Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, April 10, 2006
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
April 10, 2006

Letter: An energy precipice

To the editor:

Review-Journal cartoonist Jim Day has become quite prolific in his pummeling of the many scientists and engineers working on the Yucca Mountain Project. With just a few strokes of his stylus, Mr. Day reduces some of the best engineers and scientists from our national laboratories to an illiterate, two-headed mutant (Thursday cartoon).

The United States is headed toward an energy precipice. We won't drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge because of misinformation distributed by those who oppose the idea, despite the fact that oil production at Prudhoe Bay was an economic and environmental success. We won't build many more coal-fired power plants because of a real concern for global warming. Solar- and wind-generated power can make marginal contributions in some areas, but cannot address current energy needs in most areas of the country. This leaves us at the mercy of oil-producing nations, some of whom dislike us and may use our oil payments to kill even more of us.

An alternative to the current deteriorating energy situation would be to build more nuclear power plants, but this would make a repository even more important. In light of the current energy situation, perhaps Mr. Day's cartoons are neither as funny nor as harmless as they first appear.

Mr. Day is just one more misinformation meister who has helped move us to the precarious position we find ourselves in today.

Dan Kane
Las Vegas

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
April 08, 2006

Letter: Propagandists

To the editor:

After reading the March 29 letter from Paul M. Golan, acting director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, it is obvious that the Review-Journal is seen as a threat to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Mr. Golan wrote, "Your paper owes an apology to the people of this (Yucca Mountain) project for the allegation, the insult, and the incredibly poor judgment" for publishing a cartoon critical of the department's "Youth Zone" Web site.

In my opinion, the Department of Energy is guilty of at least incredibly poor judgment for directing full-blown government propaganda at our children. Yucca Mountain is, to say the least, a complicated project with enormous potential hazards to those living in Southern Nevada.

The debate on this project is characterized by massively funded agendas of both the Department of Energy (our government) and those fighting its creation.

Children should not be put in the position of judging the validity of either side of this debate, and I am insulted that an agency of our government would stoop to this level in promoting its position. The responsibility of helping children understand this debate belongs to parents, not to propagandists of the state.

So, Mr. Golan, I am asking for your apology to our children and their parents for publishing your propaganda toward those least capable of judging its validity.

Jim Brown
North Las Vegas

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Miami Herald
April 10, 2006

Taking a fresh look at nuclear energy

Our Opinion: Much has Changed, But Safety is Still a Concern

In the 34 years since Florida Power & Light Co. built its first nuclear plant at Turkey Point, there has been growing acceptance of nuclear power as a source of clean and comparatively inexpensive energy. These are some of the reasons that underpin FPL's recent decision to seek permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a new nuclear-power plant in Florida.

New nuclear plant

The decision to go for more nuclear output may surprise some people, especially critics. But the move is both practical and necessary. It also is good business strategy. By diversifying its energy sources, FPL can gird itself to cope better with pressures from strong demand and the high cost of fossil fuels. Still, FPL will have to answer legitimate concerns about the safety and security of its nuclear operations, old and new.

A new nuclear plant would help FPL meet its share of Florida's fast-growing demand for energy, driven by a never-ending influx of people into a state where the population has doubled to more than 16 million in the past 20 years. Considering today's fast-rising price of oil, coal and natural gas -- the primary energy sources for power plants -- increasing nuclear output makes sense. FPL customers would be appreciative, too, because cheaper nuclear energy could ease the pain of paying fuel surcharges on the monthly electric bill.

Three Mile Island

Winning approval for a new nuclear plant, however, is no easy task. No nuclear plant has been approved in the United States in 33 years. Blame for that goes, in part, to the industry's own record of poor performance in the early years of nuclear power, which has been infamously seared in the public consciousness by the near-meltdown of a nuclear reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island facility in 1979.

But much has changed since those early years. The NRC has significantly improved its ability to supervise and regulate a myriad of technical and arcane aspects of the nuclear plants. And the industry itself, especially in the United States, has learned from its early missteps, upgraded old technology and honed the skills necessary to maintain safe and secure facilities.

