Yucca Mountain News Clips
Sunday, August 6, 2006
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Decatur Daily
AUGUST 6, 2006
Editorial
Above-ground nuclear storage potential threat
Environmentalists opposing nuclear energy sometimes tend to be alarmists, but they do raise prudent concerns over storage of used fuel rods. The issue came up again last week at a meeting at Calhoun Community College during a Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing on the pending restart of Unit 1 at Browns Ferry in Limestone County.
Nationwide, 55,000 metric tons of waste are in temporary storage and growing some 2,000 tons each year. Yet Washington keeps pushing back the opening date of the permanent storage site in Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
Environmentalists worry that the 1,400 metric tons of waste stored above ground at Browns Ferry and the 37 tons stored outside are too close to the Tennessee River and poses a potential danger to the water supply.
The Tennessee River Authority and NRC repeatedly assure the public that the storage poses no dangers. But accidents do happen. There is the ever-present threat of terrorism, also.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., added perspective to the problem last week. If the storage site meets the most recent opening date of 2017, the waste already stockpiled and that accumulated over the next 11 years will fill the facility.
Even so, that would eliminate the present threat. But without expanding Yucca or finding a new site, the problem will begin to build again.
The nation has little choice but to move ahead with new nuclear facilities to help feed the nation's energy appetite. One might think that, with the Bush administration's justifiable obsession with national security, it wouldn't have allowed the opening date to slip from 2010 to 2017.
The environmentalists are right, only the degree to which the above-ground storage is a threat is debatable. The way to end the debate is to move the waste to permanent storage.
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Portsmouth Herald News
August 06, 2006
Amendment doesn't change 'spent fuel pool'
The issue of nuclear waste has again reared its ugly head. This time it is in connection with an amendment to the federal energy appropriations bill proposed by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico.
The amendment calls for "interim" highly radioactive nuclear spent fuel waste dumps to be established in every state that is home to a commercial nuclear reactor -- and that includes New Hampshire.
Many see Domenici's amendment as an attempt to take the pressure off the construction of a centralized federal waste repository slated for Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Political power struggles and technical problems have stalled completion of the Yucca Mountain facility. It was scheduled to be up and running by 1998. Now, the date is 2017 and, from all indications, that is a very optimistic projection.
Recently, Gov. John Lynch and the state's 2nd District U.S. Rep. Charles Bass wrote to Domenici complaining about the amendment forcing the establishment of highly radioactive nuclear waste dumps in New Hampshire.
First District Congressman Jeb Bradley says he also opposes the idea.
We must, however, inform the governor and congressmen that there is already a high-level waste dump in the state, and the indication is it will continue to fill with spent nuclear fuel for some time to come.
It is called the "spent fuel pool," and it is on the grounds of the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant, right here on the Seacoast.
In fact, even if by some fluke of good fortune Yucca Mountain does open in 2017, the waste generated by Seabrook Station will not be removed from the plant site until much later, because Seabrook was the last U.S. nuclear plant built and older plants will, justifiably, have their spent fuel stockpile removed first.
Given that fact, we believe the safety of the people of the Seacoast, as well as those who live in the neighborhood of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in the Connecticut Valley, can be better served with more direct intervention by the governor and congressmen.
The governor should get his Office of Emergency Management more involved in the radiological and safety monitoring of Seabrook Station, for example.
Massachusetts funds a watchdog organization called the C-10 Foundation, which monitors Seabrook Station using state-of-the-art, real-time equipment. New Hampshire has several dosimeter-type devices randomly spread around the plant on utility polls that are monitored, at best, monthly.
Also, the governor and our congressmen, while continuing to work on getting Yucca Mountain open, can push FEMA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to update the evacuation plans for this area.
Population and congestion has grown substantially since the current plan was approved by these two agencies in 1998. It is time to update it.
The dire predictions of nuclear plant explosions and "China Syndrome" meltdowns have, thankfully, not come true. But the threat posed by an ever-increasing stockpile of radioactive spent fuel continues to grow daily.
That issue must be seriously addressed as well.
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VHeadline
August 06, 2006
Helen Caldicott's new book: Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer
Stephen Lendman
No one writes with more passion, commitment and knowledge about the immense dangers of nuclear technology in all its forms than Australian physician and nuclear expert Helen Caldicott. Since writing her first book (must reading for everyone), 'Nuclear Madness,' in 1978, Dr. Caldicott has worked tirelessly to expose the real threat this technology from hell poses to human survival.
In her first book she wrote: "As a physician, I contend that nuclear technology threatens life on our planet with extinction. If present trends continue, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential health hazard far greater than any plague humanity has ever experienced."
Dr. Caldicott has now written six important books on nuclear technology and its dangers.
Her latestn just publishedn is 'Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer.' In it she's written a carefully documented account of the reasons why. Like her other books, this one, too, is must reading, and those doing it will never forget its vital message. The book is a basic text on all things wrong with commercial nuclear power and why, as Dr. Caldicott explains, this technology must be abandoned before it destroys us as it surely will if its use and proliferation aren't halted everywhere. This book is about commercial nuclear power in contrast to her last one, 'The New Nuclear Danger,' that was a powerful and convincing indictment of the military-industrial complex and its addiction to nuclear weapons of mass destruction and the Pentagon's intent to use them as needed preemptively.
Dr. Caldicott makes her convincing case in 10 chapters, each one covering a separate crucial issue about commercial nuclear power. Eight of them explain in detail its dangers and problems, and the two final ones propose sensible and urgently needed solutions so far largely unaddressed. But she begins in her introduction with a clear statement that our government has now embarked on a disingenuous and sinister campaign to sell the acceptability of the use and expansion of commercial nuclear technology to the US public long turned off on it by the near disaster at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania in March, 1979 and the catastrophic Chernobyl meltdown and explosion in the Ukraine in April, 1986. She begins her detailed account that, contrary to government and industry propaganda, nuclear power is neither efficient, reliable, cheap, clean or safe. It's a very sophisticated, expensive and dangerous way to boil water, turn it to steam, which then turns a turbine to generate electricity.
Dr. Caldicott explains, contrary to government and industry propaganda, that the generation of nuclear power causes the discharge of significant emissions of greenhouse gases as well as hundreds of thousands of curies of deadly radioactive gases and other radioactive elements into the environment every year. It also requires huge and unjustifiable government subsidies including protection against catastrophic accidents to make it attractive to investors. In addition, and most disturbing, there's the real threat of an attack against any of our 103 nuclear power plants in blowback retaliatory response to hostile US acts against other nations in the past, the two current illegal aggressions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, our one-sided support for Israel's long-running conflict with and current aggression against the defenseless Palestinians and people of Lebanon, and our possible intent to spread the present Middle East conflict to Iran and Syria with the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. US nuclear power plants are notoriously inadequately protected and are thus vulnerable easy targets to strike if a committed antagonist wished to do so. If it happens, the result will be a catastrophic disaster irrevocably affecting the area struck and people now living there.
Adding further to the danger, these plants are atom bomb factories. A 1000 megawatt nuclear reactor produces 500 pounds of plutonium annually, only 10 pounds of which is needed as fuel for a bomb powerful enough to devastate a large city and make it unlivable essentially forever.
Dr. Caldicott explains all this and much more in her book, and her mission in writing it and her others, as well as her role as President of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute is to counteract the false rhetoric of governments worldwide and the nuclear power industry touting the so-called benefits of nuclear technology. In her duel roles, she's become perhaps the world's leading advocate for the abolition of a technology too unsafe to be tolerated any longer. She spends all her time dedicated to writing and speaking out around the world telling the public the truths they never hear in the mainstream about this dangerous and unacceptable form of producing energy to get them to demand it be abandoned.
Below is an account of the clear evidence Dr. Caldicott explains and documents, chapter by chapter.
Chapter 1 -- The Energetic Costs of Nuclear Power -- It Takes Fossil Fuel Burning Power to Produce Nuclear Energy
The American nuclear industry's task of selling its technology to the public is the responsibility of its trade association -- the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). They do it through a false and misleading campaign of deception to convince the public that nuclear energy is "cleaner and greener" than conventional sources of generating electricity. The truth, however, is quite different. Although a nuclear power plant releases no carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere causing global warming, it requires a vast infrastructure, called the nuclear fuel cycle, which uses huge and rapidly growing amounts of fossil fuels. Each stage of the cycle contributes to the problem starting with the largest and unavoidable energy cost to mine and mill uranium fuel which requires fossil fuel to do it. It continues with the problem of what to do with the mill tailings produced in the uranium extraction process that require great amounts of these greenhouse emitting fuels to remediate when this process is undertaken as it always should be. Other steps in the nuclear fuel cycle also require the use of fossil fuels including the conversion of uranium to hexafluoride gas prior to enrichment, the enrichment process, and the conversion of enriched uranium hexafluoride gas to fuel pellets. In addition, nuclear power plant construction, dismantling and cleanup at the end of their useful life require large amounts of energy. But the process and problems don't end there. The contaminated water that cools the reactor core must be dealt with, and the enormous problem of radioactive nuclear waste handling, transportation and disposal/storage remains unresolved.
Chapter 2 -- The True Economic Costs of Nuclear Energy -- The Price in Dollars and Cents
Nuclear industry and government propaganda notwithstanding, nuclear power is expensive, and when an inevitable catastrophic meltdown eventually occurs near or in a US city we'll know in grim detail just how much so. The industry falsely claims nuclear power costs 1.7 cents per kilowatt hour to produce compared to 2 cents for coal and 5.7 cents for natural gas. But a report by the New Economic Foundation titled "Mirage and Oasis - Energy Choices in An Age of Global Warming" calculated the true cost to be three times the industry figure if all costs, including capital ones, in the nuclear cycle are included. And even these costs exclude the additional ones of managing pollution, accidents that occur, insurance and security to protect against an attack or internal sabotage.
