Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
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The Hill
July 25, 2006
Yucca Mountain prominent if Nevada caucus is moved up
By Jonathan E. Kaplan
If Democrats push Nevada´s caucus forward in the presidential nominating calendar in 2008, candidates will be competitive only if they oppose plans to store nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, according to several political observers in the state.
Opposing Congress´s decision to store radioactive waste in a mountain 90 miles from Las Vegas will be as important as support of ethanol subsidies are in Iowa´s caucus, said David Damore, political scientist at the University of Nevada in Reno. Eric Herzik, another political scientist at the same university, described Yucca Mountain as a litmus test for Democrats in the state.
When former state Sen. Joe Neal (D-Nev.) ran for governor in 2002, he did not oppose Yucca Mountain because it would bring jobs to the state. His position, coupled with proposals that were not considered friendly to the gambling industry, cost him dearly, as Democrats deserted him in droves.
National Democrats approved a measure Saturday to move Nevada and South Carolina close to the beginning of the presidential nominating process. The Democratic National Committee will vote on the decision when it meets next month in Chicago.
Western Democrats have sought to make their states more relevant to the nominating process for years. In 2005, some Democrats proposed creating a regional primary in eight Western states that would take place in early February. But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and labor unions, which play a big role in Nevada politics, lobbied the Democratic Party´s rules and bylaws committee to take a chance on Nevada.
Yucca Mountain has been one of the biggest so-called “NIMBY’ (“not in my back yard’) issues in U.S. politics during the past 20 years as opponents have thrown up court challenges and regulatory road blocks to stop the government from transporting and burying the waste in Nevada.
Siding with the opposition helped Bill Clinton win the state in 1992 and 1996. The Senate´s likely Democratic contenders for president in 2008 — Sens. John Kerry (Mass.), the party´s nominee in 2004; Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.); Joseph Biden (Del.); Evan Bayh (Ind.); Russ Feingold (Wis.); and Chris Dodd (Conn.) — voted against a resolution in 2002 that approved the Yucca Mountain location.
Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), Kerry´s running mate in ´04, voted for the measure. Edwards, upon being selected as vice president, immediately said he would defer to Kerry on the issue.
The Washington Post quoted Reid in 2004 as saying Edwards told him, “I am on the Yucca Mountain bandwagon.’
Edwards continues to oppose storing the waste in Nevada, said Kim Rubey, the spokeswoman for Edwards´s One America PAC.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean also supported moving nuclear waste to Nevada when he served as governor of Vermont.
But the issue, which the courts and regulatory agencies have taken up in recent years, seems to have lost some of its potency. Opposing the site at Yucca Mountain was not enough to help Kerry to win Nevada; President Bush defeated him 50 to 48 percent. In 2000, Bush defeated Vice President Al Gore 50 to 46 percent to win the state´s five electoral votes.
“I´m not going to kid you that it´s something that will have to be dealt with,’ said Billy Vassiliadis, a political consultant in Nevada who lobbied for an early caucus date. “Other issues, economic and immigration, could overwhelm Yucca. Water, homeland-security and transportation funding [could] sway Nevada voters.’
Peggy Maze Johnson, the executive director of Nevada nuclear watchdog Citizen Alert, said, “I just don´t think that it´s going to be an issue. I just think any Democrat would not have a position that would be pro-Yucca Mountain.’
Iowa´s caucus, on Jan. 14, 2008, would remain the first test of the Democratic nomination calendar. Nevada´s caucus would be held five days later, and New Hampshire still would have the first Democratic primary election, on Jan. 22. South Carolina´s primary would take place a week later.
Meanwhile, the party´s decision has angered New Hampshire Democrats. Paul Hodes, a Democrat who is challenging Rep. Charlie Bass (R-N.H.), said, “This is a misguided attempt to fix a system that is not broken.’
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Waco Tribune Herald
July 25, 2006
Editorial: Giant piles of nuclear waste need a home
Nuclear waste has been accumulating in growing piles around the United States for decades.
This haphazard condition presents a health threat to Americans and the environment should any of the storage containers leak and another sort of threat should any of this material fall into the hands of terrorists.
It is ridiculous, not to mention dangerous, for the United States to not have a repository for nuclear wastes when this nation led the world into the atomic age.
American scientists, policy leaders, economists and environmentalists have recognized that a safe repository for nuclear wastes has been a national priority since World War II.
While everyone agrees that a secure national repository is needed, the NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) reaction has seldom been stronger when it comes to agreeing on where this repository should be located.
Finally, after decades of inaction, a panel of experts representing a cross section of the sciences concluded that Yucca Mountain in Nevada would be the best location for a respository for the nation´s nuclear waste. About 90 percent of Nevada is owned by the federal government. Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is next to a former nuclear test site. It also is near Nellis Air Force Base, which gives the location added security.