FPL and other operators, too, have developed a culture that promotes learning and adopts the industry's best-practice techniques. In 2002, the NRC approved extending Turkey Point's operating license to 2033. This is proof of FPL's success in upgrading technology originally designed for a 40-year life span, says spokesperson Rachael Scott.

Storing metal rods

Still, the process for gaining permission to build a nuclear plant is long and arduous, as it should be. FPL says it will file its application for a new plant in 2009 and expects that the regulatory-review process could take 12 years. That means a new plant won't be operational until 2021, if the application is approved.

With or without a new facility, FPL faces the challenge of safely storing the metal rods that are the waste product of energy production. The federal government planned to open a permanent storage site for the material deep inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada. But a long-running controversy about the project has stalled the plan. Meanwhile, FPL is running out of space in the deep-water pools where it has been storing the material. When the pools are full, the rods, which are highly radioactive and potentially dangerous, will be stored in dry casks encased in thick concrete.

FPL says the casks are safe and secure even from the increased threats in a post-9/11 world. Still, the threat of a safety or security breach is real. As it pushes to deliver cleaner, cheaper energy, FPL must be just as vigilant in safeguarding its operations.

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Minneapolis Star Tribune
April 10, 2006

Nuclear waste storage is unsolved question

The difficult part is not the technical problems, but getting people to accept a location, engineer says.

Lisa Zagaroli
Star Tribune

WASHINGTON - Engineers from around the world come to Malcolm Gray for lessons about how to dispose of their nuclear waste.

He acknowledges that there are technical matters that aren't resolved. No country has actually started burying its waste yet, after all. But the science isn't really going to be the hard part, he tells the engineers.

"To get the social acceptance is the difficult and tricky thing," said Gray, an engineer based in Vienna who manages the International Atomic Energy Agency's training and development program for radioactive waste disposal.

Although 33 countries have spent nuclear fuel from electricity production, only the United States, with Yucca Mountain, and Finland have singled out sites for its burial.

The question of what to do with the world's nuclear waste is a growing concern as more countries look to nuclear power to solve their energy needs.

The Energy Department last week announced legislation it hopes will accelerate progress on the stalled Yucca Mountain project and plans to submit a new timetable this week for when the government will begin accepting waste for burial.

Though it is years behind schedule, the United States is unique in that it even tries to maintain deadlines, said Charles Fairhurst, a professor emeritus who headed the Civil Engineering Department at the University of Minnesota.

"A lot of countries don't give timetables, so the issue doesn't become quite as focused," Fairhurst said.

At the end of 2005 there were about 284,000 metric tons of spent fuel in storage worldwide, with about 54,000 tons of it in the United States, said Steven Kraft, senior director of used-fuel management at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a policy organization for the commercial nuclear industry.

Burial is the preferred option

There's one conclusion that all the countries that have a plan can agree on. Waste that could be radioactive for tens of thousands of years should be buried.

A number of nations considered a range of options that included shooting the waste into the sun, embedding it under polar ice sheets and burying it below the ocean floor.

But burying it in dry, stable ground is considered the safest option for transporting it and disposing of it by every country that has made any decisions.

"Of the 33 nations that currently have inventories of used fuel, 23 have specific plans to develop a geological depository," Kraft said.

What nations are grappling with is site selection. The scientific question centers on whether they should go with clay, salt, granite or some other formation that will keep the radioactive waste safe from seepage, penetration and disruption as it takes centuries to cool.

Many countries are so small they don't have as many choices as the United States had before settling on Yucca Mountain, which is made up of layers of volcanic rock in rural Nevada. It was picked over sites across the country that included salt domes and granite mines.

In one of the nation's least populated areas, Yucca still has vexed many critics because they contend that it was chosen for political reasons more than its geologic suitability.

Italians were outraged

Though Yucca is mired in lawsuits and doubt, the objections have been rather tame compared with what protesters in some countries have pulled off.

