Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, September 14, 2006
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 14, 2006
Chief notes concerns with Yucca project
Sproat sees 'quality problem'
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- After three months on the job, the new Yucca Mountain director says the project suffers from a "quality problem" that must be fixed before the government tries to license a nuclear waste repository at the Nevada site.
"The organization has not developed in my opinion in a way that allows it today to be an appropriate and adequate licensee to advance and operate Yucca Mountain," Ward Sproat said Tuesday. "It will be there before we get a license. It is going to be a long way there."
Sproat, a nuclear industry executive and consultant before he was appointed to the Department of Energy, said the project suffers from "a quality problem in terms of the culture and people and how they view their responsibilities for quality."
"It is time to get this program up to today's standards," he said.
Sproat delivered his tough assessment in a presentation to staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which will handle DOE's repository licensing bid.
Some of his remarks echoed independent project reviews by the Government Accountability Office and the DOE inspector general. Those studies have detailed shortcomings in how project managers and workers comply with meticulous rules for data gathering, software development and design controls.
The Energy Department has set a new goal of June 2008 to apply for a license for Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. In effect, that gives Sproat two years to turn around the troubled project.
Bob Loux, executive director for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said Sproat should be applauded for his candor. Whether he can fix the Yucca project is another matter, Loux added.
"He deserves some kudos for that he is beginning to actually find out what the real problems are with the program," Loux said. "The problem I have is his view that all these things are correctable in the short run."
As part of Sproat's reorganization, the Energy Department on Tuesday invited bids for independent evaluations of Yucca Mountain repository designs, its license application and its efforts to improve quality assurance.
Those reviews will set the stage for further changes, Sproat said.
"I don't suspect you will see the status quo maintained," he said. The studies "are intended to give (the NRC) and the public more confidence that we are not satisfied with where we are and that we are an inquiring organization."
The repository effort was rocked last year with the disclosure that hydrologists working for the U.S. Geological Survey swapped e-mails suggesting that quality assurance documentation had been falsified.
Sproat said Tuesday that a follow-up DOE study is discovering that apparent indifference to quality assurance might be a deeper problem within the project.
"The lack of understanding of the culture is broader than just the narrow pocket of USGS," he said. "Not that it calls into question the accuracy of technical work, but it certainly calls into question the culture of the organization."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 14, 2006
Industry executive says nuclear waste can remain at plants
But he says Yucca Mountain project needed to maintain confidence
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Spent nuclear fuel can remain safely stored at commercial power plants but the government still should move forward with proposals to ship it to a Yucca Mountain repository or to temporary storage sites, an industry executive told Congress on Wednesday.
For the nuclear industry to sustain newfound public support and build new power plants, there needs to be visible progress to dispose of highly radioactive nuclear waste, said retired Admiral Frank "Skip" Bowman, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute.
"There is absolutely no technical reason, no reason for health and safety, to change what we are doing now," Bowman told members of the House energy and water subcommittee.
"But there is a big reason that goes to the public perception of confidence in where we are going, whether we have a plan, and that is what we are hearing," Bowman said.
Used fuel is cooled in deepwater pools at operating reactors. At 42 plants spent fuel also is kept in "dry cask storage" -- sealed metal canisters enclosed in a metal or concrete shells and arrayed on concrete pads.
The Department of Energy signed contracts with utilities to take ownership of the waste and begin moving it to a repository in 1998. But DOE has fallen years behind schedule to build a repository at the Yucca Mountain site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Bowman said polls indicate new public attitudes of nuclear power at 60 to 80 percent positive, "but it is a little bit of a fickle love affair. If the public loses confidence in our abilities, it could be a crippling blow."
Bowman was among the witnesses at a hearing where lawmakers pondered nuclear waste policy. In the past, industry officials and others said it was imperative for the Yucca project to be completed before nuclear power use could expand.
More recently, however, the landscape for nuclear waste management has broadened.
The Bush administration is pursuing development of nuclear fuel reprocessing as a complement to waste burial in Nevada. Congress also is weighing a bill to create temporary sites where nuclear waste could be transferred while work continues in Nevada or until reprocessing might be brought to fruition.
Nils Diaz, former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, testified that nuclear waste could remain at power plants for decades.
"There is no critical timetable in the next 25 years that we have to have in place," Diaz said, although he added "there is a demand from Congress and the public to have a solution."
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Las Vegas SUN
September 14, 2006
Industry executive says nuclear waste safe at plants
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Storing spent nuclear fuel at commercial power plants is safe, but the government still should move forward with proposals to ship waste to a Yucca Mountain repository or to temporary storage sites, an industry executive said.