The true costs and risks of nuclear power are so unattractive to investors that this industry couldn't exist without the many billions of dollars of government spending support it gets including most of the $111.5 billion on energy R & D spent from 1948-1998. But heavy government funding will now become even greater as a result of the 2005 Energy bill that's part of an attempt to jump-start this moribund industry. This outrageous bill offers a lavish array of "cradle to grave" subsidies that include tax credits and breaks, loan guarantees, R & D help and risk insurance. It also assures the government will cover the cost of the complex infrastructure needed to transport and store nuclear waste, provide military protection against potential blowback attacks and more. In addition, it reauthorizes the current Price-Anderson Act that will make taxpayers and not the industry pay 98% of the cost in case of a worse case nuclear meltdown that's sure to occur one day. It's part of the same scam that's in place for all other major US industries. It's called socialism for large corporations that write the legislation serving their interests guaranteeing them huge government subsidies and other benefits and capitalism for the rest of us who must pay for them through our taxes.
One of the major and most egregious provisions of the 2005 Energy bill is the repeal of the important Public Utilities Holding Company Act (PUHCA) passed in 1935 as a cornerstone of New Deal financial reform that corrected the abuses of utility holding companies that scammed ratepayers. Now it's again open season for giant power monopolies and other dominant corporations to own nuclear power plants and exploit the public free from regulatory oversight or competition to restrain them. It's all part of a business-government scheme to develop a dangerous industry, largely free it from regulatory oversight, make it profitable for giant US corporations to own and dominate, and get the public to assume all the risks and foot the bill at inflated prices.
Chapter 3 -- Nuclear Power, Radiation and Disease -- The Unaddressed Human Toll
The overall cost of nuclear energy rarely, if ever, includes the very significant toll it takes on human health. Those paying the price include uranium miners, nuclear industry workers and potentially everyone living close to these operations. Also affected are residents in areas close to nuclear power plants that routinely or accidentally emit toxic radioactive releases that can cause illness, disease and death over time. Chicago is a prime example of what may go wrong. The city is surrounded by 11 nuclear power plants, many of them aging and all of them with histories of safety violations caused by aging and shoddy maintenance. Even if accident free, these facilities (and all others everywhere) discharge enough radiation daily in their normal operations to contaminate the food we eat (even organic food), water we drink and air we breathe into our lungs. But if a core meltdown ever occurs at any of these plants (a real possibility no one is prepared for) and Chicago is downwind of the fallout, the city and suburbs alone would become uninhabitable forever and would have to be evacuated quickly with all possessions left behind and lost (including people's homes) except for what could be carried in suitcases or family vehicles.
Two other groups especially also have and continue to pay an overwhelming and largely hidden price from the toxic effects of radiation poisoning -- the people of Iraq and US military force invaders and occupiers who now serve there, have served or will in the future as well as those participating in the 1991 Gulf war. Most of them have potentially been exposed to the deadly effects of so-called depleted uranium (DU) poisoning because of the extensive use of DU munitions by the US military in both Iraq conflicts. These weapons were first developed for the Navy in 1968 and tested by Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur war under US supervision. Except for that test, they were never before used by any country prior to the US Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Since then, the US has used them freely, routinely and with deadly consequences to those affected by their fallout.
DU is part of the radioactive waste resulting from the enrichment process used to produce enriched uranium fuel for nuclear reactors. When the Pentagon discovered that solid "dense metal" (1.7 times the density of lead) DU projectiles in all forms (missiles, bombs, shells and bullets) greatly increased their ability to penetrate and destroy a target, they knew they had a new technology they could use advantageously in combat and now have done so for the last 15 years in four wars. Despite their effectiveness as a weapon, however, DU munitions have a serious and deadly side effect. In all their forms, they're radioactive and chemically toxic after striking, penetrating and incinerating inside a target after which they aerosolize in a fine spray which then contaminates the air, soil and water around and beyond the target area. The toxic residue is permanent and those ingesting this ceramic uranium oxide have a permanent dose that potentially can cause many diseases including cancer, leukemia, birth defects and ultimately death or at least a shorter, more painful life.
No one has kept track of the precise toll DU poisoning has had on the Iraqis although it's known the cancer rate in the country is far higher now than before 1991. But much is known about how DU toxicity has affected the US military who served in the Gulf war. Thirty percent or more of them are now on some kind of disability or have died from a serious illness likely the result of their military service in the Gulf. We're also just beginning to learn that those serving in Iraq since March, 2003 are reporting disturbing symptoms. Over time, it's likely they'll multiply greatly, affect a greater number of our forces than those serving in the Gulf war because of longer and repeated deployments to the region and eventually cause an even greater number of serious illnesses and deaths because the DU weapons now used contain plutonium, neptunium and the highly radioactive uranium isotope U-236. A UK Atomic Energy Authority 1991 study found these latter two isotopes were 100,000 times more dangerous than the U-238 used earlier in DU munitions. By any interpretation of the appropriate Hague and Geneva Conventions banning the use of all chemical, biological or any other "poison or poisoned weapons" in war, the US use of DU munitions constitutes a war crime that has and will continue to take an immense and tragic toll on those individuals exposed to them.
The danger to human health from the use of nuclear power in any form is unavoidable even under the best of circumstances outside of a war zone. But whenever serious accidents happen, as they have and will again, the consequences can be calamitous. The link between radiation exposure and disease is irrefutable dependent only on the amount of cumulative exposure over a long enough period of time. Dr. Caldicott explains that "If a regulatory gene is bio-chemically altered by radiation exposure, the cell will begin to incubate cancer, during a 'latent period of carcinogenesis,' lasting from two to sixty years." As little as a single gene mutation can eventually turn out to be fatal and too often is. No amount of radiation exposure is safe, and it's thought that 80% of known types of cancers are environmentally caused by such exposure combined with the potentially carcinogenic effects of about 80,000 different inadequately or untested chemicals in common use acting synergistically in our bodies to harm us.
But just the combined effects of routine allowable radiation from nuclear power plants, uranium mining and milling operations, uranium enrichment, and fuel fabrication can be devastating to all those exposed to any of their effects. Add to that the insoluble problem of radioactive waste disposal/storage and the certainty of devastating nuclear accidents, it's no exaggeration to say the human species is playing an insane game of nuclear Russian roulette it can't win and that will eventually have a disastrous and possibly fatal ending if we can't stop it in time.
Chapter 4 - Accidental and Terrorist-Induced Nuclear Meltdowns - A Devastating Nuclear Event is Certain
Many experts agree it's only a matter of when and where, not if, a devastating meltdown will occur in one or more of the 438 nuclear power plants located in 33 countries worldwide. It may result from human error, a plant owner's unwise or unsafe attempt to minimize operating costs, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) imprudent accession to industry pressure to allow 20 year operating extensions to plants designed to run only for 40 years, the effects of a tsunami or high enough magnitude earthquake in areas vulnerable to them or from a deliberate attack or internal sabotage. When this does happen, if it's near a large city and its full impact is felt and known, the world may never be the same again. But it will be too late for the residents in and around that city (which could be New York, Chicago or Paris) who'll lose all their possessions, be forced to evacuate their homes, and never again be able to return to them because of the permanent irremediable toxic radiation there.
Dr. Caldicott explains that "Every US power plant is moving into the old-age cycle" because no new ones have been built here since the TMI accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. As a result, the number of near-misses and near-meltdowns has increased mostly resulting from human error, aging equipment and inadequate maintenance and regulatory oversight. With the dangers so high and inevitable and the supposed benefits totally without merit, why would the leaders and residents of any community ever be willing to allow the construction or operation of a nuclear power plant near enough to them to destroy their lives should a catastrophic nuclear event happen as it surely will potentially at any of the world's nuclear plants.
Chapter 5 - Yucca Mountain and the Nuclear Waste Disaster - This Congressionally Chosen Area for Storage is Known to Be Unsafe
For a geological nuclear waste storage site to be safe, it must be able to prevent any leakage and seepage into the environment for at least 500,000 years. The chosen Yucca site can't achieve this mandate for many reasons. It's close to groundwater that will be contaminated from leakage from corroded casks that will spread to spring water irrigation areas used for farming and by protected species. Yucca is also located in an active earthquake zone where in 1992 a major 7.4 Richter measured quake occurred followed two days later by an additional 5.2 quake that caused $1 million of damage to the Department of Energy (DOE) building located six miles from the Yucca site. Yucca Mountain was thought to be waterproof as its soil must be dry to prevent corrosion. But much more water inside was discovered there than originally estimated meaning this site is far too dangerous for a permanent home for nuclear waste storage. In addition, this site is located close to Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada where new military jet aircraft are tested, war exercises are held and crashes happen that may have serious and unacceptable consequences.
Finally, and crucially, is the issue of radioactive waste transport from around the nation to this one site on highways and by rail. It will take 30 years to move the 70,000 metric tonnes of civilian and military spent fuel Yucca is authorized to store from its temporary sites around the country to this one location. Currently there's no prohibition on the shipping of this waste through highly populated areas nor during periods of bad weather like severe snow storms making driving hazardous. But it's been predicted as many as 50 accidents a year may result, three of them involving serious releases of toxic radiation that will contaminate the surrounding environment. In addition, and compounding the problem, all 11 of the storage casks currently approved and used by DOE for radioactive waste transport have been found to be defective. But none of these concerns have diminished the Bush administration's determination to proceed with the Yucca storage plan. Clearly, it has no concern whatever for public safety. For those in the administration, only corporate profits matter along with their plan for world dominance to enhance them.
Chapter 6 -- Generation IV Nuclear Reactors -- They Will Increase Operational Risks and Are Unacceptable
The majority of the world's operating nuclear power reactors are so-called Generation II types. But there are serious and potentially fatal problems associated with them, and yet the industry wishes to move ahead to new designs that promise to be even more dangerous. Currently there are Generation III reactors operating in the US only slightly different from the Generation II ones. A 2005 Greenpeace study of nuclear reactor hazards showed most of these newer versions to be little different than their dangerous predecessors despite false industry claims about their added safety. Still about 20 different Generation III designs are now under development which the industry expects to be built and operational by 2010.
