Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, August 24, 2006
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 23, 2006

Porter calls repository 'broken'

Lawmaker asks about workers' fears of reprisal

By K.C. Howard
Review-Journal

YUCCA MOUNTAIN -- Rep. Jon Porter, chairman of a House subcommittee looking into some aspects of the Yucca Mountain Project, stood atop the mountain Tuesday and pronounced the project to house more than 70,000 tons of nuclear waste "broken."

"There are so many problems with the mountain. There are so many questions about safety, that it's broken," Porter said.

The visit, which included a drive to the top of the mountain and a tour of the five-mile tunnel beneath it, was the Republican congressman's first to the site in more than 20 years. He said the last time he viewed the mountain as a Boulder City councilman, there were no tunnels and the city was preparing a resolution against the project.

Tuesday's tour included briefings on geology, hydrology, faulting and volcanism by Energy Department officials Russ Dyer, chief scientist, and Ward Sproat, the new director of the office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Surrounded by news media, Porter questioned the DOE officials about science and safety issues.

"We don't trust what's going on here," he told Sproat.

Holding a copy of a DOE inspector general's report released Friday, Porter questioned what Sproat will do to ensure employees at Yucca Mountain feel free to report mistakes and that those mistakes will be corrected.

The report found more than 100 possible problems that should have been fixed but were not managed properly. In some cases, managers discouraged employees from reporting them, the report stated.

"One of the ongoing concerns I have is employees have a fear of reprisal," Porter said.

Sproat said he's planning changes to ensure a culture where employees feel safe reporting errors and where supervisors are compelled to make corrections.

In July, the DOE released a schedule that would open the repository, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for high-level nuclear waste by March 2017. DOE missed its original 1998 deadline to open the repository and also abandoned a 2010 startup date.

Despite setbacks to the project, Sproat said he's encouraged by the work at the site he's seen so far and promised vigilance in reviewing science and safety protocols.

Tessa Hafen, the Democratic candidate challenging Porter in this year's elections, also opposes President Bush's plan to store nuclear waste in Nevada. She released a statement Tuesday calling Porter's tour an "election year field trip."

Shannon Meade, chief investigator on Porter's subcommittee on Yucca Mountain, said the visit was not political. "The DOE just issued its licensing schedule so this was a very appropriate time to come out."

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Augusta Chronicle
August 24, 2006

Safety rules slow nuclear waste cleanup

By Josh Gelinas
South Carolina Bureau Chief

AIKEN - When Congress passed legislation in 2004 that allows the Department of Energy to classify and bury its own nuclear waste, some feared the lack of an independent regulator would give the agency too much control.

But limited oversights included in the law are proving rigorous.

Too rigorous, according to a July 31 letter the DOE fired at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Although the DOE has the final say about its nuclear waste, including about 36 million gallons at Savannah River Site, it must consult with the NRC before making decisions, including the amount of radioactivity it plans to bury at sites such as SRS.

In its letter, the DOE asserts that the NRC has become more of a regulator than a consultant because of its strict review standards.

The law states that Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman "is the exclusive decision maker for determining whether radioactive waste resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel at certain DOE sites is high-level radioactive waste," according to the letter written by David R. Hill, the agency's general counsel.

The law "assigns the NRC a limited role as an informed consultant to aid the secretary in making such waste determinations," wrote Mr. Hill, who also asked the NRC to get rid of its 153-page set of review standards.

Officials with the NRC say the standards are just part of the agency's detail-oriented process.

"Congress has an interest, the people of South Carolina have an interest, to make sure this cleanup is done effectively," said David McIntyre, a spokesman for the NRC.

"The NRC is supposed to give some confidence that it can be done safely and effectively," he said. "DOE has chafed at that. They want to do it in closed meetings. They want it fast. Their view of consultation appears to be a quick 'OK.'"

The Natural Resources Defense Council says the DOE needs more regulation, not less. Legislation that gave the DOE its classification power was drafted to bypass a 2002 defense council lawsuit that was slowing the process.

"These are important cleanup issues that need to be as transparent and open as possible so people can know how the public health and environment are going to be protected in the long term," said Geoff Fettus, an attorney with the defense council who has litigated the issue.

"We're talking about a lot of radioactivity."

The liquid radioactive waste at SRS is stored in 49 tanks. The DOE is mixing the most harmful quantities with glass and is supposed to ship it out of state, presumably to the Yucca Mountain burial site in Nevada.

Less radioactive quantities will either be buried on site or left in the tanks and covered in grout. The DOE and state officials continue to wrestle over the amount of radioactivity that will be left behind.

At the same time, officials with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control want older tanks emptied and closed because of fears that they'll leak.

The disagreement between the DOE and the NRC creates a perplexing position for the state: On one hand the DOE is blaming the NRC process for tank closure delays; on the other the NRC's stringent review requirements could create a safer process.

