Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
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San Diego Union Tribune
June 14, 2006
Politics
Kerry honors former Nevada senator Hecht at memorial
LAS VEGAS – Friends and family of former Nevada Sen. Chic Hecht gathered in Las Vegas Wednesday for a memorial service honoring the conservative politician best known for his upset victory and his verbal gaffes.
Former Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John Kerry was among those who spoke at the service, praising Hecht's “humble, self-effacing’ demeanor and bipartisanship.
“Chic was one of the senators – and sadly you see fewer and fewer like him – who understood that you could be friends with a colleague and it could have absolutely nothing to do with an issue or a party or politics,’ Kerry, D-Mass., said in prepared remarks.
Hecht died of cancer last month in a Las Vegas hospital. He was 77.
Before entering politics, he served as spy in postwar Germany and later founded a successful women's clothing store.
He served one term in the U.S. Senate after pulling off a long-shot victory over U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon in 1982. In the Senate, Hecht became known for his verbal slips, once referring to the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain as a “nuclear suppository.’
In 1988, Kerry saved Hecht's life when he administered the Heimlich maneuver as Hecht was choking on a piece of apple. The two stayed in touch since the incident.
Kerry praised the Missouri-born Republican's advocacy on behalf of Soviet Jews and called him “a true believer, an idealist ... a man who, like his friend Ronald Reagan, knew the value in politics of being underestimated.’
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Pahrump Valley Times
June 14, 2006
Hecht maintained DOE chef made university offer
By Bob McCracken
In this column, a lengthy interview with the late Chic Hecht is continued.
Q. What has Nevada lost because of its politically based opposition to Yucca Mountain?
A. You are asking a question that I have never answered to anyone, but I'm going to answer it now. You've hit on a very, very important point. What Nevada could have received is beyond comprehension. I was offered, as a U.S. Senator at the time, by the Secretary of Energy (John Herrington), the possibility, which I felt was very forthcoming, a huge university in conjunction with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. (It) would have more (Nobel Prize winning) scientists on staff (than any institution on earth). ... Nobel Prize scientists (working) here on the future of nuclear power, nuclear medicine, and so forth ... (at) the Nevada Test Site. That was to be the university of far-reaching thinking. ... Dr. Teller endorsed it, and many other people endorsed it. This was given to me by great authority - the highest authority at the time - as a senator.
I brought it back and made an appointment with the then head of the university, telling him Nevada would be the scientific university of the world. I was not laughed at, but I was told that if any professor at the university would endorse this policy, they would not have a job the next day. ... He said, "If I proposed something like this, I'd be out tomorrow." He said, with the mood in Las Vegas, he didn't want any part of it.
Q. The president was responding to political opinions and pressure, right?
A. Absolutely. The Secretary of Energy personally asked me about it, so it was not from a low-level person; it was from the Secretary of Energy. And I think there would have been cash amounts at the end of the year, too.
Q. In addition to the university?
A. In addition. Plus, total funding for the university.
Q. We're talking billions here, right?
A. We're talking billions ... This nuclear university - it would affect everyone in the world because nuclear medicine is the medicine of the future. Cancer is one of the most feared diseases, and nuclear medicine is on top of the cancer cure. And so this was so far-reaching and beneficial to everyone.
Q. You feel that it would have led to a renaissance of sorts in nuclear medicine?
A. There is absolutely no question. Absolutely no question . . . We're only in the infancy of nuclear medicine, but it's being used all over. Just think if we would have perfected this and had the insight and had the scientists working on this the last 20 years, how far along we would be today.
Q. Did Dr. Teller think this was a good idea, or did you talk to him about it?
A. Of course I talked to him about it.
Q. And he agreed?
A. Of course he agreed. When you talk with a man like Dr. Teller, he's 100 years in the future, where most people, they plan for tomorrow, this afternoon. Oh, no, Dr. Teller saw it.
Q. Do you think they (the Reagan administration) could have delivered upon that politically?
A. Absolutely.
Q. No question in your mind?
A. No question. No question. Because of all the other things, because it wasn't just a nuclear waste issue. It was nuclear medicine; it was running out of fossil fuel.