Retired Admiral Frank "Skip" Bowman, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, told a House panel Wednesday that public support for new nuclear plants can't be sustained without signs of progress in the effort to dispose of highly radioactive nuclear waste.
"There is absolutely no technical reason, no reason for health and safety, to change what we are doing now," Bowman told members of the House energy and water subcommittee.
"But there is a big reason that goes to the public perception of confidence in where we are going, whether we have a plan, and that is what we are hearing," Bowman said.
Used fuel is cooled in deep-water pools at operating reactors. At 42 plants spent fuel also is kept in dry cask storage, sealed metal canisters enclosed in a metal or concrete shells and arrayed on concrete pads.
The Department of Energy signed contracts with utilities to take ownership of the waste and begin moving it to a repository in 1998. But DOE has fallen years behind schedule to build a repository at the Yucca Mountain site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Bowman said polls indicate new public attitudes of nuclear power at 60 to 80 percent positive, "but it is a little bit of a fickle love affair. If the public loses confidence in our abilities, it could be a crippling blow."
Nils Diaz, former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, testified that nuclear waste could remain at power plants for decades.
"There is no critical timetable in the next 25 years that we have to have in place," Diaz said, although he added "there is a demand from Congress and the public to have a solution."
--Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
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NEI
September 13, 2006
NEI's New Yucca Mountain Legislation Ad
I'm sure by now many of you have read about the advertisements running in four publications covering Capitol Hill advocating the passage of Yucca Mountain legislation.
If you haven't seen the actual ad, here it is. For a larger version, click here.
For more, click here. And for a look at our latest television ad, click here. For the details on interim storage legislation that Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) introduced yesterday, click here.
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Energy, Environment, Electricity, DOE, Used Nuclear Fuel, Yucca Mountain, Politics, Technology
Eric McErlain
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U.S. News & World Report
September 14, 2006
Some in House suspicious of Senate nuclear waste bill
By Bret Schulte
Legislators in both chambers are saying they want to give nuclear power a new boost in the American energy market, but rival legislation on what to do with rapidly accruing nuclear waste has left some members of the House questioning the intentions of their counterparts in the Senate.
Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are expressing opposition to a Senate bill that would open interim storage sites for nuclear waste across the country while Nevada's Yucca Mountain repository continues to be derailed by poor planning, cost overruns, and fierce opposition by Nevadans, including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Many House leaders suspect the Senate proposal is meant to further undercut the project.
"We should not allow pursuit of interim storage to block Yucca Mountain," said Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the subcommittee on energy and air quality, in a hearing yesterday. House members say that in order for nuclear power to expand, a permanent home for nuclear waste is necessary. Rep. Gene Green, a Texas Democrat, tells U.S. News that the Senate bill, which would devote money and agency oversight to interim storage sites, is a masked attempt to kill the Yucca Mountain project for good.
"If you can't kill it straight up, you can kill it by taking away resources," Green said. "I know if I opposed Yucca Mountain, I would be very creative, and this looks like a very creative way to delay and divert resources from Yucca Mountain."
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Public Citizen
September 13, 2006
Public Citizen Testifies Before Congress on Nuclear Waste Safe Storage
Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors Introduced
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Michele Boyd, legislative director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, testified today before a House of Representatives subcommittee on thestorage of highly radioactive and dangerous nuclear waste from commercial nuclear reactors. At a hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, she presented a plan developed by national and grassroots public interest groups to address the urgent need to protect the public from the threats posed by the current vulnerable storage of commercial spent fuel. Ninety-four national and grassroots groups from 37 states have signed on to the principles thus far.
Boyd outlined why nuclear waste should be stored on-site at nuclear reactors in hardened casks rather than money being wasted on a failed underground repository, dangerous and polluting reprocessing or off-site surface storage.
In her testimony, she criticized the Bush administration’s “Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act,” which seeks to override public health and safety laws at the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and fails to address any of the flawed project’s fundamental problems. “The proposed Yucca Mountain site is unsafe for geologic storage of nuclear waste and the program remains mired in bad science, mismanagement and yet another design overhaul,” Boyd said. Even under the DOE’s unrealistically optimistic scenario, the underground repository would not begin receiving waste until 2017, and it would take more than 30 years to transport waste from across the nation to the site. The waste would have to be taken through many highly populated cities and towns, with some crashes of the transport trucks and trains inevitable. Meanwhile, the waste remains vulnerable at reactor sites.
Boyd also advised against President Bush’s proposed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which touts reprocessing spent fuel as a solution to the waste problem. Reprocessing is highly polluting and expensive – the radioactive material from the United States’ last experience with reprocessing continues to threaten the environment and will require tens of billions of dollars over several decades to clean up. The plutonium waste it produces could also be stolen and used in nuclear weapons or “dirty bombs,” presenting a significant proliferation problem.