"We value the NRC review and input on the waste determination," said Shelly Sherritt, a DHEC liaison to SRS.

"Our concern is the process will take so long that it will cause the DOE to miss the compliance deadlines."

--Reach Josh Gelinas at (803) 648-1395, ext. 110, or josh.gelinas@augustachronicle.com.

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Las Vegas SUN
August 22, 2006

Nevada congressman calls proposed waste dump broken

By Kathleen Hennessey
Associated Press

YUCCA MOUNTAIN, Nev. (AP) - Rep. Jon Porter called Yucca Mountain "broken" and questioned its safety and science during a tour of the proposed nuclear waste repository Tuesday.

The Boulder City Republican is leading a House panel investigation into e-mails suggesting some of the project's quality assurance documents were falsified.

"(The Department of Energy) has made up its mind that it's safe and now they're having to build a case," Porter said. "But I don't trust the government's science."

The congressman was led through the site's main tunnel and to the mountain crest by the project's recently appointed director, Ward Sproat, and its chief scientist, Russ Dyer.

Dyer told Porter that the research done by the scientists involved in the e-mail scandal was being reviewed and recalculated at a cost of "tens of millions of dollars."

A review of a critical water infiltration experiment indicates that twice as much moisture as initially believed could pass through the granite where the nuclear material will be stored, he said.

Though water would likely be the vehicle to spread contamination if it came into contact with radioactive material, Dyer said the increase was not enough to cause concern.

"The infiltration model is the genesis of the project. If that is inaccurate, 20 years and $9 billion have been wasted," a skeptical Porter said. "Don't you think you ought to wait until you get the results?"

Dyer said the Energy Department, which is charged with building the waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, had enough information to continue.

"You'll never have absolute confidence. The question is do you have enough confidence to more forward," he said.

Sproat, who was on his first tour of the site since his May confirmation in the Senate, said he also had questions about the work done by the scientists and would be overseeing the research review carefully.

"It sounds like we're doing the right things, but I'm not taking somebody else's word for it," he said.

Porter suggested other sites should be considered.

"Why not New Mexico?" he asked officials.

Dyer said that state's soil was too salty to hold underground casks.

The Yucca Mountain repository is scheduled to open in 2017 and to hold 77,000 metric tons of the nation's spent nuclear fuel. The Energy Department plans to submit a licensing application in mid-2008.

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KRNV
August 22, 2006

Nevada Congressman Visits Proposed Waste Dump

Nevada Congressman Jon Porter is questioning the safety and science at the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

Porter toured the site today (Tuesday) as part of an investigation into allegations that some quality assurance documents relating to the project were falsified. Porter says he doesn't trust the government's science. He has subpoenaed documents related to his investigation, but has not received a draft of the licensing application from the administration.

Porter's opponent in the November election, Democrat Tessa Hafen, says the congressman isn't pushing hard enough to obtain the documents. Porter says he negotiating with the administration.

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Las Vegas SUN
August 23, 2006

Jon Ralston on what is evident early in the campaign for several top offices

Voters who attended the first forum of the general election season Monday evening received a rare window into three of the more important campaigns - a snapshot of where those races are and where they might go.

It's not what was said that mattered so much - nothing groundbreaking or revelatory came out of the mouths of candidates for governor, Congress and sheriff. But the styles of the contenders were revealing of the dynamics at play in their races as they took the Flamingo Library stage at an event sponsored by Congregation Ner Tamid.

Here are impressions gleaned from the moderator's vantage point 11 weeks from Election Day:

Governor: State Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus was her usual glib, wry and energetic self, puncturing Rep. Jim Gibbons with her "I've been on the front lines, he's been on the back bench" mantra. Titus provided specifics on a variety of issues raised by audience questions , but that is not to be confused with depth.

Titus can disgorge the patter as well as anyone and tick off her various "plans." But this is more of an exercise in platitudes than a presentation of platforms. It is, however, effective.

In response, Gibbons said ... nothing. He was not there.

And my guess is he won't be a lot of places Titus is during the next 11 weeks. She has asked for a debate essentially every other week, which would be a public service, illuminate the real differences and serve the voters quite well. And that's why it won't happen.

Gibbons figures he can win the race by debating a minimal number of times in the tightest of formats to diminish the advantages the dynamic Titus obviously has in such settings. All other things being unequal - his drawing power in the rurals and the north, his overwhelming financial advantage - he's probably right.

Congress: No one has yet been able to break down Rep. Jon Porter's robotic repetition of his message : talk about terrorism when the subject is Iraq, talk about working together (to get the job done) and play up his differences with the Bush administration - all he has is Yucca Mountain (ugh) and stem cell research (and doesn't everyone disagree with the president here?).