The Generation III and a so-called III+ design represent "evolutionary changes" from their predecessors despite the dangers associated with them. Undeterred, a newer Generation IV "revolutionary" design is under development that relies on fuel and plant performance standards that have not been tested and may turn out to be unachievable. Despite the danger involved, and with the public footing the bill and risk, the industry has made the outrageous and unproved claims that these reactors are ideal fuel providers, safe, proliferation resistant, economically competitive and free from greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. Caldicott debunks all these notions and calls them as "baseless today as (the absurd) 'too cheap to meter' (claim) was fifty years ago." She goes on to explain that "People with an intimate understanding of the nuclear industry are severely opposed to a nuclear renaissance" because of the unacceptable risks and most all other falsely claimed benefits associated with it. Dr. Caldicott concludes that so-called Generation III and IV reactor designs "are controversial and contentious, and seem not be be based upon sound economic, environmental safety, or proliferation-resistant principles." Based on the industry/government's long-standing record of lies and deception in promoting the safety and benefits of nuclear power, one can hardly disagree with her.
Chapter 7 - Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation - This is Madness and An Unacceptable Risk
Experts who know, explain that the nuclear arms supermarket and the dissemination of nuclear technology is vast, growing and dangerous. It's likely only a matter of time before a rogue nation or element obtains and makes one or more crude highly-enriched uranium nuclear bombs and sets one of them off in a major city probably located in the US. New York and Washington, DC are clearly the most obvious likely targets, and if it happens, those cities will be have to be evacuated and will be uninhabitable forever if the bomb is large enough and strategically placed.
The chance of that happening will increase if, as proposed, 2,000 nuclear power plants are built in countries wanting them in the decades ahead. Those plants in operation would produce an inventory of about 20,000 metric tonnes of plutonium, the most deadly of all toxic substances known (as little as one-millionth of a gram is a carcinogenic dose), dwarfing the current amount in the world today and increasing the potential danger from it enormously. Dr. Caldicott calls this "plutonium madness." Twelve years ago, the National Academy of Sciences called the US and Russian military-derived plutonium stockpiles alone "a clear and present danger to national and international security" because of the chance of any of it falling into rogue hands. If a vastly larger stockpile is produced in so many places, it would be much harder to secure or keep track of. It's generally accepted that it takes just five kilograms (11 pounds) of weapons grade plutonium or 8 kilograms (17.6 pounds) of reactor grade plutonium to make a nuclear bomb. With so much of this substance around, and much of it likely inadequately secured, the temptation to do it would be enormous.
The danger is even greater because today 18 countries have uranium enrichment facilities enabling them, if they wish, to produce fuel for nuclear weapons. Nine of these countries are now known to possess nuclear weapons, and the IAEA estimates that within 10 years as many as 40 or more nations may be able to make them, and many likely will to have available at least in self-defense. In addition, 70 countries now have legally acceptable small nuclear reactors, mostly fueled by highly enriched uranium. These reactors also manufacture plutonium, and both fuels can be used to make nuclear bombs if elements in any of these countries have the know-how and wish to do so. Many of them will be forced to do it in response to threats posed by hostile neighbors and especially by the US that openly claims the right to use nuclear bombs preemptively in any future conflict for any reason it claims is justifiable and certainly will unless restrained. If this happens, it's only a matter of time until a nuclear bomb is set off on US soil with all the devastation that will follow from it.
Chapter 8 -- Nuclear Power and "Rogue Nations" -- Those Having Nuclear Weapons or Threaten to Use Them Are the "Rogue" Ones to Fear
Two nations clearly are at the head of the "rogue" nuclear pack -- the US and Russia that combined have 97% of the total known arsenal of about 30,000 nuclear bombs. Because these two nations maintain thousands of these weapons on "hair-trigger" alert, a nuclear exchange between them would cause a nuclear winter and likely end all life on all or most of the planet. It could happen despite the end of the cold war as relations between the two countries have become more frosty and Russia's early warning system is hopelessly outdated, flawed, inadequate and subject to false alerts with only moments to react before it's too late. In addition, other countries having nuclear weapons or sure to develop them in the future, will certainly respond with them (if able) if they're attacked with these weapons or possibly even by conventional ones. Responsible leaders of any nation are likely to develop and use whatever weapons they have in self-defense if forced to do so. It's a very real and dangerous possibility and reason enough to argue for the abolition of this technology from hell that may destroy all human life if left unchecked.
The case of Iran stands out at this time as it's become a target of the Bush administration for regime change which the Iranian government knows and realizes it must act in its own self-defense to prevent. Iran is pursuing a nuclear option it claims is for commercial use only. The country is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and, as far as known, is in full compliance with it while India, Pakistan and Israel (all having known nuclear arsenals) are not, haven't signed it and don't comply with it. There is no way to know what Iran's intentions are, but it would be irresponsible for its leaders not to be undertaking all measures it can to prevent a hostile attack or deter one if it occurs. The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pointedly observed in September, 2005: "Every day they (the Americans) are threatening other nations with nuclear weapons." He added that Western countries were "relying on their power and wealth to try to impose a climate of intimidation and injustice over the world." It's logical and likely to assume most or all nations with concerns for their security will take whatever measures they can to protect themselves and retaliate if attacked. But it must also be pointed out that no nation ever has or is now or in the near future likely to threaten the US with a hostile attack -- not Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela or any other. It's quite clear to them all and to the West that if any did, the US would destroy them.
Only one nation above all others is a threat to world security and peace, and that nation is the most "roguish" of all. It's the US, and all other countries know it. The US is now waging two illegal wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, unconditionally supports Israel's right to do the same against the defenseless Palestinians and Lebanese and is threatening additional conflicts against Iran, Syria, Venezuela (to remove a three-time democratically elected President loved by the great majority of his people), and possibly North Korea. In addition, the US claims the right and intent to preemptively use nuclear weapons if it wishes and went to great lengths to undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review conference at the UN in May, 2005. It happened under the aegis of the thuggish US Under Secretary for Disarmament at the time John Bolton (now UN ambassador) who deliberately sabotaged the meeting by refusing to participate in meaningful discussions. Other nations at the conference were outraged and disgusted with his actions and the nation he represents - to no avail, especially after Bolton assumed his UN role and prevented any disarmament discussions in that capacity. Even UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who nearly always is unreservedly submissive to US authority, uncharacteristically expressed his disgust calling the US action a "real disgrace" as it surely was. Nonetheless, because of the total US dominance over the UN and its actions, no progress on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation has been made nor is any likely to be at least as long as the Bush administration remains in office, and probably much longer. Can the world afford to take a chance and wait, hoping for the best that may never come without forceful action?
Chapter 9 -- Renewable Energy: The Answer -- Alternatives Exist but Are So Far Unaddressed and Insufficiently Developed
Dr. Caldicott makes an impassioned plea throughout her book and her others to free the planet from the scourge of the nuclear threat that may destroy us. In this chapter she states: "there is no need to build new nuclear power plants to provide for the projected energy needs of the future ... it would be possible, using other forms of electricity generation to close down most of the existing nuclear reactors with a decade. There is enough wind (power) between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River alone to supply three times the amount of electricity that America needs."
There are other alternatives as well to the use of nuclear power that hold some promise including the conversion of coal to a synthetic fuel. Dr. Caldicott, however, concentrates on renewables in this chapter. She mentions that today that about 2% of electricity in the US comes from this safe and clean source whereas nuclear power supplies 20%. However, if hydroelectric power is included in the mix, about 9% of our electricity came from renewables in 2004 and 18.6% of it worldwide. Clearly, the rest of the world is far ahead of us, and the main problem in this country is the power of the fossil fuel and nuclear industries that have a stranglehold on US policy making and the politicians who make it. Unless they decide it's profitable to move to renewables, it won't happen and we'll continue down the same destructive road to an inevitable bad ending.
Those on opposite sides debate whether alternatives alone can solve this nation's electricity needs. However, the respected journal, The New Scientist, recently wrote that the combination of wind and tidal power, micro-hydro, and biomass make renewable power increasingly practical. It said wind power and biomass are now almost as cheap as coal, and wave power and solar photovotaics are becoming more competitive. A report from the New Economics Foundation supports these conclusions. It said renewables are easy to build, cheap to harvest, economical to use overall, safe, flexible and clean.
Despite industry resistance and support for it by complicit governments, especially in the US, the mounting evidence of the destructiveness of carbon emissions and nuclear proliferation dictates the urgent need to implement safe alternative solutions to our energy needs and do it now. The threat of global warming is the most obvious one, and that issue has entered mainstream discussion to some degree. It's now clear the planet is becoming warmer, the number and intensity of destructive storms are increasing, and the phenomenon of catastrophic environmental events are becoming more common. Still, the US pretends it isn't so as evidenced by its refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, weak and ineffective as it is. It's now up to the public and individual states to act in lieu of the federal government and hope a future administration may be more responsible than this one - a faint hope given the power and influence of energy industry that so far refuses alternatives to its interests and has been able to get its way. But the public can't stop trying because the alternative is catastrophic and mustn't be allowed to happen if at all posssible.
Chapter 10 -- What Individuals Can Do: Energy Conservation and Efficiency - If the Government Won't Do It, People on Their Own Can
Western Europeans are able to maintain a high living standard similar to people in the US using half the amount of energy we do. If they can do it comfortably, so can we, but we need the urging and mandating of reduced energy standards by government at the state and local levels combining to pressure the federal government to do the same. Dr. Caldicott lists a menu of ways we can live responsibly using energy-efficient technologies that have been available for many years and are becoming more sophisticated and cost effective all the time. They range from what we can do in our homes, the type of cars we drive and way we use them to how new buildings are constructed and much more. The key is the urgency to act, and the goal is energy efficiency and safety and the benefits to be gained from them.
Everyone needs to be involved and many cities, states and businesses already are if only for the cost savings achieved by acting responsibly. A 2004 study by Synapse Energy Economics titled "A Responsible Electricity Future," offered a pragmatic and workable plan. It concluded that energy efficiency can reduce US electricity demand by almost 28% by 2025; non-hydro renewable energy, including geothermal, landfill gas, biomass, solar thermal, solar power generation, and especially wind power can provide 15% of US electricity needs by 2025; combined heat and power generation will produce 10% of it; oil, coal, and gas-fired generators can be retired after fifty operating years; and no new nuclear plants need be built and all old ones can be closed after 45 years of operation.