Boyd rejected interim storage proposals being considered in the Senate and House FY2007 Energy and Water Appropriations bills. Centralized interim storage would increase the transport risks to public health, safety and security. It also would not reduce the number of sites where radioactive material is stored. Nuclear waste must be stored on-site for at least five years to thermally cool and radioactively decay before it can be transported off-site. Any operating reactor will have at least five years’ worth of irradiated fuel – approximately 100 tons – stored on-site at all times.
With the controversies concerning the building of this country’s first permanent repository, the temporary sites themselves will inevitably turn into “overflow parking” for nuclear waste that may never be moved again. “Moving commercial irradiated nuclear fuel to indefinite ‘interim’ surface storage at DOE or other sites would simply create the illusion of a waste solution,” said Boyd. “But it would be far more risky than retaining it at the reactor site where it was first produced.”
Instead of wasting hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on a dangerous reprocessing scheme, the flawed repository at Yucca Mountain and centralized storage sites, Boyd urged Congress to focus on improving the safety and security of waste storage at existing reactor sites. She cited the Spent Nuclear Fuel On-Site Storage Security Act of 2005, introduced in both the House and Senate by the Nevada and Utah delegations, as a good basis for incorporating safe storage principles into law.
To read Michele Boyd’s testimony, click here:
http://www.citizen.org/documents/TestimonyHouseWasteSept2006.pdf
To read “Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors,” click here:
http://www.citizen.org/documents/PrinciplesSafeguardingIrradiatedFuel.pdf
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Platts
September 13, 2006
DOE got 14 nuclear spent fuel facility responses: Official
Washington (Platts)--13Sep2006
The US Department of Energy has received 14 responses to its request for expressions of interest in housing integrated spent fuel reprocessing/recycling facilities that include interim storage, DOE Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dennis Spurgeon said Wednesday.
Spurgeon told the House Appropriations subcommittee that controls DOE spending that eight of the responses the department received in the week of September 4-8 involved DOE sites and that six involved non-DOE sites.
The sites represent every geographic area of the country, he said. Spurgeon later declined to identify the respondents.
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Deseret News
September 14, 2006
Activists urge stronger security at nuclear plants
By Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret Morning News
WASHINGTON — An anti-nuclear group, in congressional testimony submitted Wednesday, emphasized the Interior Department's rejection of Private Fuel Storage's lease in Tooele County as evidence of the need for stronger security at nuclear power plants.
Interim storage of nuclear waste has received increased attention from the House and Senate in the last year, with each chamber coming up with different proposals that would make interim storage an option for the Energy Department, although whether any plan will make it through Congress this year is unclear.
Michele Boyd, legislative director of the Public Citizen's energy program, told the House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee that making on-site storage at nuclear power plants more secure should be the only focus now, because "the United States does not have a near-term solution for the permanent storage of high-level nuclear waste."
"National focus should be on addressing the threats from this waste, not on wasting resources on a failed repository program, a dangerous reprocessing program or interim away-from-reactor storage," Boyd said.
Last week, the Bureau of Indian Affairs rejected the lease between Private Fuel Storage and the Skull Valley Band of the Goshutes to store more than 40,000 tons of nuclear waste on Goshute land in Tooele County. The Bureau of Land Management also rejected a PFS request to use certain tracts of public land to help with its transportation plan.
PFS aimed to store nuclear waste until the federal government opened a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The White House, a majority of lawmakers and the nuclear industry strongly support the Yucca plan, but the site might not open until 2017. It was supposed to open in 1998, and now utilities are having to deal with what to do with their waste until it opens.
Boyd, in her written testimony, said the lack of a transportation plan, inadequate law enforcement, lack of an environmental study on the effects of a terrorist attack and uncertainty about the availability of a permanent federal repository all led the Interior Department to reject the PFS lease.
In the lease decision handed down last week, the Bureau of Indian Affairs said the PFS plan left too much uncertainty about when the nuclear waste would actually leave the reservation for a permanent storage site.
Boyd used this point to argue against storage of waste in any place but at the reactors that generate it, saying the so-called temporary sites "would become long-term 'overflow parking' for high-level radioactive wastes with nowhere else to go."
"The most sensible action in the near-term is to require hardened on-site storage," she said.
Utah's entire congressional delegation has co-sponsored a bill with Nevada's congressional delegation that would allow the Energy Department to pay for on-site storage until the government found another storage solution beyond Yucca Mountain.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton said Wednesday that he would not support any interim storage proposal except putting waste temporarily in Nevada somewhere at the Yucca site until the waste would actually be put into the mountain.
"I don't want interim storage to be the stopping horse not to do Yucca Mountain," Barton said.
