companies like Dominion might look to expand here, observers said.
Elsewhere in the U.S., nine companies have said they intend to ask federal regulators for permits to build plants, the closest any nuclear project has gotten to construction since 1984.
Huebsch said he's not banking on any new plants; he just wants nuclear power to be taken seriously. As it stands today, he said "knee-jerk" reactions make it a nonstarter despite its advantages.
"It's something we should be exploring," he said. "It should at least be at the table."
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Platts
February 27, 2006
Industry's legislative wish list seeks Yucca Mt. revamping
Washington (Platts)--27Feb2006
Congress should remove an artificial limit placed on the disposal capacity of a DOE repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. and allow the technical aspects of the site, as well as what's needed to support the country's reactors, determine how much nuclear waste can be emplaced there, according to a senior Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) official.
It should be a technical decision, Steve Kraft said of the repository's disposal capacity. Kraft, who is NEI's director of used fuel management, called the elimination of the current 70,000 metric ton uranium (MTU) disposal limit one of the nuclear industry's top five priorities for nuclear waste legislation.
He cited the need to move spent fuel to a federal facility as soon as possible as a leading priority, indicating that could be accomplished by siting federal interim storage facilities at DOE sites. Kraft noted in response to a question that the energy secretary has authority under the Atomic Energy Act to site such a facility at a DOE site, something that Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio) proposed last year as part of the House's fiscal 2006 energy and water funding bill. The storage facility would not have to be licensed by NRC if it were a "purely DOE facility, under a purely DOE order," Kraft said. However, a senior NRC official indicated earlier the agency didn't agree.
"They [DOE] have our money, we have their fuel; it's time to close the deal," said Kraft, who presented the NEI legislative wish list during a media briefing Feb 23. Nuclear utility customers collectively pay an estimated $750-million a year into the Nuclear Waste Fund to bankroll the DOE waste program. In return, standard contracts DOE signed with nuclear utilities in 1983 require DOE to dispose of that waste. DOE failed to meet the original 1998 contract date for the start of disposal operations. Other target dates have since gone unheeded, and DOE may have a new target date by this summer.
NEI unveiled its priorities, which also include legislative action to eliminate the need for an NRC waste confidence rule, as industry and congressional officials awaited draft waste legislation from DOE. Department officials have disclosed few details of the proposal, saying only that the draft bill would transfer federal land around Yucca Mountain that's now held by different agencies to DOE and would give the repository program greater access to money paid into the waste fund. As of Feb. 23, the department didn't know when it would send its legislative proposal to Congress, DOE spokesman Craig Stevens said. Some DOE officials noted earlier that the draft bill was under review at the White House Office of Management & Budget.
Regarding action on waste confidence, Kraft said the rule has grown beyond the original narrow legal concept involved in the first waste confidence rule NRC issued in 1977. The existing rule, which NRC is scheduled to reconsider in 2009, states NRC is confident a repository will be operating by the end of 2025 and that spent fuel can be safely stored on the reactor sites in casks for at least 100 years. That confidence allows NRC to license new reactors and to renew the licenses of existing ones.
Actions already taken by Congress show that waste confidence exists, Kraft said. He pointed to congressional approval in 2002 of the administration's recommendation that Yucca Mountain be developed as a high-level waste repository. Last year, he added, comprehensive energy legislation was enacted that contains financial incentives for the construction of new reactors.
The concern industry has, Kraft said, is that NRC soon will be hit with another round of applications for combined construction permit-operating licenses for new reactors. He said the agency "needs to concern itself with the licensing and safety of plants. Waste confidence would be a distraction."
The industry also wants to see so-called funding reform, this time including action to ensure the entire multibillion-dollar waste fund is used only for its intended purpose. Kraft said industry also thinks it appropriate that Congress freeze the waste fee at its current level of 1 mill for every kilowatt-hour of nuclear-generated electricity sold. Under existing law, the fee would increase if the energy secretary told Congress an increase were needed and Congress failed to pass legislation prohibiting an increase, Kraft said.
Inclusion of the fund's unspent balance in funding reform could bolster support for that action in the House, where Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) has historically opposed funding reform legislation on the grounds that the entire fund should be included. However, some budget watchers have countered in the past that such action would significantly increase the federal budget deficit. The federal government must maintain a strong commitment to the Yucca Mountain project, Kraft said of another industry priority.
There are roughly 55,000 MTU of spent utility fuel in storage today in the U.S., and the inventory grows at a rate of 2,000 MTU a year. Under the existing disposal cap at Yucca Mountain, spent fuel from the existing fleet of nuclear reactors alone, without license renewal, would more than fill the facility.
Though NEI discussed its legislative priorities with DOE, Kraft said the industry group did not receive any feedback from DOE. Kraft added that NEI does not know if any of its legislative priorities are included in DOE's draft bill.
For more information, take a trial to Nuclear Fuel at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/
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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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