Yucca Mountain News Clips - Saturday, April 15, 2006

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Saturday, April 15, 2006
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
April 15, 2006

Nuclear project draws interest

UNLV-linked scientists get in line for Energy Department program

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Several scientists associated with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas have positioned Nevada researchers to compete for contracts from the Energy Department's new nuclear waste reprocessing program.

The officials, affiliated with the Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies at UNLV, established a research entity in February and have filed preliminary paperwork with the government to participate in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

Nuclear science division Director Anthony Hechanova and Donald Baepler, a retired longtime university executive who founded and directed the UNLV environmental research arm more than 20 years ago, are among the principals of the newly formed Nevada Environmental Research and Monitoring Institute.

Organization papers for the institute were filed Feb. 23 in Carson City. Also identified as principal managers were Bimal Mukhopadyay of Las Vegas and Thomas Ward of Germantown, Md.

The institute has expressed interest in working with the Energy Department, which is expected to invite bids later this spring to examine potential sites for a test-scale factory for reprocessing used nuclear fuel.

The study teams could be awarded at least $5 million apiece through the so-called GNEP program.

Energy officials have not identified which sites they want explored. The Nevada Test Site has been among the rumored locations, along with the Idaho National Laboratory, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

"All we did was put our name in to get an RFP whenever it is ready to be distributed," Baepler said, referring to DOE's formal Request for Proposals expected later this spring. "If the test site is one of the several areas that they want characterized, we would consider going for that."

Baepler said the newly created entity is independent of UNLV and the Harry Reid Center.

But if the institute receives a federal grant to survey the test site, it plans to assemble a research team. Baepler said it is possible that scientists from UNLV, the University of Nevada, Reno, and the Nevada-based Desert Research Institute could be brought on board for their local expertise.

Bob Loux, director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, said Friday the contract bid calls new attention to the ties between Nevada universities and DOE nuclear projects, including Yucca Mountain.

While the state is fighting the proposed Yucca Mountain repository and likely would oppose nuclear waste reprocessing at the test site, Nevada scholars have conducted DOE-funded research for years.

The Nevada university system has received more than $93 million in research funding from the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management since 1984, according to DOE figures compiled by the Nuclear Energy Institute.

"There is nothing wrong with it, other than you have education institutions of Nevada looking to get in bed with DOE when the state's policy and the governor and attorney general oppose this thing," Loux said.

Loux noted that the Nevada group's interest in GNEP has been singled out by DOE officials in congressional testimony, which is potentially damaging to those trying to keep nuclear waste out of the state. Energy Department leaders have linked GNEP to the Yucca Mountain effort as part of an overall nuclear waste management strategy.

But some Nevada leaders, notably Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., have been supportive of UNLV building a research reputation and nuclear expertise using federal government dollars. As senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Reid has earmarked millions for such research at state institutions.

The Harry Reid Center, named after the senator in 1991, administers a cooperative agreement for Yucca Mountain research between DOE and the Nevada schools. Hechanova separately is manager of two large university programs conducting work for the government on nuclear hydrogen and nuclear waste transmutation.

Baepler said participation by Nevadans ensures that nuclear waste studies are conducted without bias.

"For purposes of credibility it is good to have the local universities involved in the scientific investigations of Yucca Mountain," he said. "We will report the results quite objectively."

DOE officials said 40 entities filed GNEP paperwork by a March 31 deadline. Development agencies and officials representing communities in Tennessee, Washington state, Kansas, Idaho and New Mexico were among them, as were engineering companies.

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U.S. News & World Report
April 15, 2006

Washington Whispers

By Kevin Whitelaw

One Potato That Is Really Hot

Bush's proposals are encountering more trouble in Congress these days, but this one is downright radioactive. Earlier this month, his Energy Department sent Congress a bill to expand storage at the long-delayed nuclear waste dump inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain and spark investment in nuclear energy. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada quickly called the bill dead on arrival-and he appears to have successfully scared off even traditional nuclear boosters like fellow Democrat Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico. "Even Democrats who are generally supportive of Yucca Mountain . . . are not interested in annoying him," says a top Democratic aide. Energy prices might be spiking, but don't expect any action in this election year.

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Ely Daily Times
April 15, 2006

Ely still designated route for nuclear waste

By Pete Fowler
Ely Times Reporter

Mike Baughman of the Intertech Services Corporation updated White Pine County at Wednesday's county commission meeting on Yucca Mountain issues.

For the county, the main issue is transportation of spent nuclear fuel.

The waste will be traveling through Ely if the project continues according to plan. Originally, the Department of Energy selected rail as the preferred method of transportation. About 25 percent of the shipments would still be made by truck in this scenario, Baughman said.

Nevada's governor and congressional delegation are strongly opposed to shipments being transported through the Las Vegas metropolitan area. They would have to travel through Las Vegas if existing rail lines were used. The Nevada Department of Transportation identified U.S. 93 from Wendover through Ely to U.S. 6 to Tonopah and U.S. 95 from Tonopah as a preferred alternate route.

White Pine County is generally downwind from Yucca Mountain. There is about a one in 63 million chance per year of Yucca Mountain erupting, Baughman said. It would obviously not be very pleasant to have a volcanic eruption spewing nuclear waste, but the chances of such an event are extremely low. The consequences including human exposure and environmental damage would be extremely high if it did happen. Baughman also mentioned earthquakes affecting Yucca Mountain as a potential problem with a low chance of actually occurring.