Even though five miles have been excavated into Yucca Mountain, the combined efforts of Nevada officials and environmentalists have all but buried the project under lawsuits, environmental impact statements and paperwork.
The complaints include fears that the mountain storage site will leak radiation, that terrorists could steal the nuclear material when it is transported from more than 130 sites in 39 states to Yucca Mountain and that Yucca Mountain will become a magnet for terrorists.
The best way to prevent nuclear wastes from leaking into the environment is to put all the material in one location where it can be observed with electronic and human monitoring. Nuclear material has always been moved around the United States and will continue to be in the future. The movement of nuclear waste presents no additional risks.
If terrorists wanted to get their hands on this nation´s nuclear waste, they have a greater opportunity with the material scattered hither and yon without the intense security it would receive at Yucca Mountain.
The small Utah Goshute Tribe has agreed to accept nuclear waste, as has a group of businessmen in Wyoming.
Russian officials also have offered to take this nation´s nuclear waste materials. The Bush administration reportedly is shipping nuclear waste to Russia as part of a deal to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
It would be so much easier to simply find a way to complete work at Yucca Mountain. No matter what the speculated risks would be at Yucca Mountain, they are considerably less than doing nothing.
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PR Newswire
July 25, 2006
New Report From The Boston Consulting Group Demonstrates Economic Solutions for Recycling U.S. Nuclear Fuel
Portfolio Strategy That Combines Recycling and Repository Solutions Offers Broad Benefits and Comparable Economics to a Once Through Strategy
BETHESDA, Md., July 25 /PRNewswire/ -- The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) today announced that its study, Economic Assessment of Used Nuclear Fuel Management in the United States, concludes that nuclear fuel recycling, as part of a portfolio strategy in which a large scale integrated recycling plant complements a repository (such as the planned Yucca Mountain repository) could be attractive for solving the long-term used nuclear fuel management requirement of the U.S. nuclear power market. Conducted for Bethesda, Maryland-based AREVA, Inc., BCG performed the first extensive study of proprietary operational and financial data from decades of AREVA's nuclear recycling experience at the La Hague and Melox facilities in France.
The study shows that the economics of recycling and disposal of high level waste in Yucca Mountain are comparable to the economics of the targeted once- through U.S. fuel cycle, especially considering uncertainties that surround the nuclear fuel cycle, such as capital investment costs and uranium prices.
"This study shows that current generation recycling technologies for used nuclear fuel are in an economic range that can be competitive," said Dennis Spurgeon, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy. "This economic benchmark is useful as we work on advanced recycling technologies that make better use of our energy resources and reduce the space and time needed to store nuclear waste."
"As companies and governments decide how to navigate the opportunities presented by nuclear power technologies, BCG's economic analysis of AREVA's experience as one of the world's leading reprocessing and recycling plant operators offers vital insight into the development of a comprehensive nuclear waste management strategy," said Rick Peters, Senior Vice President and the head of BCG's worldwide energy practice.
Using AREVA's established technical expertise and experience, BCG evaluated the costs of a large scale state-of-the-art fuel treatment plant with enhanced processes integrated with recycled fuel manufacturing.
The study reports that recycling, as part of a portfolio strategy in which an integrated treatment and recycling plant complements a repository such as the planned Yucca Mountain repository, offers specific benefits including:
* Increasing the capacity of Yucca Mountain by a factor of 4 by recycling
newly discharged fuel within four years and cooling the vitrified high
level waste for 25 years at the recycling facility.
* Providing a comparable cost of disposal while eliminating the need for a second repository during the 50 years of recycling plant operation.
* Creating an effective long term hedge on rising fuel costs by providing 20-25 percent of the annual nuclear fuel needs in the U.S. through recycled products.
* Reducing used fuel inventory in the short term by removing the newly discharged, hotter fuel for recycling.
* Eliminating the need for additional storage at reactor sites while recycling some of the older legacy fuel in dilution with new fuel.
BCG's access to cost data, supplemented with external reports, surveys and interviews, takes into consideration the economics of the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle and the specifics of the U.S. context and does not represent an accounting audit of the data. The report's conclusions reflect BCG's efforts to develop a detailed understanding of the economics of recycling within specific U.S. parameters.
To download a copy of the study, please visit http://www.bcg.com/publications.
About AREVA
As the leading U.S. nuclear vendor and a key player in the electricity transmission and distribution sector, AREVA Inc.'s 5,000 American energy employees are committed to serve the nation and pave the way for the future of the electricity market. With 40 locations across the nation and nearly $2 billion in energy revenues in 2005, AREVA Inc., through its subsidiaries combines homegrown leadership, access to worldwide expertise and a proven track record of performance. In the U.S. and in over 100 countries around the world, AREVA is engaged in the 21st century's greatest challenges: making energy available to all, protecting the planet, and acting responsibly towards future generations.
AREVA Inc. is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.