Nuclear utilities also do not want to see money taken away from Yucca and put toward interim projects.
"A dollar spent on interim storage is a dollar not spent on the repository," said Stan Wise, chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission, who testified on behalf of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
Wise and other nuclear industry officials argue that leaving nuclear waste on site does not fulfill the Nuclear Waste Policy Act's requirement of permanent geologic disposal, which is what Yucca Mountain would do.
--E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com
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The NewStandard
September 14, 2006
Under Pressure, Govt. Halts Nuclear Dump on Indian Land
by Michelle Chen
Sept. 14 – After a long campaign by indigenous-rights and public-interest groups, the federal government has dismissed corporations' plans to create a nuclear-waste dump on an Indian reservation in Utah.
The decision by the US Department of the Interior (DOI) all but ends a decade-long controversy that divided an indigenous community and threatened to turn native land into a repository for deadly radioactive waste.
Last Thursday, DOI's Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Affairs concluded that the plan to establish a major storage facility for irradiated nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation had failed to adequately address the safety and health risks the waste dump would pose. Though the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a license for the facility a year ago, the Interior Department's disapproval has for now effectively buried the plan.
The proposal was negotiated in 1997 by Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of energy corporations seeking storage for accumulated radioactive waste. In a hotly disputed deal, the Goshute tribal leadership agreed to lease the land for the facility, which would have had the capacity to hold 44,000 metric tons of spent fuel. The site would have been about 45 miles from Salt Lake City, in close proximity to a US military training and testing ground.
Prior to the decision, the Bureau of Land Management received several thousand letters protesting the plan. Opponents include members of the Goshute tribe, Indian activists and public-interest and environmental groups, such as Sierra Club and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, along with several state officials.
The Interior Department said the proposed facility lacked critical security measures. The Department also cited the dangers of transporting the nuclear waste by vehicles to Skull Valley; the waste cannot be transported by rail, because it would cut through a wilderness area recently designated for protection.
The decision noted that the facility had been designed only as a temporary storage solution for waste ultimately destined for a permanent underground repository, which the government had originally planned to build at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. But the campaign to secure the Yucca site for waste dumping has also stalled amidst rancorous public opposition.
The Goshutes' federally recognized chairman, Leon Bear, argued that the DOI had foreclosed an economic boon for the tribe. News outlets have reported that the lease would have brought in tens of millions of dollars over several decades.
Private Fuel Storage and the tribal leadership may still challenge the decision in court.
As previously reported in The NewStandard, the PFS plan sharply divided the tribe, as some members accused tribal leaders of exploiting their land for monetary gain. Bear, who spearheaded the deal, has faced growing internal resistance, exacerbated by his recent indictments for tax fraud and embezzlement. Last month, dissident members of the tribe voted to shut down the Goshute executive committee, paralyzing the tribal government.
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Salt Lake Tribune
September 14, 2006
Goshute says feds, state let the tribe down
Leader insists nuclear waste facility was in his people's best interests
By Judy Fahys
The Salt Lake Tribune
Goshute leader Leon D. Bear said Wednesday that federal and Utah officials who fought nuclear waste storage on the Skull Valley reservation betrayed his tiny tribe.
"The thing is, they are supposed to be protecting us, to help us," said Bear. "When is that help going to come?"
The 123-member Tooele County tribe had fought the Utah state government, its congressional delegation and public opinion for a decade when two federal decisions last Thursday appeared to kill the multibillion-dollar project just months after it received a federal nuclear license.
The Interior Department blocked transportation of waste to the site and invalidated the previously approved lease between the tribe and its utility-company partners. In effect, the agency ruined the tribe's effort to make money on their 18,500-acre reservation in a desert state where casinos are banned and where the federal government had pushed for nuclear waste sites.
"If they want to run the reservation, why don't they just come out and run it?" asked Bear, noting that the Goshutes and partner Private Fuel Storage have not decided yet if they will fight the rulings.
Should PFS opt to fight the ruling, the Goshutes "will stand by it, I believe," said the tribal chairman in his most extensive interview since last week's decision.
In comments to national and international news organizations over the past week, Bear has talked about the nation's history of erratic sovereign-to-sovereign relations with Indian tribes. The federal government had promoted such ventures as part of the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act and tribal members had voted for the project, he noted.
As planned, the waste site would have provided an open-air storage pad for used reactor waste, dangerously radioactive material that would be stored in steel and concrete containers on 100 acres across the road from the tribal village. Up to 44,000 tons of waste could be stored there for up to 40 years under the tribe's contract with PFS.
Bear said Interior Department officials, who by law are supposed to look out for the Goshutes' interests, had not spoken with the tribe since issuing their ruling last week.