The design of the underground facilities is mostly complete, he added. Redesign of surface facilities and waste handling facilities is underway. The transportation cask has been selected.

The Department of Energy still requires a license to construct and operate Yucca Mountain from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Department of Energy intends to submit a license application in 2008, after which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be required to make a decision within four years. The Department of Energy, or DOE, recently announced that Yucca Mountain will not be operational until 2020, but there has been speculation about transporting casks of nuclear waste to the site before it is complete -- 2010 at the earliest. White Pine County is entitled to participate in the license proceedings as an “interested governmental participant.’

Baughman said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, has never denied a license. Project proposals such as nuclear power plants, shipping casks or nuclear fuel handling facilities have either been licensed as submitted, changed by NRC conditions to the license or withdrawn from consideration before a decision was made.

George Bush's administration proposed the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act on April 4 this year. It has not yet been introduced. The bill would permanently withdraw the 147,000 acre Yucca Mountain site from public domain, and it would “streamline’ NRC licensing requirements.

For the licensing proceedings, it would limit the need to consider surface facilities which are currently the subject of redesign. It would limit the scope of issues addressed by the NRC to “those within the geologic repository operations area.’ It would also expedite a one year licensing process by the NRC for the DOE to “receive and possess’ nuclear materials at Yucca Mountain.

The bill would expand the legal capacity of Yucca Mountain from 70,000 to 120,000 metric tons of nuclear waste, eliminating the need for a second repository. It would authorize the DOE to begin construction of a rail line to Yucca Mountain prior to NRC licensing the facility. It would seek to “preempt any requirement by a state, political subdivision of a state, or Indian tribe regarding transportation of spent nuclear fuel by the DOE. Last, the bill would “assert federal supremacy’ regarding water rights required by the DOE for the Yucca Mountain project.

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Pahrump Valley Times
April 14, 2006

Nuclear Waste Reprocessing

Scientist says it's unproven, development needs more time

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's ambitious plans to reprocess nuclear waste may be tied in part to dissatisfaction over the lagging repository project at Yucca Mountain, a leading scientist and former Energy Department executive said Wednesday.

The administration is moving too fast to develop unproven technology through its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, said Ernest J. Moniz, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Right or wrong, the program being discussed has created an impression of being hell-bent to reprocess current spent fuel, perhaps created by Yucca frustration," Moniz said in a presentation to a National Academies of Science panel.

Moniz, who was an energy undersecretary during the Clinton administration, said DOE risks getting locked into a course and GNEP could prove to be a wasteful "white elephant."

"Let's take at least 10 years to develop a robust laboratory-scale research program and in time we will decide what makes sense," he said. "There is no guarantee that a cycle of this kind will ever pass muster."

In a rebuttal, Vic Reis, a senior adviser to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, dismissed the idea that Yucca Mountain was a factor in propelling GNEP.

"This isn't just about fixing Yucca Mountain," said Reis, who also served in the Clinton administration. "We have to do that anyway." The proposed used fuel repository is about eight years behind schedule and faces possible legal and licensing obstacles ahead.

Rather, Reis said, the administration wants to seize an opportunity to partner with other nations that have needs for nuclear fuel and waste disposal and that share U.S. concerns about the spread of nuclear material that could be used to make bombs.

"This is not going to be an easy task," Reis said. "If we are just going to go after this in a business-as-usual, let's-do-research-and-development sense, I don't think we will get there."

Moniz, Reis and DOE adviser Burt Richter, a Nobel Prize laureate and physics professor at Stanford University, delivered GNEP presentations to the academies' nuclear and radiation studies board.

Their interplay illustrated the debate raging this spring among scientists, policy members, interest groups and members of Congress over nuclear fuel reprocessing.

The House and Senate are expected to vote later this year whether to spend at least $250 million the Department of Energy has requested as a down payment on the GNEP effort.

The Department of Energy wants to have test fuel cycle facilities and advanced nuclear reactor pilot plants online by 2017, at a cost of about $13 billion. Further development could cost billions more.

GNEP envisions developing fuel-recycling technology called Urex-Plus in partnership with France, Japan, Russia, China and the United Kingdom.

As far as disposal, Bush officials have advertised that reprocessing could shrink volumes of spent fuel and reduce its radio-toxicity to where Yucca Mountain easily could accommodate waste that would be generated by new nuclear plants that industry hopes to build.

Richter said the United States needs to revive its nuclear waste reprocessing efforts and GNEP is a very good start.

"One of the things it is very important for critics to recognize is that the United States is no longer the big gorilla that controls what happens in the nuclear energy business," Richter said.

"I don't consider it to be an economic catastrophe for us to spend a few billion dollars to rebuild a totally decayed nuclear infrastructure in the United States," he said.

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Pahrump Valley Times
April 14, 2006

Report answers how growth will impact the Pahrump Valley

By Phillip Gomez
PVT

Estimations of the rate of Pahrump's growth over the next decade and the magnitude of its impacts on roads, schools, police, fire and general government services show net deficits in all the projected development scenarios.