Porter was depressingly spectacular Monday , staying on his message with the focus of Andre Agassi in his prime and parrying Democrat Tessa Hafen's volleys with the retiring Vegas legend's deftness. Even the valiant moderator could not knock him off his game.

As for Hafen, she stayed on her message fairly well - Porter is for them, I'm for you . But she could not keep pace with his rhetoric and often seemed to cut herself short just as she was getting on a roll. She was crisp but tentative, intent but not expansive.

And to show the difference in experience, shameless as it was, Porter also presented the crowd with an "I love Israel" packet to show all the times he has supported the country. Do people see that as genuine or pandering? I wonder.

Sheriff: Undersheriff Doug Gillespie was never better than he was Monday, refusing to sound defensive about Metro and exuding confidence. He was not exactly John Wayne or Gary Cooper. But he was the very picture of a modern sheriff.

His problem, though, was that his opponent, Jerry Airola, was unflappable and facile with statistics as he pushed his mantra that Metro is not managed well. He was, I am sure to some folks there, convincing with his "time for a change" message as Gillespie was with his "we're not as bad as he makes us sound" theme.

Airola is slick and quick. And while I am not sure if those qualities are what voters seek in the top law enforcement job in the Las Vegas Valley, they have won campaigns before.

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Pahrump Valley Times
August 23, 2006

Report says DOE not correcting mistakes

Problems Could Cause Greater Yucca Delays

By Steve Tetreault

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy is still failing to do a good job correcting mistakes in its nuclear waste program, a problem that could affect safety and delay the proposed Yucca Mountain repository even more if it is not fixed, investigators said in a report issued Friday.

Since DOE put a new corrections program in place in October 2003, workers have reported more than 5,600 potential problems with data, software and computer models for repository designs.

But auditors found more than half of the most significant potential problems were not addressed in a timely manner, and mistakes continued to be repeated. More than 100 possible problems that should have been handled through formal corrective action were not managed properly, they added.

The 20-page report released by the Energy Department's inspector general underscored DOE's continuing struggle to manage details of the complex undertaking.

DOE had asked the inspector general to audit its corrections program, which was put in place after it was found that earlier systems for fixing deficiencies were not working.

DOE accepted the latest audit, and "initiated an aggressive plan of action to improve the program," according to the report.

"This review shows the commitment that this department has toward improving the management and oversight of the Yucca Mountain Project," DOE spokesman Craig Stevens said in a statement. "This comprehensive report will help us make certain that our processes and procedures are sound as we move forward."

Bob Loux, a repository critic and director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the latest audit spotlighted the same DOE problems as before with quality assurance.

"We have been seeing and hearing about these kinds of things for some time," Loux said. "If anything, the IG is understating the effect these problems have. In other nuclear facilities these things have resulted in cancellations."

The Energy Department has set a June 2008 goal to send the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a comprehensive application to license a repository where 77,000 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel would be handled and stored within Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Following an eight-month audit, inspectors said they were told by Yucca managers that some corrections "proved to be more complicated than anticipated." In some cases, corrections were delayed for budget reasons.

"As a result, potential conditions that could affect the ongoing design and analysis work may go unresolved," auditors said. Problems could delay NRC licensing to begin repository construction, they said.

DOE missed its original 1998 deadline to open a Yucca repository, and also abandoned a 2010 startup date. Its new target for repository operations is March 2017.

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Pahrump Valley Times
August 23, 2006

Meetings to address Yucca issues

PVT

The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board will host a workshop Sept. 25-26 in Las Vegas and will then meet Sept. 27 in Amargosa Valley to address various issues concerning Yucca Mountain.

The workshop will focus on the potential for localized corrosion of Alloy-22, a proposed material for waste packages in which radioactive waste will be disposed, under aqueous conditions that might exist in the proposed repository. The results of recent and ongoing testing related to the evolution of aqueous environments in the repository and the potential initiation, propagation, cessation and consequences of Alloy-22 localized corrosion will be addressed during the workshop.

The workshop is open to the public and will be held at the Las Vegas Marriott Suites, 325 Convention Center Drive; telephone 702-650-2000, fax 702-650-9466.

The workshop agenda will be available on the board's Web site (www.nwtrb.gov about one week before the date of the workshop.

A final meeting agenda for the board's Sept. 27 meeting in Amargosa Valley will also be available about one week before the meeting date atwww.nwtrb.gov and available by telephone.

The meeting will be held at 8 a.m. Sept. 27 at the Longstreet Inn and Casino, Stateline and Highway 373, in Amargosa Valley.

The meeting will be public and opportunities for comment will be provided.

The board will review the Department of Energy's efforts to develop and articulate a safety case for a proposed geologic repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain at this meeting.

