Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
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Guardian
May 24, 2006

House Favors Scaling Back Bush Nuclear Bid

H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The House appeared ready to scale back President Bush's ambitious plan to resume nuclear fuel reprocessing as part of an international program to boost nuclear power.

A broad spending bill, expected to be approved by the House later Wednesday would cut Bush's request for the first installment of the nuclear initiative in half, to about $130 million. An attempt to slash it by an additional $40 million was rejected.

The $30 billion spending measure funds the Energy Department, related agencies and numerous federal water projects.

While lawmakers expressed skepticism about the nuclear fuel recycling proposals, dubbed the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, they plan to resume full funding for development of a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada after several years of reduced spending on the program.

The Yucca project, which has yet to receive a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is years behind schedule with no firm date for completion. It is designed to hold 77,000 tons of used reactor fuel from commercial power plants and defense facilities.

The bill provides $545 million for Yucca in fiscal 2007 beginning in October, an increase of $95 million over this year. It is the amount the president had requested.

The House action came on a day that Bush, touring the Limerick nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, called the expansion of nuclear power and more construction of commercial reactors essential ``for the sake of economic security and national security.''

He urged Congress to give him the full $250 million for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

The Senate is likely to do just that. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who heads the subcommittee that deals with energy funding, said he planned to possibly seek more than $250 million. If he succeeds, the different spending levels would have to be reconciled.

The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership calls for stepped-up research into reprocessing nuclear fuel, instead of using it once and then disposing it eventually in the planned Yucca Mountain repository. And it would establish an international program under which the United States would provide reactor fuel to other countries and then retrieve it for reprocessing.

The United States abandoned nuclear fuel reprocessing in 1977 because of concern that it would make it easier to steal or divert plutonium for a nuclear bomb. Bush's plan envisions a new technology that would not separate pure plutonium, removing - according to its advocates - the nonproliferation risks.

But the House Appropriations Committee, in a report accompanying the spending bill, said the Energy Department has not produced the needed details about the program's cost - estimated into the billions of dollars over several decades - or the certainty of the proposed technology.

``There's only a guess of how much it's going to cost ... $3 billion to $6 billion for a demonstration project,'' said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. And he said the proposed technology, while it may no longer be useful for a nuclear bomb, would ``not be too dangerous for terrorists to handle for a dirty bomb.''

But Markey's attempt to slash an additional $40 million from the program was defeated 295-128.

Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who had pushed for the earlier funding cuts to slow the program, said the additional reductions would threaten its existence.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said he was concerned the Energy Department might syphon money from a fund for developing a permanent nuclear waste repository - essentially Yucca Mountain if it completed - into the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

Barton proposed an amendment to bar such a move. The fund, which totals more than $15 billion, is paid into by utilities that own nuclear reactors.

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The Whitehouse
May 24, 2006

President Discusses Energy During Visit to Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania

Limerick Generating Station
Pottstown, Pennsylvania

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. If I talk too long, it's going to be even warmer. (Laughter.) I really appreciate the chance to come to Limerick Generating Station. I'm glad to see it in action. More importantly, I was glad to see the people working here, glad to meet them, glad to get to know them. I appreciate their strong dedication to safety. I appreciate their dedication to the consumers you serve.

This plant serves two million homes in the area, and it does so in a way that does not require us to pollute the air. It's a perfect example of how we can grow our economy and protect our environment at the same time. And so thanks for receiving me. I'm honored to be here. (Applause.)

I thank John Rowe for introducing me, and thanks for coming over from Chicago. Appreciate you being here. I want to thank Chris Crane. I want to thank Ron DeGregorio. Thank you for having me, Ron. I want to thank the Mayor, Sharon Valentine-Thomas, of the Borough of Pottstown. Thanks for coming, Madam Mayor. I appreciate you being here. I want to thank all the folks from the local government -- sorry about clogging the neighborhoods coming through, but thanks. (Laughter.) Appreciate you letting me come by.

I want to talk about how the United States of America can continue to be the economic leader of the world. I think it's important that we're the economic leader of the world, because when you're the leader it helps the folks who live in your country. See, it matters if we're on the cutting edge of change. It matters to people working every day in America if we're creating strong economic growth.

Today we are creating strong economic growth. I mean, this economy of ours is moving forward with a full head of steam. It's the fifth year in a row of uninterrupted growth. Our economy grew faster than any other major industrialized nation in the world. We added 5.2 million new jobs since August of 2003. The national unemployment rate is 4.7 percent. Productivity is high, and that's important. A productive society will yield a higher standard of living for our people. Hourly compensation grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the first quarter of this year. Our workers are taking bigger -- home bigger paychecks. The standard of living is on the rise. After-tax income is up. Things are good.

And the fundamental question is, can you keep them that way? And there's a lot of competition in the world that creates some uncertainty and anxiety amongst our people. And the temptation for some is to say, well, we can't compete anymore so let's protect ourselves and let's withdraw, let's become isolationists. I think that would be a wrong approach by our country. See, we ought not to fear the future, we ought to shape the future. We ought to be confident in our ability to be able to compete and to remain the most innovative country in the world.

And so here are some ideas. First, if we want to be the economic leader in the world so our people can prosper, we need to keep taxes low. We need to be able to be a society that says, you get to earn more of that which you earn.

As you might recall, we went through a pretty tough time in this country over the past five years. We had a recession, corporate scandals, a stock market correction, a attack on our country, we went to war to defend ourselves, we've had high energy prices, and we had natural disasters. And yet, this economy of ours is strong. And I believe the reason why is, is because of the tax cuts we passed in Washington, D.C.

We believe that if you have more money in your pocket to save, spend, or invest, the economy grows. And so one way to make sure that we're the economic leader in the world is to make sure the tax cuts we passed are permanent. Now, people say, well, if you make the tax cuts permanent, you can't balance the budget. Well, let me talk a little bit about how Washington works -- I've been there long enough to be able to give you an accurate report. (Laughter.)

Don't believe it when they say they're going to raise your taxes to balance the budget. They're going to raise your taxes and figure out new ways to spend the money. The best way to balance the budget is to keep pro-growth economic policies in place. And, by the way, last year, because our economy was growing, we generated $100 billion more for the treasury than we thought. And this year, because of the economy growing strong, we're generating better rates than we did last year.

And so the best way to balance the budget is to keep growing the economy so we collect more tax revenues, and be wise about spending your money. See, in Washington, everything sounds good there, every program sounds fantastic. But government, in order to be wise about spending your money, has got to learn to set priorities. And my priority is this: So long as we have a soldier in harm's way, he or she will have what it takes to achieve victory and secure America. (Applause.)

We're on our way to cutting the deficit in half by 2009. Congress is now debating a supplemental bill. It's money to help fund our troops in Iraq, as well as helping the victims in Katrina. And I've made it very clear that I intend to participate with them in keeping the spending down. And if they exceed the $92.2 billion request, plus monies for avian flu, I'm going to veto the bill. See, that's one way you keep fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C.

We'll be competitive if we keep taxes low and be wise about how we spend your money. We'll be competitive, by the way, if we're smart about improving education for our people. See, this is a global economy, whether people like it or not. And the jobs of the 21st century will be either here in America or wherever the work force is trained to fill those jobs. And therefore, it's important for us to make sure we educate our children early, and emphasize math and science so our kids have got the skills necessary to fill those jobs.

We changed how we view public education in Washington. We passed the No Child Left Behind Act, see. It basically said we're going to make sure we fulfill our commitment to Title I students, but we're starting to ask some questions -- questions that I'm sure are asked at this plant: Are you meeting objectives, for example. If you set a goal, are you meeting those goals? And so we set some goals. How about every child learning to read at grade level by the 3rd grade? That didn't seem like an unrealistic goal to me. As a matter of fact, it was a necessary goal.

And then we said to the states, you measure. We're going to get you some money, but you measure to show us whether or not we're meeting the goal. And if you're not meeting the goal, figure out why. See, you can't solve a problem unless you diagnose the problem. And so the No Child Left Behind Act basically says we're going to diagnose problems early and solve them before it's too late. This business about shuffling kids through the school -- through our schools, based upon age, didn't work. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. And so the No Child Left Behind Act says, we're going to measure early, and we're going to help children who have fallen behind in reading early, and then we're going to extend that to math.

See, one of the interesting things is because we measure we know that we're doing fine in math in the 8th grade. But children get to high school, relative to other countries we're not doing fine in math. And we better do something about it now if we want to be the economic leader of the world.

So we've got a plan to, one, make sure the same standards apply to reading for early grades are applied to math. If we measure in the 8th grade or 9th grade and you're falling behind, you're going to get extra help.

Secondly, advanced placement programs work. I bet I'm looking at some folks out here who took AP when they were in high school. AP means high standards. But we don't have enough teachers around the country to teach AP, so we've got a plan to train 70,000 advanced placement teachers to keep raising those standards.

We want to have 30,000 adjunct professors in our classrooms in high school and junior -- sometimes it's not cool to be involved with science, and yet it is cool. And we need people who are on the front lines of science explaining that. I went to a school in Maryland the other day, and there was a NASA scientist there, explaining to junior high kids why the sciences matter and why it's fun to be in science.

We're going to make sure our Pell grants -- which, by the way, have expanded by a million kids since I've been the President -- continue to have incentives in there for children to take rigorous academics coming out of high school and the first two years college, and then if they maintain a 3.0 average, or are taking math, science or critical language, there's an additional $4,000 on top of their Pell grant. In other words, this is an effort to make sure that we have a work force that can compete in a global economy so we remain the economic leader of the world.

I want to talk about energy, see. If we don't get it right on energy, we can have the most educated work force in the world, but we're not going to be able to compete. We can have the lowest taxes in the world, the least regulations, the fewest lawsuits, but if we haven't done something about our energy situation we're not going to be able to compete in the world.

And so that's why I've come to this important power plant, to talk about how the United States can have a diversified energy policy that makes us less dependent on foreign sources of oil and more dependent on renewable sources of energy.

Now, one of the things I want to start off by telling the -- telling you all, and I hope others are listening, is that over the past 30 years, our economy has grown three times faster than our energy consumption. Isn't that interesting statistics? In other words, we're becoming more technologically advanced. And during that same period of time, we created more than 55 million jobs while cutting air pollution by 50 percent.