Q. And they could have gotten it through the Senate and the House, and then Reagan would have signed it?
A. How could you be against nuclear medicine? You're saving lives from cancer every day . . . Knowledge is the key to the future, and the fact that you would have so many Nobel Prize winners here in Nevada . . .
Q. What was Dr. Teller's view of the nuclear waste?
A. Dr. Teller (told) me in our many, many conversations, "If Nevada has to have the nuclear waste, make sure you get the license to keep it - that it belongs to the state of Nevada. Because in 50, 75 years, it is going to be so valuable that you'll never have to have any taxes in Nevada. . . . Make sure you get ownership of the nuclear waste."
Q. And he saw its value as mainly in generating energy?
A. Absolutely. He said, "You're going to run out of gas, oil, (in) 50, 75 years. Nuclear's going to be all over the world. The way we are using energy, in 50 years how much oil . . . will it be $500 a gallon? What's it going to be? You have to look ahead - you can't be shortsighted." It's been 20 years since we were talking about the energy crisis looming in America and the whole of the world, and as far as I know, not one thing has been done in the last 20 years.
Q. Essentially nothing. And you know what? It's like a big wall out there we're going to run into. There's no way to avoid it.
A. It is inconceivable to me that there have been no plans for alternate sources of energy; nuclear is a bad word. What do they think is going to happen?. . . We have no backup energy. Now, many of us saw this 20 years ago . . . and that's the reason we pushed nuclear energy. The fossil fuel energy is running out. And if I would hazard a guess, I would say (in) 25 years there's going to be a serious issue; not 50 years. Maybe 15 years.
Q. It's better to be the loyal opposition than to have to face the challenge.
A. Of course. It's easier to criticize than it is to be progressive and go ahead. And we're going to pay for this.
Q. Prior to the big university offer made by Secretary Herrington, were there other offers made to Nevada?
A. Bennett Johnston put in some legislation in the Energy Committee to give Nevada either $100 million or $200 million every year. And it was voted down, I think in the House. If Nevada didn't want it; they didn't want it . . . And so the attitude was, it's a nothing issue, because Nevada doesn't want it. So in other words, that was the first offer. Then the offer of a nuclear university.
Q. It seems like there never was an effort to actively promote the repository and the advantages it could bring to Nevada and humanity. Were the opponents of Yucca Mountain given a 20-year free ride with no real effort to counter their fear mongering and misinformation?
A. The nuclear energy people back in Washington . . . I'm trying to think. I don't remember any initiative they took to be pro-nuclear. Just the opposite than in France. In France, they said, "We have no oil, we have no coal, we have to have energy." But I don't remember anyone in the forefront pressing this type of talk in Washington. You would think the nuclear . . . they're just sort of taking a defeatist stand, trying to cut their losses rather than look to the future.
Q. There was no counterpoint. You almost never heard a really strong pro-nuclear position. Occasionally you did, but basically it was how terrible nuclear energy was. Early on the Department of Energy had done research - I've got the reports in Tonopah - that clearly stated the problem with high-level nuclear waste storage was not technical, but social. I tried from 1983 to 1985 to get the DOE to study the dynamics of the issue in Nevada, but they were afraid.
A. Well, in government, you have what they call a bureaucracy. It's sort of like in the Army. If a man is a major and doesn't make any mistakes, he becomes a lieutenant colonel. If he does something good, it doesn't mean anything. But if he makes a mistake, then he's down. And so, that's what they call bureaucracy. ... Someone's got 14, 16 years. You think they're going to do something? They're not. That's the problem with government. And Reagan always said . . . he was always trying to cut government down. He said, "The smartest people in the world are bureaucrats. They get hired, and the next 30 years of their life are spent keeping their jobs till they retire."
Q. Let me share a vision I have, and see if it's in any way meaningful to you. I can see a repository at Yucca Mountain, with a complex of transmutation or recycling plants operating in the area. Reactors are burning the recycled waste. And there's the Western power grid, which sits like a big doughnut over the West. These power plants could be pumping energy into the Western power grid. At the same time, we could have major wind and solar power plants out there, so that the Test Site, much like your university proposal, could become a major energy center for the world, where people from everywhere come to study and learn and to see how we're going to solve humanity's energy problem.