The net result of this plan is many billions of dollars saved, a reduction in global warming, and a cleaner and safer environment free from the destruction guaranteed by the continued use of fossil fuels and nuclear power. Can it be done, and is there still time to do it? Some experts claim no on both counts, and they may be right. But that's no excuse for giving up and allowing a fate too frightful and devastating to allow to happen without a concerted effort to prevent it. Hope sustains us and when combined with commitment and enough effort by those of us willing to expend it, anything is not only possible, it quite likely can be attained. We have no time to waste because we've already wasted so much of it.
Everyone should read Helen Caldicott's important new book and her previous one The New Nuclear Danger.
The two combined clearly explain how threatening the military and commercial use of nuclear technology is to human survival. It's no exaggeration to say either we must destroy it or it will destroy us. Albert Einstein, whose theories led to the development of atomic power, knew this well and believed the splitting of the atom changed everything and threatened us all. In 1946, he said, after he understood the horror of Hiroshima: "Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to make great decisions for good and evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."
Einstein believed and was saying that unless nuclear technology is abolished, we face the real threat of our extinction. Helen Caldicott in her new book and her others is saying the same thing.
Are we listening, do we understand, and will we act in time to save ourselves and our progeny?
Stephen Lendman
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net
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ABC
August 06, 2006
Heated debate over the warming of the planet
Jarrod Watt
Australia's internationally known veteran of the anti-nuclear movement, Helen Caldicott, takes the stage with Australian Conservation Foundation head, Ian Lowe, and urban policy academic, Brendan Gleeson, to discuss the battle of ideas in the climate change debate.
The title of this mornings session is "The environment: climate change and other hot issues", but what's getting Helen Caldicott hot under the collar is the fact that biologist Tim Flannery has landed on the front page of a daily news magazine with his qualified support for the nuclear industry. Caldicott spares no time in coming out swinging against the author of the acclaimed ecological bookThe Future Eaters.
"It's a propitious day to have this panel, because on the front of the Good Weekend magazine today there's an article with Tim Flannery talking about nuclear power could possibly be the answer to global warming. So that goes really well with my book, which is Nuclear power is not the answer to global warming," she chuckles. "The first chapter deals with the fact that nuclear power produces large quantities of carbon dioxide in its own right. There's a study by Storm Van Leeuwen and Phillip Smith from Holland, estimating the amount of fossil fuel which is needed to mine the uranium, to mill it and crush it, to enrich it, build a massive reactor, to then decommission it after 30 or 40 years - which requires more energy input than building the reactor - and then storing and transporting the radioactive waste for half a million years.
"At the moment, a nuclear power plant produces 30 per cent of the amount of CO2 [carbon dioxide] as a fossil fuel plant, or gas fired plant. But shortly, as the uranium concentration declines, the amount of CO2 produced by a nuclear reactor will equal the amount of CO2 produced by a gas-fired plant - number one.
"Number two; uranium is very finite. If all electricity today was generated by nuclear power, there's only nine years' supply of uranium. Number three; we're at peak oil, and peak gas. How will we keep the radioactive waste cool for thousands of years without any oil or natural gas? That argument has not yet entered the lexicon of the discussion, and that's an extremely important discussion.
"The next issue is, is it economically viable? The nuclear industry is a socialised industry; it's an offshoot of the weapons industry; the American Senate just allocated 13 billion dollars to nuclear power last year, which would build five nuclear power plants. A power plant takes 5 to 10 to 15 years to construct, with licenses and the like... and it would make no difference to global warming at all. I would love... Flannery to be on this panel, so we could debate and discuss, and maybe he could learn a few things. I think he's good on climate change, like Lovelock, but he doesn't understand, apparently, the biological implications of radiation.
Caldicott's next point is that of the waste generated by the nuclear power industry - she discusses the US plan to store its nuclear waste in a facility under Yucca Mountain, a place of geologically porous rock, intersected by over 30 seismic faults.
"They don't know what to do with their waste, and I suspect when our notorious Prime Minister met with the notorious President of the United States recently, that the deal was struck - 'hey listen John, you've got a big desert out there, why don't you take our radioactive waste?' - and I think the notion of having nuclear power plants on the east coast of Australia is a Trojan horse, so we'll all have an anaphylactic reaction to that notion, but then underneath the radar he'll say 'By the way we'll just bring some radioactive waste back from America', which Flannery is actually postulating - bringing our waste back from our uranium, burying it in our desert," she says.
She is followed by Brendan Gleeson, Professor of Policy at Griffith University, an experienced advocate of sustainability within the decision-making circles of government, who has just won the John Ironmonger Award for Public Writing for his latest book, Australian Heartlands: Making Space for Hope in the Suburbs.
"My point of departure, though not my only interest, is cities... although I thought this morning I should extend that out to human settlements in general; I don't want to let Byron Bay off the hook when we talk about sustainability, although coming from Brisbane, a big dustbowl, it's lovely to have all this rain. I think you should advertise it as a sort of feature in your tourism... I think [cities] are absolutely essential to the sustainability issue, the sustainability imperative for three reasons: firstly, because they're the principal, although not exclusive, sources of environmental stress, including greenhouse emissions. They're also now the principal home of the real authors of the problem, our species, humanity," he says. "The UN estimates we're becoming an urban species - most human beings live in human settlements", though if you look beneath the bright rhetoric of globalisation, if you've looked at the works, of example, of Mike Davis, a U.S scholar, he writes about a planet of slums. Much of the species is now living in miserable urban conditions, and there is no ready evidence that globalisation is simply going to lift them out of those miserable urban conditions, although that's alleged.
"In Australia, we live overwhelmingly in cities and large settlements, and mostly in suburbs. We are a suburban people; we have long been - it's an extended love affair we've had with suburbs that's manifest through our history, which has survived all sorts of shifts, including sea change, which is often, not always, simply about the relocation of suburban preferences to where it's more amenable or more affordably applied.
"Coming out of my work is raising the importance of suburbia in public discussion; it has been a long love affair in Australia, but it's the love that dare not speak its name; we don't like to talk about the idea that most of us have lived in suburbs, continue to do so and continue to want to do so. If we don't talk about it we can't address the problems of suburbia... sustainability or un-sustainability is central to that discussion.
"The third reason why I think human settlements are cental to the question of sustainability is that, for the two reasons I've just given you, they have to be key to the solution of the sustainability crisis. What Phil McManus in a recent book calls the 'vortex city' model - a sort of entropic city, the vast importers of energy and exporters of waste, which is the urban model which we adhere to now has to give way to a more ecologically sustaining model, one that is practically generating its own energy from renewable sources, including food energy, and we're a long way from that ideal right now - a long, long way."
Gleeson discusses the 'hellfire cities' such as London in the mid 19th century, and how a crisis in pollution and human disease brought a realisation amongst the middle classes and the growth of a long period of reform which sought to redress living and working conditions as well as the ways cities operated. He claims we are again facing the prospect of 'hellfire cities', but despite all governments and councils mouthing the right words there is still a substantial gap between the rhetoric of sustainability and the reality of what is happening.
"My colleague at the University of South Australia, Clive Forster, a geographer, talks of the gulf now between the sort of institutionalised rhetoric of urban sustainability and the reality of ouir vortex cities - he calls it a 'parallel universe problem'... The other dimension of the disconnection is the extent that... we do have urban institutions and regulations that focus on the sustainability of our human settlements, but they're marginalised within our governments and our corporate sector, and I think they're marginalised by what I'd call - it sounds a bit dramatic, but I think it's true - an eco-cidal logic that remains deeply ensconced in politics and institutions."
Global genetic mutation as a result of nuclear waste, followed by a call to motivate the suburbs to engender a sustainable future - the president of the Australian Conservation Foundation as well as author of 14 books, Ian Lowe, sees a constant thread amongst all three speakers.
"What links what Helen has said with what Brendan has said with what I'm going to say is energy. Energy is the key to a comfortable lifestyle. The reason why we live at a standard of material comfort that our grandparents could only have dreamed of is the huge amounts of fuel energy we use to sustain that lifestyle. The energy that allows us to move around, as someone said to cook our clothes and wash our food, to see in the dark, to do a whole range of things that required human muscle power a hundred years ago. And the sort of cities we live in are only viable because of the import of huge quantities of fuel energy.
"There are now two serious threats on the horizon: well, they're not on the horizon, they're high in the sky, but our politicians are behaving as if they're on or below the horizon. We've know since the 1950s about the problem of peak oil, and the fact world oil production would peak some time about now, after which it's downhill all the way, and those of us who can remember the 1970s saw the out of town try-out for the real show that's coming soon to a planet near you - make sure you're sitting comfortably, because a long run is assured - a world where oil gets steadily scarcer and steadily more expensive," he says.
"The second problem is climate change, and again we've known for at least 20 years it was a serious problem, although some of our decision makers are still in denial about it; the Murdoch press, remarkably, seems to still have the view at the editorial level that climate change is not yet proven as a serious problem, but is so scary we should be considering nuclear power as an alternative.
"Climate change clearly, already, is a serious issue. The world already is three quarters of a degree warmer than it was a hundred years ago, rainfall patterns have changed, we are seeing more frequent extreme weather events, and interestingly the insurance industry was saying 20 years ago that climate change was a serious problem, because we can see it in the red ink on our balance sheets for property damage.
"It's already having significant economic effect, whether it's seen in reduced agricultural productivity, as our farmers and graziers battle with a hot and drier climate, whether it's the increased cost of supplying water, as we have water restrictions and desalination plants seriously being considered for commission, and loopy ideas for pipelines thousands of kilometres long shifting water from where it is to where we would like it to be... we're seeing it in health impacts in the human population; the recent heatwave in Europe killed about 25,000 people, and a study commissioned jointly by the Australian Medical Association and the Australian Conservation Foundation found that the annual number of heat-related deaths in Australia - now about 1,100 - will increase to between 5-15,000 this century depending on where we are on the spectrum of possible rates of increase in climate change."
