Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, August 31, 2006
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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
August 31, 2006
September/October 2006
Letters: Mounting debate
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"The decision-making process must be fair, open, and transparent. Yet, the drive for a Yucca Mountain repository has exhibited none of these attributes."
In "Stuck on a Solution" (May/June 2006 Bulletin), Allison MacFarlane provides an insightful and notably clear discussion of the factors contributing to the continued troubled status of the proposed national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. It's always gratifying to those of us in Nevada when someone with a scientific background faithfully researches and reports the policy and technology quagmire that is Yucca Mountain. Unlike our European and Canadian counterparts, the United States has yet to engage in critical reassessments about potential nuclear waste disposal options.
In 1999, as governor-elect, I joined my predecessor, Governor Bob Miller, in reiterating the site's unsafe nature to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. With the benefit of seven more years of scientific investigation, it remains clear that Yucca Mountain should have been disqualified as a repository under the Energy Department's Site Recommendation Guidelines. Instead, Energy revised the guidelines, eliminating Yucca Mountain's preestablished disqualifying conditions from the site suitability evaluation.
In 2002, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended Yucca Mountain to President George W. Bush as a suitable repository. Hence, Congress, overriding my statutory Notice of Disapproval, designated the site for a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
To succeed in the essential task of protecting people and the environment from the unprecedented dangers of nuclear waste now and in the future, the unqualified safety of a repository is paramount. The decision-making process must be fair, open, and transparent. Yet, for the past 20 years, the drive for a Yucca Mountain repository has exhibited none of these attributes.
Kenny C. Guinn
Governor, State of Nevada
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"Stuck on a Solution" gives a thorough analysis of the effort to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. It identifies many of the problems with the science underpinning the proposed repository— including the impossibility of forecasting geochemical interaction and threats posed by the area's water flow and volcanic activity.
Unfortunately, from the moment my home state of Nevada was designated as the recipient of our nation's nuclear waste, the process has ignored such science. The Energy Department overlooks the science because it wants to open Yucca Mountain at any cost, eschewing all safety and efficiency concerns. In Nevada, we do not take the health and security of our families lightly, and we will not stand silent in this battle.
Nor are we alone in questioning Yucca Mountain's feasibility. Most scientists agree that a viable, safe, and secure alternative to a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain could be a reality within a decade. Already, on-site dry cask storage—one possible alternative—is in use at 34 sites throughout the country. The Nuclear Energy Institute projects that 83 of the 103 active reactors will possess dry cask storage by 2050. With this in mind, I've introduced the Spent Fuel On-Site Storage and Security Act—along with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. The act mandates that nuclear waste remain stored at its production facility and requires the federal government to take responsibility for possession, stewardship, maintenance, and monitoring of the waste while searching for a solution predicated on solid science. The choice is clear. We can either spend an additional $60 billion on a mountain filled with unpredictable seismic activity, or we can allocate a fraction of that money to safely store nuclear waste on-site while investing in recycling technology to turn one of the world's most toxic substances into a clean energy alternative.
Sen. John Ensign
Republican, Nevada
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Allison Macfarlane misplaces the emphasis in her skepticism about performance assessment modeling at Yucca Mountain. Macfarlane rightly criticizes this repository project; but rather than sweepingly dismiss performance modeling, she should have pointed out the Energy Department's failure to craft a repository design that exploits the site's natural characteristics and employs well-understood diffusion phenomena.
In "Proof of Safety at Yucca Mountain" (October 21, 2005 Science), we addressed Energy's missed opportunity. Since the site resides 200-300 meters above the water table, movement of water in the rock is slight and occurs only through fractures. But the presence of high humidity and oxygen in repository tunnels means waste containers need protection from corrosion.
Modeling the complex corrosion process over many tens of thousands of years as it affects key elements in Energy's most recent designs—a nickel-alloy outer layer for the waste container and a titanium "drip shield" over the container—is not a credible undertaking. We advocate a capillary barrier concept. First, a layer of coarse gravel is placed around waste containers; then a layer of fine sand is draped over the gravel. Strong capillary forces in the sand would seize any water dripping from the tunnel ceiling and move it slowly away. Proof of safety turns on the gravel layer, however, where capillary forces are absent.
Ultimately, the containers fail by corrosion from the omnipresent water vapor and oxygen. But the radioactive elements that emerge to form a thin coating on gravel particles would diffuse so slowly within the gravel that they're effectively trapped. Compared to corrosion chemistry, such diffusion serves as a far simpler physical process that lends itself to laboratory mockups and extrapolations over vast periods of time. Although absolute proof of safety remains beyond reach, the capillary barrier concept deserves urgent attention and testing.
Luther J. Carter
Independent journalist, author
Washington, D.C.
