Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
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Nevada Observer
September 1, 2006
Nine Billion Dollars And They Still Can't Get It Right --- Porter
Corrective Action Program Not Effectively Managed --- DOE IG
by Johnny Gunn
When the Inspector General (IG) of an agency the size of the Department of Energy (DOE) says a large part of your operation is not "effectively managed," or when a House of Representative sub-committee chairman says your program is "broke," it should indicate that it is time to have some serious discussion about the program in question. Particularly when more than $9 billion dollars has been spent with no end in sight.
One thing about Inspectors General reports, they rarely pull a punch, and in a memorandum from DOE IG Gregory H. Friedman to the DOE secretary, there were many serious punches thrown. Will those that are attempting to get a license procedure underway for the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository understand? They never have in the past. "As part of this complex process (licensing) the Department is required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to implement a quality assurance program for the data, software, and models supporting the license application." After saying that, Friedman blistered the program this way. "Since the implementation of the new Corrective Action Program in October 2003, over 5,600 conditions have been reported for the Yucca Mountain Project."
Friedman said an audit of the quality assurance program at Yucca was created in 2005. "The Corrective Action Program was not effectively managing and resolving conditions adverse to quality at the Yucca Mountain Project." It was pointed out in the memo that "Corrective actions were not always effective. We found that conditions continued to recur even after management reported that appropriate corrective actions had been taken."
Nevada Congressman Jon Porter (R) has been holding hearings to look into problems with the quality assurance program at Yucca Mountain, and as has been reported over and over in the press and in Senate hearings, DOE doesn't seem to understand that lying to the public, to Congress, to their own watchdogs is not the way to get licensed. Inter-departmental communications have been found to be allegedly false and to make matters worse, according to Porter, two sets of quality assurance books may have been maintained, one set purporting to be accurate but not so, and the other, for internal use only, accurate.
Now it seems that much of what has been known about water infiltration may not have been reported properly. After 20 years, said Porter, after spending more than $9 billion, "isn't it time DOE got something right?" Porter believes that information that has been distributed dealing with water infiltration may be off by as much as one hundred percent. DOE officials are saying that the alleged fraudulent e-mails from their hydrologists "are being reviewed."
DOE's IG Friedman said, Yucca Mountain officials "did not always: (1) support employee participation in the process; (2) make needed improvements to the system and procedures; (3) review the effectiveness of corrective actions; and (4) utilize the system's trend analysis capabilities to identify repeat occurrences and generic issues." Friedman continued, "Additionally, the resolution of conditions was not always timely because, as we were told by site managers, some corrective actions proved to be more complicated than anticipated and, in some cases competing budgetary priorities delayed necessary remedial activities."
The less than favorable report from the Inspector General comes on the heels of DOE's report to Congress that everything is moving along at a pace that will allow the Yucca Mountain Repository to open within the next 15 years. Or so. Maybe. More than 75,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste is sitting at power plants and weapons depots across the country, and the stockpile has been building since the early 1980s. Administration after administration has been responsible for disaster after disaster as far as plans for a geologic repository for waste is concerned. The waste that already exists is also the capacity of the Yucca repository.
After all these years, even if DOE had done everything right from the git-go, Yucca Mountain would be obsolete at this time and the only plans that are known to exist is to change all the plans and make the Yucca capacity larger. At this time DOE cannot make the Yucca repository compliant with NRC demands for licensing, and now they want to enlarge the capacity with a whole new set of unknown plans. This has been the operational problem from the early 1980s. There never has been a concrete set of plans, procedures, or science to create a Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. With every new set of problems discovered comes a new set of plans.
There is one over riding factor that should never be forgotten in this discussion that has been continuing for more than 20 years. Lives are at stake. Well over 75,000 tons of the most toxic element that can be imagined will be transported over public rail and road ways and then stored underground if DOE gets their license approved and they are able to finalize all the other parts of the program. Right now, it would be hard to imagine anything more dangerous than the transportation factor alone. Forget water mitigation, forget fraudulent quality assurance programs, even forget questionable casks to store the deadly waste, just concentrate on the transportation factor.
Trainload after trainload of deadly nuclear waste making its way from all corners of the country to a tiny little railhead in southern Nevada. Would there be a better target for a terrorist group? Scientists all over the world are working to develop a way to re-use the waste, in some cases it appears more than just progress has been made. In France nuclear power plants are using re-processed fuel. Nuclear waste is stacking up around the world, and Yucca Mountain should not be considered a primary source for handling it. Until so many questions are answered, Yucca Mountain should not be considered as any kind of nuclear dump, geologic or surface.
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Colorado Springs Gazette
September 05, 2006
Our View - Tuesday
Nuclear twilight: Energy sector wary of re-investing in plants
What if the United States rolled out the welcome mat for the construction of new nuclear power plants . . . and no one showed up to build them? For the nonukes crowd, that would be a victory. But it would be a hollow victory for the rest of Americans, who get 20 percent of their electricity from an aging nuclear energy industry that’s just hanging on by its electrons.
Some alarmists dread a nuclear energy revival in the United States, evoking specters of meltdowns, Chernobyls and three-eyed fish to bolster their naysaying. But a growing number of Americans also seem to recognize that nuclear energy, while not without risks, is on balance a “cleaner” and better alternative that the same old, same old. Concerns about climate change have even prompted some pragmatic environmentalists to take a second look at the nuclear option, given that these facilities don’t emit so-called greenhouse gases. The Bush administration, Department of Energy and some members of Congress have been offering proposals meant to stimulate a revival.
But as The New York Times reported, it may be hard attracting companies back into nuclear energy, even with a helping hand from the federal government, given a regulatory and political climate that makes such ventures risky. Despite Washington’s dangling of incentives, “utility executives are sharply divided over whether nuclear power offers an attractive choice as they seek to satisfy a growing demand for electricity,” reported the Times. “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.”
Given the regulatory and political roadblocks that can stand in the way, it can take up to 10 years to construct a new nuclear power plant. And one of the biggest uncertainties confronting would-be builders is what to do about the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuels, since this country’s efforts to deal with that issue have bogged down in politics and protests. Even after years of study, and billions of dollars paid by utilities to the federal government for the design and construction of an underground waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, that project is in trouble and a solution recedes from view.
Until the nation moves forward on a serious storage solution — and we believe Yucca Mountain is still the best option out there — the energy sector likely will remain skittish about reinvesting in nuclear plants. New reactors can operate for years in spite of the nonsolution of storing waste on-site, in temporary facilities. But why would companies and potential investors think about betting on atomic power again, if the country can’t address this central, but not insurmountable challenge?
In one hopeful note, a consortium of energy companies last week broke ground on a $1.5 billion uranium enrichment plant near Eunice, N.M. — the first major nuclear facility built in this country in 30 years. Whether it will supply American reactors is far from certain, however, a point underscored when Sen. Pete Domenici, while heralding the groundbreaking as the start of a “nuclear renaissance,” talked mostly about what a great thing this would be for the folks in Brazil and Asia.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has 27 potential new reactors under consideration, to augment the 103 aging units currently operating. But “under consideration” shouldn’t be confused with “under construction.” While a few companies remain bullish on nuclear, “there is still a high degree of skepticism within the utility industry,” reports the Times. One Pennsylvania utility that operates two reactors seems disinclined to invest in new ones. “There are better places to put the money of shareholders,” a company executive told the newspaper.