The questions posed by both the session's moderator and the crowd come from a range of angles; how does fear become a tool to inspire action, rather than of hopelessness? Is there data on the cancer rates for France, given their massive reliance on nuclear power? What of Cuba - who restructured their economy during the first oil shock and the prevailing economic sanctions from the USA? Are cremations really an environmental and potential radiation hazard?
It is, however, Professor Ian Lowe who leaves the crowd with a poignant thought.
"It's clear the trajectory we're on is not sustainable, but I believe it's possible to turn the ship around. Pete Seeger, the folk singer, once in the middle of a folk concert, sang the hymn Amazing Grace, and he explained the reason he was singing it was the hymn was written by the captain of a slave-trading ship, who, becalmed in the middle of the Atlantic, had time to think and ponder the morality of what he was doing. He decided it was morally untenable, wrote the hymn, literally turned the ship around, sailed back to Africa and returned the slaves to where they came from. He said that he hoped that we would reflect that what we were doing was morally untenable and would turn the ship around...
"I think that in ecological terms we are booked on the Titanic and are sailing towards the iceberg. I don't think there's any doubt those on the bridge are either too stupid or too shortsighted or too greedy to care. Some of them are still urging us to throw more coal in the boilers and speed us on our way there with markets guiding us in an economically optimal fashion. In that sense, in talking about an ecologically sustainable society, we're really organising a mutiny."
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Green Left Weekly
August 06, 2006
Behind Howard´s dangerous nuclear push
Mark Diesendorf
With growing international concern about global climate change from human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, the nuclear power industry has attempted to change the image of its product into that of an energy source that is “clean, green and cheap’. In reality, all the problems that worried us about the nuclear industry in the 1970s and 1980s are either unchanged or have become worse.
In the latter case:
The risk of proliferation of nuclear weapons is worse because the US and Australian governments are undermining the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by selling uranium to non-signatories, India and Taiwan. While the NPT is far from adequate, it is better than nothing or unilateral US control under its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP — see <http://www.gnep.gov>).
Since September 11, 2001, the risk of terrorist attacks on nuclear facilities has increased. The fewer the facilities, the safer everyone is.
Now that several countries have created competitive markets for electricity, it is clear that the cost of nuclear electricity is even higher than previously projected (see below).
Detailed recent calculations of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the nuclear fuel cycle reveal that nuclear energy, based on existing technology, cannot be a long-term solution to global climate change from the human-induced greenhouse effect.
This article addresses the last two of these points and also discusses the possible reasons why the Australian government is promoting the nuclear industry at this time.
CO2 emissions
The nuclear industry has widely disseminated the false notion that nuclear energy emits no greenhouse gases. The truth is that every step (except reactor operation) in the long chain of processes that makes up the nuclear fuel “cycle’ burns fossil fuels and hence emits CO2. The emitting steps are uranium mining, milling fuel fabrication, uranium enrichment, construction and decommissioning of the reactor and waste management.
Over the past 20 years there have been several calculations of CO2 emissions from the nuclear fuel cycle. The most detailed come from Van Leeuwen and Smith, 2005 (see <http://www.stormsmith.nl>. Van Leeuwen and Smith find that the CO2 emissions from the nuclear fuel cycle are relatively small when high-grade uranium ore (comprising 0.1% or more yellowcake) is used. But there are very limited reserves of high-grade uranium in the world — most are in Australia and Canada. As these are used up over the next several decades, low-grade uranium ore (comprising 0.01% or less yellowcake) will have to be used. This means that to obtain 1 kilogram of yellowcake, at least 10 tonnes of ore will have to be mined and milled, using fossil fuels and emitting substantial quantities of CO2. Contrary to the claims of the nuclear industry, Van Leeuwen and Smith find that total CO2 emissions from the nuclear fuel chain based on low-grade uranium ore are comparable in magnitude with emissions from a gas-fired power station.
In response, the nuclear industry cites a report by Swedish utility, Vattenfall, which only considers a single power station and obtains lower emissions than Van Leeuwen and Smith in the case of high-grade uranium ore and apparently doesn´t address low-grade uranium ore at all. This report has not been published and only a summary is available on the internet (see <www.environdec.com/reg/e_epd21.pdf>) that does not reveal most of the assumptions or results. It is very poor science to cite a report that is unavailable to the public.
Very recently Sevior presented data from a few specific uranium mines suggesting that the energy inputs to uranium mining may be lower nowadays than calculated by Van Leeuwen and Smith. It will take some time to compare the assumptions and data in the two studies.
Meanwhile, Van Leeuwen and Smith´s qualitative result stands: that if you have to mine and mill 10 times as much ore to obtain 1 kg of uranium, you will have to use at least 10 times as much energy and (in Australia) will emit at least 10 times as much CO2.
In summary, nuclear power, based on existing technologies, is a dead-end side-alley on the pathway to reducing CO2 emissions.
In most countries where there is a competitive electricity industry, it is clear that nuclear electricity is much more expensive than fossil electricity. In Britain and the US nuclear energy is even more expensive than wind power. More specifically, the pro-nuclear MIT (2003) report (see <http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower>) estimates that the cost of electricity generated by a hypothetical new nuclear power station in the US would be US$0.067 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), or about A$0.09 per kWh. For comparison, coal power in eastern Australia costs under $0.04 per kWh. Wind power in the US costs about $0.05 per kWh and in Australia $0.075 to $0.08 per kWh, depending upon the site.
When the British electricity industry was privatised, the government had to impose a fossil fuel levy to subsidise nuclear electricity. By 1998, the annual subsidy had reached £1.2 billion per year, equivalent to a subsidy of about £0.03 per kWh or A$0.06 per kWh on each unit of nuclear electricity generated. The subsidy to nuclear power is almost as much as the full cost of wind power in Britain, about £0.04 per kWh. In addition, it has recently been estimated by the British Nuclear Decommissioning Authority that dismantling Britain´s existing nuclear power stations will cost £70 billion. Since a full-size nuclear power station (1000 megawatts or more) has never been decommissioned anywhere in the world, costs could turn out to be even higher.
The only new “commercial’ nuclear power station under construction in a Western country is currently taking shape in Finland. The nuclear industry claims that this demonstrates that nuclear energy is competitive under market conditions. But the power station is being built by a consortium that includes a 40% share by the government of Finland, which will sell its electricity to its own members. Thus the consortium avoids conditions of a competitive market and so has obtained finance at interest rates far below market rates. The European Commission is currently considering a complaint about this anti-competitive practice.
Uneconomic
On the global scene, consider the following frank summary of the 1998 electricity generating cost study that was published jointly by the International Energy Agency and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency. The raw data were supplied by the nuclear industries in the countries surveyed, so they are hardly likely to be biased against nuclear energy. The summary was presented by Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist and head of the Economic Analysis Division, International Energy Agency (IEA) at an Annual International Forum of the Uranium Institute (see < http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/1999/birol.htm>):
“The results confirm the current cost advantage of fossil-fuelled power generation ... Clearly, under BAU [business-as-usual] assumptions the contribution of nuclear power over the next two decades will be limited.’
The harsh reality is that, at market discount rates of 10% real or more, nuclear electricity is uneconomic almost everywhere in the world. It is at least double the cost of coal power in the US and UK, and would be nearly three times the cost of coal power in eastern Australia.
The nuclear industry´s solution to these harsh economic realities has been to produce a series of reports on the economics of a “new generation’ of nuclear power stations that at present only exists on paper. In theory such reactors would be slightly cheaper and possibly slightly safer than existing models. The latest estimate of “new generation’ economics is the report to Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation by leading nuclear industry figure, John Gittus, claiming that a non-existent nuclear power station, AP1000, would be competitive with coal power in eastern Australia under certain conditions (seeA HREF="<.
The Gittus report´s conditions are indicated in two alternative scenarios. One involves substantial government subsidies on the capital and operating costs of the proposed power station. The other involves “no subsidy’, according to Gittus, just a massive government guaranteed, unsecured “insured loan, which would be repaid to Government, together with a retrospective premium, out of revenues from the station once it began to generate electricity’.
But, what if the untried nuclear power station proves to be more expensive to build and operate than the paper study estimates? That has always been the case with nuclear power in the past. What if the earnings from electricity sales prove to be insufficient to repay the additional costs and the loans? The Gittus report is vague on such details, suggesting that the government (i.e., the taxpayer) would share the risk. If so, this is a subsidy dressed up as a loan and neither of Gittus´s scenarios is anywhere near being economically competitive with conventional coal power.
If this proposal is a good deal for the lender, why is it necessary for the government to lend anything? Surely, private financial institutions would be queuing up? It´s strange that no private investors have funded a new nuclear power station in the US for more than a quarter century, despite massive subsidies to the industry estimated at US$90 billion in total.
False choice
The nuclear industry is offering a false choice between coal and nuclear power, which are both dirty and dangerous technologies. But the real choice is between clean power — comprising a mix of efficient energy use, natural gas and renewable sources of energy — and dirty power — comprising coal and nuclear power.
Both coal and nuclear power have severe adverse environmental, health and social impacts. Both offer big financial risks to investors. That´s why the Gittus report requests that the government either pay a direct subsidy or take on much of the financial risk, which is an indirect subsidy. It is essential that the Australian community does not permit the government (i.e., the taxpayer) to take on the financial risk of building new coal-fired or nuclear power stations.
Even countries that do not have electricity markets have reservations about nuclear power. China´s target is for renewable energy (mostly wind power) to contribute 12% of electricity and nuclear only 4% by 2020.
So why is the Australian government promoting the nuclear industry?
The cost of nuclear electricity is so high in a competitive market that we are unlikely to see any of the present generation of nuclear power stations built in Australia. The current “debate’ about nuclear power stations is really designed to distract attention from the government´s plan to establish or expand three of the other stages of the nuclear fuel chain.
With uranium prices at a high level, there are big profits to be made in uranium mining. From these the government can expect significant company tax revenue and political donations. Hence the moves to expand uranium mining.