Thomas H. Pigford
Professor emeritus of nuclear engineering
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, California
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Allison Macfarlane correctly concludes that a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain serves as "the best solution to the nuclear waste problem." However, Macfarlane errs in arguing that science does not prove Yucca Mountain's viability as a repository. Twenty years of study by more than 2,500 scientists at the most prestigious U.S. national laboratories and at the world's leading universities has overwhelmingly proved its viability.
Macfarlane similarly misses the mark in contending that performance assessment isn't a valid tool for appraising repository safety. For years, scientists have understood that they must account for a wide range of complex factors when considering the long-term isolation of nuclear waste. To do so, they've developed an analytical methodology known as safety assessment, also called performance assessment. These assessment tools include comprehensive models of all repository systems that simulate how these systems interact during a broad range of future scenarios.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, whose work Macfarlane cites to support her assertion that performance assessments don't work, actually reached the opposite conclusion. The agency devoted an entire chapter to the subject in its 2003 report, "Scientific and Technical Basis for the Geological Disposal of Radioactive Wastes," deducing, "Safety can be evaluated ... using Safety Assessment/Performance Assessment as the main tools." Based on this comprehensive scientific research, the nuclear energy industry believes quite confidently that Yucca Mountain meets the requirements for safely disposing of used nuclear fuel.
Rod McCullum
Director for Yucca Mountain Project,
Nuclear Energy Institute
Washington, D.C.
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ALLISON MACFARLANE RESPONDS:
I appreciate Governor Guinn and Senator Ensign's sentiments, but I disagree with Senator Ensign's suggestion that reprocessing solves the nuclear waste problem. Though it might decrease the volume of high-level waste, reprocessing does not decrease its heat production—and therefore the volume required for waste disposal. Reprocessing also creates huge amounts of low- and intermediate-level waste that will require disposal at separate waste sites. Moreover, reprocessing costs more than direct disposal and creates a proliferation threat.
Rod McCullum is incorrect when he writes that I believe Yucca Mountain provides "the best solution to the nuclear waste problem." I stated that a geologic repository is the best solution, not Yucca Mountain. Moreover, his defense of Yucca based on the amount of time and money the Energy Department has spent on the project is specious. Time and money don't necessarily equal meaningful results. McCullum also misunderstands my objections to the use of performance assessment to determine Yucca's compliance with EPA standards. On thermodynamic grounds it's impossible to validate performance assessment models; therefore Energy's case supporting performance assessment results falls apart.
Finally, though interesting, Luther Carter and Thomas Pigford's idea of a capillary barrier reflects another engineered solution for a proposed nuclear waste repository with inadequate geology. Wouldn't it make more sense to select a more suitable site instead?
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Deseret News
August 31, 2006
Nuclear waste storage plan would strain NRC, official says
By Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret Morning News
WASHINGTON — If Congress approves a pending temporary storage plan for the nation's nuclear waste, it might overwhelm the government agency that would be in charge of regulating it, according to its chairman.
The House and Senate will decide later this year whether to adopt a temporary waste storage option that could move nuclear waste from commercial power reactors to regional sites until the federal site in Nevada would open.
New Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Dale Klein said the plan that could put up to 37 temporary sites across the country "would cause a burden on the NRC."
The commission knows how to regulate "at-reactor" storage, Klein said. The commission has approved numerous storage casks at nuclear power plants as companies still wait for the permanent federal storage at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The commission has also approved a license for Private Fuel Storage, a planned storage site in Tooele County supported by a handful of nuclear power utilities. PFS is currently looking for more investors to help construct the storage site as well as way to move the waste into Utah. Utah's congressional delegation and the state have been fighting the project.
Storing waste at reactors can be done safely, Klein said, but the sheer volume of the workload associated with evaluating potential interim storage sites would strain the NRC staff to the point where the work would need to go to contractors or the commission would have to make new hires.
Klein said the commission would follow whatever law Congress passed pertaining to the temporary storage of waste.
"It's not our job to determine what's preferable," Klein said.
Congress will come back in session after Labor Day and have to tackle a host of legislation, including the energy and water spending bills.
The Senate still needs an initial vote on its bill that contains $10 million to start a federal temporary storage program, which could include these regional storage sites. The Senate bill specifically disqualifies Utah from getting a federal site because PFS already has a license, but the bill does not prohibit companies from using PFS instead of a government waste facility.
The House passed its version of the energy and water spending bill, which contained $30 million for the temporary storage of nuclear waste, saying the government could consider private sites as well as federal facilities to store it.
--E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com
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San Luis Obispo Tribune
August 31, 2006
PG&E to appeal Diablo ruling
Utility taking case to U.S. Supreme Court; SLO Mothers for Peace had originated the suit
By David Sneed
dsneed@thetribunenews.com
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a ruling that requires federal regulators to analyze the effects of a terrorist attack on an above-ground, radioactive-waste-storage facility now under construction at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.