One of the more dramatic examples of how the public can quash a site came a couple of years ago in Italy. Italians had decided years earlier to stop using nuclear energy because of the Chernobyl disaster, which occurred 20 years ago this month. But the Italians still needed a place to store the waste they'd created at four reactors.

When the government announced it had picked a site on Italy's southern tip, 100,000 people took to the streets within days to protest. Within two weeks, the whole idea was killed.

German protests have become notorious over the last decade. with antinuclear demonstrators strapping themselves to train tracks when waste is being transported between a reprocessing center in France to a centralized storage spot in Germany.

There is no international body whose job is to make sure that there's a long-term plan for nuclear waste, which, with a few exceptions of centralized storage spots, is simply being stored at all of the sites where it was generated.

Lisa Zagaroli is a member of the Star Tribune's Washington Bureau.

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Las Vegas SUN
April 09, 2006

Hal Rothman on why Nevadans should continue to oppose Bush's nuclear waste project

It is back! Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the desert, Yucca Mountain rears its convoluted, ugly head. Even after we've driven a spike in the vampire's heart, the darn thing refuses to die. A few signs of life remain, at least if you're a member of the Bush administration. Hal Rothman on why Nevadans should continue to oppose Bush's nuclear waste project

This time, the efforts to revive it reek of desperation.

This past week Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman spearheaded an administration effort to clear away obstacles to opening the dump - whoops, I mean, the repository.

Basically, the bill sent to Congress this past week seeks to overturn Nevada law and diminish the regulatory structure that governs the site. No longer are they trying to persuade us that Yucca Mountain is scientifically sound, morally defensible and nationally significant. The pretense is gone. With the same deft skill that took us to Iraq, they are trying to ram it down our throat. Science? Law? Out the window.

Former Gov. Bob List can make an argument that we should accept the dump, but if he does it around me, he had better bring his good stuff. I will whack the lame tripe you have been spewing right back at you, Governor!

Yucca Mountain was a bad idea to begin with and it has gotten worse. The siting process has never been about science. It has always been about politics, and vicious power politics at that.

We were singled out for this one in 1987. Sen. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana crafted legislation that insiders know as the "Screw Nevada Bill." Instead of two repositories, one east of the Mississippi River and one in the West, there was only to be one: Yucca Mountain. No more Deaf Smith County, Texas, or Hanford, Wash., the other two proposed sites, each with baggage equal to the Nevada Test Site. Only Yucca Mountain remained.

Where was science in this, then or now? Nowhere to be seen. The subsequent 20 years of maneuvering have been all about politics. No one seems to care whether the location can actually safely hold the nuclear waste. That is apparent as the administration seeks to increase the carrying capacity of the dump from 77,000 tons to 132,000 tons before they even have approval to open the darned thing. What's an extra 55,000 tons of nuclear waste between friends?

I hate to break it to the nuclear industry, but Yucca Mountain is beyond repair, crashed on the rocks of Nevada's newfound national significance. The phenomenal growth of Las Vegas and the ever-increasing role Nevada plays in national politics have combined to make Yucca Mountain a tenuous proposition.

Sen. Harry Reid is the most powerful politician in this state's history, far surpassing Sen. Pat McCarran, the only other possible claimant. Reid gets a great deal of the credit for stymieing Yucca Mountain. The resolute objections of the rest of the congressional delegation have also helped. And Nevada's incredible generosity to both political parties has made it easier to get our point of view across. We have turned the tide on this one.

But we are not through yet.

The Energy Department has a long history of initiating projects with minimal attention to rules and law, and when faced with objection, arguing that since it has already spent so much money, it should just continue. After all, why not throw good money after bad?

This has become the rationale for Yucca Mountain. Instead of saying it is the right place to safely store the dangerous remnants that nuclear power generates, they now say "we promised the nuclear industry and we already spent a lot of money." This is perfect reasoning if your goal is expedience and you don't care a whit about the nearly 2 million people who live in Clark County, not to mention the 40 million who visit here annually.