There is also rhetoric about “value adding’ by going into uranium enrichment. The main brake on this is the present global over-capacity for enrichment. It is difficult to imagine enrichment based on existing technology being driven by the market in the near future. However, we have to keep a close watch to ensure that the government doesn´t fund all or part of a new kind of enrichment plant. The government has been involved for years in some kind of partnership with a private company, Silex, to develop laser enrichment. This technology would use much less energy and may turn out to be less expensive than the principal existing methods. Laser enrichment would be highly suitable for secretly making weapons-grade uranium as well as fuel for nuclear power stations. (See the expose at <http://www.greenpeace.org.au/frontpage/pdf/silex_report.pdf>).
In addition, the Australian government may attempt to establish a high-level nuclear waste dump for overseas nuclear power under Bush´s GNEP. Keep in mind that Prime Minister John Howard announced the nuclear “debate’ immediately after visiting US President George Bush.
The world´s richest country has messed up the development of its proposed long-term waste management site at Yucca Mountain, while spending billions, and it´s not obvious that this dump will ever open. Even if it does, its capacity is inadequate for storing US wastes. So Bush is no doubt looking for a “patsy’ to take over this environmentally and economically horrific problem. In return, the US government may look the other way if the Australian government moves closer to nuclear weapons´ capability. Reprocessing spent fuel is another route to nuclear weapons.
As Richard Broinowski´s book Fact or Fission points out, since WWII there has been a strong behind-the-scenes lobby for Australia to develop nuclear weapons. In the past, the main impediment was US policy. Now there are indications that US policy may have changed. It appears that the current US government wants to replace international nuclear weapons control (such as it is) under the NPT and the International Atomic Energy Agency by the US-controlled GNEP.
An expansion of uranium mining and the establishment of uranium enrichment, long-term waste management and nuclear weapons are all on the Australian government´s agenda, even if nuclear power stations may be a decade further down the track. Meanwhile, the government is making every effort to kill off the renewable energy industries in Australia, especially the most successful, wind power.
[Abridged from a June 23 discussion paper. Dr Mark Diesendorf teaches at the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of New South Wales. See <http://www.ies.unsw.edu.au>.]
From Green Left Weekly, August 9, 2006.
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NRDC
August 05, 2006
Nuclear Repository Bill is Fatally Flawed
Bush's Plan to Weaken Yucca Mountain Standards Should be Buried, NRDC Says
WASHINGTON (Aug. 3, 2006) -- A Bush Administration bill designed to weaken public health and environmental standards at the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is fatally flawed and should not be enacted, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said today.
In congressional testimony, Geoffrey H. Fettus, senior attorney in NRDC's nuclear program, said the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act represents "yet another effort to relax or remove appropriate environmental oversight and standards that must apply if the proposed repository is to meet the twin goals of protecting human health for the length of time the waste is dangerous and public acceptance of the federal solution to the nuclear waste problem."
Fettus testified at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. (Click here for the full testimony.)
Fettus said S. 2589 would weaken licensing procedures, pre-empt state environmental regulations and undercut the current legal framework by doing away with transparent, deliberate proceedings.
"If we are ever to have a robust repository program that both follows the original intent of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and gains the trust of the American public, then the federal government, in both its executive and legislative incarnations, must cease efforts to weaken meaningful and protective health and environmental standards application to the program," Fettus testified. "Congress should not be deciding issues of ultimate certainty in health and safety judgments, nor should it be resolving technical disagreements with the stroke of a pen."
"In contrast with the provisions of S. 2589, our national focus should be on promulgating adequate environmental standards and then testing whether Yucca Mountain meets those standards through a fair, thorough and transparent licensing process," Fettus said. "That process is required by existing law."
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has 1.2 million members and online activists nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
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Pahrump Valley Times
August 05, 2006
Five work for GOP nod in Commission District 4
By Mark Waite
PVT
Growth was a major topic addressed by candidates for the Nye County Commission District Four race.
Early voting began this week for the Aug. 15 primary.
Six candidates are running to succeed Candice Trummell, who decided not to run for re-election after serving one term.
Five of the six candidates are Republicans. The sole Democrat, Charlie Anzalone, won't have to run in the primary, but will proceed directly to the Nov. 7 election.
Andy Alberti Jr.
Alberti is a licensed real estate broker in California and Nevada. He moved to Pahrump four years ago.
Alberti, 66, is a native of New York and was elected twice to the William Floyd School Board on Mastic Beach, on New York's Long Island. He moved to California in 1971 where he was a member of the California State Central Committee for the Republican Party and elected four times to the Orange County Republican Central Committee's 70th assembly district.
His previous work history in California includes serving as a U.S. Air Force crew chief from 1958-62; aircraft mechanic for Grumman Aircraft, 1962-67; hydraulic and pneumatic sales for Louis H. Hein Co. 1967-71; salesman for Paul Munroe Hydraulics, 1971-78; and a real estate broker since 1986.
Alberti has a talk show on Channels 30 and 62. He belongs to the Nye County Republican Party Central Committee and said he drew up the local Republican Party Web site.
Alberti would like to televise county meetings, have an annual state of the county address, conduct a monthly TV show about the commissioners and in general improve communication among county, town and private utilities.
"I moved here not to do politics any more," Alberti said. "I moved here for what I saw in Pahrump: clean air, blue skies, lack of traffic. In the last year I've started to see commissioners create a new Las Vegas, and I didn't move here for that. I think commissioners should think of the people who live here first."
Referring to proposed large developments like that planned by The Focus Group, he said, "I just feel like they're giving the store away, and having 6,000-square-foot properties is going to be like a sea of roofs.
When he worked with former County Commissioner Henry Neth in his office at Provenza Real Estate, Alberti said Neth told him, "It's their land <!-- 2013(unknown) --> I can't tell them what to do."
To that, Alberti said, "It's your land, but if you want to build here we have standards."
Water is also another concern, he said. "Arizona has what they call an assured water supply law, which makes you show when you're going to build a development in town, you have to show us where the water is going to come from for the next 100 years," Alberti said.
He would like to see a bill draft request for the next session of the Nevada legislature, making water rights more closely reflect what water is available in the basin.
Some builders say home owners can't afford to buy larger lots, Alberti said but many of these developers are making 25 to 30 percent profit margins on their projects.
Nye County needs an organizational chart, he said. "When you have 450 employees you need to know how to relate to each other."
While the Pahrump Valley Fire and Rescue Service keeps asking for more personnel, Alberti said he'd like to see the fire chief come up with a fire prevention program first.
Alberti emphasizes a more pro-active policy. "What can we do to prevent things rather than reacting to things?" he asked.
Alberti would also like to see some long-range planning for county facilities.
"We have buildings scattered around town. It would be nice to have everything in one location," he said.
While Nye County receives about $11 million per year from the U.S. Department of Energy in payment equal to taxes for the land value of Yucca Mountain, Alberti thinks the county could receive more. That money divided by the 45 states that will deposit their nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain amounts to only $250,000 per state, he said.
Lewis Beaver
Lewis Beaver, 72, is president of the Fifth Judicial District CASA, or Court-Appointed Special Advocate program, in which citizens are appointed to represent the rights of children in court. He's also a member of the Knights for Molested Children.
Beaver owns his own constructing business, Beaver Contracting, but plans to retire if he wins election. He has lived in the Pahrump Valley for 13 years.
Beaver said he ran unsuccessfully for city council in his native town of Westland, Mich., in his only other bid for election. He was the campaign manager for Del Haas, who ran twice unsuccessfully against Nevada District 36 Assemblyman Roy Neighbors, D-Tonopah, in the 1990s. He also organizes an annual golf tournament to raise funds for the Knights for Molested Children.
"I want to see the community get a lot more industrial businesses coming in. I think I have the knowledge and background to persuade people to do that," Beaver said. He served on the Nye County Economic Development Board in the late 1990s and belongs to the Nye County Coalition.
"What I'm more concerned about is the way we spend the money on consultants and studies after studies, and we don't get a complete answer. They come back and say they need more money for this," Beaver said. "I'm a firm believer in being very, very economical. I believe we can hire retired people from our community that are consultants."
Beaver said he'd like to see a water and sewer system throughout Pahrump Valley, financed by selling bonds. It would be a community-owned operation.
The Yucca Mountain facility could house a couple of power plants to generate money from the recycled waste, Beaver said.
"If that would happen, we could cut the property taxes in our community tremendously," he said.
Alan Bigelow
Alan Bigelow, 44, is a firefighter and emergency medical technician with the Pahrump Valley Fire and Rescue Service.
Bigelow retired as a sergeant first class after 24 years in the Nevada National Guard two years ago; he began his military career with six years of active duty in the U.S. Army after graduating from Valley High School in Las Vegas.
Bigelow has lived in Pahrump for three years, but has been a resident of Southern Nevada since 1963. He was a deputy sheriff for a few years when he was stationed in North Carolina, drove a long-haul truck cross-country and managed a Domino's Pizza restaurant.
Bigelow has been working on a college degree from Embry Riddle University, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Randolph Community College and Southern Nevada Community College.
"A lot of the things that I kept seeing weren't making much sense and it was repetitive, the same crazy ideas over and over and over," Bigelow said.
"For example, everybody gripes about traffic lights. The county commissioners, also being the road commissioners, can form a partnership with the state. Then if the state doesn't want to fund something and the county does, then the county can go ahead and do it as long as they follow the same guidelines."
Bigelow said he would be a team player, after developing a sense of team spirit at the military academy.
"This north-south battle is insane. It's got to stop. I might not be the guy who can do it, but I'm certainly the type of guy who can go and start shaking people's hands and say it's one county. That's my slogan," Bigelow said.
Bigelow said he would abstain from voting on the fire and rescue service, but said the county normally only processes the payroll. He said he'd make a point of being in the county office one day per week to talk to the constituents.
Bigelow said he has three promises: to work for the whole county; work within the budget; and to be accountable to the people.
Andrew "Butch" Borasky
Andrew "Butch" Borasky, 58, operates an excavating business and a gravel pit. He started his business in Pahrump 10 years ago. He has been a frequent visitor to county meetings.