About The Boston Consulting Group
BCG's Energy practice helps companies navigate an increasingly complex and uncertain business environment. We work with the full range of oil, gas and utility players in the industry, and are helping define the new rules of the competitive game in many countries around the world.
Since its founding in 1963, The Boston Consulting Group has focused on helping clients achieve competitive advantage. Our firm believes that best practices or benchmarks are rarely enough to create lasting value and that positive change requires new insight into economics and markets and the organizational capabilities to chart and deliver on winning strategies. We consider every assignment to be a unique set of opportunities and constraints for which no standard solution will be adequate. BCG has 61 offices in 36 countries and serves companies in all industries and markets. For further information, please visit our Web site at http://www.bcg.com.
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Concord Monitor
July 25, 2006
Is this the new New Hampshire?
Time for a primer on Nevada politics
By Eric Moskowitz
Monitor staff
After decades of starting their campaigns in New Hampshire and Iowa, Democrats who consider themselves presidential material could enter uncharted territory in 2008: Nevada, the nation's fastest-growing state.
Last weekend, the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to add a Nevada caucus between the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary for the next presidential-election cycle. Although New Hampshire officials have vowed to fight off the challenge, the new schedule is likely to be ratified by the full DNC next month. With that in mind, here's an introduction to Nevada's political landscape, with help from journalists, party officials and academics.
First, the demographics: Of Nevada's 2.4 million residents, 71 percent live in Clark County, which includes the Las Vegas metro area, and another 16 percent live in Washoe County, which includes Reno. The other 13 percent of the residents are spread among 15 rural counties that include vast stretches of land owned by the federal government, including military-testing sites.
The two political parties each claim about 40 percent of registered voters, though the Democrats are concentrated in the two most populous counties; nearly 89 percent of the registered Democrats live in those counties, according to statistics from the state Democratic Party. The caucus would be open only to party voters, not independents.
In 2005, Nevada had a higher percentage of Hispanic residents than the country at large (22.8 percent in the state, compared with 14.1 percent nationwide), according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Nevada has doubled in population since 1990, due largely to residents born elsewhere. Newcomers flow in from all directions, with California, Florida, Arizona, New York and Illinois topping the list of the former home states of Nevada residents.
Nevada competed against five other states and Washington, D.C., to win the new-caucus honors from the DNC rules committee.
Nevada was attractive to many Democrats for its high union membership and recent election results. In 2005, Nevada boasted a 13.8 percent membership rate in unions, compared with 12.5 percent nationwide. Union membership is also growing in Nevada at a time when it is leveling off or shrinking in other states.
And in the 2004 general election, President Bush edged Democrat John Kerry by two percentage points, leading some Democrats to believe it could swing their way in the next presidential race.
Nevada has never been known for its presidential-caucus turnout; in 2004, the state's mid-February Democratic caucus drew about 9,000 participants. In their pitch to the DNC, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and other Nevada Democrats said an earlier caucus could energize Democratic voters and help build the momentum needed to swing the election in November.
Nevada Democrats also pitched their state as a place where candidates must make local stops to court voters, since the state has multiple TV markets and a heritage of retail politics in the rural counties.
"The folks in the rural counties vote so frequently - they're so good at turning out the vote - that they're still a very important component of politics in Nevada," said Kirsten Searer, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Democratic Party. "You really need to go out and shake hands with people at the Democratic clubs, at the coffee shops, at the rodeos."
Others disagreed, saying New Hampshire-style campaigning is a must in general elections but not in state Democratic races. Nevada's rural residents - who are far more likely than their Las Vegas and Reno counterparts to have been born in the state - tend to favor conservative Republican politics. The Democrats are concentrated in the cities.
"There's 17 counties in Nevada, and Harry Reid generally loses 15 or 16 counties and wins," said Jon Ralston, the state's top political commentator and a columnist for the Las Vegas Sun.
"As far as Democrats go, you can get enough votes down (in Las Vegas) and probably win" a caucus without a statewide grassroots campaign, Ralston said.
Ralston said the unions dominate Democratic politics and said the state would be likely to embrace union-friendly candidates such as John Edwards or Hillary Clinton, should they choose to run.
Organized labor has proved its clout in Nevada in recent years, Ralston said. Unions have rallied support for a minimum-wage increase and have also helped elect or defeat candidates in city-government, county and state-legislative races, he said. In one state Senate race in the 1990s, union members helped an unproven Democrat unseat a popular Republican lawmaker and former TV anchorwoman, he said.
But the unions have also paid inconsistent attention to politics and failed to deliver Nevada for the Democrats in each of the past two presidential races, said Eric Herzik, a political scientist at the University of Nevada, Reno.
"Their clout has not been as great as their numbers would indicate," Herzik said. "You've got many Nevada labor Democrats who will defect if they see a big tax-and-spend liberal Democrat."