A. That was exactly what (Secretary Herrington) had in mind. Let me point out something. I don't like to say anything disparagingly against my former colleagues, but I found it very unusual for Dick Bryan, for Harry Reid to not see fit to take a position on the energy committee (in the U.S. Senate). I asked Bennett Johnston, who was the chairman of the committee, why they didn't want to be on the committee, and his answer was, too much would be thought that they should do, and they were afraid of it. I would like to ask why they did not go onto it. Only on a committee can you get things done.
I was elected by the people, so that's where I should be. But isn't that interesting? When a person goes into public life, I felt you must try and do the right thing for the future; don't worry about getting elected tomorrow. And that was my attitude - right or wrong, I don't know ... We've lost 20 years.
Q. How do you see the future of the nuclear power/waste issue?
A. I use an expression, "the dots are coming together" . . . (Nuclear power) will be the energy of the future in spite of what's going on. But we're going to waste billions of dollars. ... You (will) want to get people's attention (for the article you plan to write on this interview). ... I'm going to bounce a few things off of you as a lead. "Nevada's Stupidity, the World's Loss."
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Mondaq News Alerts
June 14, 2006
United States: Nuclear Power Is Coming Back to Life
By Stephen L. Teichler and Charles W. Whitney
This article originally appeared in the Legal Times and is republished here with permission from law.com.
Sunday, April 16, may be remembered as the day that nuclear power was reborn. On that date a founder of Greenpeace argued for greater reliance on nuclear power to generate electricity.
This sea change in public perception is complemented by technical and operating advances, and all these may facilitate resuming construction of nuclear-fueled facilities to generate electricity.
Of course, substantial hurdles remain: Waste disposal continues to be daunting, and nuclear facilities continue to be capital intensive. And there are those who take the position not just of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) but of BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything).
Nevertheless, the confluence of positives appears to have reached the tipping point in favor of a renaissance of the nuclear power industry. Despite its capital costs, nuclear power is coming back, and it should play an important part in providing our nation's future energy.
THE GREENING OF NUCLEAR POWER
Electrical demand continues to increase, while tolerance for greenhouse emissions continues to decrease. These two factors inexorably lead to a re-examination of nuclear power, even among some of its more implacable former foes.
For example, in that historic April 16 op-ed in The Washington Post, Patrick Moore, a founding member of Greenpeace, noted that the nearly 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide. This is nearly 10 percent of global emissions.
By contrast, the current fleet of 104 U.S. nuclear plants avoids 155 million tons of carbon emissions annually, and it has saved more than 2 billion metric tons since 1973.
To meet its voluntary commitment under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United States would have to build 50,000 megawatts of new nuclear power generating capacity by 2020 — a 50 percent increase over today's nuclear capacity — to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 156 million tons. If the United States ratified the Kyoto Protocol, we would have to reduce emissions 7 percent below the 1990 baseline, which translates to 272 million tons of reductions.
As the pressure to reduce emissions increases, so too does the need to add more generation capacity. According to the Energy Information Administration, total electric sales are projected to increase at an average annual rate of 1.9 percent between now and 2025. Over the same period, 43 gigawatts of older generating capacity likely will be retired, leaving a requirement of 281 gigawatts of new capacity.
In short, reductions in greenhouse gases and increases in capacity to meet higher levels of demand for electricity are only possible through increased reliance on nuclear power. If the public wants green electricity, nuclear power is the feasible answer, and that fact is increasingly swaying public opinion.
REASONABLE COSTS
Although environmental concerns may provide an impetus for nuclear power, economics provide the sustainable force for development.
Here too the prospects for nuclear resurgence are positive. In the early years of nuclear development, costs, while not cheap, were at least reasonable. For example, in 1971, the capital cost of a nuclear facility was in the range of $150 per kilowatt, which was only slightly higher than the cost of a coal-fired plant.
After Three Mile Island, however, capital costs mushroomed. Billions of dollars were spent to retrofit existing facilities for increased safety, while staggering interest rates in the early 1980s caused construction delays that added billions to the price of a reactor. As a result, the final 20 reactors built in the United States cost from $3 billion to $4 billion each to construct, or $3,000 to $4,000 per kilowatt.