While nuclear power plants may not disappear from the American landscape altogether, most of 100 senior utility execs surveyed said they did not expect “a future where nuclear generation represents a larger share of generation” than it does today. Instead of a nuclear renaissance, in other words, what the country seems to be inviting is a nuclear dark age, even while the rest of the world boldly moves forward.
Property rights put to the test in California
California residents have a wonderful opportunity on Election Day to restore some semblance of property rights in a state that, for years, has been frighteningly hostile to private property. Proposition 90, the Protect Our Homes Initiative, is designed mainly to stop cities from taking homes, businesses and farmland and handing it over to private developers who promise to do something “better” with the property.
Eminent domain abuse was given the U.S. Supreme Court’s stamp of approval in last year’s notorious Kelo decision, in which the court said cities can take anyone’s property and give it to any private entity that promises to pay more taxes than the current owner. The decision, although wrongheaded, did emphasize that states have every right to restrict eminent domain abuse.
Prop. 90 would do just what the court suggested. The proposition states that “Private property may be taken or damaged only for a stated public use. Private property may not be taken or damaged for private use.” That phrase echoes the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, which allows eminent domain only for public uses. Prop. 90 would not allow California governments to twist the meaning of “public” to suit their purposes. And the initiative would force governments to pay for the property they do take at its highest and best use.
Local government officials, liberal interest groups, professional planners and “new urbanists” all hate Prop. 90, because it would put a crimp in their power and grand plans. But we’re hopeful that Golden Staters will embrace the measure as a means of reasserting their property rights.
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Las Vegas SUN
September 03, 2006
Looking In On: Washington
By Lisa Mascaro
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission needs a few hundred good engineers. The commission's new chairman, Dale Klein, said hiring is in full swing as the body that approves new power plants prepares for the onslaught of license applications coming from the nuclear power industry.
The first nuclear plants in a generation are expected to start being developed as part of the Bush administration's nuclear power renaissance. Klein said the commission expects applications for 27 new plants from more than a dozen different entities.
To handle the deluge, the commission is hiring 300 to 400 engineers annually, hoping to net 200 after attrition. Offices are being carved out of conference rooms.
But the commission that will also decide on Yucca Mountain's application to become the nation's nuclear waste repository is not yet ramping up for that job. Klein said the commission has been frustrated by false starts in the past with Yucca Mountain .
Klein said he'll be looking for milestones in the Energy Department's work before he invests in staff.
--Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com.
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Sioux City Journal
September 04, 2006
Nebraska nuclear plants expanding storage for used fuel
OMAHA (AP) -- As they wait for a national storage site to be built, Nebraska's two nuclear power plants are expanding their on-site storage systems for used fuel.
Nebraska Public Power District is spending $45 million and the Omaha Public Power District $23 million on the first phase of expanded storage systems for the high-level radioactive waste, the utilities said.
Expansion already is under way at OPPD's Fort Calhoun plant. Work at NPPD's Cooper Nuclear Station is a few years away.
Other nuclear plants are expanding their storage systems because they are running out of room in what were originally to be transitional storage systems.
The federal government had hoped to build a single national storage site in Nevada, but scientific and political controversy have set back the project by about 20 years. That site is projected to last 10,000 years.
It will be at least 2017 before the Yucca Mountain site could begin taking fuel. By then, the nation's nuclear plants will have generated more waste than Yucca Mountain is licensed to store.
OPPD spokesman Jeff Hanson said the utility plans to spend a total of $43 million for its long-term storage system at Fort Calhoun.
Cost estimates for NPPD's Cooper plant near Brownville were not available.
When the nation's nuclear plants were built decades ago, the federal government committed to taking care of the spent fuel.
The material remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.
Rod McCullum of the Nuclear Energy Institute trade association said he expects a couple of solutions to nuclear waste.
McCullum said he believes Yucca Mountain eventually will open and that it will be expanded. He said the federal government also will permit reuse of nuclear waste someday.
Within 20 years, McCullum said, nuclear plants should see their growing stock of used fuel begin to diminish.
The OPPD and NPPD plants' original storage facilities are deep pools of water that shield people from radiation but require heavy maintenance. Continuously recirculated, the water removes some of the intense heat coming off the fuel rods.
These pools are considered at greater risk of catastrophe than the long-term storage systems, in which fuel bundles are encased in steel barrels surrounded by concrete. Air movement around the barrels passively cools the waste.
Representatives of both utilities say they have no intention of turning their nuclear campuses into permanent storage sites for their waste.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 03, 2006
From Our Readers: Yucca Mountain dead? Don't believe it
By Marvin Fertel
Special to the Review-Journal
Gov. Kenny Guinn confuses the politics of Yucca Mountain with reality in his Aug. 21 assertion that the federal repository project for used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from U.S. defense programs "appears to be headed toward the trash bin of history" (commentary, "Is the Yucca Mountain Project in peril?").
Under any scenario for managing used nuclear fuel that produces 20 percent of America's electricity, a specially designed, underground repository will be needed to safely secure the material. This is true even if Congress shifts U.S. policy to recycle the enormous energy potential that remains in nuclear fuel rods after just one use in today's reactors.
Given the intense competition for world energy resources, the global commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and a doubling of U.S. electricity demand expected by 2030, it's no wonder why Congress and the nation are looking at an expanded role for nuclear energy. That expanded role must take into account stewardship of used nuclear fuel.
In 2002, Congress confirmed Yucca Mountain as the site for a deep geologic repository based on 20 years and $8 billion of scientific analysis. Some secondary aspects of that scientific pedigree have been challenged, but the broad body of work has withstood rigorous independent scientific review. Moreover, Congress has continued to fund this project each year and is now considering legislation that would facilitate building the repository some 1,000 feet under the desert ridge.
The DOE will continue to be subject to broad oversight of the program by the state and scientific and regulatory bodies when it moves to the repository construction phase. The nuclear energy industry shares this commitment to safety at the project, just as it has at 103 reactors in 31 states. As part of this oversight, DOE will be subject to a rigorous licensing process before the independent U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. DOE said it will file the license application to build the Yucca Mountain repository in 2008.
Two federal agencies involved in licensing Yucca Mountain have vast experience in licensing nuclear fuel storage facilities. The NRC has licensed more than two dozen fuel storage facilities at nuclear plant sites, and the Environmental Protection Agency licensed an underground nuclear waste disposal facility in the salt caverns of Carlsbad, N.M.
More than 3,000 safe shipments of used nuclear fuel demonstrate that the material can be moved without impact to the public or the environment. A National Research Council report earlier this year included the principal finding that "radiological risk associated with transportation of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste are well understood and are generally low."
Other used fuel management proposals being considered by Congress would not change the need for the Yucca Mountain repository.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Pete Domenici, who supports a three-pronged effort -- including fuel recycling, interim storage and disposal at a repository -- stated clearly that the Yucca Mountain project must remain a part of a comprehensive used fuel management program. "Yucca Mountain is the cornerstone of a comprehensive spent nuclear fuel management strategy for this country. Let me be clear: We need Yucca Mountain," Domenici said in August.
Some Nevada business and community leaders recognize it is inevitable that the repository at Yucca Mountain will move forward, and that Nevada should benefit from partnering with the government on this project. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires that the federal government provide benefits for a repository host state. Therefore, the state could negotiate a benefits package that bolsters education, state health care, infrastructure, water and other needs for the long term.