Affected will be all three tax-based entities: Nye County's Pahrump Regional Planning District, the Town of Pahrump and the school district.

That was the gloomy news from Paul Tischler of the TischlerBise consulting firm, who made his final report to the Nye County Board of Commissioners on the various development scenarios that growth could bring given current trends.

The report was based on the county's recently completed capital improvements plan, which makes projections about future land uses for commercial and residential areas.

All the development scenarios - moderate, slow and fast growth rates - result in annual net deficits in millions of dollars to each of the three jurisdictions.

The report seeks to answer the question, "Which growth scenarios generate net revenues or deficits when considering the interaction of all forecasted developments?"

Longer range, over the next decade, Pahrump's population is expected to grow at a rate of 6.6 percent, reaching 55,000 by 2015. The cumulative net results of the growth show negative balances in the millions of dollars for each jurisdiction.

The results are a measurement of total revenues projected, minus total operating and capital (construction) costs to meet growth demands for public services.

The news is worst of all for the Nye County School District, which is projected to show - under the most favorable scenario of faster growth - average annual deficits of $4.3 million over the 10-year period (see graph). Under the predicted growth pattern of the first scenario, the school district would see average annual deficits of $6.1 million.

The schools would benefit most under the faster growth scenario, since schools receive sales tax revenue from retail developments, which "somewhat offsets the increased costs brought about by new growth," according to the report.

Furthermore, sales taxes will accrue over time as commercial development adds to an area's inventory of retail stores paying them.

"It shows that slowing down growth is not the answer," said Commissioner Patricia Cox.

"Presuming you take steps to enhance your revenue structures," said a stern but smiling Tischler. Throughout his presentation of the findings, Tischler emphasized how the county was "heavily dependent on (only) two revenue sources," property taxes and the state-distributed sales tax, which in turn are dependent on the market economy and real estate values.

As a result, the prognosis is that county planners in Pahrump will increasingly come under pressure to favor upscale, larger homes, rather than more modest homes or starter homes.

With the building of more expensive homes, more commercial developers would be attracted to the area because of the higher disposable incomes available here, shown in demographic studies of home sales.

The upshot of the anticipated retail growth would be greater tax revenues to pay for the total growth, commercial and residential, in its impacts on the community.

The 54-page report, including appendix, is extremely complex in taking into account the three varying growth scenarios affecting Pahrump's three government entities, their projected needs in capital outlays and operating costs and the three methodologies for computing the fiscal impacts: the annual net costs, the average annual net costs and the cumulative net results over 10 years.

"Tax increases for the school district will have to be put into place," Tischler said. "But doing so will make taxpayers reluctant to increase funding through property taxes for general county services."

The average annual results for the county's Pahrump Regional Planning District, starting this year, show net deficits ranging from $1.7 million during the first five years, under a moderate growth scenario, to $1.2 million under a slower rate. Assuming a faster growth scenario, the net average annual deficits rise to $1.4 million in the first five years.

The report projects growth in total housing units, jobs, the floor area of commercial buildings and the number of students attending Pahrump schools.

The cumulative red ink over the decade-long period of growth ranges from $12.2 million to $13.5 million for county services in Pahrump.

For the school district in Pahrump, the cumulative deficit ranges from $42.7 million to $65.6 million, depending on the growth.

For the more moderate growth scenario, Pahrump is projected to need three new elementary schools, two new middle schools and one new high school. For the more rapid growth scenario, four elementary schools are projected instead of three.

Costs and revenue factors are based on current levels of service in Pahrump, not their improvement. They also do not include needed flood control and drainage costs, or the costs for improvements on collector-level streets.

Analysis included operating and capital costs, as well as revenues available in the county's general fund and its special (PETT) funds, which is not a sustainable source of revenue over the long run.

PETT (Payment Equal To Taxes) is the roughly $10 to $11 million the county obtains annually from the federal Department of Energy for being the host county for the Yucca Mountain Repository.

The county is expected to hit an annual net deficit of, minimally, $2.5 million five years from now, depending on the growth rate, when it will have to build more facilities to meet greater demands and staff them with more new hires.

If growth is more rapid, the fiscal situation will be exacerbated, Tischler said, the county incurring an annual deficit of $3.7 million in the race to keep up with the growth in population.

Capital expenditures not covered under last year's county-imposed impact fees include vehicles for sheriff's deputies, a new jail and juvenile probation office, a new animal shelter, a new district attorney's office, district court, justice court and general county government offices.

Major capital expenditures not funded through impact fees will have to be debt financed, and the deferred principal and interest payments are not included in the 10-year fiscal projections

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Pahrump Valley Times
April 14, 2006

'The Machine' is highlight of Yucca Mountain tour

By The Associated Press

LAS VEGAS - In the classic children's book, "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel," Mike promises that his beloved but outdated machine Mary Anne can still dig a cellar in a single day.

And she proves it, carving out a perfect hole for the new Popperville town hall - only to realize she dug herself in so deep there was no escape. So Mary Anne stayed there and adapted to a new role as the building's furnace, and as a kind of museum piece.

So it is with the machine that dug the five-mile exploratory tunnel in Yucca Mountain, a gigantic $13 million drill bit that sits at the site unused - and for sale with no takers - nine years after its job was done.