Yet over the past decade, existing nuclear facilities have achieved impressive gains in operating efficiencies. In 1973 nuclear facilities were running at a little more than 50 percent capacity. Through consolidation of ownership, improved operator training, and advances in refueling technology, capacity utilization has increased to nearly 90 percent for most facilities. This compares favorably with the 71 percent average capacity factor for coal plants.
Increased capacity, in turn, leads to increased economic competitiveness. Nuclear fuel costs approximately 1 cent per kilowatt, which is about the cost of coal. But at higher capacity utilization levels, the variable cost of production from a nuclear plant is about 2 cents per kilowatt, which is significantly less than coal-fired generation.
Operators have not only increased efficiency, they have increased capacity. Although the last new nuclear plant came on line in 1996, more than 4,000 megawatts of increased output have come from existing facilities. This represents the equivalent of four new facilities.
Congress and the Bush administration are doing their part to improve the economics of nuclear generation. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 bristles with incentives for new nuclear construction. Section 638 reimburses the owner of advanced nuclear facilities for costs incurred in delayed operation arising from (1) the failure of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to comply with schedules for review and approval or (2) litigation that delays the commencement of full-power operations.
The act also provides new tax credits, and it significantly extends the Price-Anderson Act, which provides indemnification from liability for accidents above a specified threshold. The amount of the indemnification was increased from $100 million to $500 million.
The statute also creates an advanced fuel-cycle initiative and lets the Energy Department make loan guarantees for projects (including advanced nuclear plants) that reduce greenhouse gases.
For its part, the Bush administration intends to push the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which includes provisions for tightly controlled reprocessing of spent fuel. The nuclear industry originally envisioned that most of its spent fuel would be reprocessed, leaving only a small amount for permanent disposal. In March 1977, however, President Jimmy Carter indefinitely suspended commercial reprocessing because of concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation. The GNEP may allow limited reprocessing of nuclear fuel and thus mitigate the waste-disposal issue that plagues the industry. Currently, the Senate has moved to provide $250 million for the GNEP, but the House cut the program budget by $100 million.
SAFETY CONCERNS ARE ABATING
Although economics have not been favorable for nuclear units for many years, the true problem has been safety concerns. From the movie "The China Syndrome" to Three Mile Island to Chernobyl, a specter of doom has hung over the industry.
With the advent of better technology and a sustained track record of safe operation, however, perceptions are changing.
The two engines of safety improvement are standard reactor design and reactor simplification. During the late 1970s and early 1980s each utility wanted a custom-designed nuclear facility. Each such facility required custom redesigns to address evolving safety concerns and uniquely trained operators. Adm. Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy, cited this approach to reactor design as the single biggest impediment to civilian nuclear development.
Lessons have been learned. The NRC has certified four standard reactor designs, and a fifth is under study.
Moreover, most new reactor designs are significantly less complex than their predecessors. Several advanced light water reactor designs are being developed that would have fewer valves, fewer pumps, and less pipe. The ongoing simplification of plant systems reduces requirements for maintenance and online surveillance, and thus reduces the likelihood of operator error.
Also under development is the Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor design, which virtually eliminates the risk of a meltdown and the need for a containment building. This should provide significant savings.
Thus, standard designs based upon simplified systems should not only improve safety margins but further reduce variable operating costs and upfront capital requirements.
NOT YET SUNNY DAYS
Though a new dawn may be breaking, clouds linger on the horizon of a nuclear renaissance. Despite safety improvements, nuclear power continues to conjure fears in many and concerns in most. While the fear of mechanical breakdown may be abating, concern is increasing that terrorists may attack reactors. And as residential development has occurred around nuclear facilities, some fear that evacuation plans approved 20 years ago may no longer be adequate.
