Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, July 7, 2006
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Pahrump Valley Times
July 5, 2006

Senate panel cuts Yucca funding for 2007

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - A key Senate committee on June 29 cut next year's spending for Yucca Mountain as it raised questions about how the proposed nuclear waste repository is being redesigned.

The Appropriations Committee said it was withholding support for the redesign until the Department of Energy provides a clear picture of how used nuclear fuel would be packaged at reactors, and then managed at the repository site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The panel approved $494.5 million for Yucca Mountain in a DOE spending bill for 2007, $50 million less than the Bush administration requested.

In a report with the bill, senators told DOE to limit spending on a planned waste canister-handling complex at the Yucca site, and on transportation activities. DOE also was advised not to increase spending beyond this year's levels on other components of the redesign.

"The committee is concerned that the department is redesigning the repository with significant changes," the committee said. The changes, coupled with delays in the program, "have forced the committee to reconsider the project's budget needs."

The bill also calls for an audit by the Government Accountability Office of the Energy Department's budget for Yucca Mountain.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., an Appropriations Committee senior member and a leading repository opponent, wrote portions of the legislation that was approved by the panel Thursday and sent on to the full Senate.

The Yucca Mountain go-slow directive is in the same bill that authorizes the energy secretary to designate sites for temporary spent fuel storage in states that have nuclear power plants, a significant change in nuclear waste policy.

It also fully funds at $250 million the Bush administration's 2007 request for a nuclear waste reprocessing initiative called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

Taken together, the waste components of the bill "acknowledge that the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump is failing, and that we must look at other solutions," Reid said.

The Energy Department had no comment Thursday on the Yucca Mountain provisions, a spokesman said.

DOE officials last October initiated a redesign for handling radioactive spent fuel at reactor sites and at the proposed Yucca facility.

The department wants to develop multipurpose "transportation, aging and disposal" canisters that would enable the material to be packaged, shipped and placed within the mountain.

While the so-called TAD canisters could simplify operations at Yucca, they said, most of the waste handling instead would take place at reactors where the material would be inserted into the containers.

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent science panel, said in a June 14 letter that DOE faces hurdles in making the canisters available in time for licensing and use by utilities.

Board members also questioned how the specially designed containers would get to Yucca Mountain if DOE meets delays in building a railroad line to the site.

They also said DOE was unable to provide enough details at a May 9 presentation about how the waste would be handled once it arrived at the Nevada site.

The spending bill that advanced Thursday contained other Nevada funding.

It granted $2 million to the state for Yucca Mountain oversight, while nine Nevada counties and Inyo County in California would split $7.5 million. Nye County would be given an additional $500,000 as the repository host county.

The bill also contains more than $350 million in earmarks for Nevada energy and water projects, spending at the Nevada Test Site, restoration at Walker Lake and Lake Tahoe, and research grants to universities, according to Reid's office.

The House passed a corresponding bill in May that contains full funding for Yucca Mountain, cuts GNEP spending to $120 million and takes another approach to interim waste storage.

The two bills will be reconciled later this year. Because they contain controversial provisions, they may be among the final pieces of business for Congress, possibly in a post-election lame duck session, congressional officials and lobbyists said.

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GovExec
July 07, 2006

Contractor's rise shows blurred government, industry lines

By Shane Harris
National Journal

What do designing computers for spies, disposing of nuclear waste, running a TV news channel, monitoring employees who download porn from the Internet, psychic experiments, and helping run the government of Iraq have in common? They're all jobs that the Science Applications International Corp. has done for the U.S. government.

SAIC may be one of the biggest companies most people never heard of. Its executives shy away from media attention. A notable exception, which also proved the point, was when a spokesman told the publication Business 2.0, "We are a stealth company." SAIC's silence has a lot to do with its secrecy-loving clients, which include the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the Pentagon.

The San Diego-based firm does some work for commercial clients and for state and local governments, but almost 90 percent of SAIC's revenue comes from contracts with Uncle Sam; last year those contracts, according to company records, numbered 10,000 and paid out more than $6 billion. Almost half of SAIC's estimated 43,000 employees have security clearances, and about a third work in Washington-area offices. The company is, effectively, an extension of the government workforce.

SAIC has ranked among the top 10 government contractors, based on revenue, for the past five years and has reportedly posted continuous profits in its nearly 40-year history. Much of that success is owed to the sweet spot that SAIC has found among military and intelligence agencies.

The company's single biggest customer is the NSA, which paid SAIC more than $1 billion to build a computerized information system to analyze and store the torrent of phone calls, e-mails, and other electronic data the agency collects every day. The outgoing second-in-command at NSA is a former SAIC executive, and the company is so stocked with ex-employees of the agency that insiders call it "NSA West."

But the NSA, which is at the center of a national debate over domestic eavesdropping, is just one SAIC customer, and building computers is but one task that SAIC has taken on over the years. Indeed, if you were to ask five people who work with the company, "What is SAIC, and what does it do?" you'd probably get five different answers.