In a Nevada campaign, presidential candidates would have to address Western and Southwestern issues that don't factor as much or at all in New Hampshire or Iowa, such as immigration and water supply. Nevada also has its own political litmus test, in the same way New Hampshire asks candidates if they'll protect the state's leadoff-primary tradition.
"People are going to ask about Yucca Mountain," said Ralston, referring to the federal plan to bury the nation's nuclear waste in a mountain 90 minutes north of Las Vegas. "It's so funny to watch every candidate go through their contortions when they come to this state."
But Nevada and New Hampshire aren't entirely different. In both states, the locals expect politicians to be up on their geographic pronunciations. Note to would-be presidential candidates: Nevada is not pronounced as a Spanish-speaker might say it; think "add" for the middle syllable, not "ahh."
In 2004, George Bush made headlines for getting it wrong. "Two weeks later, Kerry comes out and makes the same mistake," Herzik said. "I mean, come on."
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Las Vegas SUN
July 23, 2006
Nevada: a likely hot spot in 2008 Democratic presidential race
Associated Press
The state of Nevada is likely to be a hub of attention in the Democratic presidential campaign. But it is sharply different turf from the cornfields of Iowa and the green hills of New Hampshire - two states that have dominated the start of presidential campaigns for the last three decades. Nevada has been recommended to hold an early caucus in the Democratic presidential calendar - after Iowa but before New Hampshire.
OVERALL: Nevada was a sparsely populated stretch of desert state that tourists had to get through on the way to California when the state legislature in 1931 legalized casino gambling and sparked growth in the Nevada desert that has continued to this day. The state also attracts other businesses such as credit card operations and distribution centers, and is popular for West Coast retirees.
POPULATION: The state has a population of more than 2.4 million - with most of the population concentrated in the southeastern corner of the state in Las Vegas and the surrounding area. The state also has smaller population centers in the capital city of Carson City and nearby Reno, on the central western border with California.
ETHNIC DIVERSITY: Nevada is almost 23 percent Hispanic, almost 7 percent black and more than 6 percent Asian-Pacific Islander, according to Census figures.
ORGANIZED LABOR: About a quarter of Nevada voters in 2004 came from unions or union households, according to exit polls. They were more likely to support Democrat John Kerry than President Bush in that presidential election.
POLITICS: Democrat Bill Clinton carried the state narrowly in the presidential elections of 1992 and 1996, while George W. Bush beat Democrat Al Gore in 2000 by 50-46 and Bush beat Kerry by a 50-48 margin. But in the 1980s, Nevada strongly supported Ronald Reagan and supported George H.W. Bush in 1988. Nevada's state legislature is divided, with Democrats ruling the House and Republicans ruling the Senate. The governor is Republican Kenny Guinn.
TOP ISSUES: Along with the gambling industry, tourism and related economic issues, Nevada voters are most interested in the proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository - in the desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Potential presidential candidates are certain to be questioned by voters about the Yucca Mountain facility - scheduled to be opened in 2017. The federal government has proposed putting nuclear waste deep within Yucca Mountain in reinforced steel containers. Critics fear rainwater will flush the waste into the water supply far below the dump and the complain about the possibility of earthquakes and dangers from transporting waste cross-country.
---Sources: Democratic National Committee, U.S. Census; Almanac of American Politics, exit polls.
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San Francisco Chronicle
July 24, 2006
Deadly nuke rods piling up in state
Burial site project in Nevada in limbo
Keay Davidson
Chronicle Science Writer
Thousands of tons of deadly radioactive rods of spent nuclear fuel and waste have accumulated at three California nuclear power plants because the federal government has failed to open a permanent nuclear burial site in Nevada that was supposed to be ready eight years ago.
And the delay is only getting worse: Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that the nuclear dump site won't open until 2017 -- almost two decades past the original 1998 inauguration target and five years beyond the most recent scheduled opening date.
The latest delay climaxes a yearlong debacle at the Yucca Mountain Project in Nevada -- a debacle during which staff scientists were suspected of fraud, federal investigators blasted the project's management, and project officials announced plans to revamp the operation and redesign the burial site. On July 14, according to news reports, officials said they'd lay off up to 500 employees as part of the planned reorganization.
The Energy Department estimated in 2001 that the facility would cost $60 billion. But in February, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman admitted at a conference of nuclear power industrialists that there's no trustworthy cost estimate.
Energy Department officials say the facility will offer a permanent solution to the nation's deadliest waste, protecting the environment from the radiation of spent nuclear fuel for 10,000 years or longer. Critics say the computer models the Energy Department used to make such predictions are unreliable.
To its harshest critics, the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository looks dead in the water.
"The Yucca Mountain nuke dump has been riddled with scientific, health and safety problems from the beginning," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in a statement last month. "I don't believe the dump will ever open."
But project defenders are confident they'll get their act together and overcome long-standing technical objections to the site -- especially fears that the super-hot nuclear fuel and wastes could leak into groundwater and spread for miles far faster than anyone dreamed when the project was proposed in the 1970s.