Others in Nevada continue to fight the project without success. A federal appeals court in August handed the state yet another loss in the courts, denying Nevada's claim that the environmental impact statement for the project was flawed and dismissing other claims that were "unripe for review."
Recognizing these factors, Gov. Guinn is raising false hopes for Nevadans about a project that figures to be a vital part of providing our nation greater energy independence. In addition, the $60 billion project could provide enormous economic opportunity for the state and a chance for Nevada to become a center of science and energy research.
--Marvin Fertel is chief nuclear officer and senior vice president at the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C. NEI is a policy organization that represents users of commercial nuclear technology in energy, medicine and other applications.
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Minneapolis Star Tribune
September 03, 2006
Editorial: Future won't favor new nuclear plants
Even with incentives, utilities find the financials don't work.
The climate for building new nuclear power plants in the United States hasn't been this good for decades. The Bush administration is solidly behind them. Some prominent foes have changed sides, embracing uranium-derived electricity as the best available answer to global warming. Boosters are wearing told-you-so smiles.
And Congress is doing its best to help. After establishing liability limits and start-up assistance for new plants, it voted last year to offer utilities a variety of direct incentives and structured them to favor the first half-dozen plants to leave the drawing boards. Companies that design and build reactors are also said to be trying to jump-start new business by offering limited-time discounts.
The results, so far? Exactly one utility, Constellation Energy in Maryland, has contracted to buy parts for a new reactor, the first such order since 1973. While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been saying for months that perhaps two dozen new plants are getting active consideration, polls of utility executives find that most think any notion of a nuclear renaissance is fanciful -- that nuclear power will, at best, maintain its 20 percent share of U.S. power generation, with a dozen new reactors at the most. And the reasons have less to do with Three Mile Island or Yucca Mountain than with Wall Street.
When utilities began canceling orders for new reactors in 1973, everyone still assumed the problem of storing spent fuel would be solved. The crisis at Three Mile Island was six years away; the first true nuke-plant catastrophe, at Chernobyl, wouldn't happen for seven years after that.
Safety and environmental concerns have shaped public opinion, but the core reasons for America's 30-year hiatus in building new nuclear plants lie in unfavorable balance sheets. Industry analysts say the outlook is no brighter today despite the many factors -- tougher pollution caps for coal plants, higher natural-gas prices, pending controls on greenhouse gas emissions -- that theoretically should favor more cheap, clean nukes.
But to consider nuclear power "clean," you have to ignore the pesky problem of permanent waste disposal, and to consider it "cheap" you have to focus only on the ultimate cost to make a kilowatt-hour of juice over a span of decades. Nuclear plants are more expensive than fossil-fueled counterparts to site, license, build, operate and secure; and they are slower to pay off on investment, for which the front-end needs are larger.
These factors, plus additional uncertainties of regulation, make them harder to finance. For any kind of power plant, a utility typically tries to presell the power before it breaks ground, and customers just aren't as quick to sign long-term contracts for their power supplies when the electricity will be coming from uranium.
So for every utility like Constellation that opts for a new nuke, there will be multiple others that invest elsewhere -- like Constellation's competitor, PPL, which decided to invest $1.5 billion in cleaning up emissions from its coal burners. Besides environmental benefits, PPL expects further payoffs as pollution limits get tighter and, perhaps, as emissions reductions become tradeable assets.
On a smaller scale, but at an accelerating pace, private investment is moving toward alternative technologies of sustainable power generation, conservation and efficiency. The nuclear era that began with promises of electricity "too cheap to meter" has given way to a time when a dollar invested in conserving electricity returns six or seven times value of a dollar invested in making more of it.
So today the consensus seems to be that nukes have served their purpose, and will continue for a while to do so, but the future lies somewhere else.
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Voice of America
September 02, 2006
Nuclear Energy Hotly Debated in United States
By Richard Green
Washington
There is a debate under way in the United States about the benefits of nuclear power, as the country looks for alternatives to its dependence on foreign oil. Advocates say nuclear power will provide a clean and safe form of energy, but opponents say concerns about safety and what to do with nuclear waste far outweigh any benefits.
There are currently 104 nuclear power plants operating across the United States. President Bush is calling for expanding the nation's reliance on nuclear power as part of his energy plan.
Supporters of nuclear energy say it will make the United States less dependent on foreign sources of oil.
But Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program for Public Citizen, a public-interest watchdog group, says increasing nuclear power will not significantly reduce oil consumption.
"Oil is only used to power 1.2 percent of the nation's electricity," he noted. "Nuclear power is not used to power automobiles, which is the biggest source of our oil consumption, and oil is not a significant source of electricity consumption. So, increasing America's reliance on nuclear power is not going to alter the current oil demand balance that we have in this country."
Another contentious issue is the environmental impact of nuclear power plants. Mal McKibben, a retired nuclear engineer who is now executive director of the non-profit Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness, says nuclear power plants are environmentally safer than other types of energy producers, such as coal.
"Nuclear [power] does not produce any acid rain. It does not produce smog. It does not produce global warming, where[as] coal and gas do all of those things," he said.
Christine Todd Whitman headed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Bush. She is now co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a group, which advocates the use of nuclear energy. She agrees nuclear plants have little impact on the surrounding environment.
"The footprint of nuclear facilities are very small, so that, many times, you find that you get natural habitats in and around nuclear facilities, because they do have such a low impact on the surrounding community," she explained.
But Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen says nuclear power plants carry their own unique risk to the environment.
"Each facility produces hundreds of tons of high-level radioactive waste that sticks around in the environment for hundreds of thousands of years," he said. "We currently have no solution of how to deal with the hundreds of tons of high-level radioactive waste safely, efficiently or environmentally sustainably."
President Bush has backed a controversial plan to build a storage facility for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, a remote area in the western U.S. state of Nevada. He also supports the recycling and reprocessing of nuclear waste through the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.
McKibben, the former nuclear engineer, says there is an alternative to storing nuclear waste, recycling it.
"You use all the energy that's in that fuel," he said. "Right now we're using less than 5 percent of it, by just going through one time and not recycling. If we did recycle, we could use up at least 95 percent of it."
Opponents of nuclear energy also point out the possibility of an accident, citing the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in the northeastern United States, and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in what is now Ukraine.
But Dale Klein, the new chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, praised the nuclear industry's safety record during a recent talk with reporters in Washington.
"Chernobyl was a very unstable reactor," he explained. "The western world has no commercial reactors like Chernobyl and its inherent instability characteristics. The kinds of reactors in the western U.S. and [the kinds] Western Europe has are much more stable and have an excellent record."
But nuclear energy opponents, such as Dr. Ira Helfand with the group, Physicians for Social Responsibility, say there is a much more ominous risk involved with nuclear energy.
"I think, we have to look at nuclear power plants, basically, as prepositioned weapons of mass destruction that we place at various strategic points around our country, that we make available to terrorists, who might attack them in the future," said Dr. Helfand.
But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Klein says the industry has beefed up security to ward off any potential terrorist attacks, particularly since the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001.
"I believe the industry has responded very well after 9/11, they have spent a lot of money to make things better, and the security of the nuclear plants is quite good," he noted.
Klein says the nuclear industry must not become complacent.
Nuclear energy opponents, however, say the United States should consider alternative sources of energy, such as wind and solar
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Green Left Weekly
September 03, 2006
Wind vs nuclear energy? No competition
Zane Alcorn
Despite PM John Howard’s call for a “full-blooded debate” about energy, greenhouse and uranium mining, there has been little discussion about renewable energy sources such as wind power.