One day it's designing databases, the next it's working to dispose of hazardous nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain or hiring Iraqi exiles to set up ministries in a new government. If you were to ask an SAIC executive what the company does, he might respond, "What would you like us to do?" (SAIC officials declined to be interviewed for this story.)

It seems that SAIC is everywhere, all the time. Its ubiquity "is a joke" among government contractors, said one former federal official now in private industry. "They're going to go anywhere and do anything that will get them a new market. It doesn't matter what the job is."

So how did SAIC get so big? You might say it was an accident.

Kentucky Fried Consulting

SAIC was born in 1969, when Robert Beyster, a former research scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, set up shop with a few colleagues in a small office in La Jolla, Calif. Beyster had worked for another California defense contractor, General Atomics, for 12 years before launching his own firm with the goal of winning research contracts.

The first two he got were for Los Alamos and Brookhaven national laboratories. For most of SAIC's existence, the company earned accolades by "applying science," as the name attests, to the government's most challenging technological and engineering problems.

Beyster stayed at the helm until his retirement in 2004, and his entrepreneurial spirit remains, said former employees and historians who have studied the company. "They're into so many areas because the initial [business] model was, nothing was ruled out," said David Kay, a former vice president, who worked at SAIC from 1993 until 2002. "We used to joke that it really was Kentucky Fried Chicken consulting."

In the spirit of Harlan Sanders, a 40-year-old gas station owner who started selling fried chicken to motorists and spawned a multibillion-dollar global enterprise, Beyster encouraged any employee with an idea that could make money to give it a shot. "The decentralized entrepreneurial idea was that if you had an idea, you could become a vice president," said Kay, who left SAIC to head the Iraq Survey Group, which searched for weapons of mass destruction after the U.S. invasion.

That doesn't mean that SAIC's methods were erratic. "If you look at the legacy, it has a scientific bent. Very advanced kind of academic thinking; very practical application of that advanced thinking," said Ray Bjorklund, the senior vice president of FedSources, a research firm in McLean, Va. "But they really weren't built to do solutions or major implementations," designing the hardware and software for large systems and offering experts to run them. SAIC's traditional niche was where it began: research.

But in the mid-1990s, the company's focus changed. Government departments and agencies began looking for "body shops," Kay said, companies that provide them with personnel to augment their own workforce, usually because the government is shorthanded or lacks the skills for a particular job.

In the late 1990s, SAIC acquired other firms that opened the door to the "professional services" market, an ambiguous label that usually implies that a company is offering to run the physical product it sells. SAIC began eyeing big contracts with the potential for enormous revenue. "As long as you could make money ... no one said, 'No, you can't do it,' " Kay said.

As the company's revenues grew, so did its employee roster. SAIC is wholly owned by its employees, who trade shares of company stock internally. Ownership has proved to be a powerful incentive to stay with the firm. Last year, SAIC announced an initial public stock offering, which executives hoped would total $1.7 billion. That's only $100 million less than Google's IPO two years ago.

Perhaps knowing that SAIC could make them very rich, scores of former high-ranking government officials have landed there after retiring from public service. Many, but not all, hail from the intelligence agencies. The former chief information officer for the Social Security Administration, a former deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and a former Defense official in charge of health affairs brought their Rolodexes to SAIC, which does business with all of those agencies.

The number and complexity of tasks for which the government uses contractors has increased in recent years, said Robert Kipps, the managing director of the aerospace, defense, and government group at Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, an international investment bank that represents SAIC. Former government officials can lead companies toward business with their old employers.

Working for an intelligence agency, in particular, requires an intimate understanding of the work that agency does. "The best place to get that is having been in those shoes before," Kipps said. And once a contractor gets a foothold inside an agency, it's hard for a competitor to kick that contractor out.

Perhaps that expertise is what led SAIC to its biggest customer of all, the one that may also be its biggest liability.

Getting Big

In 1997, William Black, a decorated NSA manager who spent almost 40 years at the agency, retired and became a vice president at SAIC. According to Black's official NSA biography, his expertise lay in "building new organizations and creating new ways of doing business."

In the late 1990s, that's just what SAIC was hoping to do. The company hired Black "for the sole purpose of soliciting NSA business," said Matthew Aid, an intelligence historian who is writing a three-volume history of the agency.

In March 1999, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden became the NSA's director. Almost immediately, talk began circulating publicly about a massive contract to outsource the agency's data centers, personal computers, telecommunications, and other administrative systems under a program known as "Groundbreaker." SAIC didn't plan to compete for a lead spot in the contract but indicated that it would pursue subcontracting opportunities.

The company would not stay in supporting roles for long, however. Amid the first hints of Groundbreaker, the NSA began another program, called "Trailblazer," to manage its enormous daily catch of intelligence. In 2000, Hayden called Black back to the agency to be his second-in-command.

Two years later SAIC won the Trailblazer contract; Black was in charge of managing the program. "SAIC had made its living acting as a subcontractor on a lot of NSA contracts," Aid said. "Then, under Bill Black, they got promoted to the big leagues."