Someday "Yucca Mountain will open," Paul Golan, deputy director of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, told The Chronicle. "We're going to demonstrate that we have good science, good process, good engineering. We have good quality standards in place. This (repository) is certainly a challenge that this country can solve -- and can solve credibly."
Utility officials in California and across the nation are not pleased to be stuck with growing mountains of spent fuel and waste that the Energy Department had promised to take off their hands long ago. Nationwide, more than 50,000 tons of poisonous, super-hot rods of spent nuclear fuel are sitting in cooling ponds and dry casks at atomic power plants awaiting the day when they will be shipped to Yucca Mountain.
Several utilities have sued the department to recover costs of on-site storage and won; more suits are planned.
PG&E officials, who run the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant and the now-defunct Humboldt Bay reactor, are among the litigants. They have demanded $100 million in damages and say they expect a court decision in September. So far, the Diablo Canyon plant has accumulated more than 1,000 tons of spent fuel and waste; the much smaller Humboldt Bay plant, which closed in the 1970s, has almost 30 tons.
Southern California Edison spokesman Ray Golden told The Chronicle that the utility is reviving legal action against the Energy Department, which had been temporarily delayed, for its failure to take spent fuel and waste now accumulating at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego. A pool at that plant stores 3,000 tons of spent fuel; an additional 300 tons is stored in dry casks.
Utility officials insist that it's safe to store the fuel and nuclear waste on site. But anti-nuclear activists fear the spent fuel and waste storage facilities could become juicy targets for terrorists -- say, a pilot flying a plane filled with explosives.
On June 2, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, responding to a lawsuit by the anti-nuclear activist group San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, ordered the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to study the possibility of a terrorist attack at Diablo Canyon.
Nearly a half-century has passed since the National Academy of Sciences recommended burying spent fuel from nuclear power plants at an underground site, and it's been two decades since Congress designated Yucca Mountain as that site.
Nothing else like the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, which would be operated by the Energy Department, has been built. The facility some 70 miles northwest of Las Vegas would consist of a series of tunnels 1,000 feet underground, where spent fuel rods from the nation's nuclear plants would be permanently buried.
Four years ago, President Bush, seeking to make nuclear power a cornerstone of his energy policies, unveiled a plan to complete the project by authorizing the Energy Department to file for a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to open the site. The Energy Department still hasn't filed the application, in part because it's still struggling to come up with a workable repository design that will withstand the commission's scrutiny.
That scrutiny could be particularly intensive given the recent highly publicized scandal over suspicions of data fraud inside the Yucca Mountain project. Additionally, if Congress isn't convinced that the project can pass examination by the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, it can refuse to bankroll construction or to fund the expensive transport, by truck and rail, of the nation's spent fuel to Nevada.
The review board, one of the proposed repository's most dogged and distinguished critics, is an independent agency chartered by Congress in 1987 to provide independent scientific monitoring of the project. The board consists of presidential appointees and a technical staff.
On May 16, board chairman R. John Garrick testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that the Energy Department's computer model for the repository "may not give a realistic picture of how a proposed repository would perform" over the centuries. Garrick noted that the repository must be able to withstand unprecedentedly severe conditions, namely, "above-boiling repository temperatures that will last for about 1,000 years," which, he added, are difficult to model in computers.
The most potentially fateful recent development involving the planned dump site was the revelation last year of several private e-mails among U.S. Geological Survey scientists working for the project. Some e-mails hinted that researchers were faking data used in developing computer models for simulating one of the most important scientific puzzles at hand: How quickly water flows through Yucca Mountain.
The e-mails have been made public.
"I don't have a clue when these (computer) programs were installed. So I've made up the dates and names," one unidentified e-mailer said. "If they (officials) need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff, as long as it's not a video recording of the software being installed."
In testimony to a House committee in July 2005, one of the scientists admitted he was "somewhat horrified" by his remarks in the e-mails but insisted that such comments were "water-cooler talk" and that there was no scientific fraud.
The U.S. attorney for Nevada decided, without explanation, not to prosecute any of the scientists. But in an April report, the Energy Department's inspector general, Gregory Friedman, told Congress that the e-mails still "had the effect of undermining public confidence in the quality of the science associated with the Yucca Mountain Project" and that repairing it will be "a costly, time-consuming process."
Energy Department officials are so shaken by the e-mails and other problems that they've assigned scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in Nevada to repeat the computer research conducted by the Yucca Mountain Project scientists. The purpose is to ensure that the models are credible.
Outside observers suggest it might be for naught.
At this point "there's probably an even chance either way that (Yucca Mountain) opens or doesn't open," said geologist and MIT Professor Alison McFarlane, co-editor of "Uncertainty Underground," a 431-page anthology of scientific reports on Yucca Mountain published by MIT Press in May.