Wind power is the fastest-growing energy generation industry in the world. Notwithstanding a lack of government support, across the world the industry has grown at an average rate of 29% over the past 10 years, concentrated in California in the US, Spain, Germany, Denmark and several other European countries. During that time, the amount of wind energy production has risen from 5000 megawatts (MW) to more than 60,000 MW. By 2010, the amount is expected to double to 120,000 MW.
Wind power has become more technologically advanced and reliable since it emerged commercially around 25 years ago. One of the most important advancements has been the evolution of larger turbines, which has had a couple of advantages. First, the most consistent and strongest airflow is found higher above the ground; lower-altitude breezes are generally weaker and more erratic. Whereas wind farms used to be viable only in special areas with excellent year-round breezes, newer large turbines are suited to a far wider range of locations.
The second advantage of large turbines is that they generate more electricity. The latest generation of mass produced wind turbines has a blade diameter of 90 metres, with the generator, a nacelle, sitting on top of an 80 or 105 metre-high tower. Such turbines consistently produce about 3 million MW of electricity per unit, and cost about $3.6 million each (or about $1200 per kilowatt).
A South Australian wind farm recently placed an order for 53 V90 3 MW turbines. Vestas, of Denmark, now has a factory in Tasmania that is equipped to produce several types of large turbines. Next generation turbines are larger again, with 5 MW turbines with a 126-metre blade diameter.
While the reliability of wind power has improved, problems remain with consistent supply. One of these is overloading the grid with electricity in times of high wind and, to a lesser extent, under-powering the grid in low wind.
A South Australian consortium is investigating using “burst power” by running electricity-hungry seawater desalination plants during peak wind power periods as a way of “soaking up” excess power.
The concern that wind power inadvertently kills birds can be minimised by ensuring that the turbines are not built in known flight paths, or near nesting areas and waterholes. Wildlife groups are generally well aware of the benefits of wind power, and are happy to let authorities know about these critical locations. Some birds and bats will still be killed, but only a tiny fraction compared to those killed each year by vehicles.
Solutions to community concerns might include building wind farms on private land, where farmers can still graze livestock and grow crops beneath the turbines while earning lease payments for hosting the turbines, and by placing the turbines along roadways and the edges of large public reserves. Turbines do emit some blade noise, but modern models are much quieter due to improved blade aerodynamics.
Some argue that turbines are “unsightly”, but these anti-wind groups, often supported by the nuclear industry, should consider how aesthetically pleasing deformed babies and cancer victims are.
The electricity grid in Australia, like most around the world, is based around a few centralised power plants that feed high voltages out to a progressively lighter network of transmission lines.
Wind farms built around the perimeter of existing power networks would need to be properly linked back into the grid, requiring the construction of new cable infrastructure. Any nuclear power plant would require a similar investment in transmission lines to link them back into the grid. For wind power to be the dominant source of power, it would require a substantial restructure of the grid, and technological advances to further refine the reliability of wind power.
However Ben Carmichael of Vestas Australia told Green Left Weekly that, in the immediate future, Australia could derive up to 20% of its national electricity needs from wind without a massive overhaul of the transmission network and without compromising the reliability of supply. According to Carmichael, 20% wind power nationally would require the construction of about 2500 V90 turbines, or equivalent, at a cost of around $9 billion.
Expense
Compare this to the financial costs of nuclear energy. To achieve a situation where 20% of current national electricity production was nuclear power would require the construction of at least five typical nuclear power plants, each with a capacity of around 1000-1500 MW (a typical reactor size).
Based on several recently commissioned third-generation reactors in Japan and South Korea, these reactors would cost between $1500 and $2000 per kilowatt to commission, and therefore between $11.25-$15 billion in total.
Clearly, nuclear power is more expensive. Once built, the plants require fuel rods, an additional cost, and these must be enriched at a separate facility, which would cost upwards of $500 million.
Nuclear power has higher operational and maintenance costs compared to wind power, and nuclear power stations take longer to commission (seven to 10 years) than wind turbines (three to six months once delivered). More carbon dioxide is emitted in the construction of a nuclear power plant, and in the enrichment of fuel rods, than in the construction of wind towers.
Once a wind turbine is up and running it will have generated as much clean energy after six months as “dirty” energy used in its manufacture. It takes about seven years for a nuclear power station to generate more carbon dioxide-free electricity than was spent building the plant and getting it operational.
Over the lifetime of a wind turbine, it will generate 17-39 times the amount of energy as was used to build it. Nuclear power plants produce only about 16 times the energy used to build them.
Each 1000 MW nuclear power generator would produce about 33 tonnes of highly radioactive waste per year, which would then need to be stored at additional cost, reprocessed at an even greater cost, or dumped — the cheapest and most likely option for dollar-saving corporations.
If Australia has its own nuclear power plants, nuclear waste dumps and enrichment facilities, it will be easier to argue for it to become a world dumping ground for nuclear waste. If Australia leases enriched fuel rods to other nations and takes the waste back, a stockpile of dangerous nuclear waste will accrue.
The US is partway through constructing a US$28 billion dump in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, due to open in 2017. But the US will still have another 30,000 tonnes of nuclear waste and 22,000 barrels of high-level waste to get rid of within 30 years.
Australia might be a cheaper option than hollowing out another Yucca Mountain. But unlike wind turbines, nuclear power plants cannot be disassembled once their operational life is over. A nuclear plant must be properly decommissioned and decontaminated, a multi-billion dollar process usually paid for by taxpayers rather than the corporations that have profited.
Risks
Although modern nuclear reactors are safer than Cold War-era ones, the ever-present risk with nuclear power is a meltdown that spreads toxic vapour and fragments of nuclear waste and particles. This happens when the ultra-hot fuel rods, through human, mechanical or technical faults, overheat and melt through the core, then floor of the reactor, and come into contact with moisture, causing an explosion. This is what happened in 1986 in the Chernobyl reactor in the Ukraine.
A more likely scenario is the overheating, and resultant over-pressurising of the reactor core, which can lead to radioactive steam being vented into the atmosphere. This happened at the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979. Then, the hot fuel rods in the core of the reactor caused a “meltdown” when they overheated and started burning through the steel and concrete reactor casing. This destroyed the reactor core and toxic gases leaked into the atmosphere, but did not cause an explosion like at Chernobyl.
No new nuclear power plants have been built in the US since the Three Mile Island meltdown. The global nuclear power industry has grown at a rate of 1.7% over the last 10 years, compared to 29% for wind and 28% for solar.
The other danger associated with nuclear power is weapons proliferation. Each 1000 MW reactor produces about 200kg of plutonium per year, of which only 5kg is required to make a rudimentary bomb. Even the nuclear industry acknowledges there are no guarantees that plutonium from “peaceful reactors” will not end up in weapons programs, legally or otherwise. Uranium for weapons and for power plants are component parts of the same dangerous nuclear fuel cycle.
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Las Vegas SUN
September 02, 2006
Science isn't only Yucca issue
By Lisa Mascaro <lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas Sun
The enthusiastic new director of the Yucca Mountain project got his first look at the site not long ago. But the mountain had seen the likes of him before.
No fewer than 10 directors or acting directors have come and gone in the 20 years since the federal government started studying the Nevada desert for the nation's nuclear waste repository.
The new director, Edward "Ward" Sproat, now has an idea why.
"It's one thing to dig a hole," Sproat said recently after emerging from a tour of the tunnel into the hot sun. "I'm not satisfied we have all the answers."