So what I believe the American people should understand is that we can put policies in place that encourage economic growth, so you've got a better standard of living, and at the same time, become less dependent on energy from overseas and protect the environment.

So what do we need to do? Well, the first thing we got to do is understand that we've got to change our driving habits over time. You've seen the price of gasoline going up. One of the reasons why your price of gasoline is going up is because demand for oil is increasing in places like India and China, and the supply for oil is not meeting that demand. And the key ingredient for gasoline is crude oil. So when the Chinese economy is growing, or the Indian economy is growing, and that demand is going up, so is your price at the pump.

One way to make sure the price at the pump doesn't go up as global demand increases for hydrocarbons is to figure out how to drive our cars with different kinds of fuels, such as ethanol. One of the really interesting developments that's taking place now in America is the use of corn-based ethanol -- pretty cool deal, isn't it, for the President to be able to say, you know, we're growing a lot of corn -- (laughter) -- and we're less dependent on foreign sources of oil. It's coming -- particularly in the Midwest right now, there's a lot of ethanol pumps and plants being developed there to manufacture ethanol from corn.

We've got to do more, though, if we're going to become less dependent on foreign sources of oil, when it comes to ethanol. And so we're spending a lot of your money to develop technologies that will enable us to be able to manufacture ethanol from wood chips or switch grass. Somebody said, what is switch grass? I said, well, it's grass that looks like a switch that grows in dry country. (Laughter.) In other words, there's all kinds of opportunities to manufacture ethanol, and we're exploring ways to do so. America has always been on the leading edge of technology and research and development, and here's an area where we've got to stay on the leading edge of change.

Another way to help reduce our use of gasoline is through hybrid vehicles. They're coming, they're coming on the market. As a matter of fact, the energy bill I signed actually will pay you -- give you a tax credit if you buy a hybrid, to try to stimulate demand through the tax code. It makes sense. But there's going to be an additional breakthrough -- or additional breakthroughs -- when it comes to hybrid vehicles, starting with the development of a battery that will enable you to drive your first 40 miles on electricity. And the federal government is very much involved in this research. We're spending your money again on research to help fund breakthroughs for battery technologies that will enable you to drive a plug-in hybrid battery.

And, oh, by the way, on ethanol, just one thing I forgot to tell you is that there are five million flex-fuel vehicles on the road today. Flex-fuel means you can either have gasoline or ethanol, or a combination of the two. You've probably got one and you don't even know it. The technology -- the barrier to change is not the automobile, it is the ability to make the fuel in quantities -- economic quantities so we can get them to you at the pump.

The same with hybrid batteries, they're coming -- hybrid -- plug-in hybrid vehicles with new batteries -- they're coming your way. And one of the reasons why is because the government has entered into research partnerships with the private sector to accelerate these technologies, all aimed at making us less dependent on oil.

A third way to help this country remain an economic leader when it comes to the cars you drive is hydrogen. We spend about a -- over a billion dollars of research to bring hydrogen to the marketplace. One fellow reminded me, wisely, it costs -- it takes quite a bit of power to make hydrogen. An interesting way to make hydrogen on an economic basis would be through nuclear power. But we're spending money and time and effort, all aimed at making sure that the automobiles of the future will require less crude oil. And we're close to some significant breakthroughs.

It's going to take time to move away from the hydrocarbon economy to the hydrogen economy, and in the meantime, it seems like it makes sense to me to do something about the refinery capacity of the United States. If you're worried about the price of gasoline, you don't like it when your price got over $3.00 -- and I don't blame you -- you might want to ask the question, how come the government isn't working hard to expand refinery capacity so that there's more gasoline? If you have more gasoline on the market relative to demand, guess what -- it takes the pressure off price.

We haven't built a new refinery in the United States since the 1970s. The regulatory burden is a lot. You're kind of used to that here in this industry. So we got to cut through all that business. If we're serious about helping our consumers and getting more gasoline to the market, we got to have regulatory relief. I suggested to Congress that we put new refineries on abandoned military facilities. It seemed to make sense to me. And so we need to be wise about these policies so that we can say to the American people, we're on our way out of the hydrocarbon era. But in the meantime, let's be thoughtful of the consumers here in the United States.

We're also going to need a lot of electricity in the future. Electricity demand is projected to increase by nearly 50 percent over the next 25 years. That's a lot. And we better be wise about how we implement a strategy to meet that demand -- otherwise, we're not going to be the economic leader; otherwise, our people aren't going to be having the good jobs that we want them to have; otherwise, your children and my children, our grandchildren are not going to have a bright, hopeful America that we want for them.

Now, one of the things that people have got to understand is that we get our -- we generate our electricity from four sources: coal -- it's about 50 percent; nuclear power -- about 20 percent; natural gas -- 18 percent; and then other renewable sources like hydroelectric, solar and wind power. And that's the mix, that's the energy mix.

Coal is by far the most abundant and affordable energy resource. We got about 240 years at current rates of consumption. It's a valuable asset for the United States. The problem is, coal isn't -- when you burn it, it isn't clean. It doesn't meet our standards. It's not -- it doesn't enable us to say you can grow your economy and, at the same time, protect the environment like we want.

And so we're developing clean coal technology. We're spending over $2 billion in a 10-year period to be able to say to the American people that we're using the money wisely to determine whether or not we can have zero-emissions coal-fired power plants. It's in our interests that we do that. It makes sense. About 2012, under the FutureGen initiative, we think we will build the first power plant to run on coal and remove virtually all pollutants.

Natural gas is an important commodity. By the way, we can explore for natural gas in environmentally friendly ways. And we ought to exploring for natural gas in the ANWR, as well as off the Gulf Coast of the United States. (Applause.)

Here's another interesting way to help make sure there's enough natural gas for this economy to grow. By the way, natural gas, as you know, is not just used for power. It's used for fertilizers, a variety of uses. You can liquefy natural gas, you can put it in a ship, and you can send it long distances and still have an economic product. And there are places in this world where there's a lot of natural gas -- a lot. And they're building liquefied production facilities. And they put them on these ships -- but we don't have any places to offload it in the United States. We got some, but not enough.

If we're really interested in diversifying our energy sources and making sure the American people have got enough energy to watch this economy grow, we have got to have LNG sites to offload the gas from abroad. And so what we've done is I signed a new bill, energy bill, that clarifies federal authority to license new sites, that reduces the bureaucratic obstacles to opening up the terminals, and streamlines the development. It's in your interest that we enable liquified natural gas to come into our country so that we can help take the burden off some of the pricing pressures that we're inevitably going to feel with demand going up and not enough electricity supply.

Thirdly, about 6 percent of the continental U.S. is highly suitable for the construction of wind turbines. This is a really interesting opportunity for the country -- they ought to put one big one in Washington, D.C. (Laughter.) They say -- the experts tell me that this area alone has the potential to supply up to 20 percent of our nation's electricity. I think that's an interesting opportunity. I don't know if it's true, or not, but it's certainly worth trying to find out, in order to make sure this country has got a bright future. And so we got $44 million for wind energy research. And the goal is to expand the use and lower the cost of wind turbine technology.

In other words, we're constantly researching and looking. I don't know if you know this or not, but the federal government does spend money on research in a variety of fronts, and it should. And I intend to double the basic -- the budget for basic research over the next 10 years. The iPod -- I like to ride my mountain bike and plug in the iPod. The technology for the iPod came as a result of federal research. The Internet came about because of defense money research.

So we're spending money on research. The reason I keep repeating that is, not only is it going to help us diversify our energy sources and make us competitive in the world, but it also helps make sure America is always on the leading edge of technological change.

Solar energy -- the dream in solar energy is to develop technology so that someday, your house is like a little generating plant, and if you don't use the power you feed it back into the grid. It's possible, but it's not going to be possible if we don't spend money on research and development. So we're spending $150 million to combine government money with private research money in solar technologies to see if we can't help foster technologies that will be able to capture the sun, feed it into your house, generate enough electricity, and if you've got a little excess, feed it back into the grid. I think that's a pretty interesting idea, and it's certainly one worth exploring.

Finally, I want to talk about nuclear power -- a subject you all are very familiar with. It is a really important way to meet our goals, which is to have abundant, affordable, clean, and safe sources of energy. The important thing for the American people to understand is this concept: One, nuclear power is abundant and affordable. In other words, you have nuclear power plants, you can say, we've got an abundant amount of electricity. And once you get the plant up and running, the operating costs of these plants are significantly lower than other forms of electricity plants, which means the energy is affordable.

As I mentioned, nuclear power, it's the second leading source of electricity here. We have 100 nuclear power plants that operate in 31 states. Now, we haven't built one in a long period of time.

People in our country are rightly concerned about greenhouse gases and the environment, and I can understand why -- I am, too. As a matter of fact, I try to tell people, let's quit the debate about whether greenhouse gases are caused by mankind or by natural causes; let's just focus on technologies that deal with the issue. Nuclear power will help us deal with the issue of greenhouse gases. Without nuclear energy, carbon dioxide emissions would have been 28 percent greater in the electricity industry in 2004. Without nuclear power, we would have had an additional 700 million tons a year of carbon dioxide, and that's nearly equal to the annual emissions from 136 million passenger cars. Nuclear power helps us protect the environment. (Applause.)

And nuclear power is safe. (Applause.) It is safe because of advances in science and engineering and plant design. It is safe because the workers and managers of our nuclear power plants are incredibly skilled people who know what they're doing. (Applause.)

For the sake of economic security and national security, the United States of America must aggressively move forward with the construction of nuclear power plants. (Applause.) Other nations are. Interestingly enough, France has built 58 plants since the 1970s, and now gets 78 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. I think that's an interesting statistic, isn't it? The United States hasn't ordered a plant since the 1970s, and yet France has not only ordered them, they built 58 plants. And 78 percent of their electricity comes from nuclear power. They don't have to worry about natural gas coming from somewhere else. They worry about it, but they don't have to worry about it to the extent that we do.

China has nine nuclear plants in operation and they got -- plan to build 40 more over the next two decades. They understand that in order to be an aggressive nation, an economic nation that is flourishing so that people can benefit, they better do something about their sources of electricity. They see it. India -- I just came from India -- they're going to build some nuclear power plants.

