Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, May 9, 2006
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Provo Daily Herald
May 09, 2006
BLM closes public comment on nuclear waste site
PAUL FOY
The Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY -- It will take weeks for the Bureau of Land Management to sort through thousands of public comments before deciding whether to grant access across public land for a nuclear waste stockpile about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
Monday was the last day the bureau was taking comment on the proposal from Private Fuel Storage, a group of nuclear-powered utilities that want to ship nuclear waste to an American Indian reservation in Utah.
BLM has taken more than 4,350 mostly negative letters, e-mails, postcards and faxes on the project, including objections from Utah politicians and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"It could take 30 to 60 days to go through them," BLM spokeswoman Christine Tincher said Monday.
The bureau will study the remarks for any "substantive" recommendations. It has no timeframe for making a decision on a right of way that would allow a rail spur or trucks to carry nuclear waste down the length of Skull Valley to the Goshute Indian Reservation.
Private Fuel Storage has a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to store up to 44,000 tons of spent fuel rods with a half-life of 10,000 years above ground at the reservation.
Yet it must clear other obstacles before the proposal can become a reality:
Utah is asking a federal appeals court to overturn a license issued Feb. 13 by the NRC after 8 1/2 years of deliberation.
Private Fuel Storage needs approval of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which must decide if a lease for a nuclear-waste repository is in the Goshute's interests.
It needs a permit from the federal Surface Transportation Board if it decides to build a rail line to the Skull Valley reservation.
It needs contracts from utilities that own nuclear power plants before starting construction of the repository.
The utility consortium, which also needs a right of way from the Bureau of Land Management, filed two applications to get one.
The first is for a 32-mile rail spur that's not likely to be granted because the route would cut across a corner of the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area.
President Bush signed the bill creating the wilderness area on Jan. 6 in a move by Utah's congressional delegation to block the project.
The second application is for a 10-acre waste transfer station alongside the main Union Pacific rail line, which runs parallel to Interstate 80. Under this plan, the fuel rods would be unloaded from rail cars and put on oversized trucks for shipment on state Route 196 to the reservation.
With Utah's wilderness maneuver, the transfer station appears the only practical option, but PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said Monday that it wasn't giving up hope for a rail spur.
Martin said the comments filed with the BLM weren't all negative.
"We have been very pleased with the respondents who have shared their positive comments with us -- people who believe that this project can be built and operated safely," she said.
Martin described the supporters as scientists, Utah residents "who are part of the silent majority" and others who believe the nation needs waste storage away from nuclear power plants -- a temporary solution until the federal government can open a national repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
During transit by rail or truck, the spent fuel rods would be packed in welded steel canisters and protected by additional layers of steel and radioactive shields, she said.
Martin said Private Fuel Storage looked into bending a rail spur around the wilderness area, but opponents say any other route would send tracks over ground that is often wet.
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Business Wire
May 09, 2006
Global Matrechs, Inc. Provides Update On NuCap(TM), Radiation- and Corrosion-Resistant Nuclear Technology
RIDGEFIELD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 9, 2006--Today Global Matrechs, Inc. (OTCBB: GMTH) http://www.globalmatrechs.com announced an update on NuCap(TM), its highly radiation- and corrosion-resistant technology, following the recent 20th anniversary of the accident at Chernobyl. NuCap(TM), formerly known as EKOR(TM), was originally applied at the Chernobyl reactor in 2000, at the site of the worst nuclear accident to date. The radiation-resistant material was successfully applied on a fuel-containing mass located at the bubble pool under the reactor and is still stable and on-site.
The original formula for EKOR was created specifically for the purpose of addressing the Chernobyl Shelter. The technology has been advanced and improved upon since its introduction to the U.S. under Global Matrechs, Inc.'s direction, to meet U.S. standards and testing.
The company had announced previously that it was in negotiations with an American company with offices in Berlin and Moscow for exclusive marketing and distribution rights for NuCap(TM) to Eastern European governments, with a particular focus on the Ukraine and, in particular, the Chernobyl site. According to the company, these negotiations are continuing.