The utility and the chairman of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Wednesday the challenge of a lower court ruling.
At a briefing in Washington, D.C., NRC Chairman Dale Klein said PG&E has opted to take the case to the Supreme Court, rather than appeal it back to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Jeff Lewis, Diablo Canyon spokesman, confirmed the utility’s intention to appeal to the Supreme Court.
"PG&E believes that the (appeals) court erred in its decision and the U.S. Supreme Court should have an opportunity to correct it," he said.
An appeal to the Supreme Court will give the Diablo Canyon case greater national significance.
Legal experts have said the appeals court ruling is already causing government agencies to reconsider the amount of public involvement they allow in defending against terrorist attacks.
The Supreme Court has given PG&E until Sept. 29 to file the appeal. Details of the appeal will not be made public until it is filed, Lewis said.
Justice Anthony Kennedy rules on motions related to the 9th Circuit, said Diane Curran, attorney for the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, the group that originated the lawsuit.
The anti-nuclear group argues that PG&E’s dry-cask storage for highly radioactive spent reactor fuel needs more scrutiny because it could be vulnerable to terrorists. Those casks, made out of concrete and steel, would be mounted above ground on a hillside behind the power plant.
In the past, the NRC and PG&E have argued that federal law does not require such an environmental review because the possibility of a terrorist attack is too speculative.
NRC spokesman David McIntyre said his agency will not join PG&E in the lawsuit.
"We will most likely file an amicus brief in support of it," he said.
Crews at Diablo Canyon are constructing thick concrete pads upon which the large dry-cask cylinders loaded with used reactor fuel assemblies will be mounted. The legal wrangling does not stop work on the project, Lewis said.
Mothers for Peace sued the NRC in federal court over its refusal to examine the potential environmental impacts of a terrorist attack on the storage facility.
The Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled in favor of the group and has directed the agency to go back and do the analysis.
PG&E is running out of room to store used fuel rods in its two waste storage pools. The federal repository for such spent fuel, Yucca Mountain in Nevada, is nowhere near ready for shipments. So PG&E has come up with the dry-cask method as an interim way to store the used fuel.
--Reach David Sneed at 781-7930.
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Kansas City Star
August 31, 2006
Safe disposal of waste is top priority
U.S. not ready to boost reliance on nuclear power
Some U.S. utilities and elected officials are pushing hard to increase the country’s reliance on nuclear power. They haven’t made their case.
The federal government has yet to show that high-level nuclear waste can be safely kept at a long-delayed permanent storage area in Nevada. The waste currently is kept at reactors around the nation, including one each in Missouri and Kansas. It’s a risky way to stockpile such hazardous materials.
But supporters of nuclear power have friends in high places. Last year, Congress approved tax credits and guaranteed loans for utilities to pursue more reactors. President Bush backs new plants, too.
Nuclear power does not contribute to global warming. And high prices for natural gas and oil have boosted the cost of running many power plants.
But the government more than 20 years ago promised to develop a place to keep nuclear waste, which remains dangerous for many years. Utilities have collected billions from their customers to build the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada.
Once scheduled to open in 1998, it won’t start taking waste for at least another six years. Given that dismal track record, immediately expanding the use of nuclear power can’t be justified.
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The Peacock Report
August 30, 2006
DoE Plans Further Volcanic, Seismic Testing at Yucca Mountain Nuke Dump
Further assessments of volcanic and seismic activity near the proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Depository in Nevada is planned for early 2007, according to a Dept. of Energy (DoE) procurement document that The Peacock Report has obtained. Whereas DoE has previously claimed that volcanic activity is unlikely for the next 10,000 years, the State of Nevada rejected that claim as unfounded. Bechtel SAIC Co., DoE's prime contractor for the nuclear waste site, will outsource this testing, which will involve the deep drilling of 44 boreholes in a location known as Area 25 of the Nevada Test Site.
DoE anticipates releasing a more detailed Request for Proposals on or around Oct. 16, 2006. "The estimated period of performance is to begin work in January 15, 2007 with an expected duration not to exceed six (6) months," the Aug. 28 presolicitation notice said.
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Knoxville News Sentinel
August 30, 2006
Munger: Latest nuclear proposal revives memory of MRS
By Frank Munger
Back in the mid-1980s, Oak Ridge was the prime candidate for a controversial facility known as MRS, which stood for Monitored Retrievable Storage.
The U.S. Department of Energy was touting a billion-dollar facility as a place to safely store the nation's burgeoning inventory of spent nuclear fuel until it could be disposed of permanently.
The proposal sparked a years-long debate until Congress finally nixed the idea of having an interim storehouse for thousands of tons of spent fuel.