To maintain our economic leadership, we got to do it again. And so here's the strategy. First, in the energy bill I signed in 2005, there are loan guarantees, production tax credits, federal risk insurance for the builders of new plants. In other words, we said this is an industry that hadn't got much going since the '70s. It's an over-regulated industry. It's highly risky, because of the regulations to try to build a plant. People don't know this, but you get yourself a design for a nuclear power plant, you start spending money for plans and engineering plans and everything, you get building, and all of the sudden, somebody can shut you down. And that makes it awfully difficult to take risk if a lawsuit can cause you to spend enormous sums of money and have no productive use of the money spent.

And so we got together with the Congress and said, well, how -- what can we do to create incentives to show the industry that we're serious about moving forward? Well, one is loan guarantees, and that gives investors confidence that this government is committed to the construction of nuclear power plants. Secondly is production tax credits, and those credits will reward investments in the latest advanced nuclear power generation.

In other words, there's incentives -- loan guarantee is an incentive, tax credits are incentives, federal risk insurance. What the federal risk insurance says -- is offered for the first six new power -- nuclear power plants. And the insurance helps protect builders of the plants against lawsuits, or bureaucratic obstacles and other delays beyond their control. We have got what's called the Nuclear Power 2010 Initiative, which is a $1.1 billion partnership between the federal government and the industry to facilitate new plant orders.

In other words, I have said we need more nuclear power plants, and here's a strategy to get them going, see. Here's a way to say to the industry we're serious about this.

This time last year only two companies were seeking to build nuclear power plants. Now 16 companies have expressed an interest in new construction, and they're considering as many as 25 new plants, trying to get these plants -- construction started by the end of this decade. I want it to be said that this generation of folks had the foresight necessary to diversify our -- or to continue to diversify electricity supply, and recognize that nuclear power is safe, and we did something about it. We just didn't mark our time. We actually did something about it so a generation of Americans coming up will be able to have a better America.

I understand the issue of waste, and we've got to do something about it. We've got to be wise about nuclear waste. I'm a believer that Yucca Mountain is a scientifically sound place to send the waste, and I would hope the United States Congress would recognize that, as well.

I also recognize that we can do something on a reprocessing front. And so I got our administration to commit to the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. I think you'll find this interesting -- at least I did. Under the partnership, America is going to work with nations that have already got an advanced civilian nuclear energy program, such as France and Japan and Russia, and we're going to use new technologies that effectively and safely recycle spent nuclear fuel. In other words, we're coming together to say, how can we do a better job of reprocessing and recycling fuel.

And the reason that's important, at least for our fellow citizens to understand, is it will reduce the amount of the toxicity of the fuel and reduce the amount we have to store. To me, it's a smart way to combine with others to reduce storage requirements for nuclear waste by up to 90 percent. It's a good way to work with other nations that are spending money on research and development, as well. It's a way to kind of leverage up an investment. We're going to -- I've asked Congress to spend $250 million on this partnership. I hope they follow through with it. It is a necessary expenditure of money to make sure that the nuclear power industry can move forward with confidence, and the American people move forward with confidence, as well.

And so here are some ideas -- not only ideas, this is what we're doing, this has gone from idea to action. What I'm telling you is, is that I understand the need to get off oil. I understand the need to work on renewable sources of energy. And I'm pleased to report we're working with Congress to do it. We're spending your money on research and development to find interesting technologies. You know, I hope that when my grandchildren and some of your children start taking their driver's test, they'll be cranking up a hydrogen-powered automobile, with hydrogen produced from electricity generated from plants such as these.

We have a duty to think about the problems this country is going to face. Listen, this economy is good, and I want to keep it that way -- but I also want to make sure it's good 10 years from now. And I want to make sure that this global economy in this world that is becoming more connected is one that doesn't cause us to fear and to neglect our duties; that we put policies in place that enable us to remain confident; that we're an entrepreneurial society; that we're well-educated people, that we're willing to work hard to raise our families and put bread on the table. And we've got to make sure we have good energy policy to do that.

I want to thank you for giving me the chance to come and share with you today what the country is doing right now. I want to thank you very much for showing what is possible. I appreciate your hard work here.

May God bless you all. (Applause.)

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The Whitehouse
May 24, 2006

Fact Sheet: The Advanced Energy Initiative: Ensuring a Clean, Secure Energy Future

Today, President Bush Discussed The Advanced Energy Initiative (AEI) – A Comprehensive Vision For A Clean, Secure Energy Future.  The President's Advanced Energy Initiative promotes America's four main sources of electricity: coal, nuclear, natural gas, and renewable sources.

To Continue Economic Growth In A Competitive World, America Must Find Solutions To Its Energy Needs.  Over the past 30 years, our economy has grown three times faster than our energy consumption.  During that period, we created more than 55 million jobs, while cutting air pollution by 50 percent.  But America´s dynamic economy is also creating a growing demand for electricity; electricity demand is projected to increase nearly 50 percent over the next 25 years.

As The Global Economy Becomes More Competitive, America Must Find New Alternatives To Oil, Pursue Promising New Technologies, And Find Better Ways To Generate More Electricity.  America faces new energy challenges as countries like China and India consume more energy – especially oil.  Global demand for oil is rising faster than global supply.  As a result, oil prices are rising around the world, which leads to higher gas prices in America.

The President Is Working To Meet America´s Energy Demands And The Challenges Of The Global Economy By Developing Clean, Domestic, Affordable Supplies Of Energy.  We must safeguard the environment, reduce our dependence on energy from abroad, and help keep prices reasonable for consumers.

Nuclear Power

Nuclear Power Is Abundant And Affordable. Nuclear power is America´s second-leading source of electricity.  Today, more than 100 nuclear plants operate in 31 states.  Once a nuclear plant is constructed, its fuel and operating costs are among the cheapest forms of energy available today.

Nuclear Power Is Clean. Nuclear power produces no air pollution or greenhouse gases, and there is a growing consensus that it is an environmentally responsible choice.  Without nuclear energy, carbon dioxide emissions would have been 28 percent greater in the electricity industry in 2004, America would have an additional 700 million tons a year of carbon dioxide, and nitrogen-oxide emissions would rise by the equivalent of 58 million passenger cars.

Nuclear Power Is Safe. Advances in science, engineering, and plant design have made nuclear power plants far safer than ever before – plant workers and managers focus on security above all else.

President Bush Is Helping Expand America's Use Of Nuclear Power In Four Important Ways:

1.   The Energy Bill The President Signed In 2005 Provides Loan Incentives, Production Tax Credits, And Federal Risk Insurance For Builders Of New Nuclear Plants.  Loan incentives will give investors confidence that the Federal government is committed to the construction of nuclear power plants.  Production tax credits will reward investments in the latest in advanced nuclear power generation.  Federal risk insurance for the first six new nuclear power plants will help protect builders of these plants against lawsuits, bureaucratic obstacles, and other delays beyond their control.

2.   The Bush Administration Has Launched The Nuclear Power 2010 Initiative – A $1.1 Billion Partnership Between The U.S. Government And Industry To Facilitate New Plant Orders.  At this time last year, only two companies were seeking to build nuclear power plants.  Now, 16 companies have expressed interest in new construction – and they are considering as many as 25 new plants.  By the end of this decade, America will be able to start construction on nuclear plants again.

3.   President Bush Has Proposed Legislation That Will Help Complete A Nuclear Waste Repository At Yucca Mountain.  Yucca Mountain is critical to expanding nuclear power in the United States because it will provide a safe geologic repository to store spent fuel and nuclear waste.  Yucca Mountain was selected based on sound science after many years of scientific study.  Making Yucca Mountain fully operational would inspire confidence among builders and entrepreneurs that the government fully supports the expansion of nuclear power.  The President urges Congress to pass this important legislation to move our efforts forward.

4.  Under The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, America Will Work With Nations That Have Advanced Civilian Nuclear Energy Programs, Such As France, Japan, And Russia.  The President's budget includes $250 million to launch this initiative.

GNEP Will Use New Technologies That Effectively And Safely Recycle Spent Nuclear Fuel. Re-processing spent uranium fuel for use in advanced reactors will allow us to extract more energy.  It also has the potential to reduce storage requirements for nuclear waste by up to 90 percent.  With re-processing, Yucca Mountain could hold America´s nuclear waste through the end of the 21st century.

Working With Other Nations Under The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, America Can Provide The Cheap, Safe, And Clean Energy That Growing Economies Need, While Reducing The Risk Of Nuclear Proliferation. We will help developing countries meet their growing energy needs by providing them with small-scale reactors that will be secure and cost-effective.  We will also ensure that developing nations have a reliable nuclear fuel supply.  In exchange, these countries would agree to use nuclear power only for civilian purposes and forego uranium enrichment and re-processing activities that can be used to develop nuclear weapons.

Coal

President Bush Is Encouraging The Research And Development Of Clean-Coal Technologies.  Coal is by far America´s most abundant and affordable energy resource.  America has enough coal to last about 240 years at current rates of consumption.

In 2000, President Bush Promised To Invest $2 Billion Over Ten Years To Promote Clean Coal.  The Administration is several years ahead of schedule in keeping that promise.

By 2012, Under The FutureGen Initiative, America Will Build The World´s First Power Plant To Run On Coal And Remove Virtually All Pollutants.

Natural Gas

The Energy Bill President Bush Signed In 2005 Addressed The Increasing Demand For Natural Gas.  Natural gas is the most versatile fuel, but demand for it has increased, and the price has more than doubled between 2001 to 2005.  The Energy Bill President Bush signed last year expands our ability to receive liquefied natural gas – a super-cooled form of natural gas that can be transported from overseas on tankers.  The bill clarifies Federal authority to license new sites, reduces bureaucratic obstacles to open new terminals, and streamlines the permitting process for onshore development.

Alternative And Renewables

President Bush's FY2007 Budget Proposes $44 Million In Funding For Wind Energy Research.

About Six Percent Of The Continental United States Has Been Identified As Highly Suitable For Construction Of Wind Turbines.  This area alone has the potential to supply up to 20 percent of our Nation´s electricity.  Our goal is to expand the use and lower the cost of wind turbine technology – so that our country can get more electricity from clean, renewable wind power.

The President Has Proposed A New Solar America Initiative To Accelerate Research And Development In Solar Technology.  Solar technology has the potential to change the way all Americans live and work.  President Bush's FY2007 budget proposes nearly $150 million in funding for government and private research into solar technology – an increase of more than 75 percent over current levels.  This support can help make solar power competitive by 2015.