Michael Sheppard, C.E.O. of Global Matrechs, reported that "We are moving forward with our plan and expect to complete our Master Manufacturing Agreement with Dow Corning and a Sales Agreement with a company that will represent us in Eastern Europe. Once completed, we believe we will be in a position to service the needs of this sector in the area of nuclear waste encapsulation. The advent of this is very exciting to the company, and we believe it will mark the achievement of a significant milestone for NuCap(TM) on its road to becoming a commercially successful product offering."
With quality assurance programs for U.S. nuclear storage, including the program at the Yucca Mountain facility, currently under review, Global Matrechs, Inc. is increasing its efforts to obtain approval for the use of NuCap(TM) in the U.S. The Company had previously announced its receipt of a commercial order for NuCap(TM) for the Hanford Nuclear Site located in Richland, WA. The Company believes NuCap(TM) would be used to cover the walls of a "pit" in which there has been a radiation spill.
NuCap(TM) has been engineered for use in a wide variety of applications in settings presenting low- to high-level radiation and other environmental challenges. NuCap(TM)'s applications range from in-situ, stabilization, D & D, containment and encapsulation to transportation and final storage and disposal. The company believes NuCap(TM) may also have applications that could assist in resolving the special challenges faced by operating reactors in nuclear power plants and research facilities, uranium/thorium and other mining venues, nuclear medicine and the chemical industry.
About Global Matrechs: www.globalmatrechs.com
Global Matrechs operates a licensed technologies business. Through its licensed technologies, Global Matrechs seeks to convert the licenses it has acquired in emerging technologies in the nuclear energy, environmental and chemical industries into manufactured products primarily through sub-licenses of those technologies to manufacturers.
"Forward-Looking Statements"
Investors are cautioned that certain statements contained in this document, as well as other statements in periodic press releases and some oral statements of Global Matrechs, Inc. officials during presentations, are "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the "Act"). Forward-looking statements include statements which are predictive in nature, which depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or which include words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "hopes," "seeks," or similar expressions. In addition, any statements concerning future financial performance (including future revenues, earnings or growth rates), ongoing business strategies or prospects, and possible future actions, which may be provided by management, are also forward-looking statements as defined by the Act.
Some of the factors that could significantly impact these forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to: insufficient cash flow to continue to fund the development and marketing of the Company's products and technologies; the failure of the Company's products and technologies to become commercially marketable; the loss of key personnel; changes in financial markets and general economic conditions; and, disputes as to the Company's intellectual property rights, including the Company's rights to the technologies that it licenses from Eurotech, Ltd. Forward-looking statements are based upon current expectations and projections about future events and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions about Global Matrechs, its licenses, products, economic and market factors and the sectors in which Global Matrechs does business, among other things. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and Global Matrechs has no specific intention to update these statements. More detailed information about those factors is contained in Global Matrechs's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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CNNMoney
May 09, 2006
Meet Mr. Nuke
John Rowe of Exelon is staking out a megashare of what could be America's great atomic revival.
By Cora Daniels
FORTUNE Magazine
(FORTUNE Magazine) - The CEO of Exelon (Research) is not the sort of man you'd expect to be king of America's nukes. His mammoth utility will soon have 20 nuclear plants in its fleet (the term harks back to the industry's roots in the nuclear Navy), but he's no stolid ex-seafaring engineer--he's a brainy, maverick, Midwestern lawyer.
But then John Rowe, 60, is full of surprises. He doesn't like to cheerlead for his company or industry, and he readily discusses bad news, infuriating his PR staff. He doesn't drop names of powerful friends; Chicago locals and ancient-history buffs are his crowd. His office is modest, and he shares it with a 2,600-year-old Egyptian coffin.
He answers his own e-mail. When he received one in 2004 from an employee who objected on religious grounds to Exelon's favorable policies for same-sex partners, Rowe didn't delete the message; he cited Leviticus to defend the company's stance, starting a correspondence that went on for months. That kind of engagement is standard for Rowe, who "certainly keeps it interesting," says Betsy Moler, the company's public-policy chief. "There is nothing fuddy or duddy about utilities under his watch."