Compounding the safety concern are the NIMBY and BANANA folks. When it is impossible to put a wind farm in the North Atlantic off Martha's Vineyard because of the scenic predilections of the rich, powerful, and famous, the prospects are daunting for finding sites for the 50 new nuclear facilities needed to comply with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Waste disposal continues to be a concern. The Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada is no closer to operation than it was in 1982, when the federal government committed to storing nuclear waste there. Yucca Mountain was originally set to open in 1998 but did not receive final congressional approval until 2002. The Department of Energy is not expected to file its license application for the Yucca Mountain facility before 2008 and will not have a final design for the casks intended to contain the actual radioactive material before 2012.
Meanwhile, the department estimates that it will spend $2 billion to $3 billion through 2010 in payments to utilities that successfully sued it for its failure to take nuclear waste as it had promised in 1998.
Private entities have proposed an above-ground disposal facility in Utah, but this proposal is likely to raise the same opposition as has hamstrung Yucca.
This situation certainly isn't ideal. Nuclear facilities were not designed to be long-term waste-storage lots, and the large quantities of nuclear material at these sites may be a temptation for those who would cause us harm.
Finally, construction costs may inhibit the spread of nuclear power. Although new designs and regulatory streamlining promise to reduce capital costs, those costs will still be high. In its 2004 Annual Energy Outlook, the Energy Information Administration estimated that the capital cost of a nuclear facility was $2,083 per kilowatt (down from $4,000 per kilowatt for the last units constructed).
France has reduced the capital cost for nuclear construction to approximately $1,550 per kilowatt with advanced construction techniques and reactor standardization. To be competitive with other means of generating electricity, the United States must reduce capital costs to the $1,000- to $1,500-per-kilowatt range, something that many industry experts believe is now attainable.
Yet, though much lower than the costs experienced in the late 1990s, these are still high capital costs. Vertically integrated utilities with captive customers may be able to afford to build new nuclear facilities. But in states that have adopted programs allowing consumers to choose their electric supplier, would-be builders of nuclear facilities may be hard-pressed to secure funding.
Nuclear power may be beginning a rebirth, but the labor may be neither easy nor painless.
Stephen L. Teichler is a partner in the D.C. office of Duane Morris, where he is the chair of the Energy, Environment and Resources practice. Charles W. Whitney, a partner in the Atlanta office, is head of the firm's Nuclear Practice Group.
This article is for general information and does not include full legal analysis of the matters presented. It should not be construed or relied upon as legal advice or legal opinion on any specific facts or circumstances. The description of the results of any specific case or transaction contained herein does not mean or suggest that similar results can or could be obtained in any other matter. Each legal matter should be considered to be unique and subject to varying results. The invitation to contact the authors or attorneys in our firm is not a solicitation to provide professional services and should not be construed as a statement as to any availability to perform legal services in any jurisdiction in which such attorney is not permitted to practice.
Duane Morris LLP, among the 100 largest law firms in the United States, is a full-service firm of more than 600 lawyers. In addition to legal services, Duane Morris has independent affiliates employing approximately 100 professionals engaged in other disciplines. With offices in major markets, and as part of an international network of independent law firms, Duane Morris represents clients across the nation and around the world.
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Tacoma News Tribune
June 14, 2006
Federal judge´s ruling on I-297 no surprise
Some ideas — like the notion that Washington can veto federal government decisions about where to send federal nuclear waste — really are too good to be true.
On Monday, a U.S. District Court judge in Yakima ruled as much, striking down Initiative 297 as unconstitutional.
The measure, passed by voters in 2004 but put on hold pending the court´s decision, promised great things a mere state law cannot deliver. I-297 purported to bar the federal government from bringing more nuclear waste to Hanford in Eastern Washington before the site´s existing radioactive contamination is cleaned up.
But, as Judge Alan McDonald wrote in his decision, “Decisions which need to be made at a national level addressing national concerns cannot be trumped by protectionist regulations enacted by individual states.’
Critics of I-297 warned that it could not withstand a legal challenge. Two decades ago, another federal judge invalidated a similar ballot measure that prohibited transportation and storage in Washington of radioactive waste produced elsewhere.
It might seem counterintuitive, but the constitutional limitation on states´ ability to pre-empt federal nuclear waste policy is in Washington´s best interests.