Sproat arrived at the dusty compound 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas with an engineer's optimism: Solving problems is just a matter of working things through to conclusion.
Five minutes with Sproat and you begin to see why the Energy Department chose him. He tells you plainly and succinctly what he knows. Then he says just as clearly what it is he doesn't yet know. It's straight talk, the kind that inspires confidence: If he can run nuclear power plants for private industry, as he has for years, he can puff life into this gasping project.
His tour of the aging 5-mile tunnel, however, showed some doubt. He had questions you would expect of an engineer: How will they ever finish building the remaining 42 miles if they start at the projected rate of about 2 miles a year? Have they designed all of the necessary protections for storing deadly spent nuclear fuel?
But the most pressing question he voiced didn't have an answer rooted in science. Why does it take three tries to get anything done right at Yucca?
The never-before-tried engineering feat of storing toxic waste in a mountain has cost $9 billion so far and has suffered from countless, costly do-overs. Now, under most optimistic timetables, it is scheduled to open in 2017, almost 20 years late. An Energy Department inspector general's report last month gave skeptics another reason to sigh - potential problems continue in more than 100 procedural areas already noted for corrective action.
Touring the lonely site with Sproat, accompanied by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., offered a reminder about the amount of work remaining - and the dwindling political will to get it done. Virtually every top elected official in Nevada opposes the project, and even its biggest boosters in Congress are starting to consider interim plans.
The 5-mile tunnel opened to great fanfare almost a decade ago, a warm-up for the show that one day was to go on inside. The tunnel serves as a lab for the central question scientists face: Will water seep through the rock, corrode the waste canisters and leak deadly spent fuel into the environment?
Project scientists say the water will trickle in, but not in big enough volumes to do harm. The chief scientist says investigation at the site is almost complete. But others, including independent Yucca Mountain researcher Allison Macfarlane, now at George Mason University, believe many questions remain.
"They have a lot of work to do," she said last week.
Sproat's tour brought home that reality.
Not much bigger around than a subway, and outfitted with a train that clickety-clacks visitors into the mountain, the tunnel feels more like an amusement park ride than an engineering marvel being watched the world over.
The tunnel's bare walls show off the hearty mountain rock that is the source of such hope and worry - strong enough to store some of the most dangerous stuff on Earth, complicated enough to keep scientists guessing about how it will shift and rumble over the next tens of thousands of years.
Workers have created a cozy workspace a mile back, redolent of the smell of dirt and diesel, with a break table and bumper sticker that reminds you to support the troops. With no natural light to set the rhythms, time slips away, as in a casino.
Ten years ago the place was buzzing with 750 workers as the tunnel was being drilled. The work has slowed considerably since then, and the workforce has been slashed by two-thirds. Workers now mostly maintain the site, replacing electrical or fire alarm systems that were never expected to stand this long.
More than anything, the tunnel feels like a driveway to a house that has yet to be built. The waste is to be set in 42 miles of storage space branching off from the tunnel. Digging it could take decades.
Sproat worries about such a prolonged building program. Yucca Mountain should be built fast, he said, as soon as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gives the project a green light - now pegged at 2011.
Also, he sees the construction challenges as less daunting than the job of fixing a management culture that has allowed sloppy documentation.
Energy Department representatives explained during the tour that the agency had just spent another $15 million and nine months redoing water infiltration tests after a 2005 scandal, when e-mails showed researchers allegedly discussing falsified quality-assurance documentation.
The redone research shows twice as much water as expected will probably seep through the rock, but Energy Department scientists say it is still not enough to be a problem. Sproat said he believes the latest science is sound.
But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission still has to be convinced. If Sproat manages that, the pace of work will pick up swiftly.
Crews will replace the rickety train with a souped-up version run by robots to carry the waste to its resting place. Another $2 billion in tracks will be set across the Nevada desert to haul in waste from around the country. All those new storage tunnels will have to be built.
Sproat spent 10 days in Nevada, meeting with researchers and managers about what it will take to get the project going. He still believes he can hit his 2017 opening date - though he has said that once he gets the project in motion, he is not likely to stick around to see it to completion.
"There's a lot of work still to be done," he said before heading to Washington. "I'm not seeing anything here that's overwhelming."
--Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com.
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Pahrump Valley Times
September 02, 2006
Kennels, Focus Group to face commission scrutiny
By Mark Waite
PVT
The renewal of not only the New Leash on Life temporary kennel permit, but four other Pahrump kennel permits, will be up for approval when the Nye County Commission meets at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in Tonopah.
Pahrump residents who don't want to make the 165-mile trip can participate in the meeting by video-conference from the Pahrump Community Center.
Extensions to permits for Henseler and Henseler Veterinary Associates, K-9 Kastle Bed and Bone, the Pahrump Humane Society and Sean Fischer are also being considered.
Another hot topic will be an 11:30 a.m. timed item on a bill for adopting a development agreement for the Gateway Master Planned Community proposed by the Focus Group at Highway 160 and Manse Road.
Commissioners will also consider bids on the paving of the parking lot at the Amargosa Valley Community Center at 1:30 p.m. The county budgeted $300,000 toward that project among a list to be funded out of Payment Equal Taxes paid by the U.S. Department of Energy for the land value of Yucca Mountain. A list of all the PETT projects for the 2006-07 fiscal year is also up for approval.
A bill adopting a development agreement with William Lyon Homes Inc. for the Mountain Falls North subdivision is to be discussed at 2 p.m.
In addition, attorney Mark White, who has been hired to negotiate development agreements, has requested a $75,000 increase to his contract.
Commissioners will consider either prohibiting the import of solid waste from outside the state or increasing fees for accepting that waste.
An environmental review form for the proposed Amargosa Valley swimming pool, a project which was approved for a federal Community Development Block Grant, is up for approval.
Bob Gamble and Nye County District I Commissioner Roberta "Midge" Carver would be authorized to attend a fact-finding tour of nuclear waste processing facilities in Japan if commissioners approve. In other Yucca Mountain items, commissioners will consider authorizing BEC Environmental Inc. to complete a public safety cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy.
A contract up for approval with the Nevada Environmental Research and Monitoring Institute would authorize NERMI to negotiate a partnership agreement with the DOE.
Auto repair facilities could be added to the permitted uses in the light industrial zoning district in Pahrump under a planning item. A resolution modifying fees for planning applications will also be considered.
An application to the Nevada Commission on Economic Development for a $500,000 infrastructure grant in Pahrump is up for approval. Commissioners will vote on applying for a Nevada Economic Development Fund grant for a town of Tonopah master plan.
An interlocal agreement with Esmeralda County for the Economic Development Authority of Esmeralda and Nye Counties (EDEN) is up for approval. Commissioners will vote on approving a $40,000 Nye County downtown economic development grant to the town of Gabbs.
U.S. Bureau of Land Management grants to rural fire departments are up for approval.
A date will be set for a public hearing on a bill regulating swimming pools, spas and hot tubs in the Pahrump Regional Planning District.
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Boston Globe
September 02, 2006
Nevada Democrats beam in new spotlight
Caucuses moved ahead of N.H.'s
By Charlie Savage
Globe Staff
LAS VEGAS -- The Democratic Party's decision last month to thrust Nevada ahead of New Hampshire as the host of the second contest in their 2008 presidential nomination campaign has unleashed a wave of national attention on politicians, as presidential hopefuls line up to court potential supporters.