"They haven't sent me the decision yet - unless they had it sent by pony express," he said.
Interior Department spokeswoman Maria Streshinsky said the tribe and PFS have the option of appealing the rulings to the U.S. District Court. She indicated that after Interior officials made their final decision, they called Bear and left a message on his cell phone.
"The first call the department always makes is to the tribe," she said.
While project opponents wait to learn the tribe and the consortium's next move, there continues to be speculation about whether there is enough support among utilities behind the project to fight the rulings.
Minnesota-based Xcel Energy, which has spent about $23 million on the Skull Valley project, has indicated it will not fund any further review or appeal. Its chief executive officer sent a letter to U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, last winter pledging not to support the Skull Valley site as long as a national solution, such as the Yucca Mountain, Nev., repository, is moving forward.
Bear saved his harshest words for Hatch, who served for years on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and last week "boasted" about engineering the Skull Valley project's demise, telling reporters, "it couldn't happen to nicer people."
"It saddens me for one of our politicians to take a stand like that and not offer any other kind of alternative," Bear said.
"This is the Goshute people out here - look at history," he said. "Look at how Hitler treated the Jews. I'm not saying it's that, but he's putting himself against the people here."
Bear called several parts of the ruling "thin." He noted, for instance, the Utah-based superintendent of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs signed off on the PFS-Goshute lease in 1997 but, on Thursday, said the signature was improper.
"That led us to believe that, once the conditions were met [for legal, safety and environmental review] that they [at BIA] would sign it."
Bear had led his tribe through a 17-year review process, that was initially funded by Congress in an attempt to find communities and tribes willing to accept nuclear waste. San Juan County in southeastern Utah looked into the program as an economic opportunity, and the Goshutes actually pursued it.
The Goshute leader also noted that the tiny tribe has spent lots of its own money on the project while state leaders pumped millions of dollars into stopping it.
"They were against us," he said, "Yet, they could put all of those waste dumps out here in the West Desert."
In the desert surrounding the Goshute reservation there is a chemical weapons destruction plant, a chemical and biological weapons test site, a hazardous waste incinerator and a low-level radioactive waste landfill.
"This [nuclear waste site] is something we reached out for, and we almost got it."
--fahys@sltrib.com
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Pioneer Press
September 14, 2006
Xcel Energy's nuclear-storage lease rejected
Increased local capacity diminishes need
By Dennis Lien
Pioneer Press
Over the past decade, Xcel Energy has spent $23 million on a plan to store highly radioactive nuclear waste at a Utah Indian reservation. But that project might be dead.
The Interior Department last week rejected a lease Xcel and other utilities had signed with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes to store waste on its reservation. It's still unclear whether an appeal will be filed, but Xcel said Wednesday it would not help pay for one.
The lease would have allowed Minneapolis-based Xcel and seven other utilities to ship up to 44,000 tons of nuclear waste to Goshute land southwest of Salt Lake City, where it would be stored for up to 50 years or until a permanent federal repository is available, either at Yucca Mountain in Nevada or elsewhere.
Xcel's need for that approach has diminished in recent years.
In 2003, it received state permission to expand nuclear-waste storage capacity at its Prairie Island nuclear power plant near Red Wing. Now, it's seeking permission to build a similar storage site at its Monticello plant.
After seemingly going nowhere for years, plans to store waste at Yucca Mountain have accelerated. Congress is considering changes to a nuclear-waste policy bill that could enable Yucca Mountain to open in 2017.
Last December, Xcel pledged to withhold future contributions for the private storage option if plans for Yucca Mountain continue to advance.
Charles Bomberger, general manager of nuclear assets for Xcel, said the company is maintaining that stance.
"There is, I think, significant activity and progress being made on Yucca Mountain,'' Bomberger said.
Of the $23 million Xcel has spent so far on the private storage option, $800,000 was spent in 2003 and 2004 and none in the past two years. Still, Xcel has no plans to drop out of the consortium, called Private Fuel Storage.
"We are a passive participant in PFS,'' Bomberger said. "If progress is not being made, we reserve the right to resurrect active participation in PFS.''
--Dennis Lien can be reached at dlien@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5588.
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E and E TV
September 13, 2006
Nuclear Waste: Nevada's Bob Loux calls DOE "virtually incompetent" regarding Yucca Mountain
With the House and Senate both addressing the issue of a nuclear waste repository, the Department of Energy is facing major opposition from the state of Nevada regarding Yucca Mountain. During today's OnPoint Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Projects Office talks about why Nevada will not, under any circumstances, accept a repository. Loux also discusses the safety issues and health risks associated with a nuclear repository.