Work for the federal government has been largely responsible for SAIC's growth, eclipsing the company's private sector contracts. From 1998 to 2002, the company won several lucrative contracts, including a $1.2 billion deal to manage computer systems for the Immigration and Naturalization Service and others potentially worth billions to provide a huge array of professional services to different agencies.

SAIC's revenues also moved up. According to information that SAIC provided to the government and that was compiled by Government Executive magazine, in fiscal 2000, the company took in $2.5 billion in federal work. By fiscal 2002, revenue was up to $3.5 billion, and it jumped almost 35 percent to $4.7 billion the following year.

Those figures only include contracts for which SAIC was the lead, and it omits work for intelligence agencies, so the actual increase is larger. Today, total government revenues exceed $6 billion.

Just as SAIC grew by winning larger contracts, it also expanded by buying other companies, particularly small firms with expertise in specific areas. "All were fairly well run," Aid said. But SAIC "went out in great haste, and with minimal due diligence, and bought a whole bunch of companies in wide business areas.... There was no sense how they were all going to fit together."

SAIC started "buying for the sake of buying," Aid said. "They took a page from the impatient corporate raiders of the 1980s: Why actually spend time building something when you can buy it?"

To some extent, the strategy was driven by necessity. Particularly in the intelligence field, SAIC needed a supply of employees with clearances to access classified information, sometimes even targeted to specific programs. In the intelligence business, "you're either in or you're out," Kipps said, and often the ticket in is a security clearance. "You will never get in without buying" companies that have cleared employees, he said. That's what SAIC did, and it quickly rose to the top of the ranks.

The former government official who became a contractor said that SAIC's strategy has been to ensconce itself in as many areas as possible without becoming too rooted in any one of them. "They want to touch a piece of everything, yet never be the masters of all of it," he said.

The approach stems from those early, entrepreneurial days, when Beyster encouraged employees to try anything that might work, without centrally controlling the business and forcing people to focus. "That has provided breadth at the expense of depth," the former official said.

For big projects like the NSA's Trailblazer, a company needs to have depth of experience in managing many different pieces of business and integrating them into a whole. If that was something SAIC truly lacked, it would show.

In Too Deep

Trailblazer was an abysmal failure. After more than $1.2 billion in development costs, the agency and SAIC have practically nothing to show for their efforts and have effectively abandoned years of work. The effort "has resulted in little more than detailed schematic drawings filling almost an entire wall," according to The Baltimore Sun, which published an exhaustive account of the Trailblazer fiasco, and SAIC's role in it, in January.

Ultimately, the entrepreneurial idea shop appears to have gotten in over its head. SAIC "did not provide enough people with the technical or management skills to produce such a sophisticated system" and "did not say no when the NSA made unrealistic demands," The Sun reported, citing numerous intelligence and industry officials.

Trailblazer was not SAIC's only setback. It tried in vain to build an electronic case-management system, known as the "Virtual Case File," for the FBI. After what observers and participants described as frequent management failures and a lack of organization -- at the bureau and at the company -- the program was scrapped last year. The FBI had spent more than $100 million.

SAIC was also tapped in 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, to set up a U.S.-friendly television network in Baghdad, which officials hoped to use for messages and stories about reconstruction. SAIC was supposed to train local journalists and set up a newspaper, but the work fell apart amid criticism that the company was producing an amateurish product that did little to get word of U.S. efforts to the Iraqi public.

The Pentagon replaced SAIC in January 2004 with another contractor. "They were clueless as to how to run a media network," Kay said. "It was horribly directed. It shouldn't have been done."

All large companies eventually hit obstacles, some of which are more spectacular than others. But when contractors fail, it's usually not because of a lack of experience in a given area. SAIC's case is troubling, observers say, because it arguably shouldn't have gotten some jobs in the first place.

When agencies decide to award contracts, "one of the things they look for is core competency," Aid said. "This company doesn't have it, because there is no core." SAIC's business model "is a model of models," the former government official said. "They are different things depending on the customer."

In that sense, SAIC is a prime example of the blurring lines between government, which traditionally has run itself, and private industry, which is taking over some of government's tasks.

Looking at the increasing privatization of once-core national security and intelligence functions, Aid asks, "Is the United States government capable of running these operations anymore?" Often, the answer is no. Dependence on contractors has never been higher or more evident. Outside firms build critical computer systems; private-sector employees work alongside government intelligence analysts; outside companies have even provided interrogators to work with U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I think the process has crept up on us, and it's not ever been announced or specifically authorized," said Rep. David Price, D-N.C. "I question it."

Price has authored legislation requiring the director of national intelligence to submit a report to the congressional Intelligence committees detailing how contracts are regulated. The report, not all of which would be public, would include the minimum standards for hiring and training contractors, and the procedures for preventing waste, fraud, and abuse.

And for contracts worth more than $1 million, individual agencies would have to disclose the number of people they hired for a particular project, as well as a description of how those employees were trained and the work they do. The DNI would also have to recommend ways to improve hiring and training of government employees.

"One has to ask about ... the extent to which the legitimate organs of government, over which we exercise funding control and oversight, are really in charge," Price said. "The contractors in some areas may have become the tail that wags the dog." Price's proposal is included in the pending 2007 Intelligence Authorization Act.