We have held out against this scourge for a long time and have finally turned the corner. Each year since President Bush recommended Yucca Mountain for the storage of nuclear waste, the opening of the dump has become less likely. Even though List would like you to think the dump is inevitable, it is not. If it were inevitable, the nuclear industry would not pay a fat fee for his services as its frontman.

Hal Rothman is a history professor at UNLV. His column appears Sunday in the Las Vegas Sun.

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Pioneer Press
April 09, 2006

Yucca Mountain nuclear storage gets more attention

Promises, promises. The federal government long has promised to take responsibility for permanent storage of waste from nuclear power plants, including the two in Minnesota. The government's own deadline was 1998. So far, that promise has amounted to a $9 billion investment in the waste dump site at Yucca Mountain, Nev., that is still years away from accepting spent nuclear material from plants like those at Prairie Island, Minn.

The Bush administration is renewing momentum to get the Nevada site running. It is behind legislation that, among other things, would increase the amount of spent fuel the site can take. It would also designate the money utilities are required to pay each year for developing the storage site expressly for Yucca Mountain.

Nuclear generation will remain a part of the mix for powering the future. It is reasonable to argue how much of the mix it should be. But there are 55,000 tons of waste already waiting at sites around the country, including at Prairie Island, where above-ground storage began in 1995.

To take charge of reality, this national nuclear waste storage site is essential. Legislation to press for it deserves public attention and support.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., introduced the legislation last week. It faces an uphill battle, as have other attempts to get this job done at the Nevada site over the last two decades. But the administration's strong push to solve the Yucca problem is a positive one.

Perhaps nowhere in the country is the case for a permanent national nuclear waste solution more compelling than in the experience of Prairie Island. The two Xcel Energy nuclear plants there are located in close quarters with the Prairie Island Indian Community. Above-ground storage of waste waiting for the permanent repository is located within 600 yards of housing on the reservation. The property adjoins the Mississippi River. Both the Indian Community and the power plants use one access road to the area. The Indians estimate that up to 10,000 people are on Prairie Island when it is a busy day at their casino.

The state granted permission for Xcel Energy to allow 17 casks where the waste is encased. In 2003, with those casks full, the Prairie Island community negotiated a settlement with Xcel that allows enough additional casks in order for the plant to keep running until its operating licenses for the twin reactors expire in 2013 and 2014.

The amount of spent fuel waste of course continues to grow. There are now 20 casks, each holding 16 metric tons of uranium, at the Prairie Island site. Excel says the total weight of material in each cask is 52,000 pounds, counting such debris as fuel assemblies. On average, Xcel says, two casks are filled each year. The storage platform — or pad —under the containers at Prairie Island is designed to hold a maximum of 48.

In the best case, the federal estimates are that Yucca Mountain won't be ready until 2020. There are other initiatives afoot, such as how to reinstitute reprocessing — or recycling of nuclear material — so there is less overall waste from each generating plant. But waste is accumulating at nuclear power plants and will continue to do so. A permanent storage site is an inescapable part of nuclear waste management.

Minnesota's Xcel Energy customers alone have contributed more than $345 million — $585 million with interest — to the federal government's required payments for the nuclear waste storage project. But the federal government plays loose with the money, which of course slows down the project.

Around the country, more than 100 sites in 39 states are storing waste. Nuclear power will remain a part of the electrical energy equation. The feds have to solve this problem by keeping their promise with Yucca Mountain storage.

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Baltimore Sun
April 09, 2006

Signs of a comeback for nuclear power

Rising fuel costs, global warming renew interest in building plants

By Michael Dresser
Sun reporter

The last time an American electric utility won a license to operate a nuclear power plant, Earl Weaver was managing the Orioles, cellular telephones were in the prototype phase and a Web site was a place a spider caught insects.

The year was 1978, one year before the near-disaster at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania spooked the American public out of its fascination with atomic energy and eight years before the catastrophe at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl plant reinforced opposition to nuclear projects.