"It has suffered some severe blows in the past couple of years. There are a number of people in the (scientific) community who are talking about whether we need a 'Plan B,' " she said.
McFarlane believes that some kind of underground repository in the United States is "absolutely necessary." But she thinks it might be wiser to build the repository elsewhere, perhaps in a state closer to the East Coast, where there are far more nuclear power plants and, therefore, less need to transport nuclear fuel to Nevada.
Officials in Nevada, where a majority of residents vehemently oppose the project, couldn't agree more.
The project "is really a hopeless morass," said Robert Loux, director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, who leads the state's fight against the Yucca Mountain Project.
A growing number of members of Congress are upset, too.
In a report in June on the Bush administration's proposed Energy Department budget, the Senate Energy and Water Committee said it is "frustrated by challenges facing the Yucca Mountain Project," including, in an allusion to the e-mail scandal, the quality of research by USGS scientists. The committee also said it is "greatly concerned" that, at this late date, the Energy Department "is redesigning the repository with significant changes."
The committee adopted the report by unanimous vote.
Despite his otherwise optimistic air, the Energy Department's Golan humorously deflected a question about when he thought Yucca Mountain will open.
"I'm not a betting man," he said. "I go to Vegas all the time -- and I never put a quarter in the slot."
E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com.
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Quad City Times
July 24, 2006
Nuclear waste gets longer Q-C stay
By the end of this year, Exelon´s Nuclear Quad-Cities Generating Station will have nine towering casks of nuclear waste on an outdoor concrete pad. Fast forward to 2017, when the Department of Energy expects a permanent home for U.S. nuclear waste to open at Yucca Mountain, Nev. By then, the Cordova plant will have 64 casks, each 17-feet tall, weighing 180 tons and costing $1 million, stacked on a fenced-in pad between Illinois Route 84 and the Mississippi River.
Thirty-five years ago when the plant was built, everyone assumed that energy companies and our government would find some way to get rid of nuclear waste. Exelon piled up spent nuclear rods inside the plant awaiting the day.
Exelon ran out of inside waste storage space at the Cordova plant last year. The company spent $30 million devising another temporary solution.
Just last week, the federal Office of Civilian Nuclear Waste Management made the long-anticipated announcement of the targeted opening date for America´s only nuclear waste repository. The remote Nevada Yucca Mountain underground dump would be ready in 2017, two years later than the last best guess.
Even the new deadline faces a few mighty big ifs...
If Congress can overcome monumental regional objections to the site.
If the Department of Energy can overcome monumental state objections to transportation plans to move most of the casks by rail.
Mostly, if our government can settle liability issues that leave taxpayers, not just utility rate payers, companies or their stockholders, facing major disposal costs. The near-sightedness of American energy policy allowed nuclear power generators to flourish and profit without a waste solution. That´s bad enough in theory. In practice, it has created temporary, unanticipated, outdoor nuclear waste sites in at least 39 states.
Opening Yucca Mountain in 2017 now is the best-case scenario.
The worst case, for the Quad-Cities, would see a permanent waste solution avoided for another 30 years. By then, Exelon estimates 250 waste casks would cover four compounds at the Cordova plant, which likely would be out of the power-producing business.
Each year that Yucca Mountain´s opening is delayed, the Exelon Nuclear Quad-Cities Generating Station inches closer to becoming something no one bargained for: the Exelon Nuclear Quad-Cities Waste Dump.
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CNN
July 24, 2006
Vegas baby, Vegas
By Mark Preston
CNN Political Editor
'08 intrigue at RBC meeting
Harold Ickes made no bones about why he would not vote to choose South Carolina as the additional primary state. His reason was summed up in one name: John Edwards. Prior to the vote, Ickes, a DNC Rules member from the District of Columbia, tried to persuade his colleagues that if South Carolina was selected it wouldn't be taken seriously by other Democrats because Edwards, a former Democratic senator from neighboring North Carolina, would be considered the hometown favorite. This drew loud protests from Don Fowler and Carol Khare Fowler, DNC Rules members from South Carolina.
While Ickes lost, he continued to stress his point in an interview with the Grind following the vote.
"The fact is that if he runs, and I think he is running, that South Carolina will be considered almost his home state and ... I just don't think it is going to be taken seriously," Ickes said. "The purpose of moving these states up is that they will be taken seriously and will affect the process. If Edwards runs, I just don't think South Carolina is going to be taken seriously by the other candidates."
But did Ickes have other motivations, say perhaps, trying to boost the candidacy of another potential 2008 candidate, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York)?
"Look if she runs, I don't know what she is going to do, if she runs I am going to support her," Ickes said. "But it has nothing to do with Hillary or non-Hillary. This is a big deal to move states outside the window and it should not be done lightly. And for us to move a state outside the window, the likelihood of which the state will be discounted because of Edwards, I think doesn't make any sense."