Tennessee's Democratic senators at the time - Jim Sasser and Al Gore - both opposed the plan, as did many others, despite the potential economic benefits. The biggest concerns were that a storage facility, even one with the best science and technology available, might prove dangerous to local residents or that a temporary staging ground might ultimately become a permanent home for the very hot stuff.
After the MRS proposal went away, U.S. nuclear policy went back to a holding pattern. Most nuclear reactor facilities in the United States continue to store their used fuel on site while awaiting the long-delayed opening of the Yucca Mountain repository for high-level nuclear waste.
The Bush administration is reworking policy and wants to develop capabilities for reprocessing spent fuel as a way to support nuclear as the nation's energy future. Interestingly, Oak Ridge - Tennessee's "Atomic City" - may again be part of this debate.
The Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee, or CROET, is planning to submit an application for a grant, up to $5 million, to study possible Oak Ridge sites for a spent-fuel processing facility. The area being considered is a 4,000-acre slice of land on the west end of the Department of Energy's reservation alongside Highway 95.
Officials are being cautious in describing the Oak Ridge interest.
Oak Ridge City Council will meet Sept. 5 to consider a resolution supporting a grant to study the potential sites, but Mayor David Bradshaw, in a memo to city council members, said that does not commit Oak Ridge to accepting a nuclear facility.
Lawrence Young, president of CROET, emphasized the same point.
At this stage, the important thing is to analyze whether any sites on the DOE reservation are appropriate for such a nuclear project, Young said.
The Bush administration has identified a couple of facilities that might be developed as part of its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership program: a processing plant to extract useful products from the spent fuel and a burner reactor that would generate electricity while "transmuting" some of the fuel's long-lived radioactive elements into shorter-lived fission products.
Young said he understands there might be other facilities or projects available as part of the nuclear program. "We're not trying to limit or narrow what components might come here," he said.
At this point, Young said, the goal is to get the maximum amount of study money: $5 million.
Science Applications International Corp. is CROET's contractor on the project and will file the application, Young said. If Oak Ridge is successful in winning the grant money, SAIC or a subcontractor would perform the site studies, he said.
CROET already has obtained letters of support from the mayors of Knox, Anderson and Roane counties, he said.
Young isn't naive. He knows that any project involving tons of highly radioactive spent fuel will carry controversy with it. But that's something to be dealt with later if the project becomes more than just an idea, he said.
"The analysis is what's paramount now," Young said. It's difficult to make a decision on whether a project is politically palatable or environmentally suitable until basic information is gathered, he said.
Even if the site is deemed unacceptable for spent-fuel work, the study could prove valuable for future projects, Young said.
--Senior writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News Sentinel. He may be reached at 865-342-6329 or at munger@knews.com. This column is also available in the opinion section of knoxnews.com.
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Detroit Free Press
August 30, 2006
Nuclear power site returns to nature
Consumers restores Big Rock Point
By John Flesher
Associated Press
Nine years after the Big Rock Point nuclear power plant near Charlevoix stopped generating electricity, Consumers Energy said Tuesday it has finished demolishing the structure and returning the woodsy grounds to their natural condition.
"We're extremely proud that we have met our promise to return the site to a greenfield," company spokesman Tim Petrosky said.
Originally constructed for research and development by the Atomic Energy Commission, forerunner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Big Rock Point began generating power in 1962.
It started commercial operations three years later, generating 67 megawatts from its boiling water reactor, and became the nation's oldest operating commercial nuclear plant in 1993.
The reactor was housed in a round, aquamarine containment building perched by the edge of Lake Michigan. Motorists driving along U.S.-31 a few miles north of Charlevoix could glimpse the structure through the trees.
Although licensed to operate until 2000, Consumers shut down Big Rock Point in August 1997, saying it wasn't economically feasible to continue operations.
The plant has since been torn down. Its reactor was shipped to a low-level nuclear waste landfill in Barnwell, S.C.
But the spent fuel rods will remain on the premises inside concrete and steel casks until a national storage site for high-level radioactive waste is available.
The Department of Energy plans to open such a facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada by March 2017, despite local opposition.
Consumers Energy, the principal subsidiary of Jackson-based CMS Energy Corp., says tests have detected the barest trace of plant-generated radiation remaining at the Big Rock Point site.
The company says the grounds are suitable for any use, including residential development, but that it hopes to sell them to the state for public recreation.
Most of the 475-acre property is heavily wooded. It includes 1.5 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline.
"It's the largest undisturbed piece of Lake Michigan frontage in this part of the state," said Tom Bailey, executive director of the Little Traverse Conservancy, which supports government acquisition of the site.
The area is culturally significant. For centuries it was a seasonal gathering spot for American Indians.
It also hosts numerous endangered and threatened species, including the piping plover and plants such as Pitcher's thistle and Lake Huron tansy.
The conservancy is helping the Michigan Department of Natural Resources seek state and federal grants, but no purchase deal has been reached, Bailey said.
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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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