Sitting in her strip mall campaign headquarters surrounded by telephones and signs, state Senator Dina Titus ticked off names of likely presidential candidates who called her after she won the Democratic nomination for governor two weeks ago.
``They've all called -- Warner, Kerry, Hillary, Vilsack, Edwards, Feingold," Titus said. ``Who else? Bayh. I haven't heard from Biden. Biden didn't call."
The callers offered their congratulations and help in fund-raising, Titus said. ``They want to help me in '06 so that I can help them in '08."
If advisers to Senator Joe Biden of Delaware want to catch-up, they might eye a $2,500 gold table at the annual Clark County Democratic Party fund-raising dinner later this month. One party official said there has been ``much more interest" this year, and aides to former Virginia Governor Mark Warner and former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards have inquired about buying tables.
The decision to hold Nevada's contest in January 2008 -- five days after the Iowa caucuses and three days before the New Hampshire primary -- sprang from DNC chairman Howard Dean 's push to front-load the Democrats' calendar with states representing a more diverse swath of the country.
Fast-growing Nevada is 20 percent Hispanic, 7 percent black, and 4 percent Asian. Voters want to talk about water scarcity, immigration, urban sprawl, the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, and federal land-use policy: 87 percent of the state is owned by the federal government. Many longtime Nevada Democrats own guns, although they are increasingly joined by a deluge of retired former Californians who don't.
Both local and national party supporters of holding the early Nevada caucuses say the candidate who appeals to voters here will have a better chance of winning the general election, in part because many Western states share the same issues, and the region is closely divided between Republicans and Democrats.
In 2004, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado -- holding 29 electoral votes together --were battlegrounds. George W. Bush beat John F. Kerry for Nevada's five electoral votes by three percentage points, and locals are still talking about Kerry's failure to pronounce the state's name correctly -- it's Nev-ah-da, not Nev-aw-da. The early caucuses, party leaders say, will forge a stronger connection between the 2008 nominee and Western states.
But the move has infuriated New Hampshire Democrats, who see the Nevada caucuses as a threat to their historical importance in shaping presidential politics through retail politics. They say that front-loading the calendar with a third contest in a nine-day period will mean that only candidates with money to spend on endless television advertisements will prevail.
Kathy Sullivan , the chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, predicts that the Nevada caucuses will be a flop -- sidelined by the media, since Republicans have shown no signs that they will move their caucus date to the same time, and skipped by some of the major Democratic candidates.
``I think this new calendar is all hat and no cattle," she said. ``It's not real. It's not really adding [to the race] what it's being sold as doing."
Nonetheless, New Hampshire Democrats have threatened to move up their primary's date in defiance of party rules in order to stay ahead of Nevada. National Democratic party leaders, in turn, have threatened to bar the state's delegates from voting at the 2008 national convention. Any decision in the impasse is months away.
In the meantime, Nevada Democrats are relishing their new role in the limelight.
For Titus -- who later in her conversation with a reporter remembered that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson also called to congratulate her -- the national attention has been a welcome but distracting sideshow amid her campaigning.
But Senate minority leader Harry Reid , a Nevada Democrat, has had plenty of time to think strategically about the early caucuses he helped bring here.
In his eighth-story office atop Las Vegas's gleaming new federal building, Reid flips through a booklet about Nevada's mining operations and points with pride at the billions of dollars in gold that is extracted here each year. His point is clear: Reid ardently believes that Democrats, too, will find riches by asking candidates to go prospecting for votes in his home state.
``I believe Nevada is a gold mine -- not just for Democrats, but for our country," Reid said. ``I've been terribly distressed for many years about how we pick our presidential nominees. Go to Iowa -- no diversity, two percent diversity. Then you jump right off to New Hampshire -- no diversity and no people. . . . Nevada is a perfect state to test [candidates]."
Political analysts have already begun war-gaming how the caucuses may play out.
Chuck Todd of Hotline, a daily political newsletter, said that the candidate who can least afford to lose in Nevada is Richardson, whose potential campaign is predicated on the theory that he can win in the West because he is from New Mexico.
Todd also said Edwards has an early advantage in Nevada because he has visited the state to stump for a ballot initiative to raise the state's minimum wage, forging ties with service industry unions whose support could be critical.
But union leaders say the race remains wide open.
``I don't think it's a lock for Edwards or anyone else," said Danny Thompson , the head of the AFL-CIO in Nevada. ``You have to come and do the retail politics for support."
New Hampshire Democrats aren't the only skeptics about whether presidential-style retail politics -- stumping at numerous small rallies and meeting voters personally -- can be done in Nevada.
The state's economy does not slow down in the winter, and its rank-and-file voters have no history of participating in early presidential politics.
Reading the sports section at the Omelet House, a Las Vegas favorite in a mall far from the Strip and its ring of pawn shops and wedding chapels, Democrat Ed Smith said he works on Saturdays, driving a coach bus for tourists, so he doubts he'll take part in the caucus.
``I heard about it but I'm not planning to participate because I'm too busy," Smith said. ``I'll probably pay attention through the news media, but Las Vegas is a 24-hour town and people work all kinds of hours. A lot of people are going to have that problem."
Moreover, some analysts are skeptical about whether Nevada's diversity and moderate politics will be a factor in who wins. Hispanics have been a far smaller percentage of voter turnout than they are of the population.
And because the vote is in a caucus, requiring participants to sacrifice much of their Saturday, only committed liberal activists may show up.
``The people who are going to be active in those caucuses are similar to the ones that will be active in Iowa and New Hampshire," said commentator Jon Ralston , who has covered Nevada politics for two decades. ``They are the ideologues and the partisans."
But supporters of the early Nevada caucus argue that the excitement of having a say in who the nominee will be will drive casual Democrats, not just committed activists, to take part.
The last time, when the Kerry nomination was a foregone conclusion by the time of the late February 2004 caucus, about 9,000 activists showed up, local party members say. In January 2008, they predict, the turnout will exceed 100,000.
``This is Nevada," said Steven Horsford , a state senator and member of the Democratic National Committee. ``We put on a lot of great events in this state, so we know we're capable of doing this one right."
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Waco Tribune Herald
September 02, 2006
Edwards, Taylor support nuclear energy expansion
By Dan Genz
Tribune-Herald staff writer
The day after TXU announced plans to build three new nuclear power plants in Texas, U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, said he supports expanding nuclear energy.
“I think nuclear power has been proven to be safe, does not pollute the atmosphere and can be a competitive source of energy in the years ahead,” Edwards said Friday in an interview with the Tribune-Herald editorial board.
“I think expansion of nuclear power has to be one of the ingredients in an energy security policy for our country,” he said.
Edwards said one of the proposed plants would be built at the existing Comanche Peak nuclear power plant in Glen Rose, which is in Edwards’ 17th Congressional District. The other two sites have not been identified.
Republican congressional nominee Van Taylor said he also supports expanding nuclear energy production.
“We need to lower energy prices for people here in Central Texas and nuclear power is a clean, economical way to generate energy for future generations,” he said.
Together, the three proposed power plants would supply energy for 4.5 million homes, the Associated Press reported.
The first TXU plant could be operational in 2015 and would partially address the expected increase in the state’s population and energy demand over the long term, TXU spokesman Chris Schein said.
The biggest stumbling block in approving new power plants is determining where to deposit the highly radioactive spent fuel. Plans to use the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada have been beset by controversy.