Transcript
Mary O'Driscoll: Welcome to OnPoint. I'm Mary O'Driscoll. Our guest today is Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Projects Office. Welcome to the show Bob.
Bob Loux: Thank you Mary. It's good to be here.
Mary O'Driscoll: Good. You represent the state of Nevada in the debate over the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which of course the state of Nevada opposes and has opposed for many years. A lot of people would like to see this 20 year long debate though, they'd like to see it, this fight, just kind of get over with. They're looking at, Congress is already designated Yucca Mountain as the site where repository is going to be. DOE has been studying the site for years and people are saying, you know, enough already. Nevada's opposition, you're throwing up legal roadblocks, funding roadblocks, regulatory roadblocks. It's keeping the nuclear industry from being able to build new nuclear power plants because they need a place to put the waste before they can build the plants. How do you respond to this kind of thing?
Bob Loux: Well, I would respond by saying that I don't think Nevada is doing anything any other state wouldn't be doing in a similar situation. The real fundamental problem with the whole program is that you have a bad site. It won't do what they want it to. It will leak. It will contaminate Nevada's groundwater, you couple that with an agency that's virtually incompetent. The Department of Energy has never built a facility that's contained radioactive materials anywhere in the country. According to GAO they own and operate 127 facilities that handle these materials, 124 have completely failed and the other three have partially failed. So there's no confidence and no trust whatsoever in DOE. And the fact that they're promoting a scientifically defective site only adds to that skepticism.
Mary O'Driscoll: Well, how can it be scientifically deceptive if they've been studying it for 20 years? How long does it take for them to determine whether the site is good or bad? I mean this has been a pretty long process.
Bob Loux: Well, they certainly could have determined it in about 1992 when they first discovered that water moves through it much faster than they thought. And previous statements by DOE said if water moves that fast at a site, we don't have a site. Since then it has been more or less a case of momentum. It's not about whether the site meets scientific standards; it's about how we can maybe engineer it to work. So it's clearly past the threshold of setting safety standards and finding the site that meets that. We're now saying, well, this is the site, and we're going to alter any health and safety standard we need to to get this thing on. The idea from the Department of Energy is that all things nuclear, and nuclear waste included, is totally, inherently safe, so all of these health and safety regulations, in their mind, are not needed. They're an obstruction, in their mind. But in this country we developed health and safety regulations to protect a certain level of public health, and Yucca Mountain won't fit that need.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. At a hearing shortly before the August recess, a Senate hearing, Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, said, from the dais, told you flat out that you have no credibility before the committee because you represent the state of Nevada that just flat out opposes the repository. And your job is to kill the repository period. How do you respond to that? And what does that tell you about the state of the debate on Yucca Mountain?
Bob Loux: Well, it tells me that it's still very much contentious, as we all know. If I was the only one in the room getting paid to have a specific view about Yucca Mountain, and we're going to eliminate everyone else who had the same, I mean the hearing wouldn't, everybody in that room is paid to have a specific agenda. And I don't think promoting Yucca Mountain is any different than opposing it. And so I would question the credibility, according to Mr. Craig's standard, of everybody else who's in there. The problem is that it really shows his lack of understanding and his lack of diplomacy to sort of lash out at someone like myself and single me out after he asked me the question, which I responded to. So I would match my credibility against Senator Craig's any day of the week.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. DOE and Senator Domenici are working on legislation, coming back to work this month and working on legislation that will jumpstart the Yucca Mountain process, to speed it up, to try to get things moving, streamline the process. DOE says it needs this legislation in order to get the repository licensed. What's Nevada's view of the legislation?
Bob Loux: Well, in our view there's nothing in the legislation that in fact promotes or helps DOE file a high-quality license application with the NRC. DOE seems to believe the problems with the program are all external to them. For example, they want to be able to have the Secretary of Energy exempt Yucca Mountain shipments from any transportation regulation by anybody, Federal Government or the states. So clearly, that tells you a lot about the project. If it requires these extraordinary measures, wiping off transportation regulations, DOE being allowed to deposit hundreds of millions of pounds of heavy metals that would never be allowed to be used in land disposal anywhere else, if that's what it takes to get Yucca Mountain going, then that tells you everything you need to know about the poor quality of the site and the incompetency of department. The fact is that all these problems are occurring of the department's own making. A case in point, their failure to actually correctly certify their record before the NRC is a prerequisite to filing a license application. And they screwed that up, not the state of Nevada, not the NRC or anybody else. So very little in this bill does anything for getting a high-quality license application submitted to the NRC. In fact, nothing does.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. Well, a lot of people say that this is just a NIMBY situation. That Nevada otherwise enjoys the federal largess. You're getting the money. You're getting the jobs at the site and that you're enjoying that, but yet you're still fighting the repository itself. What is your response to that?