The board was charged with conducting an independent review of the technical and scientific validity of DOE activities related to implementing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

Those who wish to speak are encouraged to sign the "public comment register" at the check-in table. A time limit may have to be set on individual remarks, but written comments of any length may be submitted for the record.

Transcripts for the workshop and the meeting will be available no later than Oct. 19 and Oct. 23, respectively, on the board's Web site,www.nwtrb.gov, by email, on computer disk and on a library-loan basis in paper format from Davonya Barnes of the board's staff.

For more information, contact Karyn Severson, NWTRB external affairs, 2300 Clarendon Blvd., Suite 1300, Arlington, VA 22201-3367; telephone 703-235-4473, fax 703-235-4495.

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Law.com
August 23, 2006

Nuclear-Fuel Lawsuits Spawn Damage Award Fallout

Rulings pending in six spent-fuel cases

Marcia Coyle
The National Law Journal

The federal government may soon face the first wave of damages awards in its long-running, multibillion-dollar breach-of-contract litigation with the nation's utilities over disposal of spent nuclear fuel.

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has damages decisions pending in six of the more than 60 originally filed cases, which, by some industry estimates, could cost the government upward of $50 billion.

Some judges in those six completed cases have indicated that they will be ruling imminently, which is good news to utilities and their lawyers, some of whom have waited as long as five years just for resolution of fully briefed summary judgment motions.

But even if damages are forthcoming, lawyers, like veteran government contract litigator Jerry Stouck of the Washington office of Greenberg Traurig, harbor no illusions that the end of this litigation saga, begun for some in 1998, is in sight.

"The Court of Federal Claims does a reasonably good job of getting the work done and resolving small disputes in government contracts and federal personnel cases, but when it comes to these big megacases, like Winstar [breach-of-contract suits against the government by savings and loan associations] and spent nuclear fuel, it's a very long and slow and hard row to fight the federal government," he said.

Stouck, who is handling four of the most recently completed six cases, said that he believes the utilities will "mostly win," and "big numbers are coming up pretty soon." But he also said that there is no doubt the government will appeal the damages awards.

"What's the downside for the government?" he asked. "There is no prejudgment interest charged. What does the government have to lose? Sure, there will be appeals."

Steven L. Schooner, senior associate dean for academic affairs and co-director of the government procurement law program at George Washington University Law School, agrees with Stouck.

"The Court of Federal Claims isn't going to do anything other than tee it up for the [U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit]," he said. "Could it go to the Supreme Court? Given the high stakes, maybe. You're talking about tens of billions of dollars."

FINDING A HOME

The spent nuclear fuel lawsuits charged that the federal government breached contracts entered into with utilities in 1983 under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. Under the act, the Department of Energy (DOE) was to begin picking up the utilities' spent nuclear fuel on Jan. 31, 1998, in return for payments by the utilities into the Nuclear Waste Fund for construction of a permanent waste site.

As a nuclear reactor operates, uranium is used up in the fission process that creates energy to generate electricity. Fission byproducts build up and eventually interfere with efficiency until the fuel can no longer produce energy. At that point, the fuel is "spent." But it continues to emit radiation, so it must be stored in basins of water or dry storage vaults or containers until its radiation drops to safe levels. That can take thousands of years.

On Jan. 31, 1998, there was no permanent repository for the spent fuel, and the federal government did not begin, as the contract required, to pick up that fuel. Many of the utilities were forced to build temporary on-site storage facilities for the spent fuel -- the costs of which are now the damages being sought in their litigation with the government.

The utilities already have paid more than $15 billion into the federal Nuclear Waste Fund for a permanent waste site. The government has designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the repository, but that site has been tied up in politics and litigation for years.

In July, DOE announced a new schedule for Yucca Mountain, projecting that the site will begin to accept nuclear waste in March 2017 instead of 2010, the previous prediction.

"We would think the 2017 date is extremely optimistic," said Jay E. Silberg of the Washington office of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, a nuclear attorney who has represented 19 utilities in the spent fuel litigation.

The 2017 date makes no allowances for the longer licensing hearing that will be required by the Yucca site, Silberg said, nor for related lawsuits.

"We know the Nevada people are very inventive with reasons why the project shouldn't go forward," he said.

In fact, the state of Nevada is in three federal courts right now on issues related to Yucca Mountain and anticipates additional lawsuits in the coming months, said Robert Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

"I honestly believe DOE is so incompetent and the site is so bad they'll never make progress on Yucca Mountain," predicted Loux. "Most people believe Yucca Mountain is a dead site or will be."

Repeated calls for comment to the DOE public affairs office were not returned.

Although a final resting place for the spent nuclear fuel is in doubt, some issues have been resolved in the litigation.

The Federal Circuit ruled in 2000 that the government did breach the contract. But the breach is a partial one, according to the court, and damages are limited to past damages.