SAIC may also face oversight of a different kind should it decide to go public. Wall Street analysts could judge the company harshly if it botches more high-profile contracts, even though the vast majority of SAIC's work presumably goes smoothly.

"If SAIC stumbles, which could happen again, then the market sentiment may just drag down the valuation of their stock," said Bjorklund, the research firm executive.

In the meantime, SAIC has set its sights even higher. Its chief executive, Kenneth Dahlberg, has said he wants revenues to hit $12 billion by 2008. It's a lofty goal, but if SAIC attains it, talk of contract failures, inexperience, and government oversight will fade into the background. Ultimately, one measure stands above the rest, the former government official said. "You can't argue with revenue."

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Wisbusiness
July 07, 2006

Stuart: Wants WIEG to `Reestablish Relationships'

By Brian E. Clark
WisBusiness.com

In the mid-1990s, a light bulb flashed inside Todd Stuart's brain as he traveled around the state visiting manufacturers with then-Lt. Gov. Scott McCallum.

It was an appropriate metaphor for someone who could be accurately described as an energy policy wonk. When McCallum became governor, Stuart served as his energy and economic development adviser.

In May, Stuart became executive director of the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group (WIEG). He replaced the outspoken Nino Amato, who was ousted by the WIEG board.

"I figured out about a decade ago that economic growth and energy supplies and costs are intimately linked," said Stuart, who served as chief of staff for Sen. Rob Cowles, R-Green Bay, for the past three years.

Stuart worked closely with Cowles, chairman of the state Senate energy, utilities and information technology committee, to push energy legislation through the Legislature, including the new renewable power and energy efficiency law.

WisBusiness Editor Brian Clark recently spoke with Stuart, a boyish-looking, 33-year-old former Marine.

Brian Clark: When did you start your new job?

Todd Stuart: May 8 was my first official date.

Clark: What did you do on Cowles' staff that dealt with energy?

Stuart: I was the committee clerk for the Energy and Utilities Committee in the state Senate and then before that worked on energy in Gov. McCallum's office.

For good or for ill, I've had my fingerprints on almost every piece of energy legislation out there for the past five or six years. I've been around the utilities, WIEG and the interest groups since 1999-2000.

Clark: What have you done that you consider significant from that time?

Stuart: There were two really big highlights over the past few years. One was Act 89, a regulatory streamlining initiative that took place in 2003. I would say it simplified for siting power lines and power plants without harming the environment.

The biggest one, though, is Act 141 - the Renewable Energy and Efficiency Act. Cowles and Rep. Phil Montgomery, chairman of the Assembly Energy and Utilities Committee and Gov. Jim Doyle all worked to make it happen.

Clark: What are the key parts of Act 141?

Stuart: It's a 55-page bill with four major provisions. One expands the amount of renewable energy utilities must have in their portfolios, such as wind, solar and biomass. I think biomass has a lot of potential for the future. So does wind, which is cost-competitive now. That section got the most headlines because it is the sexiest.

But what I care the most about is the public benefits reform. That is the state's conservation and efficiency programs, and the reform makes sure that money never again can be used to balance the state's budget. It also has greater energy savings and is now more cost-effective, too. The program was very good; we just made it better.

The third part upgrades building codes, and the fourth part gives regulatory certainty. Utilities now know that if they spend X amount on conservation and if they do X amount of renewable energy in their portfolios, they can get tradeoffs at the Public Service Commission and can go forward with a power plant. This is what is called the energy priorities statute. All these things kind of came together. There was compromise, but it worked out in the end. It looked impossible this time a year ago, but all parties worked hard on it.

Clark: Are you a Wisconsin native?

Stuart: Yes. I've been in and around Madison about 20 years and I now live in Fitchburg. I spent my childhood in Fort Atkinson, where my grandmother pretty much raised me.

Clark: How did you get interested in energy?

Stuart: It started in the mid-90s. I began as a policy assistant to then- Lt. Gov. McCallum, and we traveled around the state to visit just about every widget maker. We toured hundreds of manufacturing plants and businesses.

At the same time, utilities were becoming a lot more politically active nationally with deregulation. There were also blackouts then. The debate was always about needing more reliability and power plants and is deregulation the way to go.

I was also very interested in economic development issues and was hearing the discussions and in some cases being part of them.

At some point, the proverbial light bulb clicked on in my brain and I realized that energy policy and economic development go hand-in-hand. The economy tracks energy policy. When I figured that out, all of the sudden I began to notice where the power plants were.

I started work on my MBA about that time, too, on top of 60-hour weeks here in the lieutenant governor's and then governor's office. My job for McCallum was to advise him on energy infrastructure and development issues. I got to work with a lot of big companies, while at the same time I was learning about accounting and finance. It all came together.

Clark: What prompted you to jump to this post?

Stuart: I'd say this is pretty much my dream job, though I didn't know if it would become available. I guess I always thought that I might work at the Public Service Commission (PSC) or for a utility some day.