Borasky was appointed to the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission one and a half years ago and also sits on the Storm Water Task Force and the Pahrump Building and Safety Appeals Board.
Borasky said he was influential in persuading county and state officials to transfer approval of septic permits from the state to the Pahrump Building and Safety Department back in 2000, after lengthy delays in working with state inspectors.
"I've always said, if you want something done, do it yourself. That's always been my motto," Borasky said. "The same with the planning commission. I used to sit in the audience and I couldn't figure out why they did certain things. They'd sit there and nobody had any background in buildings and roads."
Borasky said he decided to run for the county commission following the death of Pahrump RPC member Sheldon Bass last year.
"I believe you're going to have to slow down the high-density residential housing that's coming in," Borasky said. The emphasis should be on attracting more commercial development, which provides more revenue to run the county, he said.
"Somehow we're going to have to figure out how to increase development to find the funds for fire and police," Borasky said. "The other thing is, where are we going to get this water from?"
Borasky said Nye County doesn't have the money to spend like Las Vegas. He said it would cost $250 million to bring a water pipeline from the north.
"I'm going to ask commissioners to put the foot on high-density growth until they can prove they have the water to deal with this," he said. "The biggest issues are going to be the water and the growth. That has to be the biggest thing to deal with. Roads are going to be on the back burner."
Mike Maher
Mike Maher was terminated as Nye County manager in March, though he said simply, "I was let off without cause, which means they just decided they wanted to go a different direction."
Maher, 59, was county manager since June 2003, and before that served as assistant county manager, general services director. He began his career with the county in December 2001 as a fiscal analyst for the Nye County Department of Natural Resources and Federal Facilities.
Maher had also worked as an auditor for the state of Nevada.
He ended his 20-year career as a naval officer as chief staff officer for logistics for the commander of the Seventh Fleet in Okinawa, Japan. Maher said he has experience in engineering, manufacturing, labor negotiations, contracting, supply management, compliance, real estate, transportation, accounting, insurance, purchasing and investments.
Maher said he received his master's degree in business administration from Webster University in St. Louis, Mo., and his bachelor of science degree from UNLV. He has also been involved in the retail grocery and hardware business, sold real estate and insurance.
"Nye County is a diamond in the desert. People don't really know what we have and the potential that we do have for being the major player in Nevada as well as in the United States," Maher said. "We've all got to work in the same direction, but we have to come up with a vision of where we want to go, and I find, in my mind, there's too much pulling in different directions."
Maher stated his opinions on four major issues.
"I believe that they shouldn't raise the sales and use tax. I'm opposed to it. I would work to reduce the impact fees. I feel the zoning needs to be done immediately; it's either zoned or it's not. I feel that we need to develop our economic corridor up Highway 95."
Maher wants to develop more facilities for youth and senior citizens, saying the planned Boys and Girls Club isn't enough. The county could also provide money to support the development of medical facilities, he said.
"What is the fear of the growth?" Maher asked. "There are going to be such increased costs to be borne by those that are here if you don't get into large populations."
It would be too expensive to have a central water and sewer system for single homes on one-acre lots, he said.
"If you're allowing them to build like in Las Vegas, you're not going to have such water usage," Maher said. The density would generate more property taxes, he added. "If you have eight homes on an acre and their average valuation is $300,000 that's $2.4 million. And if you have one acre rented, you only have one house for $300,000. Where do you have the most valuation to help the county?"
Maher said there should be some tourism attractions to attract people to Pahrump, like wagon train rides, a world-class BMX course, fireworks shows or other amenities people don't have room to enjoy in Las Vegas.
"I feel we've got to make some changes to public works and planning to make it easier for development people to get their projects on. It takes too long to get their plans and approvals through," Maher said. "I think that we need to start and build a flood retention basin system that we could do before we start getting more of the development in here."
Maher supports Yucca Mountain which he said is being forced on the county.
Finally, he said Nye County has to be attractive to business and investment.
"I'm offering myself as a servant to try to make things happen and go forward," he said.
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Contra Costa Times
August 05, 2006
East Bay Roundup
Livermore
Hiroshima Memorial: A survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, will speak at a Sunday rally to mark the 61st anniversary of the event.
During the week after the bombing, Keiji Tsuchiya served as a rescue worker aiding other victims. Today, the 78-year-old is vice president of the Okayama A-bomb Sufferers Association. He is traveling from Japan to participate in the Livermore rally in protest of nuclear weapons.
Demonstrators plan to gather at 8 a.m. at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, on the corner of Vasco Road and Patterson Pass, for speeches and ceremonies. They will march to the laboratory gate at 9 a.m. for a nondenominational ceremony.
Other speakers will include activist Daniel Ellsberg, author and media critic Norman Soloman and Marylia Kelley, director of Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment.
Another rally is planned for Wednesday, the anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. Participants will meet at 9 a.m. in front of the Bechtel Corp. headquarters, 50 Beale St. in San Francisco.
Bechtel recently joined the University of California in a successful bid for the management of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and is a partner in the management of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
The rallies are linked to events at nuclear weapons sites across the country. Information about the effort is available at the Web site http://august6.org.
-- Betsy Mason
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Atlanta Journal Constitution
August 05, 2006
Energy secretary talks up nuclear
By Margaret Newkirk
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After a week that included speeches on bioenergy in Illinois and windmills in Iowa, U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman came to Georgia Power headquarters Friday to talk up nuclear power and the Atlanta-based company's efforts to build more of it.
The talk was part of a brisk tour commemorating the first anniversary of the federal Energy Policy Act, which included big incentives for utilities if they build new nuclear plants.
Bodman also announced a milestone for what he called one of the most important of those incentives.
The Energy Department finalized rules Friday morning that could deliver huge benefits to the first six plants to begin construction, Bodman told a roomful of Georgia Power and Southern Co. officials and employees.
The rules allow the utilities that build the first six plants to buy federal insurance of up to $500 million each for the first two plants and $250 million for the next four.
The insurance would compensate the companies for regulatory and legal delays they encounter as they go through the permitting system, which has been streamlined in recent years.
The insurance is intended to calm boardroom and Wall Street willies about nuclear power. Nuclear construction has been at a standstill for three decades after the Three Mile Island disaster near Middletown, Pa., and a spate of huge cost overruns.
Bodman described the insurance program as the "most important thing the government could have done to encourage nuclear, other than getting Yucca Mountain [nuclear waste storage] up and running."
"This program is critical to reinvigorating the American nuclear industry," he said.
Southern Co. is one of more than a dozen utilities moving forward to build new nuclear plants — although the utilities routinely say they haven't actually decided to build those plants.
Southern plans to file an early site permit with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this month for two new units at its Vogtle nuclear plant in eastern Georgia, near the South Carolina border. Southern is slightly behind a few other utilities — like Virginia's Dominion and Illinois' Exelon — in getting its early site permit filed. It plans to file its construction and operations license application late next year, which would put it neck-and-neck with the other contenders.
The insurance program will be available to the first companies that actually begin building new reactors.
The rules approved Friday defined what qualifies as starting construction, according to Richard Myers, policy director for the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington.
It means pouring the huge concrete slabs that will be the reactor's base.
In theory, and if it pours the first slabs, Southern could get $500 million in insurance for each of the two units proposed in Georgia.
Myers said the insurance program finalized Friday was "terribly, terribly important" to any nuclear comeback in the United States. "This is all about managing risks and reducing risks at the various stages of the process," he said.
The insurance provides corporate board members with "some confidence that in moving fast and first, that there will be a safety net. The nightmare scenario is that you have a plant completely ready to go, and there's some regulatory breakdown, or some unforeseen litigation and you're prevented from going forward," he said.
"It happened with a number of them the first time. We had companies go into Chapter 11 because of it. We've learned a lot since then, but people have a long memory."
The insurance alarms critics of the nuclear power resurgence, who say it could dissuade the NRC or other regulators from examining permit applications with enough diligence.
"I can see that there's a logical argument that the first players are going to experience more uncertainty," said Sara Barczak, safe energy director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "But we have a big problem with this, and we're not the only ones.
"If someone raises a safety issue, and it delays things, why should taxpayers have to pay for that? It puts pressure on regulators, on opponents or on people who aren't even anti-nuclear but are concerned about something like water management.
"Now they'll find themselves in a position of costing taxpayers money if they speak up."
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Bridgeton News
August 05, 2006
What to do with spent nuclear fuel
By Bill Gallo Jr.
LOWER ALLOWAYS CREEK TWP. -- With no federally-approved repository for the used radioactive fuel needed to power the nation's nuclear plants, utility operators -- including those at the Hope Creek Generating Station here -- are turning to alternative storage methods as their "temporary" facilities begin to run out of room.
PSEG Nuclear, operator of Hope Creek, will begin this fall storing the used or "spent" fuel outdoors in huge specially-designed containers in a method called dry cask storage.
The spent fuel from the three nuclear plants at Artificial Island is currently stored in indoor pools of water adjacent to the nuclear reactors where groups of fuel rods assembled into "bundles" slowly cool.
But those spent fuel pools were designed to only be temporary holding areas until the fuel could be taken off-site and transported to a permanent repository set up by the federal government.
Estimates now are that the earliest Yucca Mountain in Nevada -- the site proposed to be the nation's nuclear waste repository -- could begin receiving spent fuel from the nation's 103 licensed nuclear plants and other businesses that deal with radioactive materials is 2017. Facing prospect of running out of room to store spent fuel and possibly being forced to shut down nuclear reactors, utility operators are turning to other methods as they wait for the Department of Energy to ready Yucca Mountain.
One method, approved by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency which oversees the operation of the nation's nuclear plants, is dry cask storage.
"There are actually other options that we looked at and they all had their own issues either with additional maintenance that would be required or cost," said Brian Gustems, PSEG Nuclear's project manager for dry cask storage. "There is certainly the option of building a new spent fuel pool, but the costs involved in that and licensing for that would be very time consuming. What you may end up doing is actually having to shut the plant down."