Bob Loux: Well, first of all, there's not any jobs at the site that actually mean anything to Clark County economy where Yucca Mountain, Las Vegas is located, adjacent to Yucca Mountain. If creating 3000 to 5,000 new jobs a month, so the idea that we have 200 or 300 people or even a thousand people working out there is not even a blip on the screen. So it's not like there's some big economic benefit. And then the money we get is to oversee and evaluate the program and tell people our view of it, and that's what the law requires and that's what we perform under, so none of these things are "benefits" per se. Nevada would love to see this project go away. I'm sure any other state in the same position would like it to go away and not be in their state as well. They're frustrated with, I think, our effectiveness in opposing this site, our ability to challenge them on health and safety issues, and they're very upset with that. And I can understand the frustrations of people like Senator Craig, who, once again, believes all nuclear things are safe. We really don't need any health and safety regulations. Just go build it. Ignore NEPA and the environmental laws, none of that stuff matters. And when you raise those issues about, wait a second, we have laws. Well, then we're obstructionists. We're just trying to get the government to follow the law.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. Now there's a defense angle to this as well, because the site itself is in a little tiny corner of the Nevada test site and it involves the Nellis base, the big Air Force training range that they have out there. And that there has been some concern that building Yucca Mountain and taking the land away would affect training there at Nellis. But that now DOE says it's a very small portion. We're only going to affect four cubic miles, I guess, four miles of air space. It's going to be a very small piece. What is actually the concern out there?
Bob Loux: Well, when we talked to the Air Force people at the Nellis Air Force Range, they believe restricting air access to the gunnery range, by restricting the airspace over Yucca Mountain, would be very inhibiting to their mission. The Secretary of Air Force has written previously to the Congress and saying anything that interferes in any way with our mission, they would be opposed to. So it's not about the number of acreage, what it is about is right over Yucca Mountain has been the entrance and the exit for all these fighter jets, with live ordinance, coming in and out of this gunnery range. And also the Air Force tells us that the new fighters coming online, the F-22s, require even more space. And that the southern southwestern corner of the gunnery range, which is where we're talking about, where Yucca Mountain is, is one of the critical components of areas that they need to have to be able to do their training. So I think there's a conflict coming. The Air Force tells us there is no understanding or agreement with DOE. They will not sign off on any flight restrictions over that area, like a no-fly zone. In contrary to the remarks by the DOE people, there is not in agreement and I don't think there will be.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. Now this all kind of ignores the crucial fact about transportation of waste to the site. I guess it's supposed to be rail, yet there's no spur that actually gets to the site itself, and this is a bone of contention with the state of Nevada as well. What can you tell me about that?
Bob Loux: Well, first of all, we're in litigation with them over the selection of the so-called Caliente route, which is a 319 mile proposed route right through the heart of central Nevada to get waste to Yucca Mountain from the eastern side of the state. Now we repeatedly told them this is probably the most difficult, the most expensive route they could pick. They even now agree that the route, the cost of this would be over $2 billion. There are several big mountain ranges to go over. And we don't think that an adequate comparison has been done to other, more reasonable alternatives for getting waste to Yucca Mountain, assuming that it even happens. So we're concerned with the selection of the Caliente route. We think that it is inappropriate and, moreover, we believe that the wrong agency is in charge. Under federal law this EIS and this selection of these routes should be done by the Surface Transportation Board that has exclusive jurisdiction over new rail construction in this country and not DOE. Since the Nuclear Waste Policy Act says that the transportation regulations and authorities of any other entities, including the Surface Transportation Board or even the state of Nevada shall not be compromised by this program. DOE will follow the rules. Yet they're turning around, in this legislation, and saying we should be exempt from all transportation regulations. We should be self-governing. And if DOE had a good track record in handling these materials, once again, people might be willing to believe that. But the fact that they don't only reinforces more that we need the regulations on the books.
Mary O'Driscoll: Is there any circumstance under which the state of Nevada would accept a repository within its borders?
Bob Loux: No, in a word.
Mary O'Driscoll: Even if it can be proven safe?
Bob Loux: No, in a word. We believe it would be very harmful to our gaming economy. There are lots of studies out there by the gaming industry, as well by the state, that indicates that even if it was operating exactly as planned with no leaks, no accidents, perfectly, that we'd still see between a ten and twenty percent drop-off in gaming because people just don't want to visit places where they have these ongoing nuclear activities, in particular nuclear waste.
Mary O'Driscoll: Well, if you're talking about nuclear activities doesn't that mean the Nevada test site would be a problem?