One proposal Edwards supports would create regional sites where the radioactive material could be stored until a more permanent national site is found.
Critics claim nuclear energy is expensive, unsafe and dangerous to the environment.
“I don’t know what books they’re reading,” said Tom “Smitty” Smith, of the advocacy group Public Citizen Texas. “The history of nuclear power has been littered with cost overruns, accidents, and certainly nuclear power is enormously polluting.”
--dgenz@wacotrib.com
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 01, 2006
State officials won't appeal ruling on Yucca Mountain
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Nevada officials have decided not to appeal a Yucca Mountain court ruling that the state lost this summer, an official said Thursday.
Lawyers concluded the chances were small that judges would agree to rehear the case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
In an Aug. 8 ruling, a three-judge panel dismissed Nevada's claims that the Department of Energy violated environmental law and federal rules when it began putting together a shipping program for the proposed nuclear waste repository.
The court concluded that some of Nevada's claims were premature while others were without merit.
It said the state could resurrect its lawsuit later.
"The odds are so small (for appeal), and the court has invited us back," Loux said.
The state raised a series of technical objections to the Energy Department's final environmental impact statement for Yucca Mountain.
It also challenged the department's decision to designate a 319-mile railroad corridor as its favored route to ship waste from Caliente in eastern Nevada to the Yucca site.
Loux said the Energy Department seemed to have changed course already on one of Nevada's concerns.
He said a plan to load nuclear waste-filled truck casks onto trains for shipment to Nevada appeared to be no longer operative since the Energy Department now envisioned new multipurpose canisters for the task.
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Knight-Ridder
September 01, 2006
DOE reorganization raises concerns about worker safety
By Les Blumenthal
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Months before new health and safety rules are to take effect for more than 100,000 workers at Department of Energy sites across the nation, the DOE is dismantling the office that's in charge of implementing them.
The move has drawn sharp criticism on Capitol Hill and from others, who say it will gut the department's worker-safety and health programs. Lawmakers and other critics say the restructuring will roll back more than 20 years of better worker safeguards while appeasing contractors who've long complained about overly restrictive regulations.
"This is the pendulum swinging back," said David Michaels, who headed the office as an assistant secretary of energy in the Clinton administration.
Department officials defended the restructuring, saying the Office of Environment, Safety and Health needed to be overhauled. Combining it with the DOE's security office will increase, not lessen, workers' safety, they said.
They bristled at any suggestion that the department is downgrading its commitment to safety. "That is absolutely and totally incorrect," said Clay Sell, the department's deputy secretary.
Critics said their concerns extended beyond the uncertainty over the new rules.
Since the Bush administration took office, they said, security issues and modernizing the nation's nuclear arsenal have taken priority over efforts to clean up the toxic legacy of Cold War weapons production and ensure that workers are protected.
"We have great concerns about where this is heading," said Tom Carpenter of the Government Accountability Project in Seattle, which tracks developments at the Energy Department.
The department has 14,000 direct employees and 100,000 more who work for contractors.
Those workers face any number of dangers, from exposure to nuclear materials or highly toxic waste to the problems possible at any major construction or industrial site. Recently, there were concerns that workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state were being exposed to possibly dangerous vapors venting from underground storage tanks that hold nuclear waste, and two workers were seriously injured in a construction crane accident at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Since the days of its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, the department has been self-regulating on issues of worker health and safety rules and the environment.
But in the mid-1980s, amid mounting reports of serious worker health and safety problems, widespread environmental contamination and abuses by contractors, Congress stepped in to tighten oversight.
It created the Office of Environment, Safety and Health to develop and oversee DOE regulations on worker safety and health and environmental issues. It also created an independent watchdog agency, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
The department announced Wednesday that it would proceed with merging its Office of Environment, Safety and Health with its security office.
"Combining health, safety, security enforcement and independent oversight responsibilities into the Office of Health, Safety and Security creates one unified office that will result in improved coordination among important functions, including an integrated approach to managing risks involving safety and security considerations," the DOE said in explaining the move.
The Environment, Safety and Health Office had been headed by an assistant secretary appointed by the White House and confirmed by the Senate. The merged office will be headed by a career professional.
The former office's environmental functions, including writing environmental-impact statements required under the National Environmental Policy Act, will be transferred to the department's general counsel's office.
In defending the restructuring, Sell said the Office of Environment, Safety and Health was disorganized and inattentive to the needs of the department's field offices and lacked oversight authority.
The new office's responsibilities will be equally divided between safety and health issues and security, he said.
"The criticism we are downgrading worker safety and we are returning to the 1980s or giving contractors additional influence is completely and absolutely false," Sell said.
An assistant secretary is supposed to oversee the new safety rules, which are scheduled to take effect in early February. Sell said there would be no "adverse effects" from the reorganization.
"We expect there will be a more effective implementation," he said.
The department also has quietly moved to redefine its relationship with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which has no enforcement powers but has issued a stream of sometimes highly critical reports on the DOE's projects and policies over the years.
In a May memo, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman reminded employees that it was the DOE, not the safety board, that was responsible for department operations.
"When we appear to allow any outside group to make our decisions, we are not meeting that obligation and are abdicating our responsibility," Bodman wrote.
As word of the department's proposal to merge its health and safety office with its security office spread on Capitol Hill late last spring, criticism quickly mounted. Much of the opposition has come from Democrats, though some Republicans also have expressed concerns.
In a letter to Bodman, Sens. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., charged that the change could damage the health of DOE workers and people who lived near the department's sites; they also said it probably would complicate the implementation of the new safety rules.
Paul Ziemer, who headed the Office of Environment, Safety and Health in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, joined in a letter with Michaels, who headed it under Clinton, asking Bodman to reconsider the reorganization. They warned that the move would be perceived as weakening the DOE's health and safety programs.
"The department can ill afford to fuel such a perception," they wrote.
Criticism also came from the state level.
"The DOE plan downgrades and weakens safety and health protections and is the wrong action to take and the wrong time," Democratic Govs. Christine Gregoire of Washington state and Bill Richardson of New Mexico said in a letter to Bodman. Richardson served as energy secretary in the Clinton administration.
Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate.
On Thursday, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., asked the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to hold hearings.
"I'm deeply disappointed the Bush administration continues to try to move ahead with this," Cantwell said.
It's unclear whether the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., will call a hearing. Sell, who helped write the reorganization plan, is a former Domenici staffer.
Bodman has the authority to make the changes without Congress' approval.
Carpenter, of the Government Accountability Project, said the timing of the reorganization, just months before the new safety rules take effect, was suspicious.
"Isn't that amazing?" he said. "It looks like they are doing an end run."
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In Business Las Vegas
September 01, 2006
Small-Business Profile
Strategic planning firm having an impact in LV
By Danielle Birkin
Sheila Conway is committed to ensuring her clients' dynamic growth by paving their way for nominal risk and optimal profitability.
And as managing partner of Urban Environmental Research (UER), a Las Vegas-based economic impact assessment and strategic planning firm, Conway has had the opportunity to assist myriad businesses and governmental entities in addressing the complex social, economic, environmental and public safety challenges they must navigate.
"We're helping to grow businesses and minimize risk and optimize profits," said Conway, who has been an impact-assessment consultant for 20 years. "We do property value and other types of impact assessment and develop impact tools for businesses and government and also do strategic planning with businesses and government. We specialize in working with the both the construction and development community and with technology companies and helping companies stay on the cutting edge of where the market is changing. We also do impact assessment if a company is deciding if they want to develop a specific type of property or expand into a broader market."