With my passion for energy and economic development issues, though, this was the perfect fit. When it opened six-plus months ago when they let go former director Nino Amato, I went for it. I also had a fairly good feel for their board because I'd been brought in a few times to talk to them about legislation.

Clark: What will be the major issues you'll be working on?

Stuart: I'm still relatively new on the job, but I want to make sure this organization is the premier and most credible voice for ratepayers in the state. I want to reestablish relationships with the PSC and the governor's office and the utilities, too.

This organization needs a leader that can work with the utilities so that we can talk about issues up front before they become a huge, nasty blowup. I'd much rather quietly get things done, or at least get them on the table and talk about them instead of having a public fight. I'd like to have quarterly meetings with utility executives to discuss issues of concern. And to see where we have common ground. We are their largest customers, so there is something of a symbiotic relationship. We'll see. I hope they'll want to help us out.

Clark: Though you say want to have a good relationship with the utilities, you likely will end up on the opposite sides of issues, too, right?

Stuart: Yes, of course. That's fine, and everyone knows that.

I have a lot of contradictions in my personality, as we all do. On one hand, I'm pretty go-along and get-along and pretty calm. But I was in the Marines for six years and no one has ever accused me of being a "panty waist."

Again, I think we have things in common. But where we diverge, I'll be firm and upfront on that, too. The goal of the organization is to become a lot more effective at the PSC, with the Legislature and with the governor.

Clark: Your predecessor was known for being pretty outspoken. Do you think that cost WIEG some of its effectiveness?

Stuart: To some extent, yes. But I'm not going to say anything ill about Nino. There is nothing to gain from that.

Clark: What do you think about utility executives' compensation here in Wisconsin? Gale Klappa, the CEO at WE Energy, got nearly $3 million in pay and bonuses last year.

Stuart: No comment.

Clark: Natural gases were awfully volatile last winter. Is there anything that can be done to keep those prices down?

Stuart: They are controlled by federal policy, and natural gas prices are deregulated at the well head. That has probably served our country fairly well over the past 30 years. There is not much we can do about that at the state level, though we can nibble at the edges a bit.

There have been talks at the PSC over fuel rules. Painting with a broad brush, utilities want more of a pass-through to customers when prices go up. Right now, they must increase a certain percentage or bandwidth before they can be raised. My members don't want the rules changed because if there is too much of a pass-through, there is little incentive for the utilities to watch their purchasing. We want to encourage them to watch their costs. We'll see what happens.

Clark: What is your sense of how the Wisconsin economy is doing?

Stuart: I think it's OK but not going great guns, especially on the manufacturing side. I'm getting to know that better as I talk to WIEG's members. Paper-making has had a tough go of it and we are the best state in the nation for that. Margins are tight and there have been job losses.

Clark: How many members does WIEG have?

Stuart: About 35 companies that employ more than 60,000 people. In the past, companies didn't want to advertise that they were members for proprietary and other reasons. I'd like to change that and be more up front about our membership, like Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce is. I think our list is pretty impressive. We have members like Stora Enso and Georgia Pacific, Patrick Cudahy and GM - some of the biggest companies in the state.

Clark: Would you like to expand the organization?

Stuart: Yes, that's one of my top priorities. I'd like to have a broader cross section of members and have the dues spread out more. We could also make a stronger case before the PSC if we represented all the foundries in the state instead of just three of them. I'd like to get every energy- intensive company on board. If you have a member in every Senate district, people will sit up and take notice.

Clark: Has the number of members gone down in recent years?

Stuart: It was as high as 40, and it has fluctuated with the economy. Memberships in trade organizations are one of the first things to go when times get tight.

Clark: Are there any other groups that are like yours?

Stuart: I'd say Customers First is somewhat like ours. They have a broad umbrella of members. They have co-ops and municipal utilities, some businesses, labor and environmental groups. And CUB (Citizens Utility Board) is a consumer and homeowners group. So it's different than ours. There is WMC, but we are probably most like the Paper Council, which represents paper makers. A lot of our members belong to the paper council. But we have different issues.

Clark:Will WIEG continue to work closely with CUB?

Stuart: We'll work with them on a case-by-case basis on areas of common interest, probably at the PSC. But I'm leaning toward partnering with the paper council a lot because of our similar interests. And with WMC.

Clark: Are you satisfied with how the Midwest Independent System Operator system is working?

Stuart: That's one of the things we are looking at. It's supposed to be like the interstate highway system for energy. But the problem is that while it gives access to power we didn't have before, it is very expensive and we're not getting a lot of benefit from it now. The question is will we gain from it in the long-term. My group may advocate pulling out of MISO at some point. It has had huge ramp-up costs, and it is very confusing and complex. If someone tells you he understands it, he's probably lying.

Clark: Does your group support more transmission lines in the state?

Stuart: In general, yes. But we don't want them gold-plated. We need to be able to import energy to guarantee our companies power. So generally, it's a pretty good investment. Consumers should benefit. Still, we don't want to see over-engineering. Wisconsin has one of the weakest transmission systems around. It is weak, congested, aging and needs to be upgraded. We have concerns about the American Transmission Co.'s costs and accounting, but we don't dispute the need.