Two decades after Chernobyl, despite lingering concerns about what to do with the deadly waste nuclear reactors generate, there are signs that the U.S. nuclear industry's winter might be closer to a spring thaw.

Under the pressures of rising energy costs, dependence on foreign oil and worries about global warming, some Americans are taking a new look at nuclear power and recalculating the risks.

An energy bill passed by Congress last year dangles the carrot of billions of dollars in incentives to utilities interested in building reactors. And the industry has the vocal backing of President Bush.

"It's time for this country to start building nuclear power plants again," the president said during a visit last year to Constellation Energy's Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Southern Maryland.

The prospect of monetary and political support has encouraged electric utilities to propose about a dozen sites for nuclear reactors, including an additional reactor at Calvert Cliffs in Lusby.

Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the agency has beefed up its staff to handle the anticipated licensing process.

"We are acting under the assumption that there are going to be multiple new applications for reactors coming in," he said.

One of them might be from Constellation Energy, which is studying whether Calvert Cliffs can accommodate a third reactor.

"We haven't done anything in this country for decades, while the rest of the world has been moving forward aggressively with nuclear power," said George Vanderheyden, a senior vice president of Constellation and president of its UniStar Nuclear venture. "If this country is going to any form of energy independence, nuclear power is critical to the mix."

Vanderheyden said Constellation might apply for a construction permit as early as mid-2008. If everything went well, he said, the company could break ground by 2012 and have a new reactor operating by late 2015.

Given the length of the permitting process - even after it was streamlined by Congress - that is a notably optimistic prediction. More cautious forecasters, including those who support nuclear power, doubt that any new nuclear plants will be generating electricity in the next decade.

"I'll bet it will be more like 2020," said nuclear power proponent S. David Alley, president of ANNA Inc., an Annapolis-based energy industry consultant.

Nevertheless, Alley said, with fossil-fuel costs rising and concern about global warming growing, the nuclear power industry could make a comeback.

"The public perception of nuclear power is going to go through some magic changes based on the financial pain we're all going to be feeling in a few years from the price of electricity," he said. "What I think should really sway public opinion is the environmental issue."

But for every argument in favor of increased nuclear power, there appears to be an equally compelling reason to be wary:

• The problem of how to dispose of the highly radioactive waste that is a byproduct of nuclear power generation. The federal government's effort to open a repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain has been stalled for years because of significant legal and regulatory challenges.

• The enormous capital costs of a nuclear power plant make traditional fossil-fuel plants more attractive financially.

• Concerns that human error or terrorism could lead to a significant release of radioactivity. Even minor nuclear incidents could deter investors.

"Wall Street doesn't like nuclear power," said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park. "Basically, it's regarded as too risky by the people who put up the money."

Makhijani said the growth of the domestic nuclear power industry had stalled by the time of Three Mile Island and suffered from the high interest rates of the early 1980s and excess capacity.

He said the coup de grace was the failure of the Washington Public Power System in 1982 in what was then the largest U.S. municipal bond default in history.

"By the time of Chernobyl, the gravestone of the U.S. nuclear power industry had already been prepared," he said.

Last year, in an effort to resurrect the industry, Congress passed an energy bill that includes billions of dollars in loan guarantees and tax incentives for the utilities that build the next six reactors in the United States. But none of the money has been appropriated.

Makhijani said that for the cost of building a nuclear plant, a utility could construct a clean coal-fired plant. Coal, he said, remains relatively cheap and bountiful.

Vanderheyden disagrees, saying clean-coal technologies would be more expensive. The price of coal has not soared, he said, but the cost of transporting it has.

Also affecting the debate is the question of disposal of spent nuclear fuel, which remains dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. For now, the spent fuel rods are stored in cooling ponds at the nuclear power plants.

The U.S. government's long-term plan for disposing of nuclear waste involves transporting it to Yucca Mountain. Last week, the Bush administration proposed legislation that would almost double the amount of waste that could be stored there.

Reactor owners, eager to move the accumulated waste off their properties, support the program.