What makes now a good time to meet this CEO is that since he took over in 2002, Exelon has lit up a lot more than the Chicago skyline. Exelon is the industry's most profitable company, earning $923 million on $15.4 billion in sales in 2005; its stock, recently at $53 a share, has consistently outshone the S&P utility index. This year FORTUNE named Exelon America's most admired utility.
Already America's largest nuclear power operator, Exelon will become the second-largest in the world once it completes its acquisition of New Jersey's PSEG (No. 1 is Electricite de France; Russia's Rosenergoatom is today No. 2). That $13.7 billion deal, announced over a year ago, was severely scrutinized by regulators because of the size of the business it will create, but is expected to close this summer.
The new behemoth will have an estimated $27 billion in annual revenue and $3.2 billion in net earnings, employ 28,000 people, and serve nine million businesses and households in Illinois, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Exelon's itch to supersize was prompted by a desire for PSEG's nuclear plants. Rowe is betting that as states begin to open their electricity grids to competition, nukes will gain share by producing energy more cheaply than rival sources of power. "I go to a nuclear power plant and love it," he says happily.
It's not surprising that a utilities boss loves nukes; what's amazing is that so many people agree. Almost 30 years after the Three Mile Island disaster, nukes have regained luster in the public eye. Today 56% of Americans say they favor nuclear energy, vs. 38% opposed, according to Gallup. (A surprising 42% even say they're willing to have a nuke near their home.)
Influential environmentalists like James Lovelock and Stewart Brand favor using nukes to replace coal to help slow global warming. Exelon and other utilities are in discussions with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build at least ten reactors.
Perhaps the biggest boost to nuclear's prospects is the Bush administration's support. Last year's federal energy bill offers billions of dollars in subsidies, tax breaks, and incentives for new plants to help reduce long-term dependency on oil. The White House also launched the Nuclear Power 2010 Initiative, a $1.1 billion effort by government and industry to start building new plants by then. As the sole utility exec on the privately financed National Commission on Energy Policy, Rowe helped mastermind the energy bill, insiders say; that and nuclear's resurgence make him one of the most influential CEOs you've probably never heard of.
John Rowe grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. The one-room school he attended had an outhouse. His parents, who had both experienced the Great Depression, believed life was about work; today Rowe gets to the office by 7:30 A.M. and works late into the night.
"Mother believed that if you had very much fun, you somehow wasted a day," he says. His interest in civilizations began as an escape from farm tedium. When he was in seventh grade, a family friend gave him Richard Halliburton's Book of Marvels, a history volume that divided the world into the Occident and the Orient, with a chapter on each major country.
Rowe keeps a vintage copy in his office and marks off the chapters of the places where he has traveled. (He believes in using his collectibles; he likes to fidget with a 2,300-year-old Athena ring crafted in the reign of Alexander the Great that he wears on his left hand.)
After earning a law degree from the University of Wisconsin, Rowe landed a job at a Chicago law firm. His introduction to the nuclear business was as a punishment for arguing with his boss, who relegated him to the division that represented nuclear plant owners. To Rowe's surprise, he liked the industry's mix of private-sector and policy work. When he eventually redeemed himself and got promoted to doing railroad law, the nuclear business stuck with him.
So in 1984 when a small utility called Central Maine Power began looking for a CEO, Rowe saw his chance. The utility wanted a senior engineer/executive from New England. Rowe was just 38 and had never even been to Maine. Scrambling to fill the holes in his credentials, he got engineer friends to send recommendations attesting to how much engineering he knew.
He persuaded Secretary of Labor Bill Usery, whom he knew from shared work in the railroad industry, to write a letter saying how mature he was for his age. His cleverest move was in dealing with his lack of New England roots. He drove to Maine and, in the space of a weekend, visited every town where a Central Maine Power director lived. When the inevitable question arose whether he'd spent much time in the state, he could truthfully tell the director doing the asking that he'd been to his hometown. "The joke was on us. We had no idea," laughs E. John Dufour, a director at the time.