The President Is Working To Boost Oil And Gas Supplies To Relieve High Gas Prices.

In April, President Bush Directed The Strategic Petroleum Reserve To Defer Filling The Reserve This Summer.  In addition, he has directed EPA Administrator Steve Johnson to use all his available authority to grant waivers that would relieve the restrictions on getting fuel delivered to the pump.  The President has also called on Congress to simplify the process for building new refineries and to make it easier for refiners to make modifications to increase production.

We Need More Access To The Domestic Resources On The Outer Continental Shelf, While Respecting The Concerns Of Nearby States.  In the long term, America must find alternatives to oil and the way we power our cars.

It will take time for America to move from a hydrocarbon economy to a hydrogen economy.  In the meantime, there are billions of barrels of oil and enormous amounts of natural gas off the Alaskan Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico.

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NRDC
May 24, 2006

KEY QUESTIONS ON NUCLEAR POWER MUST BE ADDRESSED, SAYS NRDC

Bush Speech Highlights Need to Put All Issues on the Table

WASHINGTON (May 24, 2006) -- Amid the rush to embrace nuclear power as a solution to global warming, critical questions about this technology are being overlooked, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

President Bush's remarks today on nuclear power at the Limerick Generating Station in Pennsylvania serves as a reminder that the debate needs to fully address such vital issues as the exorbitant cost of building new nuclear facilities, the potential proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the disposal of radioactive wastes, said Dr. Thomas B. Cochran, director of NRDC's nuclear program.

Until such matters are answered satisfactorily, we need to adopt a realistic view toward the promises -- and the pitfalls -- of nuclear power, Cochran said.

"Nuclear plants are very expensive to build. That is why the industry's K Street lobbyists ran to Capitol Hill to get some $10 billion in taxpayer subsidies to build five or six new nuclear plants. Subsidizing a few new nuclear plants is unlikely to solve nuclear power's economic woes," Cochran said.

A growing reliance on nuclear power globally also will increase the risk of a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, according to Cochran.

"The international regime meant to prevent countries from using civilian nuclear technology and materials for weapons has major unresolved problems. Today Iran is taking advantage of loopholes in the existing safeguards regime to get close to a nuclear weapons capability," Cochran added. "The same reactors and fuel-processing facilities used for energy production can be used to manufacture weapons. Only a few kilograms of this material could destroy an area the size of Lower Manhattan."

"At the same time, we still don't have a safe way to dispose of high-level waste, which remains dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. There simply are no geologic repositories in operation anywhere in the world. And here in the United States, the proposed geologic repository at Yucca Mountain will leak far worse than originally thought. And now the U.S. government is trying to solve this problem by relaxing the disposal regulations instead of searching for a new disposal site," Cochran said.

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TheNewsTribune
May 24, 2006

A goodbye to the ghost of nuclear power past

The Trojan Nuclear Plant went out with a boom — the good kind.

In just 10 seconds Sunday, explosives reduced the plant´s iconic cooling tower to a 15-foot pile of rubble. While decommissioning the Portland General Electric-owned plant will continue until 2024, Oregon has lost the most visible symbol of its long-ago dalliance with nuclear power.

The demolition was a dramatic symbol of nuclear power´s failure to meet expectations in the Northwest, but no one should think it a death knell.

Nuclear power is on the rebound in the United States. It supplies 20 percent of the nation´s power already, even though utility companies have not placed an order for a new nuclear plant in more than two decades.

The industry´s contribution to the nation´s energy portfolio could grow as nuclear technology advances and politicians look for ways to cut emissions of carbon dioxide while still meeting the nation´s energy needs.

On Monday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman told the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee that 16 utility companies have serious plans to build 25 new nuclear power plants.

“This is no longer a flash in the pan. Industry is very serious,’ Nils J. Diaz said. “They are doing the work and investing the resources.’

Here in the Northwest, much of nuclear power´s bad reputation stemmed from mismanagement by utilities and from 0nuclear technology that´s now out of date. Trojan was beset by financial and safety problems before it shut down in 1993. In this state, the Washington Public Power Supply System set out in the 1970s to build five nuclear plants and ended up with the largest municipal bond default in U.S. history, earning its acronym-inspired nickname “whoops.’

The nuclear power industry today is a different animal, with new reactor designs that promise to make nuclear power safer and more efficient. But challenges remain. Reactors may not spew greenhouse gases, but they do produce nuclear waste.

More than 50,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel are scattered across 31 states because the federal government has yet to open the permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Trojan´s spent fuel rods still await a place to go 13 years after the plant ceased operations. Another stockpile sits at Hanford at the only reactor WPPSS managed to finish.

President Bush, a champion of nuclear power, has been pushing nuclear-fuel recycling as a way to reduce the amount of waste. It´s a promising idea, but no replacement for a long-term storage strategy.

The latest generation of nuclear power technology could play a role in meeting the nation´s energy needs in a way that is, given the alternatives, environmentally responsible. But as the Northwest´s experience proves, it´s not an enterprise to be entered into lightly.

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Stanford Daily
May 24, 2006

Nevadans don't know who to trust

State, federal officials debate project's long-term safety, consequences

By James Hohmann

The debate over Yucca Mountain comes at a time when nuclear power has come back into vogue. As memories of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl fade, nuclear power has come to be seen by many as an attractive policy option to respond to rising gas prices, global warming, and the country´s dependence of foreign sources of fuel.

President Bush called for a renewed investment in nuclear energy during his State of the Union address in January. Moderate Republican Christine Todd Whitman, the former director of the EPA, and Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, have come out in favor of nuclear power. Even the editorial board of The New York Times acknowledged recently that there might be some value in reconsidering nuclear energy.

The resurging popularity of nuclear power makes the need for a long-term solution for waste storage all the more important. In 1982, the federal government made a promise to the flagging nuclear industry that it would store the waste produced by nuclear power plants. In 1987, Congress ordered the Department of Energy to focus exclusively on developing Yucca Mountain as the permanent underground repository for the toxic waste currently stored above ground at 131 facilities in 39 other states. Nuclear power produces about 20 percent of this nation´s electricity.

A senior reactor operator at the Exelon nuclear power plant in Byron, Ill. came to Las Vegas with his wife for the tour and concluded that the site is suitable and the technology is sound. He said it was time for the government to fulfill its promise to his industry.

“It´s a commitment the government made to the utilities way back when, and government needed to fulfill that obligation,’ he said.

Anti-nuclear activists, in contrast, fear the placement of nuclear waste in a permanent repository will cement the status quo of nuclear power and encourage the industry´s expansion.

Amidst this ongoing ideological struggle, barbs have been thrown between the federal government and the State of Nevada on the practical efficacy of the project. The Energy Department has spent millions of dollars on an aggressive public relations campaign in order to win the hearts and minds of Nevadans. Three visitors´ centers full of colorful displays about the project, aimed at persuading a reluctant population that the mountain would be a safe place to store the waste, dot the southern half of the state.

The Department conducts between 200 to 300 private tours each year for technical organizations and elected officials, according to Colleen Curran, a spokesperson for the Bechtel SAIC consortium, the largest private contractor involved in the Yucca project. In contrast, the general public is only let into the high-security site once every other month.

State officials criticized the tours as a last ditch attempt of a desperate government to sell a reluctant people on a bad project.

“There´s no purpose for these tours except to convince the public this is the greatest thing since sliced bread,’ said Robert Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

Curran disagrees.

“It´s one of the most open and transparent government projects ever,’ she promised at the beginning of the day, foreshadowing the over-confident safety pronouncements issued throughout our tour. “You´ll find the people you talk with open, professional and willing to answer all of your questions.

“Yucca Mountain is the most studied real estate in the world,’ Curran added.

Indeed, one room at the visitor center is filled with thousands of publicly-available documents. But, on this apparently transparent tour, no cameras, binoculars, recording equipment, GPS devices or camera phones are allowed. There are also important areas of the highly controversial project the public was not taken to see. When I visited Yucca on a tour for the general public, at one desert checkpoint our buses were boarded by armed guards clad in dessert camouflage fatigues and the security credentials of each passenger were scrutinized.

Still, in spite of — or perhaps because of — the limited access, impressions seemed to be positive. After more than a dozen interviews on the bus during the return trip, indications seemed to be that the Energy Department was simply preaching to the choir. The tour participants who I interviewed said they were either leaning toward supporting strongly supportive of the site when they came. After a full day of briefings, the visitors each said that Yucca Mountain seemed safe enough for them.

“It makes a big difference when you see it for yourself,’ said Chet Hayes, who recently moved to Nevada and said he wanted to see “what all the fuss was about.’

Some criticized the tour as too technical and not big-picture enough.

“Everyone seems pretty professional,’ said Russ Johnson, a retiree and Las Vegas resident. “Some of the displays and people probably gave more technical information that they needed to.’

A few hoped they would see more.

“From a curiosity standpoint, I wish we could have gone deeper into the tunnel,’ said Amy Downey, a Las Vegas resident who supports the project.

The debate continues to rage between Nevada´s and the federal government´s scientists over whether Yucca will be a safe receptacle of nuclear waste. But at least, the few ordinary citizens allowed to visit the site were satisfied — when they saw the federal government´s side, at least.

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Stanford Daily
May 24, 2006

Nuclear goes political

By James Hohmann

Debate over Yucca Mountain has pitted Nevadans who feel hoodwinked by the project against a federal government searching for a place to put nuclear waste. For Nevada politicians, denouncing Yucca Mountain has become almost ritualistic. Nevada hasn´t produced a single barrel of nuclear waste on its own accord, they say.

Some point to opposition to Yucca as the classic manifestation of the so-called Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) mentality, where locals acknowledge that undesirable sites must go somewhere but dispute their placement near where they live.

For example, Robert Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said that the process of selecting Nevada to store nuclear waste was “100 percent political.’ And the 1987 Congressional bill focusing attention on Yucca as a planned underground repository for nuclear waste is referred to as the ‘Screw Nevada´ bill in the parlance of local civic leaders and journalists.

A major worry for locals about the project is the impact the waste could have on the tourism industry.

“Thirty million people come to Southern Nevada from all over the world every year,’ said David Cherry, the press secretary for Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.). “They don´t want to think they are sitting next to the biggest pile of nuclear waste ever conceived.’