Getting rid of the nastiest nuclear wastes at Hanford depends on access to repositories in Nevada and New Mexico, access that I-297´s isolationist approach could have jeopardized. If Washington had been successful in banning incoming waste, other states would have followed suit and Hanford´s high-level wastes could have wound up parked here.
Beside the legal flaws, I-297 had practical ones. The initiative threatened to also halt work at private companies and research labs that manufacture or use radioactive materials — work as diverse as cancer treatment and nuclear nonproliferation research.
That´s not to say that voters who approved I-297 — which has the distinction of being enacted by Washington voters by the widest margin of any initiative in state history — didn´t have valid concerns. The initiative was prompted by the U.S. Department of Energy´s plan to send low-level radioactive waste mixed with chemicals to Hanford for permanent disposal.
That plan is now on hold. The federal government agreed in January to stop waste shipments until it finishes a new environmental study, which will probably take a couple of years to complete.
The state´s best weapons in holding the feds to their cleanup obligations remain the environmental protections that led to the January settlement and the Tri-Party Agreement, a 17-year-old accord that established the milestones for Hanford cleanup the federal government agreed to meet. However, the state´s congressional delegation and governor cannot rely on those alone.
With the prospect of opening a permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada growing dimmer each year, Hanford has been eyed as a possible “temporary’ alternative. It doesn´t take a nuclear engineer to grasp how quickly temporary can turn into forever.
Vigilance is necessary now more than ever. But as I-297 shows, it won´t be as easy as merely passing a state law.
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National Catholic Reporter
June 13, 2006
Nuclear power: promise or peril
It's all that stands between us and environmental disaster
By John O'Neill
Americans should be most grateful that we have a readily available, economical, safe, environmentally friendly source of electrical power from nuclear plants to help avert the global warming that presents such potential disaster for our fragile planet.
That´s not the usual message in the media, which often give airtime or newsprint to some perceived dire safety hazard or other promoted by antinuclear groups to clueless reporters.
So let´s take a look at the record. In 50 years there have been no deaths from radiation exposure from nuclear plants in this country. None. That´s 3,100 reactor years of operation over 50 years. Add 5,500 reactor years of operation by the nuclear Navy. None. Sixty years of transportation of nuclear materials. Still none. And, yes, the industry has safely managed its waste and will continue to do so.
Three Mile Island was a serious and expensive accident 27 years ago, but no one was killed or injured. The upshot was that companies with nuclear plants beefed up training and safety procedures. The Chernobyl reactor was very different from the technology used in American plants, had no thick containment building to hold in radiation like plants in the rest of the world, and had poorly trained operators. A similar accident in this country is impossible.
The remarkable safety record of American nuclear power plants is no accident. Nuclear plant design, construction and operation are closely regulated by federal agencies. Scrupulous nuclear plant owners established training institutions to ensure that personnel are superbly prepared.
However, the primary reason that nuclear power is poised for a renaissance is not its outstanding safety record but global warming caused by coal and natural gas plants. If nuclear plants aren´t built, coal or natural gas plants will be needed to meet the planet´s insatiable demand for electricity. There aren´t any alternatives for large-scale electricity production and won´t be any for decades.
In the United States, 600 coal plants produce about 50 percent of electricity; 103 nuclear plants produce about 20 percent; natural gas, about 19 percent; hydroelectric, about six percent; oil, three percent; and all other sources including solar, biomass and wind, less than 3 percent.
Carbon dioxide emissions from the electric power sector represented 39 percent of total U.S. energy-related emissions in 2004, with coal alone accounting for one-third. To our disgrace, nearly 9 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, the worst culprit in global warming, come from U.S. fossil power plants.
Nuclear power produces no greenhouse gases. None. To meet new electrical demand with coal and gas production while the polar icecaps melt and sea levels rise, deserts expand and increasing hurricanes and cyclones churn through the oceans is nuts.
The Department of Energy projects a need for 45 percent more electricity in the United States by 2030. China, India, Russia and others are racing to join the developed world, and their needs for electricity will be staggering.
Some leaders in the environmental arena who once fought nuclear power have changed their views. “Nuclear energy may be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change,’ said Patrick Moore, cofounder of Greenpeace. He said “the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views.’