"Yucca Mountain, from my perspective, from the industry's perspective, is a very good solution," Vanderheyden said.

But the government plan, which is vehemently opposed by Nevada and anti-nuclear activists, has been stalled for years as the Department of Energy has struggled to build a case that could win regulatory approval and survive court challenges.

Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, questions whether the Yucca Mountain storage facility will be built. He said the site was chosen more because of politics - lightly populated Nevada has a small congressional delegation - than its inherent suitability.

"It can't meet the regulations," he said. "It's a seismically active area."

Makhijani said the nuclear industry is also facing growing credibility problems as a result of recent reports of leaks of tritium - a radioactive form of hydrogen - into groundwater at about a half-dozen U.S. nuclear plants. He said the NRC is unsure of the extent of the problem.

"Until there's actual concrete being laid, I'm quite skeptical that there will be any new reactors," Mariotte said.

michael.dresser@baltsun.com

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Ely Daily Times
April 08, 2006

High-level nuclear waste may pass through Ely by 2010

By Pete Fowler
Ely Times Reporter

High-level nuclear waste could be trucked through Ely on its way to Yucca Mountain as early as 2010.

Mike Simon, Director of the White Pine County Nuclear Waste Project Office, said that if and when this happens depends on congressional action. He estimated that nuclear waste would be moving through Ely around 2010 at the earliest. The Department of Energy must submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the proposed Yucca Mountain underground storage facility. The application has two parts: The first authorizes the repository, and the second authorizes actually storing waste at the site. Simon said waste could start moving to Yucca Mountain before the application is approved if Congress allows it.

A public forum on highway transportation of high-level nuclear waste was held on Tuesday in Ely. John Hauser, Logistics Consultant for the Tri-State Motor Transit company, which would transport waste to Yucca Mountain, said the transporting nuclear waste is actually very safe.

According to Hauser, the casks which hold the waste are nearly indestructible. They are typically made of steel and metal shielding more than six inches thick. In 2,700 shipments over the past 30 years traveling more than 1.6 million miles, there has never been a release of radioactive material, he added. Hauser said the casks have been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and have withstood tests including being crashed into by a 120-ton locomotive traveling 80 miles-per-hour, a free fall onto a hard surface where the cask hit the ground at 235 miles-per-hour, a puncture test and exposure to a 1,475 degrees Fahrenheit fire for 30 minutes. The casks survived all the tests intact.

A Department of Energy pamphlet handed out at the meeting cites the same information. It also contained a similar statement to Hauser's.

“Since the early 1960s, the U.S. has safely conducted more than 3,000 shipments of spent nuclear fuel without any harmful release of radioactive material.’

It added the word harmful. Besides the different time span and number of shipments, that statement added that there was no harmful release of radioactive materials, rather than saying there has never been a release of radioactive materials.

Nuclear waste being transported in these casks is safer than a “mixed freight’ truck carrying ammonia, bleach, and other cleaning products, he added -- the “mixed freight’ truck could easily spill in a crash where the nuclear waste filled cask would not.

“People think this is new, but it has been going on for 50 years,’ Hauser said at the public forum at the Bristlecone Convention Center. “It's so safe. It's only the public's perception that it's got to be bad -- it's got to be dangerous.’

If the project is approved, about three shipments a week would run through Ely, probably in the early hours of the morning, he said.

Simon said a small amount of radiation is released around the surface of the cask, but that the emissions reading from two meters away is zero.

There are contrary opinions on the facts.

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a national office that lobbies congress on environmental and consumer issues, says in a report on its website that the casks in the DOE's proposed transportation project would emit radiation the equivalent of about a chest X-ray per hour to people in nearby traffic, and that “In fact, emissions from passing casks will deliver small doses of radiation to people living within a half-mile of road and rail routes.’ The site also states that each cask will carry ? times the long-lived radioactive material that was released at Hiroshima,’ and that “despite nuclear industry assertions to the contrary, even with a history of low shipment numbers there have been transportation accidents in the U.S. resulting in leaks of radioactive materials.’