Clark: A number of new power plants are being built in the state. Are you pleased with that?

Stuart: It's a step in the right direction. But we are concerned with the costs. Wisconsin Public Service is building Weston 4 and doing it by traditional rate making, which means a 15-percent rate increase for some of our members. That's a huge hit, and recently they said maybe they can spread that out a bit.

We Energies will probably be in good shape through the end of the decade infrastructure-wise. But that said, they have an aging workforce and power plants. There will probably be another round of building in the next decade. There is no free lunch, someone is going to pay for it. We'll be keeping an eye on that. And we'd like to have options on how to pay for it.

Clark: Does your group have a position on coal gasification, which is generally considered a cleaner, more environmentally friendly way to produce energy from coal?

Stuart: Rate payer-wise, it's a bit of a risk. It's more expensive because it is like building two power plants. You have to pay a premium for it. But is it the way of the future, especially if there is a carbon tax some day. The federal government is investing a lot in R&D. And the Chinese are said to be making great strides. They need to build something like one giant power plant per week to keep up with their needs. For now, my members would be very cautious because of the costs.

Clark: What does WIEG think of more nuclear plants for Wisconsin?

Stuart: I personally think we'd want it on the table as an option. But it won't be a top priority. Wisconsin law right now is a hindrance to building nuclear. It says you can't build nuclear unless there is a federal depository for waste. But Yucca Mountain in Nevada is nowhere close. What plants do now is store it on site.

Clark: Do you think the PSC has enough staff?

Stuart: Nope. They are at one of the lowest staffing levels since the early 1980s. I think the world of the PSC and its staff, but with all the rate and rule cases coming up and the new construction, they need more people. They will be very busy. I think the utilities would support more staff because it would mean they would be permitted faster and better. I would love to help them add staff back. I believe they are down about a third.

Clark; Is the current rate system fair to industrial customers?

Stuart: The commission is studying that now, but the dirty little secret out there is that large industrial customers are subsidizing other rate classes. That's a political dilemma, because in an age or rising prices, no one wants to have the shaft shifted to them. And what is more popular than having big business pay more of the load? We face an uphill battle, but I think the facts are on our side. Truth be told, some members of my organization are probably subsidizing other members.

Clark: Any other issues you'll be working on?

Stuart: Well, we're interested in having rates that would encourage economic development like some other states have. But there is a statute that limits special contracts that benefit one class of user over another. But we might be looking at revising that law. There is an argument that this could save jobs or promote growth. It might not be politically popular to shift the burden, but some of these communities wouldn't be there if it weren't for our member companies. The question is, how do you do this so you don't harm other customers.

We'll also be watching how the rule-making is done for the renewable energy bill. I'll be in pretty good shape to help with that because I probably know it better than anyone else. There are some errors that need to be corrected with it in the Legislature, too.

And we're also concerned about clean air and mercury standards. We don't want the state to go very far beyond the federal rules because that could turn Wisconsin into an economic island and have a huge impact on utilities and big business. I think we'll be partnering with utilities and big business on that issue. I'm pretty sure we'll all be on the same page. I'd argue state law says we shouldn't go beyond federal standards, but the devil is in the details.

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Huffington Post
July 07, 2006

Nuclear Waste: "Not in My Backyard!" Then Whose? (10 comments )

Raymond J. Learsy

The enveloping miasma of climate change and its risk to us and future generations calls for dynamic action to forestall and hopefully prevent the disasters ahead.

It calls for a clear understanding that this is not a local, regional, national, continental, nor even hemispheric issue, but one that is fully global in its reach, its origins, and its ultimate impact.

It will affect each and every one of us in some important way. And because of its universality, we cannot conquer the problem alone, though we can accomplish much through deed and example. Clearly, though, its global dimension demands a global response -- and the time for meaningful cooperation on a world scale is slipping away.

In my opinion -- and some will disagree -- the most effective and quickest way to reduce fossil fuel emissions, other than massively curtailing consumption, is to embrace the enormous potential of nuclear power. The question before us then is how to expedite the construction of nuclear facilities and get them up and running in the shortest time possible. Certainly, one of the major constraints is the storage and disposal of nuclear waste. This is not the only concern delaying nuclear power-plant construction, but it, more than any other, seems to be the elephant in the room that is holding back the broad and expeditious application of nuclear energy.

Concurrent to nuclear waste storage sites, we also need to develop advanced recycling technologies that do not produce separated plutonium. This would significantly diminish nuclear proliferation concerns, while recycling used fuel would dramatically reduce the amount of waste requiring permanent disposal.

Understandably, the cry of "not in my backyard" -- even when the backyard is thousands of miles away at Nevada's Yucca Mountain -- has been raised to a deafening level, drowning out reasoned arguments. And this scenario is being replicated in virtually every corner of the world where nuclear power is being contemplated or expanded.

Yet France, where nearly 80 percent of that nation's electricity is generated by nuclear power (vs. about 20 percent in this country, where the newest nuclear facility dates to the 1970s), finds no such objections. One has to wonder why the French, not otherwise celebrated for their quiet acquiescence, accede to a set of conditions that, on their face, would have American communities up in arms.