“There is no sensible alternative to nuclear power if we are to sustain civilization,’ said James Lovelock, the famed British scientist and environmentalist who proposed the Gaia Hypothesis that the Earth is a single organism.
Sad to say, 27 new nuclear plants are under construction in 11 countries, but none in the United States.
That will change. A 2005 poll shows that 70 percent of Americans support building more nuclear plants, and 76 percent living near nuclear plants are willing to see a new reactor built near them. Congress included incentives for expansion of nuclear power in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. As many as 12 to 19 new plants may be ordered in the next three years, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington.
One big loose end remains: permanent nuclear waste disposal. Used fuel is temporarily and safely stored at reactor sites. In 2002 the president and Congress, in a bipartisan vote, approved Yucca Mountain, Nev., for permanent storage. At Yucca Mountain, fuel rods will be stored in canisters 1,000 feet below ground in a remote desert area that has been geologically stable for millions of years. The selection of Yucca Mountain follows two decades of analysis by thousands of respected scientists representing dozens of reputable organizations, at a cost of $9 billion. The site will meet stringent federal standards.
Nuclear power is the only industry since the industrial revolution that has managed and accounted for all its waste, preventing environmental damage, said the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Clearly, the poisoning of the earth by greenhouse gases has been exacerbated because of misguided fears of nuclear power.
Said John Ritch, former U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency: “Humankind cannot conceivably achieve a global clean-energy revolution without a rapid expansion of nuclear power to generate electricity.’
John O´Neill is a former newspaper reporter and retired social worker who wrote for the Atomic Industrial Forum, the nuclear industry´s trade association, from 1975 to 1983.
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National Catholic Reporter
June 13, 2006
Nuclear power: promise or peril
Failed technology has no part in energy plans of the future
By Michael Mariotte
On May 26, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower stood on a podium and flipped a switch that ushered in the nuclear power age. By turning on the Shippingport, Pa., nuclear power reactor, the first commercial atomic reactor in the United States, President Eisenhower made a giant stride toward his goal of “Atoms for Peace’ and energy independence for the country. Or so he thought.
Today, President George W. Bush has become enamored of the same technology that captivated President Eisenhower. But with some 50 years of experience of safety failures, cost overruns, security threats and unsolvable radioactive waste problems, President Bush has much less justification.
The president would have us believe that nuclear power is the future. With the reprocessing of radioactive waste, he says we could have a limitless supply of nuclear fuel that can produce hydrogen for future vehicles and electricity for “plug-in’ hybrids in the meantime. His version of atomic power would produce electricity without greenhouse gas emissions. Then, he says, we can declare independence from the bad Saudis, or Venezuelans, or whoever the current oil boogeyman happens to be.
In fact, President Bush would bring us back to the 1950s — back to an obsolete atomic technology with drawbacks that, since the beginning, have outweighed whatever benefits it may once have offered.
Give President Bush credit for this: He has identified the problem correctly, or at least part of the problem. The United States is addicted to oil, and that has to stop for the sake of energy independence and the survival of the planet.
But the United States is also addicted to other greenhouse gas emitters like coal, nuclear power and natural gas. It is way past time that we move toward an energy policy that will reduce greenhouse emissions while providing us with the energy we need to heat and cool our homes and offices, to keep our beer cold and our dinners hot, and for transportation.
President Bush´s energy policy would not do that. It´s too timid, too reliant on the same big oil, big nuclear, big coal interests that got us into this jam in the first place. Far from being forward-thinking, it´s a throwback to a futuristic vision from the 1950s that never came about.
An energy policy for the 21st century would start with a simple axiom: Do less harm to the earth while providing for our energy needs.
As an obvious first step, one that President Bush has avoided, we need to increase vehicle mileage standards. There is no other action that the government could take that would more effectively reduce oil imports and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the same time. A president who truly believed we are “addicted to oil’ would make this a centerpiece of his energy policy.
The next step is to focus our limited research and development dollars on technologies that actually can succeed both at providing energy and reducing emissions. Those technologies are solar power, wind power, geothermal, and yes, in the future, green hydrogen — hydrogen produced by renewable resources. We also need to pursue distributed energy systems, to reduce reliance on large power plants of any kind. When a 1,000-megawatt nuclear plant goes down for refueling or repairs, another 1,000 megawatts of standby power needs to be there to replace it. With a distributed energy system of numerous smaller-scale electrical generators, expensive backup power is no longer needed.