"These contracts are still in force; the utilities are still paying fees into the Nuclear Waste Fund, and we all continue to expect and desire performance by DOE even though it's delayed," explained Stouck.

"Since there is the possibility of performance tomorrow, the courts said, 'If we award damages for the next 10 years and then DOE actually performs in five years, you might end up with windfall. Let's not speculate about when they will perform,'" he said.

Three New England utilities represented by Stouck initially sought about $500 million in damages out to 2010, the earliest date that DOE predicted Yucca Mountain would be ready until its latest prediction last month. The damages are the cost of constructing and then operating the on-site storage facilities.

But the "past" in terms of damages was defined as through 2002, said Stouck, whose three New England utilities, along with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), are awaiting damages rulings. For the three New England utilities, he sought about $200 million and about $92 million for PG&E through 2004.

"We're just at the beginning of construction for PG&E and we already know there is another $50 million in costs through 2006," he said.

But it is also clear that the utilities can come back for additional damages if delay continues, said Pillsbury's Silberg, an issue resolved by his representation of Indiana Michigan Power Co.

Most of the damages sought in that case, he said, were future damages. The company had not yet built its dry storage facility, Silberg said.

"We now have a clear right to go back and ask for those damages," he said. And Silberg said it is also clear now that damages awarded must be paid from the government's judgment fund, not from the Nuclear Waste Fund as the government argued.

"It was not appropriate for the utilities, in essence, to pay their own damages," he said. "The court agreed with us."

Of the 66 cases filed, six are awaiting damages decisions; seven have trial dates, most in 2007; about 40 have been stayed or are in various stages of discovery; nine have been dismissed; about three have settled; and two have closed after final judgments.

The only damage award made thus far has been in the suit brought by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The suit was filed in 2001 and sought $35.8 million in damages for the construction of dry storage facilities at TVA's Sequoyah and Browns Ferry nuclear plants. The court last January awarded $34.9 million for damages through 2004.

The government filed an appeal but withdrew it. Lawyers speculate the government did not pursue the appeal because it did not want a governmentwide ruling on an issue in the case peculiar to TVA: whether quasi-governmental agencies like TVA have standing to sue the government.

Two years ago, Exelon Corp. and its subsidiaries, Exelon Generation Co., Commonwealth Edison Co. and AmerGen Energy Co., settled their suits with the government.

Under the settlement agreement, Exelon was to receive $80 million immediately in gross reimbursements for storage costs already incurred, with additional amounts reimbursed annually for future costs. If a national repository opens by 2010, which now is unlikely, gross reimbursements to Exelon would eventually total about $300 million.

Settlements are rare in these megacases, said Stouck. "In the private sector, they settle. Both sides want to resolve that," he said. "That doesn't happen in Winstar or spent fuel, partly because of the magnitude, partly because of the precedential value of the early cases, and also the government has no real incentive to settle because no prejudgment interest is charged."

Key legal issues relating to the contract remain unresolved, such as how much waste the government was to begin picking up in 1998, and the schedule of pickup.

The government, according to Silberg, Stouck and others, never gives up on certain issues even when they have been resolved at the circuit level. It will reassert an unsuccessful argument into one case sometimes three years after it has lost it in another.

The Court of Federal Claims is partly to blame for the government's ability to do that, said Schooner of George Washington University.

"One of the problems with the Court of Federal Claims is it is not a disciplined court," said Schooner, an admitted critic of the court.

"In Winstar's first big damages case, Judge [Loren] Smith wrote a long, detailed opinion so everyone, he said, can follow his lead and Judge [Robert] Hodges came out a week later and said he was doing the exact opposite." Schooner added. "I think it's hard to say 'this court' with a straight face. You have a couple dozen independent contractors there."

But Stouck, Silberg and the other spent nuclear fuel lawyers are clearly prepared for the long haul.

Even if the government's ultimate liability, as suggested by DOE, is only $7 billion, Stouck wonders if that will impress anyone within government to solve the waste problem or whether it will have an impact on the renaissance of nuclear power in this country.

"Frankly, I'm a cynic," he said. "I would hope so, but I don't know."

Silberg is more of a fatalist.

"I attended my first high-level waste conference in 1979," he recalled. "I've spent 30 years trying to move these issues forward. This is the nuclear waste program after all. We never would have anticipated it would have taken this long with this litigation. Unfortunately, there are some judicial forums that take a very long time."

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New York Times
August 22, 2006

Slow Start for Revival of Nuclear Reactors

By Matthew L. Wald

BALTIMORE — Nobody in the United States has started building a nuclear power plant in more than three decades. Mayo A. Shattuck III could be the first.

As the chief executive of Constellation Energy, a utility holding company in Baltimore that already operates five nuclear reactors, Mr. Shattuck is convinced that nuclear power is on the verge of a renaissance, ready to provide reliable electricity at a competitive price. He has already taken the first steps toward achieving that, moving recently to order critical parts for a new reactor.