The answer is not clear because, in large measure, the entire issue is shielded by a decree of "national security," which is meant to block debate. You see, France sends thousands of tons of nuclear waste to Russia each year. And though we know some details of the arrangement, much is still kept from public view. And that's a pity. France's arrangement just might provide the kernel of a solution to the global problem of nuclear waste. If the Franco-Russian program could be applied globally, it could offer a solution that transcends borders, is effective, environmentally rational, and secure.

There are vast reaches of the world where nuclear waste disposal would have a truly minimal social impact and present the least possible environmental concern. Siberia, the Australian outback, and the Gobi Desert, the Canadian Shield among others, come to mind. Stretches of land that could provide an urgently needed "backyard" to allow the world to get on with the pressing need to expand the use of economical, carbon-free nuclear energy.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, working under the auspices of the United Nations, already oversees the inspection and monitoring of nuclear power and fissionable materials around the world. The IAEA has, in its way, become the world watchdog on nuclear matters. Could the agency not also take on the oversight of international nuclear waste sites that would be accessible to all the world's nuclear power plants? The IAEA or some similar agency could be given full control over both storage and security at the sites. Admittedly, working out the details of agency oversight of nuclear waste depots would take some doing, but given the importance of the issue, it need's be done.

Such a program could be very profitable for any country agreeing to undertake nuclear waste storage. The Russian government, for example, recently passed a law to allow additional storage of nuclear waste on Russian soil. The Ministry of Atomic Energy, or Minatom, claims that 10,000 to 20,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste could be imported over the next decade for storage and reprocessing, and it expects to earn $20 billion from the waste-storage business. Russia is considering two separate sites, Chelyabinsk-65 (for reprocessing) and the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Northern Arkhangelsk region (dust off your atlas).

Australia, with some 30 percent of the world's uranium reserves, is currently meeting 20 percent of the world's need. With nuclear expansion in China and India, this off-take will grow considerably in the years ahead. Business proposals aimed at Australia, which has ideal geological conditions for waste storage, are proliferating. The Australian government is not unaware of these overtures, which promise to be highly profitable.

Now for a suggestion closer to home -- and forgive me if I duck the slings and arrows that will be coming my way. Rather than drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, with the wide and intrusive footprint ANWR oil development would entail, what if we set aside a very significantly smaller landmass as our own Novaya Zemlya archipelago to serve as a national depot for nuclear waste? We could then get on with building nuclear energy plants here at home and start taking a big bite out of our fossil fuel emissions. The caribou and polar bears would still have ample room to roam and happily carry on. And do not forget, they, too, have a vested interest in stopping and hopefully reversing global warming!

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Comment:

All the protests in the 70's against nuclear power has helped to create our current oil addiction.

I hope those responsible (I bet a bunch of you old farts who now hate Bush were there) should stand up and admit they were wrong.

If the French can do it, the US should be the leader, with the best technology and the safeset record.

By: BigSm3llie1 on July 07, 2006 at 02:02pm

Comment:

Don't duck, listen. You are only slightly right about one thing - we need to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Although I'm glad that you are "trying," you need to take a more global view, and I don't mean a ludicrous suggestion of offloading our incredibly toxic, unstable nuclear waste to these poor third-world countries we're already destroying with our economic policies.

That you would even consider anyplace "ideal geological conditions" for radioactive waste shows just how little you know about nature and the planet. Just because something apppears to be a desert with a lot of rock doesn't mean that it doesn't have an incredibly vibrant and fragile ecosystem that is just as important to this planet as the oceans, and more important than, say, your house. You can't seriously be acting like the arguments against dumping deadly, non-biodegradable corrosive waste are that caribou won't have "ample room to roam???" Are you insane? That reasoning would justify a nuclear holocaust! Never mind the fallout, there's plenty of room now.

No, you need to get over your short-term, ahem "vision," and highly destructive obsession with the glories of the twin reactors and start stumping for SUSTAINABLE, CLEAN ENERGY and CONSERVATION in personal choices as well as urban planning and industrial/real estate development regulation. If we can put a Rover on Mars, we can sort out the "energy crisis." It's a matter of priorities - and won't happen as long as entrenched Big Energy sets our policies with their in-house advocate DICK cheney and the masses remain bloated and lazy. Please stop promoting the permanent, irreversible destruction of our planet.

By: sheila on July 07, 2006 at 02:16pm

Comment:

So the solution is to create a different form of waste product, one that will remain deadly for the next 20,000 years or more? Something we can saddle future generations with managing for us? Why doesn't this sound like a really inviting alternative?

By: dshaw256 on July 07, 2006 at 02:21pm

Comment:

The artic wildlife refuge is a lousy place to store nuclear waste - its huge, with no security and no monitoring.

You want to store this stuff in the exact opposite sort of place - small and with good security and excellent monitoring.

I figure the best place to put it isn't in Yucca. Its in distributed enclaves across the nation.