The concrete and steel reinforced casks will hold sealed stainless steel containers filled with 10.5 tons of the spent fuel. The casks stand about 20 feet tall and are 12 feet in diameter. When filled with fuel and sealed, the entire cask package will weigh about 180 tons.
Perhaps the simplest way to envision how the whole container looks is to think of a soda can inserted into one of those foam rings that insulate it to keep it cool. The can would be the container holding the fuel and the foam ring, the concrete and steel cask protecting it.
The plan is to store these casks on-site at nuclear power plants until the fuel can be moved to permanent storage, a date which is murky.
Across the U.S., 33 sites are now using dry cask storage or have been licensed to do so, including PSEG's operations at Artificial Island. That number is expected to grow.
While Hope Creek is the first of the three reactor sites at the Island to near seeing its spent fuel pool fill up (estimates are it will run out of space in 2007), the other two stations will soon be facing the same problem. The pools at the Salem 1 and Salem 2 plants are expected to reach capacity in 2011 and 2015 respectively. The cask storage site was constructed to accommodate spent fuel from those reactors, too, when the need arises in the future.
PSEG Nuclear has contracted with Holtec International, a Marlton-based company, to supply its storage casks. Holtec has clients across the U.S. and in Europe in Spain and the Ukraine.
In a highly-secured outdoor storage area at Artificial Island, the containers will be highly monitored until the day their contents can be removed to a permanent resting place, officials say.
Gustems gave reporters a tour of the facility at the Island recently.
The storage area consists of three concrete pads, each approximately 200 feet long and 91 feet wide. Because they, like the rest of the buildings here, were built on a man-made island, special steps were needed in the construction.
The three-foot thick concrete pads are supported underneath by a series of alternating 45-foot and 22-foot concrete columns driven into the ground.
The site is in the shadow of the 500-foot Hope Creek cooling tower and on the site where a cooling tower for a second Hope Creek reactor was to be built before plans for it were scrapped.
The site's official name is an "independent spent fuel storage installation" or ISFSI.
The dry cask process
Filling the cask actually takes place underwater inside the spent fuel pool adjacent to the nuclear reactor.
The process for storing the spent fuel is somewhat like filling a can.
A special stainless steel container with one-half-inch-thick walls is placed in a protective sleeve and filled with water. It is lowered underwater into the spent fuel pool. At that point, the 12-foot long radioactive fuel bundles are lifted in the pool and slid into the honeycomb-shaped slots in the container.
A stainless steel lid is then placed on the container while it is under water. Still in its protective sleeve, the container is lifted from the water. At that point the steel lid is welded shut, the water is drained from the container through special ports and it is filled with helium. The small ports on the container, too, are welded shut.
The steel container is then lifted and slid out of its protective sleeve into the cask. It is then topped off with a reinforced concrete and steel lid.
After the spent fuel is loaded in the cask, the container is transported from the spent fuel storage area by a huge machine called a crawler which will carry the 180-ton container, traveling at less than half a mile an hour, to the pad site.
The cask has small vents at the bottom and top which allow air to circulate around the steel container inside so that heat given off by the fuel may escape. The concrete and steel cask enclosure, however, shields against the escape of radiation.
Refueling outages are generally conducted at nuclear power plants every 18 months.
Hope Creek's reactor holds 764 bundles of fuel, of which about 240 are replaced each refueling cycle.
Once placed in the spent fuel pool, the bundles begin to cool. Those selected for cask storage will generally be older ones -- at least five years old --that have significantly cooled. Removed from the indoor spent fuel pool, they will allow room for new ones recently removed from the reactor core.
About 68 bundles of fuel will fit into a container inside a cask.
Gustems estimates the entire process -- filling, sealing and transporting the cask -- will take about one week.
While Hope Creek was the last plant at the Island to come on line (1986), its design provided for a smaller spent fuel pool than neighboring Salem 1 (which came on line in late 1976) and Salem 2 (which began producing power in mid 1981).
Why is space running out?
Nuclear power now accounts for approximately 20 percent of all electric used in the United States. In New Jersey, that figure has risen to more than 50 percent.
The question of when nuclear power plant operators will finally be able to move their spent fuel off-site to a government-run facility remains uncertain. Originally the government had said Yucca Mountain would begin receiving fuel for storage in early 1998. The most recent estimate from an Energy Department officials, given just this month, is 2017.
But even that date is uncertain. As NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci noted, the Department of Energy hasn't yet submitted an application to the NRC to gain approval to store the waste at Yucca Mountain.
When the desert site some 100 miles north of Las Vegas does open, radioactive waste will be stored some 1,000 feet below the surface in huge caves.
Many utility companies around the country, including PSEG Nuclear, have pending lawsuits against the federal government for its failure to provide a permanent facility in a timely manner.
The breach-of-contract suits seek damages from the government to pay for the costs the utilities have incurred to pay for alternative storage room they must build at their plants.
Gustems estimates PSEG has spent about $50 million so far on the dry cask project, primarily constructing the pads in the storage yard for the containers. In addition, the casks cost roughly $1 million each. In all, with space for potentially 200 casks at its outdoor storage space, the tab for the utility will be a large one.
So far, according to estimates, more than $7 billion has been spent on the Yucca Mountain project. And, according to some published reports, the total cost may hit somewhere between $50 billion and $100 billion.
Electric ratepayers are picking up part of the tab.
Concerns for safety
The first use of dry cask storage was at the Surry Nuclear Power Plant in Virginia in 1986.
According to Screnci, there have been no problems with the alternative storage system.
"There have been no leaks of radioactive material from any dry cask storage systems loaded to date," Screnci said.
The cask system has been thoroughly tested, officials say.
Joy Russell of Holtec says the casks containing the fuel containers are extremely strong.
"We have a 1-inch carbon steel shell on the outside and one on the inside and then there is 27 inches of concrete in between," Russell said. "It's a very robust body of the cask."
With any type of facility that handles radioactive fuel, concern over security is always high.
The State of New Jersey has three, new on-site monitoring units surrounding the dry cask storage area. Gustems said the monitoring units will provide real-time observations to state officials.
PSEG Nuclear also has sophisticated new monitoring in place designed especially for the dry cask yard to detect any problems with radiation.
Security at the site, as it is anywhere around the three nuclear plants, is extremely high.
The NRC has already been on site to observe run-throughs of moving the casks. The agency also has on-site resident inspectors who monitor the process.
But some critics of the nuclear power industry aren't so happy with the new storage process.
"We have mixed feelings about building dry cask storage. Our preference would be for the nuclear plants to shut down when their pools fill up, but we understand that is an unrealistic request in today's world of high energy prices," said Norm Cohen, coordinator for the UnPlug Salem Project, a group whose long-term goal remains the decommissioning of Salem Units 1 and 2, but has evolved into a safety and public health watchdog organization.
Cohen also said his group is opposed to the use of Yucca Mountain for permanent nuclear waste storage.
"We have always opposed opening Yucca Mountain because of the transportation safety concerns and because Yucca Mountain does not appear to be a safe enough repository to hold nuclear waste for thousands of years.
"The government did make a promise to the nuclear companies, which is one reason why the spent fuel pools were built smaller. They could have built pools to hold 60 years of waste."
Because of its failure, Cohen believes the government should use money collected to support Yucca Mountain to build robust dry cask storage sites at the nation's nuclear power plants.
Cohen says he worries, too, that so much spent fuel at a site may be inviting to terrorists.
Also, if the federal government does not move on Yucca Mountain, he feels the Island will become a long-term nuclear waste storage facility, something he believes officials in Lower Alloways Creek never envisioned.
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Union Leader
August 05, 2006
Lynch, congressmen oppose nuke waste plan
By Garry Rayno
CONCORD – Gov. John Lynch and the state's two congressmen oppose a U.S. Senate proposal that could force the Seabrook Station and Vermont Yankee nuclear power plants to become storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel while postponing a permanent storage facility in Nevada.
Lynch and U.S. Rep. Charles Bass sent letters to U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development objecting to the proposal for the temporary storage sites at existing nuclear power plants, saying security concerns in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks warrant the rapid development of the national storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
U.S. Rep. Jeb Bradley, who served on the Nuclear Decommissioning Task Force when he was a member of the New Hampshire House, said the Senate proposal "clearly points to why we have got to complete Yucca Mountain. The fact that people like (U.S. Senate Minority Leader) Harry Reid (of Nevada) is holding up moving forward with Yucca Mountain is a cause for concern, with 103 nuclear power plants spread around country."
The proposed temporary facilities could result in long-term storage at consolidated local or regional sites in 31 states. Currently, 50,000 tons of nuclear waste sits at nuclear power plants awaiting permanent disposal.
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New London Day
August 05, 2006
Letter: Lieberman Furthers His Own Ambitions
With respect to the candidacy of Sen. Joseph Lieberman, residents of Connecticut, particularly those in southeastern Connecticut, should recall that in 2002, the senator was given an opportunity to represent his constituents. After 20 years of study and an expenditure of millions of dollars, the Department of Energy recommended that a storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, be used for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, currently stored in 77 sites across the United States, including two sites in eastern Connecticut.
The accumulation and storage of nuclear waste at these numerous sites throughout the country, with the heightened risk of terrorist activities now faced, presented additional risks to the involved communities. With his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in mind, Sen. Lieberman chose to vote against the Yucca Mountain plan, catering to the opposition to the plan generated by national environmentalist organizations. No satisfactory alternative was proposed by these organizations or Sen. Lieberman.
Rather than representing the voters in Connecticut who elected him, Sen. Lieberman chose to further his political ambitions. Those of us who live in the shadow of the Millstone power plants should consider this as they vote for the candidates for U.S. senator in the upcoming elections.
In his current campaign, Mr. Lieberman has already vowed to run as an independent if the Democratic party does not endorse him as the Democratic candidate. This, of course, would split the party vote and increase the likelihood of a Republican victory in the November election.
In this instance, as well as the earlier situation, Mr. Lieberman has demonstrated his unwillingness to represent anyone except himself. Why should anyone vote for him?
Joseph M. Coleman
Niantic
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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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