Critics of the project were given ammunition when several emails sent between two scientists at the USGS between 1998 and 2000 became public in March 2005. The memos included criticisms of safety standards and one scientist indicated that he might have to fabricate additional date. The scandal has been called ‘Emailgate´ by some local politicians.

Rep. Jon Porter (R-NV) chaired a subcommittee investigation into the emails. His committee concluded that Yucca Mountain was plagued by serious flaws. A Government Accountability Office report requested by Porter spelled out shortcomings in the data underlying the project.

“The whole email scandal all goes back to the science of the project on water infiltration,’ said T. J. Crawford, Porter´s communications director. “There have been problems at every level — the science, quality assurance and management.’

“It´s inappropriate for the Department of Eenergy to push forward with a positive, feel-good PR campaign when [Secretary of Energy Samuel] Bodman himself has called the project broken,’ he said.

Though no criminal charges will be filed in the case, that does not mean ethical codes of conduct weren´t ignored, said Sharyn Stein, a spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)

“The falsifying of data at Yucca Mountain is part of a long string of mismanagement and incompetence by the DOE in trying to create the Yucca Mountain site,’ she said.

Officials tried to distance the emails from the project by saying they were written by rogue employees.

“The emails were given to the media by us,’ said Charlie Germack, a Bechtel spokesman and the lead guide on the Saturday tour. “We gave the information to them. We could have deleted the emails or swept them under the rug, but we brought them forward.’

The project elicits as much passion as any other hot-button issue among voters in the state. Miss Nevada, Crystal Wosik, received death threats in January after she was quoted in the Reno Gazette-Journal as saying that the state should open Yucca Mountain and “take one for the team.’

The state´s leaders have adamantly fought the construction of a repository on their land. No one wants to be remembered as the Congressman who allowed Yucca Mountain to be established on their watch. The state has spent $100 million on lawyers and scientists since 1983 trying to stop the project, according to Loux.

The one exception to the uniform opposition is the small town of Caliente, where the promise of a new railroad has helped garner the mayor´s support.

Reid, for his part, has tried everything in his attempt to cancel the program. As a freshman senator, he set a record for one of the longest filibusters in the history of the Senate in opposition to the project.

For the congressional delegation, the problem is that bigger states are ganging up on Nevada. Politicians in states where the nuclear waste gets produced face political pressure from their own constituents to move it someplace else. Still, safe transportation of this waste from current storage sites to Yucca presents a plethora of logistical challenges and, for some, raises safety issues. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) tried to use these concerns to overcome Nevada´s problem of being outnumbered by personally lobbying members of Congress whose districts would be used to transport the waste.

But Nevada state officials believe that the project is quickly disintegrating and predict that it will not make it far enough to be an issue in the next campaign. The Department of Energy (DOE) no longer offers a timeline for when the project might be completed. The earliest possible time that the site might accept waste would be 2015, most officials said, but it would likely be closer to 2020.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) still needs to officially approve the government´s license requests to construct and use the repository. The application process would take a minimum of three to four years to gain approval, spokesmen for both sides said.

Officials continue to use every legal and political tool in their arsenal to hinder the project, delay its timetable and drive the government to attrition. Several lawsuits have been filed to delay or stop the project. And more litigation will certainly come if the project continues to move forward.

If the project does make it to the NRC license application process, Loux said yesterday that the state will continue to fight the project at every turn.

“We will be challenging virtually every aspect of the project before the NRC,’ he said.

But most state leaders, including Loux, do not believe the DOE will even file an application with the regulatory agency to continue work on the mountain.

“The writing is on the wall,’ he said. “It´s on life support. It is only a matter of time before the plug gets pulled. But I think most people think its going to happen fairly soon.’

Senators who have traditionally supported Yucca Mountain chided DOE for a lack of progress at a May 16 hearing of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

“I´m not here to pour water on anybody´s parade, but at what point do we think we need to look at something else?’ asked Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), according to a report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

While some Congressmen have begun to sour on the idea of using Yucca, the nuclear industry has been forceful in lobbying Republican congressional allies to stand behind the project, largely because they need the waste to go somewhere and no other permanent repository site is even in the pipeline.

“The nuclear industry has been so loathe giving up the one bird they have,’ Cherry said.

The Bush administration wants new Congressional legislation that would put the project on a trajectory for completion. But if they can´t swing Yucca Mountain, the nuclear industry will look somewhere else to store the waste, observers guess.

The Energy Department has been investigating potential new locations where waste might be temporarily stored while the project here develops.

“If this site is not chosen, they´ll pick up the marbles and go somewhere else,’ said U.S. Geological Survey geologist David Bush.

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Gloucester County Times
May 24, 2006

Capitol Hill turns to energy woes

By Bill Cahir
bill.cahir@newhouse.com

WASHINGTON -- Political leaders wrapped themselves in knots on Tuesday trying to come up with solutions to the nation's energy problems.

Lawmakers in both parties lamented higher gasoline prices; criticized a new Bush administration report that effectively cleared major oil and gas companies of any suspicion they had engaged in price-gouging in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; and wondered how oil-producing nations around the globe could be encouraged, prodded or compelled to increase supply.

But members of Congress did not focus on gasoline prices alone during a fast-paced day of energy-related hearings and speeches.

U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, conducted a hearing on what he called "a nuclear renaissance."

Domenici cited renewed interest in fission power in the United States, Great Britain, China, Russia, India and France. He claimed that Congress must to forge ahead with the bipartisan plan to open a new storage facility for spent nuclear fuel rods at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

The New Mexico Republican also claimed he was eager to see U.S.-based companies take advantage of the renewed insurance provisions of an energy law passed last year. The language limits power companies' liabilities and guarantees public subsidies in the event of a nuclear accident or disaster.

With the average prices hovering around $2.93 per gallon, lawmakers said they remain most concerned about the impact of high gasoline prices.

Members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, as well as consumer advocates, blasted a new report from the Federal Trade Commission. The study, released Monday, found no evidence of price-gouging in the gasoline market after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

"The definition of price-gouging that emerges from this report is simple and stunning," protested Mark Cooper, a witness testifying behalf of the Consumer Federation of America. "I didn't realize it until just now. If everybody raises their prices, nobody's gouging."

Members of the Senate committee, including U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said they wanted to pass legislation that would create a federal definition of price-gouging and authorize the FTC to more vigorously investigate allegations of improper price spikes. President Bush has ordered the commission to cooperate with states that are probing price-gouging cases on their own.

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., proposed that members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries be expelled from the World Trade Organization -- the Geneva-based body that arbitrates international trade disputes between 149 countries -- because the OPEC nations collude with one another and attempt to control the supply of crude.

Without mentioning any firm by name, Lautenberg also lambasted oil and refining companies for failing to build even a single new refinery over the past three decades.

"Refining capacity has been restricted over the years," Lautenberg said at Tuesday's hearing. "It's been in fewer hands ... I wonder why it is the brilliant leadership in this oil industry hasn't decided some time ago, that with the growth in population just within our own country, why wouldn't it be necessary to prepare for the future? Companies do it all the time."

In fact, the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association and one of its members, Valero Energy Corporation, have tried to poke holes in the oft-repeated claim that oil and refining companies have failed to increase their capacity to refine crude into gasoline. They claim they have dramatically increased the refining output at existing facilities.

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Pottstown Mercury
May 24, 2006

Exelon plans for spent fuel storage

Evan Brandt, ebrandt@pottsmerc.com

LIMERICK -- A display explaining plans to store used nuclear fuel on a concrete pad at Exelon´s nuclear generating station was among the most heavily visited during a recent open house at the Limerick Golf Club.

The project has become necessary, said project manager Kevin Carrabine, because the federal government is far behind schedule on the nuclear depository long planned for Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

"It was supposed to open in January of 1998, and now they´re saying it won´t open before 2015, if everything goes well," he said.

So far everything has not gone well.

The plans are very controversial, questions have arisen regarding some of the science on which claims of long-term safety had been based and many communities are questioning whether transporting the spent fuel through their community on its way to Yucca Mountain could put them at risk.

In the meantime, nuclear plants across the country, Limerick included, have begun to run out of room in the tanks of water in which all the plant´s spent fuel is cooled and stored for a minimum of seven years.

Limerick has two units, one which went on line in 1986 and one in 1990, making it one of the nation´s newer nuclear plants.

Older plants ran out of space in their pools long ago, meaning that "dry cask storage," as the method is called, has been in use for at least 20 years, said Carrabine.

"It is a proven technology, and it is safe," he said.

Nuclear fuel is actually small ceramic pellets sealed in long, vertical metal tubes, which are "bundled" into assemblies of 64 to 289 rods.

Each of the 24 steel and concrete canisters planned for Limerick can hold 61 bundles, Carrabine said.

Each year, the plant plans to fill four canisters, he said.

Although plans only call for 24 canisters, the approximately three-foot thick concrete pad on which the canisters will rest will be big enough to house about 90 canisters, said Carrabine.

"We hope never to have to use more than 25 or 30 casks," said Carrabine, but better safe than sorry.

Because construction and loading of these casks has already occurred at other nuclear plants, including Peach Bottom and Oyster Creek, both owned by Exelon, Carrabine said the company will have experienced personnel on hand to help with the project in Limerick.

And because the company that will do the construction already has a license from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, no new NRC approvals are needed for this project, only land development approval from Limerick Township.

Those plans were submitted to the township planning commission in April, Carrabine said.

Presuming those plans are approved, Carrabine said Exelon expects the first cask to be loaded in 2008.

Protecting those casks, a concern heightened in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, is something else the company has taken into consideration.

According to information provided by Exelon, tests on the casks in which the spent fuel will be stored "proved highly resistant to the impact of commercial aircraft, as well as difficult targets to strike."

Responsibility for providing security at the 600-acre site rests with Exelon security supervisor Brad Whitman. There is much about security there that Whitman cannot talk about, for obvious reasons.

However, he was able to talk about the extensive "force on force" training in which the plant´s paramilitary security personnel engage, using a laser system that helps guards improve marksmanship and tactics with the AR-15-style weapons they use.

"We do look at intrusion scenarios," said Whitman, adding that the "dry cask storage" will result in "an increase in force" for his security team.

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Pottstown Mercury
May 24, 2006

ACE wants fuel casks protected

Evan Brandt, ebrandt@pottsmerc.com

LIMERICK -- The Alliance for a Clean Environment knows a plan to store spent nuclear fuel in casks at Exelon´s Limerick Nuclear Generating Station is not going to be stopped by protests.