The Tunnel Boring Machine is becoming a monument to the project itself. Historians may one day consider The Machine a testament to our ability to dream and build big, or maybe an aging symbol of a failed idea.

In the mid-1990s, as The Machine rumbled, there was more excitement about Yucca Mountain. The nuclear industry was flush with optimism that it would soon have a place to bury the spent radioactive fuel that comes out of reactors.

Some public officials were confident they were pursuing the best, most technologically advanced solution to the nation's nuclear waste problem - burying 77,000 tons of it in tunnels under the mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Energy Department officials spoke of Yucca as a project unlike any the world has ever known. It was no less than a test of man's ambition - and hubris, some said.

But the desert ridge had yet to be excavated so scientists could examine its innards. The Machine would give researchers entree to the inside of the mountain to study the rock and test its reactions to heat and moisture.

So the government bought a massive piece of machinery befitting the size of the $58 billion repository project - one of the biggest drill bits in the world at 860 tons, 25 feet wide.

The Machine arrived in pieces on 50 trucks from a plant in Kent, Wash. It was reassembled at the foot of the mountain, and on a September day in 1994 it began to gnaw.

For two and a half years it chewed at the rock, three shifts a day, five days a week. On occasions it reached a top speed of 18 feet per hour. It consumed tons of rock and a $130 million budget.

In April 1997, the 1.7 million-pound gopher emerged victorious from its five-mile, U-shaped hole. The moment was dubbed, "The Daylighting."

Then-project manager Wesley Barnes pumped his fist with pride. Workers cheered.

Not long after, the department treated The Machine to a bath of fresh white paint.

But the glory faded. And with its work complete, The Machine was unceremoniously discarded not far from the tunnel's South Portal.

It sits there still.

The Energy Department has tried to get rid of it. Most of its attachments, which had included trailers and gantries that made the entire apparatus longer than a football field, were sold as scrap a few years ago.

The Energy Department offered The Machine to other government agencies. The feds tried to sell it commercially. But it wasn't like unloading a 1994 Subaru.

One potential buyer offered a few hundred thousand dollars, but the department refused to be low-balled. "The scrap alone is probably worth more than that," department spokesman Allen Benson said.

Today, The Machine is a highlight of the Yucca Mountain tour.

Visitors are awed by its size. Some Energy Department employees argue that it should be put on permanent display.

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Pahrump Valley Times
April 14, 2006

Doug McMurdo

On brown immigrants, red herrings

Senate minority leader Harry Reid stopped by the offices of the Pahrump Valley Times on Wednesday to meet with our editorial board, and as usual he answered questions in a candid manner; never once asking to go off the record.

How refreshing.

Reid, the most powerful Democrat in Washington, D.C., spoke on a variety of issues, mainly the controversial, polarizing question of illegal immigration.

After hammering home points on the need for a secure border and a need to legalize the illegal among us, Reid agreed the sudden outrage - on every side of the problem - represents no more than the latest incarnation of a red herring; the kind that crops up every election year.

Abortion, health care, let's get tough on crime and read-my-lips-no-new-taxes are issues created to virtually guarantee a monopoly on any election discourse. These subjects are provocative, emotional and divisive.

They are also mountains that used to be molehills.

Politicians and their hacks create these red herrings because they are extremely effective at accomplishing a number of things:

First, they divide and conquer the electorate by getting us to go after each other's throats.

Second, they keep us from discussing the real issues of the day, such as the war in Iraq, Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons - a frightening prospect that has every possibility to lead to apocalypse now - out of control lobbyists that have bought and paid for Congress, a deteriorating highway network coast to coast, housing and fuel costs that have reached an unimaginable level of absurdity and greed, doctors who are more concerned about the health of their bank accounts rather than the health of their patients, and why there's still no Wendy's in Pahrump Valley.

And then we have the apparition of Yucca Mountain looming on the horizon.

Reid isn't up for election this year, which makes his appearance in Pahrump all the more relevant, but he said he understands Democrats must win some key races this year if the 12-year GOP stranglehold on the Beltway is going to be loosened up a bit.

With the national Republican party in disarray - few candidates in close races are eager to have a suddenly very unpopular President Bush support them, at least in public - just like the Nye County Republican party is bifurcated; 2006 could be a breakout year for Democrats.

Reid, according to a recent Las Vegas Review-Journal poll, has lost favor in Nevada and has his own PR problems to contend with. But Reid said he wasn't fazed by polls, which is refreshing in another sense. I have to admit I tried to trap the Senator.

When Reid successfully ran for another term in 2004 I asked him about the results of another poll; one in which he held a commanding lead over a Reagan Republican challenger. "I don't put a lot of stock in polls," Reid said, "They can be manipulated."

Yes, they can. Still the R-J poll is probably accurate if for no other reason than this: People are worried about the war, the economy, terrorism, housing costs, fuel costs, insurance costs, medical costs and taxes. And people in Clark County have had to read the sordid testimony of former commissioners who allegedly received and/or performed sexual favors.

That darn Dario Herrera. Now I know why slow play has become such a problem at Southern Nevada golf courses. In short, Reid's once stunning popularity is probably waning because the poll's participants are suspicious of and disgusted by the alleged actions of people they entrusted with their futures.