Pick the gated communities of the energy barons, the CEOs, and the think-tank leadership. Knock down one little mansion in the center. Store it there.

The security will be tighter than the government can afford. And no where will you find better monitoring. The elite and their servants will employ all manner of monitoring systems to ensure their own health and safety.

Problem solved.

By: HowardRoarke on July 07, 2006 at 02:31pm

Comment:

Here is a few places that might do some good if the nuke waste leaked, a ranch in Crawford Texas that's all hat and no cattle, both houses of congress and the White house, and where space is abundant the headlands of Rush Limbaugh's ass.

By: Steven on July 07, 2006 at 02:51pm

Comment:

Mr. Learsy,

You have ducked this question before, so I'm not sure you will address it this time. But I will try anyway.

Q: How much fossil fuel does it take to make a single nuclear reactor? While you put emphasis on the objections to radioactive wastes (a perfectly reasonable objection that will not be solve by armchair solutions), the more subtle and essentially damning issue is that nuclear reactors aren't built by using the power from existing nuclear reactors. If you would do your homework you would find that it takes an exhorbitant amount of high-potential energy to extract, process and deliver the raw materials, and then an even greater amount of energy to manufacture the components and do the final assembly. The key question then is (especially given the uncertainties surrounding the disposal of waste) is this effort worth it on net? Please investigate this issue before you jump to conclusions about how good nuclear power is for curtailing greenhouse gas emissions.

You say: "In my opinion -- and some will disagree -- the most effective and quickest way to reduce fossil fuel emissions, **other than massively curtailing consumption**, is to embrace the enormous potential of nuclear power."

Why "other than"? Indeed, curtailing consumption may be the only solution in the short-run. It addresses both the global warming and the oil peaking problems (or if you prefer the oil security problem). This nation, and the rest of the world, including the developing countries, are going to curtail their consumption one way or the other in the coming decades. It is inevitable. What I find ludicrous is that bickering over issues like nuclear vs. clean alternative energy is wasting time. If we don't decide which luxuries we CHOOSE to give up, nature will soon decide that we give up far more than we will like.

Stop fretting over the politics and neoclassical economics of oil/gas/coal and nuclear. Ideological and poorly understood principles will not help us solve this fundamental problem. The laws of thermodynamics and energy systems thinking will. But only if we get going on it now.

PS That some nuclear power plant development might be a good idea is not in question. We should explore the possibilities. But we cannot believe that this is the central cure to the energy/GW problems. We should keep our options open by investigating new technologies in nuclear generation (just as we should continue to investigate all forms of energy production) and hold out hope that a breakthrough in production and/or waste disposal will be found. But wholesale committment to nuclear would be a gigantic mistake.

By: veracitatus on July 07, 2006 at 03:13pm

Comment:

-- what if we set aside a very significantly smaller landmass as our own Novaya Zemlya archipelago to serve as a national depot for nuclear waste? --

no problem, tell us where you live and we'll bury it nextdoor ...

"The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master." -- Ayn

By: Nano on July 07, 2006 at 03:14pm

Comment:

There is no need for nuclear. Period. Wind can supply all the electricity we will ever need, without pollution. At the end of a wind farm's life, you simply dismantle the wind towers, break up the concrete foundations and cover it up with soil. The area will basically be returned to the way it was.

All these fools who support nuclear energy should be forced to store the waste in their own back yards.

Some types of nuclear waste remain deadly for over 200,000 years. How in the world is any society supposed to protect that waste for such a period of time?

By: AmericanSon on July 07, 2006 at 03:16pm

Comment:

One constraint on siting is the "Law of the Sea" treaty which forbids placing waste in the ocean, in particular trenches at subduction zones. Designs exist for "projectiles" which would bury themselves 20m into the muck of a trench 6-7 miles down. I'm sure bunker-buster research has developed better designs than those I've seen. Stuff going into a subduction zone won't make it back to near-surface crust for 10+ million years, ample time to decay. And even before the slow subduction moves the stuff under a continental plate it would be a lot harder to retrieve than to drop. But all this is banned by a fifty year old treaty.

By: jfb22 on July 07, 2006 at 03:18pm

Comment:

I agree with you Mr. Learsy...

And, let's bury the stuff out in the middle of nowhere - like Yucca Mountain. Who ever goes there? You could stomp around in the Nevada desert for hundreds of years and never run across this area.

Honestly, highly radioactive material is nothing new to the planet Earth.

Done corectly, I believe we could effectively manage and recycle spent fuel rods, reducing much of the waste and find new technologies to eventually deactivate/recycle/reclaim the rest. Maybe we just need to put our collective minds to it.

And, if we put the effort into it, we could come up with more efficent nuclear power plants that need far less fuel. Nuc. energy has been largely ignored in the US and no real advances have been made since the 70's.

Let's approach it with 21st century ideas and technology and see what happens.

Nuclear power is clean and limitless; we shouldn't just give up on it. Let's face it; it's the only real, large-scale energy technology out there that can help turn the tide of climate change in a short time frame.

By: Mikey2 on July 07, 2006 at 04:11pm

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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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