Mame Reiley, a DNC Rules member from Virginia, also made a surprising speech by publicly voicing her support for Arizona to be chosen for the caucus slot even as it appeared as though Nevada had sewn it up. Why was it surprising? Reiley is one of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner's (D) top political aides and he is one of at least 10 Democrats exploring a presidential bid. In an interview following the vote, Reiley told the Grind it was a very difficult choice, but it came down to two factors: Native American representation and the leadership of Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D).
"Governor Warner gave me no directive here other than to follow my conscience and do the right thing," she said. "He sees my membership of the DNC totally separate from my job, as I do."
She added, "It was almost a draw between Arizona and Nevada for me. It came down for me that Arizona has a higher percentage of Native Americans which I felt did not have a voice around this table today. And I chose to give my vote because of that and also because of the leadership of a women governor, Janet Napolitano."
Only time will tell if there will be any political fallout in Nevada for Warner. For some unnamed senator, Nevada's selection could hurt his presidential campaign. Don Fowler noted during the meeting that a senator had recently told him that his vote to place a nuclear waste repository in Yucca Mountain, just outside of Las Vegas, is likely to cost him dearly. Fowler would not say which senator said this to him.
One idea discussed at the meeting that is sure to generate a lot of buzz in Democratic circles is a proposal to punish candidates who campaign in states that refuse to follow the DNC's rules established for the nominating calendar. Carol Khare Fowler, who authored the proposal, said that if it is enacted then candidates who campaign in "rogue" states would not be allocated delegates they won in those states.
"You might get all the hoopla for winning that primary, but it doesn't really do you any good because you don't get any of the delegates," she told the Grind in an interview.
She added, "Every cycle we have about one or two states that violate the rules and we penalize the state parties a little bit, but that doesn't keep them from violating the rules. I believe if no presidential candidates would come to their states they would not move their process outside the rules."
The proposal will be discussed further next month at the DNC's meeting in Chicago.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nevada and South Carolina will likely join Iowa and New Hampshire as kickoff states for the Democratic presidential nominating process in 2008 after a panel voted Saturday to recommend the measure to the party's national committee.
The full Democratic National Committee is expected to approve it when it meets next month in Chicago, Illinois.
The DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee chose Nevada and South Carolina over eight other states and the District of Columbia, which petitioned the DNC for an early position on the presidential primary and caucus calendar. Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Michigan, Mississippi and West Virginia were also vying for early slots.
If the measure is approved, Democrats will schedule four nominating contests before February 5, 2008, forcing the party's presidential hopefuls to expand their campaign efforts beyond the Hawkeye and Granite states.
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Boston Globe
July 24, 2006
Probes may test Bechtel's clout
Responsibility on bolts at issue
By Christopher Rowland
Globe Staff
Bechtel Corp., one of the world's largest construction and engineering firms, has few equals when it comes to wielding political power and fending off enemies.
The company and its management partners on Boston's $14.6 billion Big Dig hired a team of deeply connected lobbyists and lawyers to help it influence local and state officials. It enjoyed minimal state oversight and denied responsibility for cost overruns and leaky tunnels.
When Bechtel finally faced scrutiny from state officials in recent years, the company was accused of stonewalling investigators and sued to block release of negative information.
Now Bechtel faces the biggest test of its political influence and legal strategies in Massachusetts, after concrete ceiling panels collapsed in the Interstate 90 connector tunnel and killed Milena Del Valle, a motorist.
State Senator Marc R. Pacheco , a Taunton Democrat who convened a 2003 legislative committee to review Bechtel's Big Dig operations, had a close-up view of the corporation's power.
``State agencies and auditors were like fleas on this big giant," Pacheco said. His panel's report criticized conflicts of interest, secrecy, and weak state supervision of the Central Artery project.
Bechtel has said that under its Big Dig contract, state officials -- not the company -- were responsible for the final approval of design work.
That stipulation, it said, means the Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff project management partnership is not liable for expenses involving design failures on the project.
But a lawyer who specializes in construction litigation said the company might not be able to avoid blame for inadequate inspections of the ceiling bolts .
``Having a direct obligation to see that these bolts are tested, I feel they are going to have a hard time ducking responsibility," said the lawyer, Russell Conn , of Conn Kavanaugh Rosenthal Peisch & Ford , in Boston.
Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly has launched a criminal investigation and abandoned negotiations on a civil cost-overrun settlement that could have insulated Bechtel from future liability. Conn predicted that a major and costly legal fight between Bechtel and the state may ensue.
``I'm sure Bechtel will match the state dollar for dollar, and then some," he said.
Bechtel spokesman Andrew Paven declined to comment on the ongoing investigations.
Nationwide, critics say Bechtel has worked to deflect responsibility for problems on other public projects, including a multi billion dollar nuclear waste cleanup plant at the federal Hanford Reservation in Washington state, and design for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada.