In fact, as embarrassing as Nye County's FBI Operation B-Sting might turn out to be, in the end I don't think we could match Clark County's appetite and ability to destroy public confidence in the integrity of those they must vote for.

One final thought: Perception, they say, is reality, so my take on the so-called illegal immigration problem is not at all in line with either side of the debate.

I went to high school in El Paso, Texas, where the majority of citizens are Hispanic. I lived close to the Rio Grande and many times I trekked up Avenue de Americas and across the border at Juarez, Mexico.

I saw firsthand how they lived. Children and senior citizens begged for nickels. People lived in shacks. Ownership of a car to them is equivalent to our owning a Gulfstream jet or John Wayne's yacht.

I know they didn't have fresh water, clean living conditions or jobs. I realized then, as a teenager, that if life had turned out different for me and I was born a poor Latino I would do everything in my power to come to and stay in America. And what could be more American than that?

We don't need to crack down on illegal immigrants. We need to crack down on the rich white folks who hire them at slave wages and thereby make life more difficult on those of us who are "legal."

Give them a fighting chance. As Americans we should afford our fellow human beings a little dignity and the opportunity to become proper citizens of the greatest nation of mutts on the planet.

Write to Doug McMurdo at dmcmurdo@pvtimes.com.

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Pahrump Valley Times
April 14, 2006

Commissioners Meetings

Public nuisances on the agenda

By Phillip Gomez
PVT

Public nuisances are on the commissioners' agenda for a final time - with the named offenders - next week at the Nye County Board of Commissioners meeting in Pahrump.

Progress reports, beginning at 9:30 a.m., are scheduled for three Pahrump properties, owned by Rick Flores, William Elliot and Robert Smith, for items stored in their front yards in view of complaining neighbors.

At 10:30 a.m., a public hearing is scheduled on the results of the department of public works' identification of the improved roads and streets in the county.

The board is scheduled to consider approving offering economic development incentives for the Amargosa Valley Science and Technology Park.

Also on tap for action is a decision to waive landfill tipping fees for a construction project in Tonopah for Triple D Holdings, and deliberation on paying $3,000 in expenses for state legislators to tour Nye County.

Area 51 Fireworks is scheduled for a wholesale and retail fireworks permit issued by the sheriff's office.

Another professional services contract for the nuclear waste repository office is scheduled, this time for Joseph D. Ziegler, in support of the Yucca Mountain Repository. The project term is for eight and a-half months and is budgeted for $80,000.

A $20,000 in-kind matching grant for habitat conservation planning is re-quested by the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

The grant is to complete the Pahrump Valley desert tortoise habitat conservation plan and the Southern Nye County multiple species habitat conservation plan.

The human resources department wants a resolution allowing the opening of an additional checking ac-count for the county's "flexible spending account," in order to transfer funds into this account from the existing flexible spending account.

On Wednesday, beginning at 8:30 a.m., a report is scheduled for presentation on the Pahrump Regional Planning District's storm water utility task force, which may include requests for additional funding.

At 1:30 p.m., a bill pro-posing to amend the Nye County code to allow by conditional use permit cemeteries within the Pahrump Regional Planning District.

In addition, some eight pages of zone change requests, final subdivision map applications, parcel map applications, warranty agreements, waiver applications, master plan amendments, abandonment applications and appeals are scheduled in what should be a very long day.

Finally, discussion and possible approval is sought to waive fees that would ordinarily go to the planning department for a zone change application and site development plan. The applicant is St. Martin's in the Desert Episcopal Church.

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Voice of America
April 13, 2006

Nuclear Power, The Scary IF

By Zulima Palacio
Washington, DC

It is estimated that the world's consumption of energy will increase by 60 percent over the next 20 years. And the United States already has problems in the way it meets its current energy needs. President Bush says the country is addicted to oil, and is urging alternative fuels. And half of U.S. electricity is generated by coal, which is responsible for over 80 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, a contributor to global warming.

There is an energy source that could help meet future needs, but it is one that has been off-limits for years.

This is uranium in its natural form. And this is the sound of radiation.

This is a pellet of uranium like the ones used in nuclear reactors. Ray Golden is the Communications Manager at the San Onofre Nuclear plant in California. "This one little pellet is the energy equivalent of 150 gallons of gasoline, there is no other technology in the world as concentrated as uranium," he said.

There are only 103 active plants in the U.S., yet they still represent nearly 20 percent of the country's energy production. But nuclear power scares many people, thanks to the dramatic nuclear accidents of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in March of 1979 and Chernobyl in Ukraine in April of 1986.

It has been almost 30 years since a permit was issued for a nuclear plant in the United States. Now, things are changing, according to Adrian Heymer, Director of New Plant Deployment at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

"I think it is going to grow tremendously. We believe we'll start construction in 2010. There are nine companies moving forward, preparing licensing applications. They will start to be submitted in 2007 through 2009," Heymer said.

The nine new nuclear plants will be built mostly in the southeast of the U.S. Another five companies are evaluating their possibilities. Each reactor will cost in the billions of dollars.

Mr. Heymer says it will be costly. "In simple terms it comes down to a little over $2.5 billion," he said.