Nuclear power plays no role in an effective energy policy for the 21st century. The epitome of 20th-century technological arrogance and overkill, nuclear power has yet to solve any of the problems that have plagued it from the beginning: safety, economics and radioactive waste. And in the 21st century, nuclear power poses a unique new threat as a terrorist target like no other. Conversely, what terrorist would bother knocking down a windmill?
President Bush´s recent embrace of reprocessing as a solution for radioactive waste disposal is emblematic of the failures of nuclear power. More than 50 years into the nuclear age, no nation in the world has yet found an acceptable solution for handling radioactive waste. In the United States, progress on opening the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nev., nuclear waste site has deservedly slowed to a crawl. Choosing reprocessing of nuclear fuel — a dirty, dangerous, expensive endeavor spurned by the industry itself — is more an admission that our radioactive waste programs have failed than a real alternative. The terrible failures of reprocessing in France and the United Kingdom, not to mention failed efforts to build a “fast’ reactor to take full advantage of reprocessing, should be a red flag to the United States that this path just won´t work.
Moreover, the initial $250 million President Bush is requesting for this program is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Implementation of a commercial-scale reprocessing program would cost tens of billions of dollars and send electricity rates soaring.
Our energy path forward is clear, but George Bush the oilman still doesn´t get it: We need to invest in sustainable energy technologies and vastly increased energy efficiency. President Bush took a first step by admitting our oil addiction. Now the rest of us will have to bypass his 50-year-old program and instead embrace those energy solutions that offer a future, not more of the failed programs of the past.
Michael Mariotte is the executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington.
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Greensboro News Record
June 13, 2006
N.C. delegation took 470 privately funded trips in past 5 years
RALEIGH (AP) — Members of North Carolina's congressional delegation and their employees took more than 470 trips over the past five years that were paid for by private donors, according to a newspaper analysis of a national report.
The trips, worth a combined $1.1 million, included visits to Paris, Jakarta and Morocco, as well as a golf resort in West Virginia and a Florida island.
The News & Observer of Raleigh analyzed the trips as they appeared in a national report by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan group in Washington; American Public Media; and the Northwestern University's Medill News Service.
Between January 2000 and June 2005, members of Congress and their staffs took 23,000 privately financed trips worth nearly $50 million, according to the report.
North Carolina lawmakers say all of their trips helped them better serve their constituents.
"I don't think I'd ever take a trip where I didn't think I was doing a better job as a congressman," said Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, privately financed trips by lawmakers or staffers are allowed for educational or investigative purposes or to give a speech. House rules say the travel may not last beyond the time needed to complete the trip's official purpose.
Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., took more trips than any of his fellow lawmakers from North Carolina. He made 22, often with his wife, that were valued at more than $88,000 total.
The trips included visits to Barcelona, Spain; Cancun, Mexico; Havana; and Lausanne, Switzerland. Much of Watts' travel was paid for by the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit organization that sets up seminars on international issues.
"I'm not apologizing for a single trip I ever took," Watt said. "My folks elected me not to stick my head in the sand, but to go out and learn about things."
Coble's office accounted for 76 trips, the most of any office. His chief of staff, Ed McDonald, took more trips than any other employee or member of Congress in the state's delegation, going on 24 trips valued at more than $34,000.
"I think most people realize, when you go on these trips, there's legitimate reasons," McDonald said. "Members of Congress and their staffs need to know what's going on in the world."
McDonald went to Rabat and Casablanca, both in Morocco, at the expense of the U.S.-Morocco Affairs Council to understand Morocco's needs and to learn about refugees in the western Sahara. He visited Yucca Mountain, a proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada, at the expense of the Nuclear Energy Institute and went to Seattle to tour Microsoft Corp.'s offices with owner Bill Gates paying the way.
Coble said he has never been lobbied during a privately financed trip and that he has turned down offers to visit the U.S. Open tennis tournament and at least five Super Bowls.
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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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