While they´re not happy about it, ACE activists Lewis and Donna Cuthbert understand that the pools that hold spent nuclear fuel for a minimum of five years are nearly full -- and that the controversial federal depository at Nevada´s Yucca Mountain is decades away from being ready to accept spent fuel assemblies.

What they want, the Cuthberts said in a recent interview, is for the dry cask storage project at Limerick to be built to the highest standard of safety-- to withstand everything from the ravages of nature, to accidents, to a terrorist assault.

That desire grew after ACE held conversations with Kevin Kamps, who works with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a nuclear energy watchdog group that documents incidents and issues with nuclear power.

High on the list of concerns about allowing the spent fuel to be stored outside the building is exposure to a terrorist attack, the Cuthberts said.

Kamps said a 1998 Army test showed that a commonly used missile launched from a portable tripod two miles away penetrated the wall of a cask designed to be much more robust than those planned for Limerick.

He said a video of the test showed that a "gaping hole" in the cask would breach radiation shielding resulting not only in a radiation release that could harm civilians, but would expose emergency responders to fatal levels of radiation "within minutes."

Representations by utilities that the casks meet all government requirements for resilience against attack should not be taken at face value, Kamps said.

"The crazy thing about this is that this is a preventable risk," said Lewis Cuthbert.

"With proper planning, these casks could be spread out so they are not clustered together, compounding the risk," he said. "They could be covered with earth, or at least have an earthen berm built around them so they are not easily visible."

Kamps said spent fuel stored in Europe is "bunkered" inside a building where it cannot be seen from the outside. "And they are dispersed so you can´t attack all of them at once," Kamps said.

But so far, the plans for security at the Limerick site involves mostly increased manpower, Lewis Cuthbert said.

"They are not keeping these casks as low-profile or out of the line of sight," said Donna Cuthbert. "They´re telling us not to worry about it, but an airplane hit the Pentagon, which is practically ground level, while going 500 miles per hour."

"Haven´t we learned anything from 9/11?" Lewis Cuthbert asked. "Until then, no one thought airplanes could be used as weapons."

He said ACE´s concern grows out of the increased exposure presented by "dry-cask" storage. Until now, all spent nuclear fuel was stored indoors, out of sight, making it difficult to target.

But people should also know there are more issues related to spent nuclear fuel storage than just terrorist attack, said Kamps.

Kamps, who has tracked dry cask storage projects around the country, said there are many examples of problems with the systems.

One was documented in 1994 at a plant 30 miles outside Kalamazoo, Mich. when a newly loaded cask was found to have "faulty welds."

Repairing those weld became impossible, he said, when the utility realized its plan to unload the casks had severe flaws. "In the end, they left it alone and decided the faulty welds didn´t pose a safety problem, a result the (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) blessed after the fact," said Kamps.

Kamps said a 22-year-old cask at a plant in Surry, Virg. documented a leakage of helium, used to transfer heat away from the fuel rods, that is difficult if not impossible to repair. Other problems may occur and multiply unseen inside the sealed casks, he said.

An accident or attack on these casks could have devastating effects, ACE argues.

A 1982 report commissioned by the NRC and presented to Congress, predicted the casualties resulting from an accident at every nuclear plant in the nation.

Despite the fact that the population of the greater Pottstown area has grown since the report was commissioned, the casualties it predicts remain stunning enough, said Lewis Cuthbert.

The report, called a CRAC-2 Report and conducted by the Sandia National Laboratories, predicts 74,000 deaths from radiation exposure within one year, not counting cancers.

It would result in 610,000 radiation-related injuries and 34,000 cancer-related deaths over the lifetime of the exposed population, according to the report.

"All we´re saying is that we, the NRC and Limerick Township should be demanding the safest installation, not the cheapest," said Donna Cuthbert. "After all, we´re going to be living with this stuff for a very, very long time."

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Pottstown Mercury
May 24, 2006

Limerick chosen for energy speech

Evan Brandt, ebrandt@pottsmerc.com

LIMERICK -- Few people should be surprised that President Bush decided to visit Exelon Nuclear´s Limerick Generating Station today, a White House official said Tuesday.

That´s because "the president has been traveling the country talking about his energy proposals and nuclear energy plays a big part in that," said White House spokesman Alex Conant.

"The president outlined some of his positions in the State of the Union," said Conant, "and now he has been traveling the country spelling out some of the details."

Chief among the themes Bush has championed, said Conant, "is the president´s belief that we must reduce our dependence on foreign oil."

Now, as in the past, Bush has promoted the expansion of nuclear energy as one way to wean the nation off what he described in this year´s State of the Union as America´s addiction to oil.

More specifically, Bush has also proposed lifting the ban on "re-processing" spent nuclear fuel, a ban imposed by presidents Ford and Carter to counter fears of nuclear weapon proliferation.

Bush argues that technology has progressed to the point that spent fuel can be re-processed safely, avoiding the creation of the easily manipulated plutonium by-product used in nuclear weapons.

This policy initiative is significant in Limerick which, like many of the nation´s 103 nuclear plants, is grappling with the problem of storing its spent fuel.

With the completion of the federal depository in Nevada´s Yucca Mountain still years away, plants are now beginning to store their fuel in "dry casks" outside the main reactor building.

Last month, Exelon announced plans to do just that,

That plan will go before the Limerick Planning Commission, although whether it will be on the commission´s June 1 agenda has not yet been determined, according to township staff.

Conant said he was unsure if Limerick´s dry cask storage plans contributed to the decision to have Bush visit the station.

However, he said, given the president´s energy policy plan, it is certainly apropos.

Bush is also in the area for a Congressional fund-raiser in Philadelphia, according to the White House.

"The president always enjoys visiting Pennsylvania and Pottstown," Conant said in reference to Bush´s campaign visit in 2004 during his re-election campaign.

"And being here, near the Limerick plant, is certainly a good opportunity for him to talk about his energy proposals," Conant said.

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American Enterprise
May 23, 2006

The Slow Climb Up Yucca Mountain

By William Tucker

“As you can see, Yucca Mountain isn´t really a mountain,’ says our guide as we near the end of an hour-long bus ride north from Las Vegas. “Those of you who know geology will recognize it´s only a ridge.

“No one knows how it got the name ‘Yucca´ either,’ he continues. “There aren´t many yucca plants around here. It´s mostly mesquite bushes.’

“How about Mesquite Ridge?’ suggests one of the more high-spirited members of our party. Everyone has a good laugh.

Once every month, the Department of Energy offers a public tour of Yucca Mountain, the once and future—perhaps—site of America´s nuclear waste repository. At 7:30 a.m., our group of about 300 has picked up our box lunches and boarded four huge tour buses headed for the remote site. It´s an interesting group. Although everyone professes neutrality and insists they are just looking for facts, I don´t hear many words of adamant opposition to the project.

“We should have gone nuclear 20 years ago,’ says Tom Lipiec, a film equipment manufacturer who has driven up for the day from Los Angeles. “We wouldn´t be putting all this carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We wouldn´t be dependent on foreign oil either. We could have hydrogen cars by now.’

One fellow wants to know “why we have to deal with such dangerous stuff,’ but for the most part the questions are not hostile.

That´s unusual. If our group seems relatively unfazed by the idea of storing stainless steel canisters 1,500 feet underground as the price for resolving several major environmental and geopolitical dilemmas, we are an unrepresentative sampling. Almost everyone in Nevada is passionately opposed to the project. Both the liberal Las Vegas Sun and the libertarian Review-Journal, plus the entire state congressional delegation—including some who support nuclear—all rail about making Nevada “the country´s nuclear dumping ground.’

“I went to a public hearing a few months ago and it was awful,’ says my seatmate, Dick Telfer, an 83-year-old former science teacher who began developing nuclear curricular material in the 1950s. “Anybody who spoke in favor of it was shouted down.’

Indeed, as our bus rolls north, it becomes clear that the DOE feels like an embattled cavalry regiment in hostile Indian territory. “For a while the state wouldn´t allow us any water,’ recounts our guide, who is an Air Force veteran with a Ph.D. is geochemistry. “We had to survive on bottled water and port-o-potties.

“See those shacks off to the left?’ he adds as we approach the site. “Those are brothels. As some of you may know, prostitution is legal in many rural counties of Nevada. The state has no trouble licensing them and providing them with ample water, but they won´t do the same for us.’

On the other hand, the brothels—it turns out—are one of Yucca´s biggest supporters. They think the four-year construction project will be good for business.

At the foot of the ridge, we disembark and clamor into a fleet of minivans that takes us up a bumpy rock-strewn road to the summit. “Hey, you missed one pothole back there,’ someone tells our driver as we bounce along. “Don´t worry, I´ll catch it on the way back,’ she responds cheerfully.

In the dizzying, dazzling 100-degree sun, the view at the top is magnificent. On the horizon is snow-capped 14,500-foot Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the Lower 48. Less than 100 miles to the south is Death Valley, the lowest point in North America, 282 feet below sea level. It is spectacular terrain.

A DOE geologist with a ponytail to his waist discourses passionately for 25 minutes on why there is only a infinitesimal chance that the seven inches of annual rainfall on Yucca will ever leach radioactive material out of the six-inch-thick stainless steel containers through 1,000 feet of relatively impervious rock, into the water table, and across several watersheds to Las Vegas where it might expose residents to a few more millirems besides the 360 they already absorb from natural sources each year. “We´ve found that small water deposits trapped in this rock haven´t moved significantly for 10,000 years,’ he concludes.

All of this may seem like overkill, but it´s not. The reason Yucca Mountain is not moving forward at the moment is because last year environmentalists convinced a federal judge that the 10,000-year standard established by the EPA for radioactive emissions from the site was not adequate. The EPA has been ordered to prove emission will not exceed 360 millirems for the next one million years! There was no mention of how the court plans to monitor these forecasts.

Our next stop is the north entrance to the five-mile “exploratory’ tunnel that DOE drilled into the mountain between 1994 and 1997. The boring tool was a 100-yard-long freight-train-like vehicle fitted with a 25-foot-radius drill bit that had to be replaced almost every day. It now sits at the south entrance. “We´re trying to sell it,’ says our guide. “Want to make an offer?’