The high price of generating nuclear energy at plants such as San Onofre, half way between Los Angeles and San Diego in California, could be higher still, if we consider the risk and potential dangers that surround nuclear plants. There are three main safety issues: the potential for a radiation accident, the production of nuclear waste, and the plants' vulnerability as terrorist targets.

Ray Golden works for the San Onofre plant. "I cannot stand here and say on any given day that this plant will never have an accident and if it has an accident it will release radiation and if it releases radiation it may increase the incidence of cancer of people living near by, I can't say no to that," he said.

During the last 20 years no serious accidents have been reported around any reactor in the U.S. Safety measures have been a very expensive priority.

However, it is the production of nuclear waste in the form of millions of used, highly radioactive, uranium pellets that continues to be a major concern. Paul Gunter is the Director of the Reactor Watchdog Project for Nuclear Information in Washington.

"We are constantly playing a game of Russian roulette with nuclear power, where risk and probability of an accident are ever present," he said.

The first cup full of nuclear waste generated 50 years ago is still mismanaged. We don't know what to do with it. It will be a problem passed from one generation to the next."

"This is a very serious technology and it has a legacy which is the used nuclear fuel that is going to be radioactive for tens of thousands of years. But the benefit to me far out weighs the risk, even if this means leaving this legacy to future generations," Golden added.

According to scientists, some nuclear waste can remain radioactive for millions of years. In the U.S., nuclear waste has been stored near nuclear facilities, mostly in underground steel-lined tanks and thick walls of concrete. But some tanks are getting old and now are leaking high-level nuclear contamination into groundwater, like at Hanford in the State of Washington.

Over the last 20 years, the government has been talking about Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a central repository for the growing stockpile of nuclear waste. But the expense required, local opposition, and safety concerns have prevented the project from starting.

And then there is the vulnerability to terrorism. Adrian Heymer, from the Nuclear Energy Institute, says the industry has spent billions of dollars on plant security. "Since September 11/01 we have spent $1.2 billion on improvements and modifications to the plants to make them safer," he said.

But Paul Gunter says nuclear plants are still vulnerable. "Radio active waste, the risk of nuclear accidents, the vulnerability to terrorism that uses these sites which are sitting ducks to spread radiation across the land, all of these add up to what the real cost of nuclear power is and is really a cost that is not worth bearing," he said.

Even though nuclear power is controversial, many countries have concluded it is necessary. Nearly 450 nuclear plants generate some 16 percent of the world's electricity today. Twenty-four new plants are under construction in 10 countries, mostly in India and China.

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Salt Lake Tribune
April 15, 2006

Feds want states out of nuclear shipping

Bound for Yucca: Utah, other Western states want to have a chance to inspect, reroute the cargo

By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune

WASHINGTON - Western governors say shipping nuclear waste could be riskier under a Bush administration proposal to keep states from inspecting or rerouting waste bound for Yucca Mountain, Nev.

The Yucca Mountain bill, written by the Energy Department and introduced last week by Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., exempts Yucca shipments from federal hazardous materials regulations and any state regulation.

The transportation provisions "could seriously undermine shipment safety and public confidence," Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano wrote Thursday in a letter on behalf of the Western Governors Association.

According to an Energy Department analysis, between 8 million and 11 million people nationwide live within a half-mile of the potential truck or rail routes to Yucca Mountain. The waste would travel through as many as 45 states and 700 counties. Yucca Mountain's capacity is now capped at 77,000 tons of spent fuel, although the new Bush administration proposal would raise the limit to 120,000 tons, potentially increasing the amount of traffic going through Utah on its way to the site.

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has expressed concern about the waste shipments, most of which would cross Utah on their way to Nevada, and supports leaving the waste at the reactors that produced it.

"It's important to take into account the viewpoints of affected states on issues involving nuclear waste because nuclear waste is an issue that affects people very locally," said Huntsman's spokesman, Mike Lee. "There is an understandable reluctance on the part of states like ours to have any [of the] limited authority we now have further eroded."

Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said the goal of the provision is to ensure that there is "consistent treatment" for DOE shipments, so standards don't change when a shipment crosses from one jurisdiction to the next.

"We believe what we're going to do will either meet or exceed the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] or Department of Transportation requirements. What we're going to do is better than the minimum and is a safe and responsible method of transportation," Stevens said. "In no way does it diminish our commitment to trying to work with states and tribes moving forward."

Oregon Gov. Theodore Kulongoski wrote a separate letter to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman this week, opposing the pre-emption of state regulations, praising DOE's track record of cooperation with the states, and urging that the provisions be stripped from the bill.

Although it is more than a decade behind schedule, the Energy Department hopes to open a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain by 2015. If it becomes a reality, Utah could see more than 10,000 rail shipments and nearly 2,400 truck shipments of spent nuclear fuel rolling through the state.

Bob Halstead, a transportation consultant for Nevada's anti-Yucca campaign, said he expects the transit provisions in the Energy Department bill to be constroversial on two fronts.

"First they exempt DOE from safety and counterterrorism regulations that most people both in the industry and the state government level think are working," he said. "Secondly they go so far in exempting DOE from these regulations that it raises doubts in my mind that the bill can be passed with those provisions in there."

Specifically, Napolitano's letter expresses concern that the Bush administration's proposal would exempt shipments to Yucca Mountain from federal hazardous materials statutes, and would pre-empt state, tribal and local laws that allow state inspections of shipments or rerouting of shipments away from high-risk areas.