But Constellation´s neighboring utility, the PPL Corporation, takes a different view. Even though PPL has successfully operated two reactors since 1983, its chairman, William F. Hecht, said that he had no plans for new nuclear plants.

When nuclear reactors were first commercialized almost half a century ago, every self-respecting electric utility wanted one. They were encouraged by a government that saw nuclear energy as a peaceful, redemptive byproduct of the deadly power unleashed at Hiroshima. The federal official for promoting nuclear energy, Lewis L. Strauss, said it would produce electricity “too cheap to meter.’

It has never given consumers anything like that. But with the industry now consolidated so that most reactors are in the hands of a comparatively few operators, utility executives are sharply divided over whether nuclear power offers an attractive choice as they seek to satisfy a growing demand for electricity.

For them, the question comes down not so much to safety and environmental impact but to whether the potential reward is worth the financial risk. And those who already operate several reactors are prone to want more.

The debate within the utility industry over reviving nuclear power has taken on added importance, though, because unlike plants that burn coal and other fossil fuels, reactors do not produce gases that contribute to global warming.

And once again, Washington is encouraging utilities to push ahead. The summer of 2005´s energy bill offered a generous production tax credit, insurance against regulatory delays and loan guarantees. Earlier legislation gave the industry money to help plan new plants. And they continue to benefit from a ceiling on liability damages in case of an accident.

Despite nuclear power´s promise as a clean energy source that could hold down emissions of global warming gases, most environmentalists are skeptical of the latest claims by its advocates. They say that utilities, at best, will move ahead with a handful of plants that will receive lavish incentives from the government. But the risks of nuclear power are still so high, they argue, that no utility will be willing to put its own money into building a plant unless the federal government heavily subsidizes it.

“What dismays me about the present situation is the extent to which the Congress and the administration, and now an occasional state legislature, have rushed to anoint it as the solution to climate change,’ said Peter A. Bradford, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and former chairman of the public service commissions of both Maine and New York. If nuclear plants cannot compete without subsidies, he said, they should not be built.

Today, nuclear power supplies just under 20 percent of the electricity used in the United States. Its share has been slipping lately as new plants running on other fuels have come online.

With the price of natural gas increasing, coal has emerged once again as the most popular way to generate electricity, a trend that — if it continues — is expected to lead to a significant rise in emissions of carbon dioxide. The utility sector emits about a third of the carbon dioxide produced in this country, nearly all of that from coal.

Adding dozens more nuclear reactors to that mix could reverse the rise in carbon dioxide from the electricity-generating system, but its advance would also run up against certain limits.

Nuclear plants cannot replace all of the fossil fuel used in power generation because current nuclear designs do not easily alter the power output. Plants running on natural gas and coal, by contrast, can adjust their output over the course of a day to match demand.

For a long time, the underlying confidence of utilities in nuclear technology was moot because the economics would not support a new reactor; all those ordered after 1973 were canceled.

But now, because of high prices for natural gas and uncertainty about how emissions from coal plants will be regulated in the future, the nuclear industry is moving from near death to the prospect that perhaps a handful of plants will be ordered in the next few years. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission counts 27 potential reactors under consideration; 103 are now operable.

For all the momentum behind the push, however, there is still a high degree of skepticism within the utility industry.

PPL, for example, has successfully operated two reactors in Berwick, Pa., for 23 years. But with some utilities around the country making preliminary moves or joining consortiums to explore new designs, PPL is absent.

There are better places to put the money of shareholders, Mr. Hecht of PPL said. At the moment he sees a much greater advantage in cleaning up his coal-fired plants, investing $1.5 billion to scrub out most of the sulfur dioxide. That would not only benefit the environment but also generate pollution credits PPL can profitably sell.

That decision was “dull and basic,’ Mr. Hecht said, but adheres to a paramount goal: maximizing shareholder returns. He won´t rule out nuclear plants forever, Mr. Hecht said in an interview, but the business case would have to be a lot clearer than it is now.

“Technology often has zealots, it seems, behind it,’ he said of companies moving forward on nuclear power.

By contrast, Constellation Energy not only wants to build reactors for itself, it also has formed a partnership with a reactor manufacturer to build and operate them for other utilities.

“This organization has a history of feeling that they have done well in nuclear,’ Mr. Shattuck said. Constellation executives think that they “can continue to do well in nuclear and shouldn´t shy away from their responsibility.’

Constellation plans to apply for a reactor-operating license by the end of 2007, probably at either the Calvert Cliffs site in Maryland where it runs two nuclear reactors built in the 1960´s and 1970´s, or at Nine Mile Point, in Scriba, N.Y., on Lake Ontario, where it operates two reactors it bought in 2001.