Landing the job was only Rowe's first campaign. The company was under disciplinary review by the state utility commission. The new CEO set out to mend fences, sitting down with utility commissioners at even the most mundane meetings instead of sending other execs. It helped get Central Maine Power back on the state's good side in a matter of months. "By then we were all patting ourselves on the back on the great job we had done picking a CEO," recalls Dufour.
Rowe moved on after five years to become CEO of New England Electric in Massachusetts. In 1998 he became chief of Unicom, a big regional utility in Chicago, and in 2000 he orchestrated its merger with Philadelphia's PECO to create Exelon.
So now, 21 years after moving to Maine, Rowe is nuclear power's longest-serving CEO. But what a strange bird to represent an industry. He will rhapsodize about the "sensuous curve of a transmission line," yet he doesn't like to hype his business the way Phil Knight gushes over sneakers.
"Nuclear is not a cause; it is a business," he told shareholders recently. It is precisely for that reason that Rowe says he does not want to build another nuclear plant until the nation's spent-fuel disposal problem is solved. Opponents have stalled the Energy Department's plan to entomb nuclear waste more than 1,000 feet below Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Solving the waste problem is "essential" for good business, says Rowe. "We have to be able to look the public in the eye and say, 'If we build a plant, here's where the waste will go.' If we can't answer that question honestly to our neighbors, then we're playing politics too high for us to be playing."
Such outspokenness is unusual in the industry, where executives often feel too embattled to acknowledge their own doubts. It helps Rowe win. "Of course no one agrees with everything he says," says Tom Kuhn, president of Edison Electric Institute, the industry association. "But John is very persuasive and has a statesmanlike approach, which makes it hard to disagree."
When Rowe took over Exelon in 1998, the company's nuclear fleet was one of the industry's worst. Its plants were running at only 47% capacity--in fact, they were up only about half the time. Chronic safety problems had landed many on the NRC's watch list. The Zion plant on Lake Michigan had been shut down, and two more in Illinois were headed in that direction. Within the nuclear division, everyone was pointing fingers.
Rowe's first move was to replace the division's management team. (Exelon has other units that operate gas mains and coal-burning power plants.) The key survivor was its chief, Oliver Kingsley, a widely respected nuclear turnaround expert who had just joined Exelon. Rowe named him COO, and Kingsley helped recruit a new generation of executives who were approachable team players. Yet all the while, Rowe was threatening to pull Exelon out of the business. His order to the new team was simple: Turn things around or be shut down. "Rowe came in very skeptical of [the nuclear division], and rightly so," says Chris Crane, Kingsley's recruit to head the nuclear unit. "Our performance was embarrassing, and he told us so."
Crane and his team quickly raised safety standards, upgraded equipment, and replaced the plants' crazy quilt of management systems with a single system that all had to follow. It set a new industry standard by sending plant operators for retraining and simulations every six weeks. Exelon's production costs are more than 50% lower than they were in 1998, and the nuclear plants are running at 93% capacity, the best performance in the industry. Analysts like Steven Fleishman of Merrill Lynch expect Exelon's stock to rise as the company applies its know-how to PSEG's plants.
Rowe earned a reputation too, with his response to a summer 1999 blackout that paralyzed downtown Chicago in the middle of a busy workweek. In the days after power was restored, Mayor Richard Daley railed against Exelon to anyone who would listen. "We are sick and tired of them, and they had better change," he fumed, turning red and biting his nails at a news conference. Regulators began gearing up for a major investigation.
Rowe had been CEO only a few months. But during one of the mayor's outbursts, Rowe impulsively pushed his way from the audience toward the cameras, without warning or preparation from handlers or even, he says, knowing what he would say. "This level of service is a disgrace to us. It is a personal disgrace to me," he declared, awkwardly donning a hard hat as he stood in the rain. "I will not tolerate it, and you will not." He told the mayor, "No excuse, sir," and pledged to "grovel, if necessary" to win back the city's trust. The next day he asked for the resignations of five senior executives. He put hundreds of millions into upgrading infrastructure and turning things around.