It is also contrary to a recent report by the National Academies of Science that said spent fuel could be shipped safely under "strict adherence to existing regulations."

"We urge you not to enact any legislation that diminishes states' role in ensuring safe transportation of these materials at the very time that the amount of shipments would dramatically increase," Napolitano wrote.

gehrke@sltrib.com

Transportation provisions of the Bush administration's Yucca Mountain bill:

States, local governments and Indian tribes could not reroute shipments of radioactive waste away from high-risk areas, tunnels or population centers

States, local governments and tribes could not inspect or regulate shipments

Shipments of waste would be exempt from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which sets federal guidelines for managing hazardous and non-hazardous waste

Governors say the exemptions may apply more broadly to affect other shipments in containers approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

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Las Vegas SUN
April 13, 2006

Energy secretary makes first visit to Nevada nuclear dump site

By Ken Ritter
Associated Press

YUCCA MOUNTAIN, Nev. (AP) - U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman made his first visit Thursday to the Nevada desert site picked for the nation's nuclear waste dump, pledging to fix problems and press ahead with opening an expanded repository.

"I recognize that there have been problems in the past," Bodman said as he emerged wearing a white hard hat from a five-mile tunnel drilled into the ancient volcanic ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "But we've been working very hard collectively to change that."

Bodman said he hoped Congress would speed legislation the Energy Department proposed last week that would remove hurdles to licensing, building and operating the dump.

"The legislation will allow us to provide stability, provide clarity, as well as predictability to the Yucca Mountain project," he said, "and will help lay a solid foundation for America's future energy security."

The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., faces a fight from Nevada's congressional delegation including Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate minority leader.

The measure would raise the amount of highly radioactive waste that could be entombed at the site from 77,000 tons to 132,000 tons, and it would tap a special nuclear waste fund, reducing its exposure to congressional budget battles. Some $9 billion has been spent so far on the $58 billion project.

Reid, traveling Thursday in Nevada, called the bill "an admission of failure."

"This bill will not pass the Senate, and I believe that Yucca Mountain will never open," Reid said.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., accused Bodman of downplaying the dangers of shipping more nuclear material, and the head of a Las Vegas-based anti-Yucca Mountain advocacy group said Bodman should have met with critics of the project.

"If you were responsible for such a far-reaching bill with so many implications and impacts on the people of a U.S. state, you should have the obligation or at least the courtesy to meet with the public," said Judy Treichel, executive director of the Nuclear Waste Task Force.

Bodman said he heard all sides of the issue during his two-day trip, which included a meeting with editors of the state's largest newspaper in Las Vegas and a tour of the vast Nevada Test Site - where an Energy Department agency plans a huge non-nuclear explosion June 2.

Bodman, who became energy secretary in February 2002, said opening Yucca Mountain would reduce the nation's dependence on coal, oil and natural gas by encouraging nuclear power plant construction. No commercial reactors have been built in the U.S. since 1973. The Energy Department hopes the dump will solve the decades-old problem of how to dispose of nuclear waste piling up at commercial, industrial and military sites in 39 states.

Bodman, who taught chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1960s, said he was impressed by the "quantity" and "quality" of scientific work at the site. But he stopped short of endorsing its scientific findings, and promised that the repository won't open if it can't be made safe.

The energy secretary and Paul Golan, acting director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, pledged to address issues raised in e-mails suggesting U.S. Geological Survey scientists falsified project work.

"We will not tolerate that which has gone on in the past," Bodman said, calling allegations of shoddy science "a blight on the good name of the people that work here."

The project has had its budget trimmed and operations scaled back as a crucial radiation standard is rewritten and the scientific work is investigated. The Energy Department had planned to apply for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license by the end of 2004, but the date has been pushed back to fiscal 2008. Bodman recently said it could be 2020 before Yucca Mountain opens.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
April 14, 2006

Bodman emerges impressed

But official's praise after Yucca Mountain tour given along with concerns about research

By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal

YUCCA MOUNTAIN -- Wearing a hard hat and goggles, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman emerged from the dark tunnel inside this remote, barren ridge Thursday to say he was impressed with the exploratory effort and research being performed at the site of the nation's planned nuclear waste repository.

However, he said the verdict is still out on the credibility of the scientific work that focuses on the movement of water through pores and cracks in the volcanic rock. The findings are key in estimating when waste canisters will corrode and when lethal remnants of spent nuclear fuel will escape into the environment.

The credibility issue surfaced last year in a series of e-mails that had been written by federal geologists who discussed falsifying documents to meet deadlines. Data they compiled was used in computer models for three climate conditions that would occur over 1 million years, the time that the highly radioactive waste must be safely contained.

Bodman said Sandia National Laboratories is evaluating the hydrology work of the U.S. Geological Survey team to find out how reasonable the scientists' assumptions were and how conservative the staff was in characterizing their models.

"Those are tough questions," said Bodman, who is a chemical engineer. "I'm comfortable that we will get answers. I don't know what the answers are going to be, but I'm comfortable we will get answers."

Bodman said the people who were held accountable for the questionable work are no longer on the project and that his deputy, Paul Golan, acting director of the Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, is spearheading an effort to change the cultural mind-set of the project's 2,000 employees.