Proceeding at an average of 185 feet a day, this battering ram drove a mile downward into mountain, swung south for three miles, and then turned back to the ridge face, emerging only five feet from its target. A video at the information center shows the drill face breaking through the cliff like a submerged diver coming to the surface as 100 staff members in hardhats stand and cheer.

“The big mistake was bringing along the scientists,’ says our guide in retrospect. “They wanted to stop the drill every ten minutes and examine the rock.’ A series of alcoves have now been constructed off the main tunnel where geologists can experiment in peace. They sealed off one section for three years and heated it to 400 degrees—the temperature that will be produced by the radioactive decay—in order to find out whether the heat changed the pattern of water migration. It didn´t.

The discouraging news is that the real work at Yucca Mountain hasn´t even begun. Right now the DOE is still seeking a construction license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—of which the EPA´s million-year emissions standard is only a small part. If and when the license is ever granted, the DOE must bore six more miles of passageways, then begin the honeycomb of “emplacement tunnels’ where the nuclear material will eventually be stored. Construction is expected to take another four years. Then DOE must secure an operating license—an opportunity for more environmental intervention that could stretch out a decade. At best, the entombment of the nation´s spent fuel will not be complete for 28 years.

What makes this effort so bizarre is that 95 percent of the material scheduled to be buried at Yucca could be recycled as fuel. Why heat a mountain to 400 degrees when the same heat could be used to generate electricity? “We´ve had people come out here and offer to build a power plant,’ says one of the young scientists doing a show-and-tell at the information center. “The only real ‘waste´ here is all the heat energy that will be wasted in the mountain.’

The fatal turn came in 1976 when Jimmy Carter cancelled the nation´s fuel reprocessing efforts under the quaint notion that burying the small amounts of plutonium produced in commercial reactors instead of recycling it would prevent other nations from developing nuclear weapons. Somehow North Korea, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, and Iran all missed their cue.

As a result of Carter´s choice of coal over nuclear, our coal plants now produce 8 percent of the world´s greenhouse gases while we forever increase our allegiance to foreign oil. The purpose of all this is to hold nuclear to absurd standards of possible eventuality.

“After we´ve got this material stored, we´re going to seal it up tight so that no one can ever access it,’ says our guide as we head back to Las Vegas. “You can never tell. A hundred years from now Nevada may be an Islamic Republic. We wouldn´t want those people digging this stuff up and using it for bombs.’

Indeed, if Nevada does become an Islamic Republic, it will probably be because we couldn´t bring ourselves to face the relatively minor risks of harnessing nuclear energy.

William Tucker is a weekly columnist for The American Enterprise Online.

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NEI
May 22, 2006

Myths and Facts about Yucca Mountain Legislation

Expect to begin hearing a lot more about pending Yucca Mountain legislation in the coming weeks. Senate Bill 2589 has been introduced to help ensure that the radioactive byproduct wastes of nuclear energy generation and defense will be safely and securely disposed of in a timely manner. In doing so, it will play a substantial role in securing our nation'?s energy supply and environmental future.

Of course not everything you hear about this bill will be true. What follows is a list of some of the common myths we have been hearing about the bill and the true facts that counter them.

Myth: The proposed legislation would weaken standards for Yucca Mountain.

Fact: The proposed legislation offers solutions that would help the Department of Energy move the Yucca Mountain project forward. The bill does not weaken any public health, safety, scientific or technical standards applicable to the project. These solutions add structure to the Yucca Mountain licensing process so that government agencies and others can evaluate the repository against the stringent standards that will be applied to the project in a more straightforward manner.

Additionally, these solutions would clarify regulations that, if misapplied, could add unnecessary complexity and delay to the process with no benefit to public safety or environmental protection. Far from weakening standards, these improvements make the decision-making process based on these standards more effective and understandable to all stakeholders.

Myth: DOE's flawed science has cast doubt on validity of work at Yucca Mountain.

Fact: The federal government has spent more than 20 years and $8 billion to determine that Yucca Mountain is an appropriate site for the nation's repository. DOE'?s 2002 recommendation of the Yucca Mountain site was based on the results of the most extensive scientific and technical inquiry ever conducted by the U.S. government. An international peer review conducted jointly by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development'?s Nuclear Energy Agency found that the methodology DOE used was "?soundly based" and "?implemented in a competent manner."?

The scientific work supporting this evaluation has involved more than 2,500 scientists from every national laboratory and the world'?s leading universities working in an underground laboratory that includes seven miles of tunnels and more than 180 boreholes. In addition to the international peer review, this work also has been reviewed by the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other authorities. During these reviews, DOE answered several specific concerns. No reputable scientific or technical organization has ever characterized DOE'?s science -- ?or any part of the science applied to Yucca Mountain -- as "flawed."?

Myth: New cases of fraud related to the Yucca Mountain project continue to surface.

Fact: No documented cases of fraud at Yucca Mountain exist. This myth has centered on the recent disclosure of e-mails, exchanged more than five years ago, alleging that a small group of U.S. Geological Survey employees working on the project did not follow quality assurance (QA) procedures. The issue now is undergoing a thorough investigation. DOE is examining millions of e-mails written over the history of the project. No organization of any type has ever subjected its electronic communications to this level of scrutiny.

And the Yucca Mountain project has withstood it successfully. Although embarrassing e-mails have been identified, none has cast substantive doubt on the scientific work. In fact, DOE recently released a report prepared by an independent team of scientists. It confirmed the data called into question by the original USGS e-mails is indeed correct. Nonetheless, to further verify the scientific work at Yucca Mountain, DOE has designated the Sandia National Laboratory and Oak Ridge Associated Universities to independently review the data.

Myth: DOE has admitted that geology is not a sufficient barrier to contain the waste.

Fact: DOE has never made such a statement. Opponents of the repository often incorrectly attribute DOE'?s inclusion of robust engineered barriers in the repository design, as evidence that the agency is compensating for inadequacies in the site'?s geology. The truth is that scientists and policymakers always have intended that the repository consist of a combination of natural and engineered barriers to provide the greatest possible protection. In fact, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 mandates that DOE'?s site recommendation include "preliminary engineering specifications." The act also requires an explanation of the relationship between "?packaging" and "?the geologic medium of the site."?

DOE's engineered barriers perform well at Yucca Mountain precisely because of their integration with a geology that is uniquely well-suited for the long-term isolation of radioactive materials. DOE'?s 2002 site recommendation, approved by President Bush and Congress, made this clear. A U.S. appellate court soundly rejected challenges by Yucca Mountain opponents, who based their case on this myth.

Myth: The NRC found that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory overestimated the ability of metals to contain waste.

Fact: This statement mischaracterizes what Livermore identified. The NRC actually found that the lab had used an uncalibrated piece of equipment in the collection of data in corrosion rate studies. While any data collected using this piece of equipment must be considered suspect, the NRC has drawn no specific conclusion regarding the data'?s accuracy. Even if the data is incorrect, one could not possibly draw such a far-reaching conclusion from the error. This piece of equipment is merely one of thousands of instruments used in hundreds of studies to evaluate the corrosion resistance of metals. DOE has established processes for evaluating any impact the uncalibrated equipment had on scientific results. It is premature to draw any conclusions until these processes have been completed and independently verified.

Myth: Bechtel-SAIC stopped work as a result of a whistleblower incident.

Fact: DOE actually stopped Bechtel SAIC work because a list of applicable requirements to that work had not been kept up-to-date. An employee unable to gain management attention -- ?a whistleblower -- ?did not identify this issue. Rather, DOE'?s own internal management identified it. In fact, the stop-work order itself is evidence that DOE'?s systems for identifying such issues worked properly. All nuclear projects have such systems, and managers must take decisive action. In this case, they did.

Myth: The U.S. Geological Survey "?altered and omitted" data.

Fact: No one has ever even alleged that the USGS altered and omitted data. Whether some USGS employees failed to follow quality assurance procedures in collecting data is under investigation. In the nuclear energy industry, failure to follow procedures is a significant offense. However, it is not the same as altering and omitting data. E-mails sent by these employees appear to reflect a disregard for procedure; however, they also display a high confidence in the integrity of their work and accuracy of the data.

Because of the seriousness of this matter, DOE launched an independent investigation of this work. This investigation recently resulted in a report, prepared by an independent team of scientists, which corroborated the data. In spite of the failure to follow procedure, the fundamental scientific understanding that resulted from this work has been confirmed.

Myth: DOE should not have unlimited access to the Nuclear Waste Fund.

Fact: The legislation does not propose giving DOE unlimited access to the Nuclear Waste Fund. Congress still must approve all appropriations for the Yucca Mountain program. The legislation provides that new fee-generated income into the fund will offset appropriations for budget scoring purposes. Although Congress maintains control of the fund, the legislation ensures that contributions to the fund will be used for their intended purpose of waste disposal.

Myth: Reclassifying the Nuclear Waste Fund is a budget gimmick that reduces spending and hides costs artificially.

Fact: Actually, the reclassification of the Nuclear Waste Fund proposed by this legislation would do just the opposite: It would restore the fund to the budget treatment established in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Congress previously has acted to address similar situations for other dedicated trust funds. This legislation seeks not to create a budget gimmick, but to remove one.

Watch this space for more Yucca Mountain news in the coming weeks and months.

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Contra Costa Times
May 23, 2006

Audit suggests DOE facilities have too many vehicles in fleet

Duncan Mansfield
Associated Press

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Several Department of Energy installations, including California operations and its research and nuclear weapons production complex in Oak Ridge, have more vehicles than they use, federal auditors say.

At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, nearly two of every three vehicles were considered underutilized, said the report released Monday.

As many as one of every three vehicles in Oak Ridge is "underutilized," the agency's inspector general said in a report analyzing motor pools at six DOE installations around the country.

That's 216 cars and trucks - from a fleet of 644 - of questionable need filling the parking lots and garages of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the former K-25 uranium enrichment site and related facilities in Oak Ridge.

DOE-Oak Ridge "concurs with the essential findings contained in the report," spokesman John Shewairy said Tuesday.

Oak Ridge managers contend their underused vehicles were overcounted by the auditors and that the too-often-parked portion of their fleet was 26 percent rather than 34 percent.

"Regardless, it's still an unacceptable figure," Shewairy said, noting that new inventory practices and quarterly reviews to identify excess vehicles should drive those numbers down.