Bechtel also has a national reputation for being aggressive with both oversight authorities and critics, said Tom Carpenter , director of the nuclear oversight program at the Government Accountability Project , a national nonprofit advocacy group that is monitoring the Department of Energy's Hanford cleanup. ``They just decide not to tell important things to the agency and do it their way."
The Hanford project, which has tripled in cost to more than $13 billion over six years, has been marked by delays and construction problems, including what a federal audit described as ``inadequate oversight" of Bechtel by the US Department of Energy.
Initial planning for Yucca Mountain, which is eventually supposed to hold the nation's spent nuclear reactor fuel, has been plagued with quality problems, according to a federal report reviewed by the Globe.
The company also faced criticism because contracts awarded to it by the Bush administration for Iraq reconstruction were not initially put out to bid, and for its response to Hurricane Katrina, including $48 million in alleged double-billing for maintenance of temporary housing trailers. The company said it did not double-bill the government, blaming the problem on ``initial miscalculations on estimates."
Bechtel strictly adheres to its contracts and the law and takes pride in its national and international work, said company spokesman Michael Kidder . Large government projects like the Big Dig and Hanford are inevitably complicated, he added.
``Good oversight is good business as far as Bechtel is concerned," Kidder said. ``The huge scope of these projects, and some are first of a kind, are bound to cause some wrinkles along the way, and they become lessons learned."
Privately owned and based in San Francisco, Bechtel has 40,000 employees worldwide and revenues of $18.1 billion in 2005 -- about as much as the state collected in taxes last year.
It built the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, oversaw construction of the English Channel rail tunnel connecting Britain and the continent, and has won thousands of big contracts from the US government, and nations and corporations around the world. It also has strong connections to the national Republican Party. Two former Bechtel executives, George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger , served as department secretaries in the administration of President Ronald Reagan.
The company, through its political action committee, contributes generously to Republican and Democratic candidates nationwide. In Massachusetts it has forged ties with political operatives from both parties.
Despite its highly publicized problems, Bechtel has an international reputation for getting projects done on time and within budget, said John J. Kosowatz , managing editor of the trade journal Engineering News-Record.
``There's very few companies in this country or other countries that have the size and the deep pockets and the engineering and construction expertise that Bechtel brings to the table," he said. ``If you're looking for one company to do the job, your options are limited."
Pacheco's Senate committee found in 2003 that Bechtel's lawyers fashioned contract agreements with the state that resulted in state officials and company supervisors working side by side. Those on-the-job relationships affected the state's ability to objectively assess the project's progress and quality, the committee said.
Weak government oversight is not unique to Massachusetts, said Laton McCartney , author of ``Friends in High Places ," a 1989 book Bechtel has disputed. The company has a history of using political and legal influence to reduce aggressive government monitoring, McCartney said.
``It's not just lining up the guy who is the building inspector," McCartney said. ``They would co-opt the whole supervising, regulatory infrastructure."
Efforts by contractors to influence government oversight are common in the public construction industry, McCartney said. But with Bechtel, ``what makes it more visible or pervasive is the scale of their projects."
Kidder, the Bechtel spokesman, said the company's methods are not unusual in the large-scale construction industry. In Massachusetts, the Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff partnership retained Peter Berlandi , the top fund-raiser for former governor William F. Weld, to work as a lobbyist.
``What we do is standard practice, where we go into a marketplace and retain folks who are well-known in that particular area to help us with the introductions and open doors in the community," Kidder said.
In Massachusetts, the company repeatedly sought to keep critical information out of the public eye , and also out of the hands of independent investigators hired by the Big Dig. In 2003, it tried to stop the release of federal audits that detailed $31 million in cost overruns. It lost, but fighting Bechtel's court injunction request consumed the Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee staff's time.
It also drew the ire of a former probate judge, Edward M. Ginsburg , an independent lawyer who was hired by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority to lead a probe and cost-recovery effort after Big Dig tunnels leaked in 2004. Ginsburg complained to the authority that Bechtel was slow to respond to requests to turn over records despite public calls for transparency by the authority's chairman, Matthew J. Amorello.
``It is indeed ironic that the people trying to get this information on behalf of the public are being impeded and thwarted by the actions and delays of Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff," Ginsburg wrote in a letter to a turnpike manager in December 2004. The partnership denied Ginsburg's accusations.
Even when a majority of sitting board members on the Turnpike Authority expressed frustration with cost overruns under Bechtel's management, they were unable to wrest control from the company. Acting Governor Jane Swift removed from the board two major Bechtel critics, Jordan Levy and Christy Mihos , who is running for governor.
Some Democrats and Big Dig skeptics said Swift fired them to insulate Bechtel from criticism, but Swift said she took the action because they refused to increase Turnpike tolls.
Levy said Bechtel never responded to his demands for accountability.
``They just ignored me," he said. ``They didn't take me seriously, because they knew they had connections in other places."
Christopher Rowland can be reached at crowland@globe.com.
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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