“Congress desires to avoid densely populated areas,’ Simon said at Tuesday's public forum. Rail transportation means the nuclear waste would have to travel through downtown Las Vegas, he added.

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Salt Lake Tribune
April 08, 2006

Utah firm showing interest in nuke-waste recycling plant

EnergySolutions: It is among 40 companies nationwide that might build the pilot plant for the DOE

By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune

WASHINGTON - EnergySolutions, of Salt Lake City, is among nearly 40 companies that have expressed interest to the Energy Department in operating a pilot plant to recycle nuclear waste, but insists it will not build its site in Utah.

"I can promise you, categorically, it's not anywhere in Utah," said Tim Barney, vice president of governmental relations at the company, formerly Envirocare.

Barney would not disclose where EnergySolutions would locate its potential site.

Last month, the Energy Department asked communities and companies to speak up quickly if they were interested in participating in the DOE project aimed at finding ways to reuse spent nuclear fuel.

President Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership envisions developing technologies that can separate the dangerous waste elements from used nuclear reactor fuel. That would enable the fuel to be re-used and minimize the amount that would have to be buried in a permanent repository planned for Yucca Mountain, Nev. It could postpone indefinitely the need for a second repository when Yucca is full.

Duratek Inc., which is in the process of being acquired by EnergySolutions, also expressed interest in the project, according to a list of companies released Friday by the Energy Department. Calls to the company seeking additional information were not immediately returned Friday evening.

Congress has allocated $20 million this year to evaluate possible sites. The Energy Department expects to begin accepting formal proposals by the spring and begin site evaluation studies in the summer.

The department released 36 names in all, including individuals, counties and corporations. Others, like EnergySolutions', were withheld at the companies' request.

Those expressing interest included firms with major, established nuclear operations, such as AREVA Enterprises Inc., CH2M Hill, and General Electric Co., as well as Washington Savannah River Co., which operates the Energy Department's Savannah River facility in South Carolina.

In addition, Lea County, N.M.; Benton County, Wash., and Coffey County, Kan., are interested in the project.

Harry Teague, County commission chairman in Lea County, said his county was working in cooperation with neighboring Eddy County, hoping it could bring jobs to both counties.

"We think [the president's initiative], when it materializes will mean jobs and will take both communities and their infrastructures. That's the reason for setting the partnership," Teague said. "Our anticipation is to furnish a site. DOE will furnish the science and select the private company (to run it)."

The United States abandoned reprocessing during the Carter administration. Great Britain, France, Russia and Japan have continued to pursue reprocessing programs.

Existing technologies are much more expensive than mining new uranium and the leftover products pose a risk that they could be used in nuclear weapons. Part of the initiative will seek to try to address the proliferation risk.

"The successful demonstration of . . . recycling technologies will enable the U.S. and our international partners to substantially change the way that spent nuclear fuel is managed, assuring a safe, long-term, and environmentally clean energy supply for the U.S. and the world while greatly reducing proliferation concerns," Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell said in announcing the first step in the initiative last month. "Seeking the best ideas from the public and private sectors on where to build the demonstration facilities is a key step forward."

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
April 07, 2006

CORRECTION -- 4/9/06

A story in Friday's Review-Journal about Yucca Mountain misrepresented the position of Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif. A Honda quote about expanding the proposed nuclear waste repository was taken out of context. His quote actually referred to the Bush administration's position on the matter. Honda opposes the project and efforts to expand it.

Repository proposal discussed

Capacity boost at Yucca Mountain seen by some as way to buy time

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- A proposal to expand the capacity of Yucca Mountain drew support from some lawmakers on Thursday as a way for the government to "buy time" while researching long-range recycling methods for nuclear waste.

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"Such a move is essential to justify developing a reprocessing program," said Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., at a House science subcommittee hearing that discussed the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, the Bush administration's nuclear fuel recycling strategy.

Honda was echoed by the panel chairman, Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill. Biggert said lifting a 70,000 metric ton waste cap that was set by law for Yucca Mountain "certainly buys us some time" to pursue reprocessing in the coming years.