Other DOE sites examined: the Nevada Test Site and Yucca Mountain waste site, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Hanford site in Richland, Wash.

A total of 481 of 1,717 vehicles, or 28 percent, were found underused at the six facilities.

"Despite its pressing budget situation," Inspector General Gregory Friedman wrote, DOE has been "expending funds on the acquisition, maintenance and management of fleet vehicles that may not be essential ... "

"Without prompt action, the department is likely to continue its wasteful practice of expanding funds that could be redirected to higher priority, mission critical activities."

The auditors said DOE could save $2.9 million annually at the six facilities if only vehicles used less than half the time were eliminated. The savings could reach $9.1 million a year if that standard was applied to DOE's entire 14,000-vehicle fleet.

In Oak Ridge, one contractor turned in two vehicles last week and K-25 cleanup contractor Bechtel Jacobs expects to turn in nearly 40 vehicles next spring, Shewairy said.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where auditors found more than half of its 165 vehicles underused, is completing an internal review this month. "Preliminary results indicated there should be numerous vehicles turned in due to underutilization," he said.

Top managers in DOE's Office of Science and National Nuclear Security Administration said in letters to the inspector general that the auditors' recommendations would be followed.

---DOE-Oak Ridge: http://www.oakridge.doe.gov/

---DOE Inspector General: http://www.ig.doe.gov/

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Pottstown Mercury
May 23, 2006

Bush to visit Limerick nuclear plant

Evan Brandt, ebrandt@pottsmerc.com

LIMERICK -- President George W. Bush will tour Exelon Nuclear´s Limerick Generating Station Wednesday and address workers there.

His visit was announced in an Exelon press release that said Bush is visiting the plant "to speak about America´s energy policy."

"We look forward to the opportunity to provide President Bush with a tour of our site to show him first-hand our safe, clean, reliable operations," Chris Crane, Exelon´s chief nuclear officer, said in the release.

"This administration has done a great deal to advance nuclear technology as a safe, cost-effective alternative to other energy sources," John Rowe, chairman, president and CEO of Exelon Corp. said in the release.

Exelon spokesman Ralph DeSantis said the White House contacted Exelon to suggest Bush´s visit to the Limerick plant.

It will be Bush´s second visit to the greater Pottstown area. He made a swing through Pottstown during his 2004 reelection campaign.

It will also be his second visit to a nuclear power plant. Bush is the first president to visit a nuclear power plant since Jimmy Carter visited Three Mile Island, a name now synonymous with the nation´s worst nuclear accident.

Exelon workers were busy Monday making preparations for Bush´s visit.

DeSantis said increased security measures were being undertaken, but said he could not discuss the specifics.

Bush has long held that the country, which has not built a new nuclear plant since the 1970s, should build new nuclear plants as an alternative to fossil fuels and as a way for the U.S. to achieve energy independence from foreign oil.

He often points out that while the U.S. has not commissioned a new nuclear power plant in 30 years, France built 78 during the same period and derives 78 percent of its energy from nuclear plants.

The United States has 103 nuclear plants -- Limerick being one of the newest -- which provide about 20 percent of the nation´s energy.

Bush has also asked Congress for $250 million for research into re-processing spent nuclear fuel in a way that makes it more difficult to use the plutonium by-product to make nuclear weapons.

It was the danger of nuclear proliferation that prompted presidents Ford and Carter to ban the practice, leaving the United States as one of the few, if not the only, major consumer of nuclear power that does not reprocess its fuel.

Some, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, remain concerned about Bush´s proposal because they still consider it a risk of increased proliferation of nuclear weapons, particularly in the hands of terrorists.

But Bush has proposed working with countries like Russia, France, Japan and Britain to share information and innovations made by civilian firms that have made technical advances in the reprocessing field.

He has also proposed establishing a system to supply nuclear fuel to other nations, part of a "Global Nuclear Energy Partnership" he proposed for the 2007 budget.

Discussions of re-processing fuel are relevant to the Limerick plant, which is currently seeking township planning approval for a "dry cask" storage system to hold its spent fuel rods.

U.S. reactors generate about 2,000 tons of high-level waste in every year of operation.

Long stored in pools in the interior of the plant, the pool at the Limerick facility is fast filling up with fuel.

And because the long-delayed federal storage facility for nuclear fuel beneath Nevada´s Yucca Mountain is years away, Limerick has joined other, older, nuclear plants that have begun to store their older fuel inside concrete and steel casks on plant grounds.

Although Exelon plans to need no more than 24 casks there, it has planned a storage facility that can house nearly 100.

Bush´s visit would be the first to an Exelon facility. "We consider it to be an honor," DeSantis said.

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Pioneer Press
May 22, 2006

Environmental group earns a place in history

TOM CHERVENY
West Central Tribune of Willmar

GRANITE FALLS, Minn. - Two large boxes stuffed full of papers arrived on the shelves of the college history center ready to collect dust, except for what Tami De Kam discovered as she started to file them away.

The senior at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall found in them a Hollywood-like story of ordinary citizens prevailing against big interests and a government bureaucracy.

De Kam made the story of MnFAIR - Minnesota's Future Agricultural Interests Recognized - the subject of her senior paper for her major in history.

In the process, she wrote the final chapter for an environmental organization that shaped the region's modern destiny.

It was exactly what she was looking for: "I wanted ordinary citizens in southwest Minnesota who made a turning point in history, who had a focal moment, and how it changed all of you," said De Kam as she gathered with one dozen MnFAIR members recently in Granite Falls.

They joined to reminisce and for closure, according to Ginger Homme of rural Granite Falls, who organized the get-together. MnFAIR officially disbanded this last year and turned over its records to SMSU's regional history program.

The citizens organization successfully fought off a proposal by the state to bore large, underground repositories in the gneiss outcrops in the Minnesota River. The man-made caverns would have been used to store hazardous wastes generated by the state's large industries.

The state's search for a hazardous waste repository had the interest of the federal government, according to MnFAIR members. It saw in these gneiss outcrops what it now sees in Nevada's Yucca Mountain: A place to store nuclear wastes for tens of thousands of years.

"That's when we really panicked, when we thought they were going to do nuclear," said Delores Swoboda, of rural Redwood Falls.

There were much opportunities for panic, recalled Swoboda and a dozen other MnFAIR members who joined with De Kam. Delbert Kettner of rural Morgan said the original battle over hazardous waste began in the early 1980s when the state announced it was going to look at dozens of rock outcrop sites in the Minnesota River Valley - as well as areas around St. Cloud and in the Arrowhead region - to hold hazardous wastes.

Some feared that the search would attract unwanted attention to Minnesota. The federal government was looking for a place to store nuclear wastes.

Homme said those fears were confirmed when a man she calls "the acquaintance" called her late husband Paul and asked to meet with him at a clandestine location. Like the deep throat source in "All the President's Men," the acquaintance had information from within the federal government.

He warned her husband and other MnFAIR members that the Department of Energy would be piggybacking its search for a nuclear waste site with the state's efforts.

Gene and Delores Swoboda own Redwood County farmland holding some of the rock outcrops that the state was eyeing for a hazardous waste repository. No sooner was that battle successfully fought, said Delores, than a packet came in the mail from the federal Department of Energy.

MnFAIR fought both the hazardous and nuclear waste proposals and prevailed, only to find itself in another battle. From 1987 to 1991 it fought with Northern States Power to prevent the company from burning PCB-tainted oil from old transformers as fuel in its Minnesota Valley power plant. The power company eventually dropped its plans.

Through all of those years, MnFAIR calculates that it spent more than $170,000. It paid for the services of scientists, engineers and other consultants.

Kettner said he still remembers the day he went to the Morgan City Council meeting to ask for help and walked home with a promise for $2,000.

For those who bemoan today's apathy, Kettner said he looks back at a time when citizens in the region reacted with passion. "It spread like wildfire when it came out in the papers," said Kettner. "The whole town and county were excited because of what was going on."

At one point MnFAIR counted more than 1,300 members. It jump-started its battle with an auction of donated goods and services that netted more than $15,000.

The organization itself had been formed in 1977 in Sibley County to battle a power line and later an underground pipeline. Its organizers turned over the incorporated, nonprofit organization to their successors in 1983 when the hazardous waste battle was started.

The second-generation MnFAIR members said they were largely met with resistance and indifference from staff with the Waste Management Board and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. MnFAIR members obtained a tape of one meeting at which MPCA staff members called the people at MnFAIR "scientific illiterates," said Homme.

MnFAIR joined with similar groups in St. Cloud and the state's northeastern region - called MnNORTH - to present evidence showing that the state's crystalline bedrock is fraught with fractures and passageways for water. There would be no sure way of preventing water from entering or exiting a repository and carrying wastes through the ground to the Minnesota River and eventually the Mississippi River.

They also pointed out the Minnesota Valley's propensity to flooding, and the problems that would represent.

The message was sometimes delivered by experts, but Swoboda said some of the most effective arguments often came from ordinary citizens. She recalled one meeting before state staff and lawmakers where Renville County resident Gary Lentz stood up and pointed out the obvious. Lines on a drawing of a proposed, underground repository clearly showed pumps to remove water from them. "I thought you told us no water could come in here," Swoboda quoted Lentz as stating.

Lentz laughed at the memory.

Brad Kurtz of rural Echo said his involvement with MnFAIR showed him the wealth of talented people that live in the region. He said the ability of people like John Essame and the late Paul Homme to put their scientific training to work made all the difference.

MnFAIR members said that the organization arrived in St. Paul with a reputation for confrontation, a legacy of the battles over the power line and gas line. This group took a different tack by presenting scientific arguments and courting one-on-one relationships with decision-makers. "If you were hollering, no one would listen to you," said Delores Swoboda.

In the end, Homme said it was state legislators who listened to their concerns and acted. State Sen. Dave Fredrickson, DFL-Murdock, authored the motion that called on the state to end its search for a hazardous waste repository.

De Kam said she was impressed most of all by what happened to the ordinary citizens who comprised the organization. While a "Not In My Back Yard" response initially galvanized the movement, she said its members soon acquired a "big picture" view of the issues. Many went on to become involved in other issues of a regional and statewide significance.

Their experiences have led them to trust government less, De Kam concluded, but also to advocate more for citizen involvement in the political process.

--Information from: West Central Tribune, http://www.wctrib.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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