Rowe was equally forthright last December when one of Exelon's nuclear plants in Illinois was found to be leaking tritium into the aquifer. A byproduct of nuclear generation, tritium is a radioactive form of water that can increase the risk of cancer, birth defects, and genetic damage. The state had designated a river for its disposal, but the stuff was leaking into the groundwater instead. Further investigation revealed two more Exelon plants to be leaking tritium too. Although regulators and the Illinois health department declared the leaks too small to threaten public health, the news caused an uproar. "Where we screwed up--and there is no other way to call it--is that some water with tritium leaked from our premises onto other people's property," Rowe says. "It is not dangerous, but it was sloppy operations on our part."
Customers today seem to like Exelon about as much as you can ever like the electric company. Says David Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, a Chicago consumer group, of Rowe: "He has a tradition of working things out in Illinois that is good for the company and consumers." Yet lately Rowe has angered people by pushing to end a rate freeze put in place by legislators to ease the shift to a wholesale auction system for electricity. When it comes, it will probably raise Exelon's profits, as well as the rates consumers pay. Says Kolata: "Exelon thinks they are now a global company, so how dare the people of Illinois tell them what to do? John Rowe is risking a lot by being so aggressive. He has a very good reputation in Illinois that could be tarnished."
Rowe's tolerance for controversy served him well on the commission that shaped 2005's energy bill. The bipartisan panel included experts from industry and environmental groups. He joined it in endorsing carbon-emission limits to counter global warming. Such limits are anathema to most utility executives--they would raise the costs of fossil-fuel-fired power plants, including ones that account for about half of Exelon's business. Shrugs Rowe: "The utility industry is one of the few places I would be called a liberal."
The commission contradicted the White House, which maintains that humans' role in causing global warming needs more proof and that carbon limits would hurt the economy. Its report, in turn, emboldened an arm of the Energy Department to declare that limiting carbon emissions would not slow U.S. economic growth. In April, North Carolina's Duke Energy joined Exelon in testifying before Congress in support of carbon taxes. Commission co-chair John P. Holdren, a Harvard professor of environmental policy, says of Rowe's role, "True leaders can bring people along. He has so much stature that if he comes out and says something different, the industry stops and takes a look rather than assuming he's wrong."
It wasn't long ago that the energy industry was dominated by another company whose name started with "E" and which had a Texan CEO whom President Bush liked to call Kenny Boy. "I used to have to go to these lunches with Ken Lay," recalls Rowe, who met the Enron CEO in meetings with regulators and policymakers in New England. "The politicians would treat me like a Chihuahua on a leash: 'Come, John. Sit, John. Roll over, John.' And they would treat Ken like the Lord himself," he says. "About the fourth time I'm dragging my sorry tail out of lunch, the speaker of the state legislature says, 'I bet you're getting real sick of these lunches.' 'They're not a lot of fun,' I told him. He says, 'You're not having a lot of fun, but we're having a lot of fun.' " Rowe laughs. Now that Enron is in ashes and nuclear power may be on the rebound, he's the one having fun.
But gaining regulatory approval involves such elaborate applications, reviews, and hearings that a decade or more could pass before the U.S. sees a new plant. Though Exelon has launched applications for two new nukes, Rowe knows they almost certainly won't get built during his tenure, even if the nuclear-waste question is resolved. He's more likely to be remembered for helping the industry during its fallow phase. Yet for a man obsessed with history, he's surprisingly philosophical about leaving such a modest mark. "If I could pick what I do, I'd rather be the discoverer of the great biochemical innovation that revolutionizes health care," says Rowe. He pauses, leaning back in his chair as he twirls his ancient ring. Then he gestures toward that Chicago skyline Exelon keeps lit and laughs, "But I'm pretty good at this."
Research associate Patricia A. Neering contributed to this article
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Hamilton Spectator
May 9, 2006
Nuclear waste: the forever problem
Spectator wire services
Carlsbad, N.M.