Its decision has implications beyond the corporate bottom line for the global environment. There are also arguments over nuclear waste and the risk of accidents. Around New York City, especially, there is concern over reactors as terrorist targets.

But the risk that really matters to utility executives is financial. Among the companies that would actually build these plants, executives focus more on uncertain factors like the future price of power, the cost of producing competing fuels, and the cost of cleaning up coal plants to meet standards for the pollutants that Washington does regulate — sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and soot.

At this point companies do not face any constraints on carbon emissions.

Companies that want to build — among them Entergy, Dominion and Duke Energy — talk about new designs intended to further reduce the risk of an accident and their ability to manage nuclear waste until the government eventually opens a national waste repository.

Opponents often cite the risk of accidents and the problem of nuclear waste, but the companies that do not want to build say that those are not factors in their decisions.

When PPL builds a power plant, it usually sells the power first, and uses the signed contracts to reassure the investors and the bankers from whom it is seeking financing. “I´m not going to build any large generation unhedged,’ Mr. Hecht said.

But this is not easy with a nuclear plant. For one thing, Mr. Hecht said, no one could be sure when it would be finished. And despite the industry´s efforts to shorten the time from order to completion, it could still be 10 years, he said.

“If you build 1,000 megawatts,´´ he asked, “how are you going to find someone to buy it 10 years out, for 10 years after it is finished?’

A nuclear plant ordered in 2007 could well turn out to be a more economical power source in 2020 than a coal plant ordered at the same time, he said, but the range of uncertainty is much larger. He is content to let others take the lead.

Constellation Energy insists it is driving risk out of the proposition. Constellation, which doubled its nuclear bet in the 1990´s by buying more reactors as the utility industry reorganized, contends that it has demonstrated one marketable skill — running reactors profitably — and that it could quickly follow a new plant with a copycat, building both on time and on budget.

Constellation has an expertise gained in the early, difficult years of nuclear power, Mr. Shattuck said, citing Michael J. Wallace, president of his company´s generation division.

“Mike is the only executive in the utility sector today who was an executive responsible for building new nuclear plants last time around,’ he said. Mr. Wallace oversaw the construction and start-up of two nuclear plants built in Illinois: Byron, which fully entered commercial service in 1987, and Braidwood, the following year.

Constellation proposes a fleet of plants, identical down to the “carpeting and wallpaper,’ Mr. Shattuck said, reducing the design costs on subsequent reactors to near zero. Operating processes would be identical, and operators could be shuffled among the plants, something that is often impossible today even with adjacent reactors. The company wants partners that would offer either equity or operating skills.

Constellation has a partnership, called UniStar Nuclear, with Areva, the French-German company, which is owned by Framatome and Siemens, to build a model. One model is under construction in Finland.

“A lot of it is establishing a model that mitigates risk as you move forward,’ Mr. Shattuck said. “A lot of players out there haven´t quite figured out how they´re going to go to their boards and ask for $4 billion, for which I´ll get cash flows in 13 years.’

Last December, Constellation and FPL, parent of Florida Power and Light, announced that they would merge, creating the country´s largest competitive marketer of power. That would put the company in an even better position to build new reactors, Mr. Shattuck said.

Some experts, however, remain skeptical that new reactors should be built, although they acknowledge this is increasingly likely. In the last 20 years or so, said Mr. Bradford, the former regulator, utility restructuring has often shifted the risks of new construction from ratepayers to investors.

“What the Congress has done now, for the first six or so plants, is to find a third pocket,’ he said. “Now they´ve called upon the taxpayer to pony up.’

But even if a few plants are built, industry insiders do not expect nuclear power to assume a significantly greater role. Roger W. Gale, an electricity expert and former Energy Department official, asks several hundred utility executives each year what they foresee in their industry.

While they are convinced that a new plant will be ordered soon, the more than 100 senior utility executives who responded also said they do not expect “a future where nuclear generation represents a larger share of generation’ than today.

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EurekAlert
August 22, 2006

Contact: Elizabeth Thomson
thomson@mit.edu
617-258-5402
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT: Regional storage facilities could handle nuclear waste

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The Bush administration is eagerly pushing nuclear power as a way to help solve the U.S. energy crisis. But in its new plan for nuclear waste management, the administration is taking the wrong approach, says an MIT professor who studies the nuclear energy industry.

"My hope is that over time, the administration will rethink its priorities in this area," says Richard Lester, professor of nuclear engineering and director of the Industrial Performance Center.

In a recent article published in Issues in Science and Technology, Lester argued that the Bush administration's plan, known as GNEP (Global Nuclear Energy Partnership), is not the best way to encourage further development of nuclear energy.

GNEP, which President Bush announced earlier this year, is meant to stimulate the nuclear industry by coming up with better ways to manage spent nuclear fuel. The plan focuses on reprocessing spent fuel, but Lester believes the administration should focus on finding regional storage facilities for the nuclear waste.