The reprocessing plan has received mixed reviews among experts and on Capitol Hill. Experts assembled by the science panel Thursday applauded the concept, but said the costs and schedules are too ambitious.

"The goals and time lines advanced under the major portion of GNEP are unrealistic," said noted physicist Richard Garwin, a government consultant on technology and arms control.

A plan to expand Yucca Mountain is one feature in a bill announced this week by the Energy Department. It would remove a 70,000 metric ton cap set by law of how much nuclear waste could be stored within tunnels at the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Besides being tied to the administration's waste reprocessing strategy, lifting the repository capacity has been sought by nuclear industry officials concerned that Yucca Mountain will be essentially filled by the time it is opened.

Already 55,000 metric tons are in storage at power plants and government reservations, the Energy Department reports.

A 2002 environmental impact study for Yucca Mountain analyzed placing up to 120,000 metric tons of waste into the mountain. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, other DOE and independent studies have suggested the physical capacity could be two to four times that amount.

Repository expansion is only one element of the measure.

Other provisions broaden federal authority to obtain water and manage environmental and transportation matters.

It also shortens part of the NRC licensing process, and would allow DOE to begin constructing a Nevada railroad and certain buildings and physical features at the site soon after it submits a license plan to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, possibly in 2008.

Nevada officials who oppose the Yucca project say the bill mounts an assault on state powers and will force larger amounts of radioactive material into the state.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said Thursday the bill could have been even worse.

Ensign said plans for interim waste storage that could have sent nuclear materials to Yucca Mountain even sooner were deleted from the bill only after he complained to White House chief of staff Andrew Card, and his successor Josh Bolten, in the past few weeks.

Meanwhile Thursday, other machinery on Capitol Hill began turning on the Yucca Mountain bill.

Sens. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., who lead energy-related committees, announced they were introducing the legislation in the Senate.

In the House, energy committee chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, said he still was looking at the Bush administration bill.

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Environment News Service
April 07, 2006

AmeriScan:

Bush Administration Ramps Up Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump

WASHINGTON, DC, April 6, 2006 (ENS) – On Wednesday, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman sent a legislative proposal to Congress that attempts to infuse new life into the troubled Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository, stalled in the pre-permitting phase.

The proposed bill would eliminate the current statutory 70,000 metric ton cap on disposal capacity at Yucca Mountain, in order to allow maximum use of what Bodman called "the mountain´s true technical capacity."

Currently, more than 50,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel are stored at more than 100 above-ground sites in 39 states, and every year, American reactors produce an additional 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel.

Yucca Mountain was approved by Congress and President George W. Bush, but opposition from the state of Nevada, where the site is located, technical issues and a scandal over falsified scientific data have stalled the project.

Originally supposed to be in operation by the year 2010, optimistic estimates now put the opening date at 2015. By then the entire 70,000 metric ton disposal capacity mandated by law would be filled, before the first ton was deposited.

The proposed legislation would withdraw permanently from public use the land at and surrounding the Yucca Mountain repository site, which is located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas at the border of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. Permanent withdrawal is needed to meet a Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing requirement for the Yucca Mountain repository and will help assure protection of public health and the environment, Bodman said.

The measure would facilitate Congress´ ability to provide adequate funding for the Yucca Mountain Project, he said.

Also included are provisions for a more streamlined NRC licensing process, and for initiation of infrastructure activities, including safety and other upgrades and rail line construction, to enable earlier start-up of operations.

Other provisions are designed "to consolidate duplicative environmental review," Bodman said.

The Energy Department recently announced the new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which would recycle spent nuclear fuel generated in the United States and other nations and sell it to nations who agree to employ nuclear energy for power generation purposes only.

Even with the potential waste minimization function of the GNEP program, the Yucca Mountain repository would still be needed to provide for the safe, permanent geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel, Bodman said.

The bill will run into opposition from the Nevada Congressional delegation, particularly from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a long-time foe of Yucca Mountain on safety grounds.

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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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