"We need a leadership change here that indicates to the individuals who work here that we will not tolerate that which has gone on in the past," the 67-year-old energy secretary told reporters gathered along the rail tracks that lead to the north entrance of the 25-foot-diameter tunnel, which loops through the mountain.

Bodman is the third energy secretary in office to tour the finished, 5.2-mile exploratory tunnel. He was preceded by Bill Richardson and his immediate predecessor, Spencer Abraham.

Abraham visited the site in early 2002 prior to recommending it to President Bush as the nation's burial ground for entombing 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in a maze of tunnels, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Bodman said his first impression of the site "was that an enormous amount of work has been done over a number of years."

He said he has heard people describe the project as failing. But after Thursday's tour, he said, "I have to tell you, based on my first evaluation of it, I was quite impressed with the quality and quantity of work that has been done in order to verify the underlying science of this program -- not that the job is done."

Earlier in the day, Bodman said, "The question, however, remains: Is it certain enough and is the quality enough?"

Also Thursday, Bodman defended a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last week by Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla.

He said the bill is not a measure to put the project on a fast track that would step on states' rights and avoid safeguards, as critics have claimed.

Instead, he said the bill is primarily an attempt to remove barriers to gain title to land and water, expand the repository's capacity, develop infrastructure and secure funding generated by nuclear utility ratepayers.

Nevertheless, the government watchdog organization Public Citizen noted Thursday that the bill, if approved, would abolish state, local and tribal authority over transporting highly radioactive waste and spent fuel. In addition, the bill would exempt the mountain from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and allow hundreds of millions of pounds of hazardous heavy metals from waste containers to contaminate groundwater used for drinking and irrigation, the watchdog group said.

The state's leading critic of the project, Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, said the bill amounts to special treatment for a flawed site.

"No other entity or project would be allowed to have these kinds of exemptions," Loux said by telephone. "In his mind, these may be little barriers, but they want things that no other applicant can get."

As for expanding the repository's capacity to more than 120,000 tons of nuclear waste, DOE's Golan said the site's environmental impact statement considered such an expansion.

However, Loux noted, "The problem is none of it was characterized or studied. They certainly haven't studied that other area. They are just guessing what it is like. They have to cross the Solitario Canyon and Ghost Dance (earthquake) faults to get to it," he said.

Another critic, Judy Treichel of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, said, "I don't think he (Bodman) understands his own legislation."

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Salt Lake Tribune
April 14, 2006

Energy chief gives Yucca Mountain a glowing recommendation

The Associated Press

YUCCA MOUNTAIN, Nev. - U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman made his first visit Thursday to the Nevada desert site picked for the nation's nuclear waste dump, pledging to fix problems and press ahead with opening an expanded repository.

''I recognize that there have been problems in the past,'' Bodman said as he emerged wearing a hard hat from a five-mile tunnel drilled into the ancient volcanic ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. ''But we've been working very hard collectively to change that.''

Bodman said he hoped Congress would speed legislation the Energy Department proposed last week that would remove hurdles to licensing, building and operating the dump.

''The legislation will allow us to provide stability, provide clarity, as well as predictability to the Yucca Mountain project,'' he said, ''and will help lay a solid foundation for America's future energy security.''

The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., faces a fight from Nevada's congressional delegation including

Senate minority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Reid, traveling Thursday in Nevada, called the bill ''an admission of failure.''

''This bill will not pass the Senate, and I believe that Yucca Mountain will never open,'' Reid said.

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Nevada Democratic Party
April 14, 2006

Slinking through the back door

Energy secretary uses SUVs, helicopters to Nevadans

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is in town for the first time since he took his position more than a year ago. Apparently, it´s better to oversee the completely botched Yucca Mountain project from afar.

But while Bodman was happy to meet with an editorial board on Wednesday and ask cameras to join him in a staged press conference at Yucca Mountain today, he is scampering to avoid other Nevadans:

See no evil… According to the Energy Department, Bodman will swoop in and out of Yucca Mountain by helicopter, ensuring he won´t have to endure the glares of protestors at the gates of the project.

Staff members from Rep. Shelley Berkley´s office were told the congresswoman could not attend the media tour of Yucca Mountain scheduled for today. Bodman´s employees also declined to allow Judy Treichel, a long-time public advocate against Yucca Mountain, to attend the event.

Hear no evil... On Wednesday, Bodman arrived at the Las Vegas Review-Journal for an editorial board meeting in an entourage of three large SUVs. Bodman´s drivers avoided the front entrance, where representatives of Citizen Alert hoped to talk to him on his way into the meeting. Instead, the cars slinked around to the back entrance.

“Why would Secretary Bodman bother to meet with Nevadans on this important issue… his boss, President Bush, never has,’ said Kirsten Searer, communications director for the Nevada State Democratic Party. “Is he afraid he might hear the truth about Yucca Mountain? Bodman has acknowledged in front of Congress that this project is ‘severely compromised´ and ‘broken,´ yet he apparently bristles at the idea of meeting with Nevadans who are understandably concerned. It´s typical secrecy and incompetence from the Bush Administration.’

Bodman´s “broken’ and “severely compromised’ comments on Yucca Mountain can be found here: http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2006/mar/13/566632680.html

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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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