She said Urban Environmental Research was founded in Phoenix in 1997 by Alvin Mushkatel, who has worked in the area of public policy analysis and impact assessment for more than 30 years. UER has worked with the state of Nevada and Clark County, and eventually picked up more business with the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson and Mesquite, which prompted the decision to relocate here in 1999.
Prior to joining UER, Conway previously served as senior project manager for ICF Kaiser Engineers in New Jersey and also worked for the Colorado Center Environmental Management, where she oversaw the building of a private-public partnership to demonstrate and commercialize new environmental techniques. In her current capacity as managing partner, she researches and prepares comprehensive property value analysis, regulatory analysis, compliance planning and risk management, and is responsible for communication and training for complex environmental projects and issues in Southern Nevada and the Western United States.
Irene Navis, planning manager for the Department of Comprehensive Planning for Clark County, which manages the nuclear waste program, said UER has been providing their impact assessment consulting services since 1999.
"They research and provide advice and analysis to us for all of the potential impacts related to the Yucca Mountain program," Navis said. "So they've done studies on what the impacts related to transporting high-level nuclear waste would be to Clark County. One of the biggest things they've done is the community indicators monitoring program, a Web-based monitoring program that looks at these impacts and quality of life indicators in the areas of fiscal impacts, environmentalism, pubic safety and community well-being."
Navis said there are 10 counties, including Clark County, designated by the federal government as affected units of local government.
"So we get federal funding to do our work and impact assessment is one of the things we're allowed to do under the law," she said. "This program is very complicated so to have people (like UER) who understand all of the environmental aspects, how the licensing process works, and how the Department of Energy thinks and works gives us a great advantage as we conduct oversight of Yucca Mountain. Urban Environmental Research is nationally and internationally recognized as experts in the field and we are fortunate to have them as part of this team."
Maggie Plaster, management analyst with the Las Vegas city manager's office, has also worked with Urban Environmental Research on issues related to Yucca Mountain.
"We've worked with them on our Yucca Mountain monitoring program, and they have collected data on various areas for the city," Plaster said. "They've looked at public safety and neighborhood indicators and also established a baseline of what the city looks like now, which will allow us to look at nuclear waste transportation if it has an impact in the future. They're very responsive and they are always there when I have questions."
Since relocating to Las Vegas, Conway said the company has grown 500 percent in revenue, and is currently actively recruiting qualified employees in order to fuel future growth.
"Our company has grown very rapidly — much more than we expected — and we're bulging at the seams," she said, adding that the challenges to running a small business such as UER include understanding the many needs of her clients.
"It requires listening and being in touch with the pressures and demands of their industry," she said. "Our workforce is growing and our community is growing but the market is changing globally and many times businesses understand part of what they need but aren't aware of all the challenges they are facing in a global market. We work in a very interactive way with our clients and try to deep-delve and understand their business, because our job is to help them minimize risk and increase return on investment."
She credits the company's success to a credo she believes will benefit other small business owners as well:
"Give your client 150 percent all of the time and you will develop clients for life," she said. "The people we work with know that they can count on what we will deliver whatever we ask them to do and so much comes from reputation and goodwill for producing top work all of the time."
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Reuters
September 01, 2006
Feature-U.S. tribe sees riches in Utah nuclear waste storage
By Adam Tanner
SKULL VALLEY, Utah, Sept 1 (Reuters) - As some U.S. Indian tribes have grown rich in recent years through casinos, others far from population centers have struggled to overcome a historical legacy of poverty.
One tiny tribe in Utah, one of two states that bars gaming, has shocked residents and officials by planing to turn part of their barren reservation into a temporary storage for highly radioactive nuclear fuel waste.
"They gave us crap for land, but they want it back. It's kind of funny to me," said Leon Bear, 50, chief of the 18,000-acre Skull Valley Goshute Reservation. "As long as we are not doing something, the state of Utah is happy."
Recognized Native American tribes have special rights on their sovereign land, but many in Utah say the nuclear plan should be stopped anyway. Even the tribe is bitterly divided.
The arid Goshute reservation lies between two mountain ranges 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. For decades, the United States engaged in toxic activities nearby, including biological and chemical weapons storage and testing.
"We don't have a resource like oil or gas or coal," Bear said. "We feel that we're being prejudiced against as far as gaming."
The Skull Valley tribe has just 123 enrolled members. Fewer than 30 live on the reservation, mostly in prefabricated houses along a side road. They boast a single gas station/store.
Only in the late 1970s did Goshutes get running water and electricity. The funding came from allowing Hercules Aerospace to test rocket engines in a program that ended long ago.
Bear now hopes to usher in a new era of unprecedented tribal prosperity with spent fuel storage. He also recently opened a commercial dump for construction and household waste that accepts 4,000 tonnes a day.
MILLIONS AT STAKE
The tribe's dollar stake in nuclear fuel storage is not public. "Millions, I wouldn't say tens of millions -- maybe over time," Bear said. "We do get an annual fee -- it's more tuned to profit."
In other words, the more concrete and steel storage casks the $3.1 billion project brings in, the more the tribe earns.
Behind the plan is Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of eight electric utilities including Xcel Energy <XEL.N>, American Electric Power Co. <AEP.N>, Edison International <EIX.N> and Entergy Corp. <ETR.N>
They foresee temporary storage lasting 40 years for up to 44,000 tonnes of nuclear fuel rods. With the nation's long-term nuclear dump beneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada still highly uncertain, Bear sees his storage plans possibly lasting even longer.
"If Yucca Mountain isn't open by then, they'll have nowhere else to put waste," he said. "By that time we're going to call the shots. The tribe can probably ask for anything they want to."
The effort received a major boost this year when the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave its licensing approval.
A number of obstacles remain: the plan needs approval of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management; some questions about transporting spent fuel are unanswered; and the state of Utah, which strongly opposes the project, has appealed the license.
"We've spent the better part of 10 years trying to figure out whether what they propose could be done safely and our determination was it could not be," said Dianne Nielson, head of Utah's Department of Environmental Quality.
TRIBAL DISSENT
Chief Bear also faces opposition from within his tribe, including his neighbor across the road, Margene Bullcreek. "He's turning the reservation into a dump," she said. "He's corrupt."
"But what is really important to me is not Leon's lies, it's not his dishonesty, his crookedness, it's PFS coming down on a small tribe. It's environmental racism," she said.
Chief Bear has also had personal legal difficulties.
In 2003 he was indicted on federal theft and tax-evasion charges. He reached a deal to pay off back taxes and return some tribal funds. "That's all they could find on me," he said. "All of my books were clean."
"How can I be dirty and corrupt? Look around here, there's nothing," he said. "If I'm so corrupt why I am sitting here? Why am I not someplace better?"
His living room in a prefabricated house was comfortable but not opulent. As for the taxes, he said: "Previous chairmen never had to pay no taxes. ... On my income tax I put down 'unemployed.'"
Critics also complain Bear does not have a democratic mandate as the tribe has not had a quorum of 44 people to hold a new leadership election due since 2004. "If they don't want to come, what am I supposed to do?," he said. "I'm chief for life at this point."
In the end, Chief Bear sees all of his personal troubles as stemming from the fuel storage plan.
"Margene doesn't want the reservation to improve, that's what's going on," he said. "You can't go back; I wish you could. We're in the 2000s. We can't go back to the 70s or the 50s."
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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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