Roger Nelson has a simple message for the people of the year 12006: DON'T DIG HERE!
As chief scientist of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Nelson oversees a cavernous salt mine that is the first geological lockbox for what he calls the "fiendishly toxic" detritus of nuclear weapons production -- radioactive plutonium.
Computer projections predict that within 1,000 years the ceilings and walls will collapse sealing the plutonium in place.
But plutonium remains deadly for 250 times that long -- an unsettling reminder that some of today's hazards will outlast the civilizations that created them.
It's referred to as the "forever problem."
Canada too has a forever problem in the form of 40 tonnes of nuclear waste.
The best solution so far seems to bury it deep underground and hope that it stays put.
The global amount of spent nuclear fuel was 220,000 tonnes in the year 2000, and is growing by approximately 10,000 tonnes each year. Nuclear waste remains radioactive for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Unfortunately, no language has ever existed longer than a few thousand years, and no one knows if pictograms or other symbols will be interpreted correctly thousands of years hence. There appears to be no reliable method to warn future generations about the existence of nuclear waste dumps. GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL: WWW.GREENPEACE.ORG/
Nuclear waste is currently stored in 131 temporary locations in 39 states. The Yucca Mountain project, which is under development but not yet in use, would become a permanent central storage location for all American nuclear waste.
* Location: Yucca Mountain is located on federal land in a remote area of Nye County in southern Nevada, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada.
* Population: No one lives at Yucca Mountain. The closest year-round housing is about 14 miles south of the site.
* Geology: Yucca Mountain is a ridge comprised of layers of volcanic rock, called "tuff."
* Elevation: At its crest, Yucca mountain reaches an elevation of 4,950 feet.
* Climate: Yucca Mountain receives less than 7.5 inches of precipitation on average per year.
* President George W. Bush signed Yucca Mountain Bill in July, 2002.
Work will begin this summer near the Bruce Nuclear station to prove that a proposed site for storing nuclear waste is as good as Ontario Power Generation officials think it is.
Ontario Power Generation wants to store low and intermediate waste from Ontario's 20 nuclear reactors in vaults that would be carved out of limestone, 660 metres below ground. That waste is currently stored on the site in facilities intended as temporary storage.
Seismic studies and drilling are required under the federal government's environmental assessment process. That assessment is expected to take up to three years. Plans call for construction to start in 2012, with the facility to open in 2017 or 2018.
The underground facility would cover a 30-hectare area. All that would be visible above ground is a 300-by-700-metre building.
source: The Record
After a comprehensive three year study, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization has recommended Adaptive Phased Management for the long-term care of used nuclear fuel in Canada. The Government must now decide on an appropriate approach.
Nuclear Waste Management Organization: www.nwmo.ca
Phase one of the Adaptive Phased Management plan calls for 30 years operating a prototype research facility, then we re-evaluate. If nothing has changed, we go to Phase 2 and run a 30-year pilot project of storing wastes in such a way that we can watch them and yank them out if there's a problem or if we get a better idea. Phase 3 would bury the waste in a possibly permanent site for 240 years and keep watching. Then we decide whether to seal the site off and keep a more leisurely eye on the site forever.
The Eye Weeklyt at: www.eye.net/
A short drive from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico at a site where an atomic warhead was detonated 1,151 feet underground in 1961, two corroded plaques glued to a 4-foot concrete slab commemorate the test, dubbed Project Gnome.
The monument has been nudged several yards over the decades by cattle that use it as a rubbing post. Spent rifle shells crunch underfoot; the pockmarked shrine is favored by locals for target practice.
A third plaque was pried off, perhaps as a souvenir. According to earlier visitors, it read, in plain English, "This site will remain dangerous for 24,000 years."
source: L.A. Times
Ontario Power Generation sets aside about $400 million per year to ensure the necessary funds to cover the future costs for decommissioning nuclear plants and waste fuel management. In September 2005, the fund was about $6.6 billion.
source: www.opg.com/
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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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