Right now, uncertainty over how to deal with spent fuel, which remains radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, is one of the major obstacles to the construction of new plants. Thousands of spent fuel rods are now stored in secure pools or concrete casks located near nuclear plants, which is not considered a long-term solution.

The administration has been pushing a plan to move all of the nation's spent fuel to a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, but that facility is not scheduled to open until at least 2017. Many years and billions of dollars have gone into planning for the repository there, over the protests of Nevada residents, and success is still not assured. If the project fails, an alternative will be needed. And even if it succeeds, spent fuel will remain at nuclear power plants for decades before it can be removed.

Several nuclear energy companies have sued the federal government for failing to fulfill its contractual obligation to remove spent nuclear fuel from their plants. That failure does not bode well for construction of new plants, Lester said.

"If electric power companies can't believe the government is going to fulfill its obligations, it's going to be a real deterrent for them to go ahead with new power plants," he said.

In the meantime, the Bush plan calls for developing new technology to reprocess spent fuel to recover usable plutonium and uranium and eliminate other long-lived radioactive elements known as actinides. But according to Lester, the government's efforts would be better focused on other solutions, such as establishing a small number of regional facilities, where nuclear plants could send their spent fuel to be stored safely for several decades.

GNEP does not address the utilities' spent fuel storage problem. Instead, it "is being sold as a technical fix for three other problems," Lester said, but "each of these problems is either not as serious as the administration suggests or could be solved in a different way that is less costly and less risky."

Those perceived problems are lack of space at Yucca Mountain; the long life of radioactive material; and a potential shortage of uranium.

Yucca Mountain, a ridgeline geological formation about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has already been tunneled in preparation for waste storage. When Congress approved the Yucca Mountain site, it put a 70,000-metric-ton limit on the amount of waste that could be stored there, but there is room for much more if Congress wants to raise the limit, Lester said.

Any effort to remove the long-lived radioactivity from the waste would require construction of reprocessing plants, special "burner" reactors and other nuclear facilities, which would be costly and difficult to site. And even if these plants were successfully built, it would be nearly impossible to eliminate all of the long-lived radioisotopes in the waste, Lester says.

"When you really look at the technical feasibility of reducing the toxic lifetime of waste, it has less potential than the administration is claiming, and the costs and shorter-term risks of doing it are significant," he said. Moreover, according to Lester, there are other, less costly ways to reduce the long-term risks of nuclear waste disposal that the administration has ignored.

Supporters of GNEP also say that reprocessing spent fuel could be necessary in the future if uranium becomes scarce, but according to the 2003 MIT report, "The Future of Nuclear Power," there is enough uranium to last for several decades, even if many new nuclear plants are built.

Lester said he is not opposed to research on new fuel cycle technologies, but he argues that reprocessing will not be needed for several decades, if then, and that to spend billions of dollars over the next few years on demonstrating reprocessing and related technologies, as the administration is proposing, would not be a wise use of resources.

--Written by Anne Trafton

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Pioneer Press
August 22, 2006

Judge OKs nuclear waste storage

Move could extend Xcel power plant's life

By Dennis Lien
Pioneer Press

An administrative law judge recommended allowing Xcel Energy to store highly radioactive nuclear waste in above-ground containers at its Monticello, Minn., power plant.

The judge's recommendation sends the matter to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, which is expected to take it up next month. Its decision will be final next year unless the Legislature gets involved.

Minneapolis-based Xcel wants to store fuel in as many as 30 steel and concrete containers at the Monticello plant as part of its application for a 20-year license extension. Xcel uses a similar "dry cask'' system at its Prairie Island nuclear plant near Red Wing, Minn.

More storage is key to extending the life of the Monticello plant, located about 50 miles northwest of the Twin Cities. The plant's 40-year license expires in 2010.

Reprocessing the spent fuel or storing it elsewhere aren't options, Judge Steve Mihalchick decided. Moreover, he said, closing the plant would hurt Xcel's customers and the public. Replacing the plant with other types of power generation would drive up prices and result in more pollution, he added.

At hearings in February, several people and groups questioned the health, safety and environmental effects of storing spent fuel in the casks. But others called the approach safe and said the plant is a critical source of low-cost electricity.

Xcel has contended that keeping the plant open is the best option for supplying low-priced electricity and for avoiding air pollution from plants that burn coal or natural gas.

Since 1994, the Legislature has twice endorsed storing spent fuel in casks at the Prairie Island plant.

A permanent site to store the nation's spent fuel has been proposed at Yucca Mountain, Nev., but that site won't be available soon enough to take the Monticello plant's fuel. Xcel also is pursuing a private-storage option in Utah, but that option is being challenged.

Dennis Lien can be reached at dlien@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5588.

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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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