Bob Loux: Well, because those activities are no longer going on and I think there's a vast difference sort of between some of the other activities going on out there and some proposed for Yucca Mountain. Some of it has been in place for so long that it's almost been institutionalized. Yet a new nuclear facility in Nevada, at least according to most of the work we've done and the industry has done, would be very harmful to tourism, gaming, business relocation, retirement, all of those things. In fact, Clark County itself, the county adjacent to Yucca Mountain, sees a $3 billion a year negative impact to their economy simply from Yucca Mountain going forward.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. We'll have to end on that note. I'd like to thank Bob Loux of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Projects Office for joining us today, and thank you for joining us. I'm Mary O'Driscoll. See you next time on OnPoint.
Click here to watch this episode:
http://www.eande.tv/main/?date=091306
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Platts
September 12, 2006
DOE plans independent reviews of Yucca Mountain project
Washington (Platts)--12Sep2006
DOE issued three request for proposals September 11 for independent reviews of the engineering, quality assurance, and license application for the department's repository project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. DOE waste program director Edward Sproat told reporters September 12 that he wants the reviews to be done by companies or other entities not involved in the DOE repository project but that have commercial nuclear experience. Sproat declined to estimate the value of the contracts due to the competitive bidding but said they essentially would be small business set-aside contracts. DOE is asking bidders to estimate the amount of time needed to complete the assessments, Sproat said. Review of the repository LA might take six months to complete, Sproat estimated, calling that a long-term review. The RFPs are on DOE's web site at
(www.ocrwm.doe.gov/about/business/solicitations.shtml).
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UPI
September 13, 2006
Nuclear energy rules knocked as outdated
WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- The nuclear energy industry wants Washington to respond to an emerging renewal of atomic generating plants with updated regulations and policies.
The Nuclear Energy Institute said Wednesday in testimony before a congressional panel that as many as 30 nuclear power plants could be built in the United States in the next two decades.
Among areas that need attention are unduly restrictive construction finance rules, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's new-plant licensing process and centralized interim storage of used nuclear fuel pending development of the Yucca Mountain, Nev., repository, said Frank L. "Skip" Bowman, the NEI's president and chief executive officer.
Many existing policies reflect a time when there was no perceived premium on clean power generation, as their is today.
Bowman told lawmakers that his industry is investing well over $1.5 billion in design and engineering work, licensing and procurement of long-lead equipment like reactor pressure vessels and steam generators.
"The first wave of these plants could begin site preparation by the end of 2008, move in to full-scale construction in 2010 when they receive their construction and operating licenses, and be ready for commercial operation in the 2014 to 2015 time frame," Bowman said.
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Yahoo! News
September 13, 2006
Press Release
Nuclear Industry Leader Voices Support for H.R. 5360, Urges DOE to Move Used Fuel From Reactor Sites
WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- A Bush Administration legislative proposal to facilitate management of used nuclear fuel is strongly supported by the nuclear energy industry and would be "a major milestone" on the road to proper environmental stewardship of this material, an industry leader told the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality today.
DTE Energy Chairman and CEO Anthony Earley Jr. -- chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute's board of directors -- also said there are additional provisions that Congress should consider in comprehensive legislation that could be undertaken in parallel with development of a federal government repository planned for Yucca Mountain, Nev.
"To realize fully the benefits that nuclear power offers, the country must resolve outstanding issues related to the ultimate disposal of used nuclear fuel," Earley said.
The focus of the House energy panel's hearing was nuclear waste storage and disposal, including the administration's Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act (H.R. 5360). Key provisions of the bill would:
* articulate the government's confidence in the safe and secure disposal of used nuclear fuel as a matter of national policy; this would eliminate the need for a determination of "waste confidence" by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as part of individual plant licensing actions;
* remove the artificial 70,000-metric ton capacity limitation on the amount of commercial used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from U.S. defense programs that can be placed into the Yucca Mountain repository, and
* assure that there will be adequate funding for the Department of Energy's used fuel management program by changing the budget treatment for the federal Nuclear Waste Fund, yet maintaining congressional oversight of the use of the fund. Billions of dollars from electricity customers have been paid into the fund but only a fraction of that money has been spent for its intended purpose.
"Enactment of H.R. 5360, with the amendments we advocate, is the critical prerequisite to implementing our national policy for used fuel management," Earley said. "A viable used fuel management strategy is necessary to retain long-term public confidence in operating existing nuclear power plants and in building new nuclear power plants to meet our nation's growing electricity needs, and to fuel our economic growth."
The industry also supports movement of used nuclear fuel on an expedited basis and guidance from Congress on prospective Department of Energy contracts for used-fuel management at new nuclear power plants. Developments that have occurred since the contracts for existing power plants were executed in the 1980s warrant this new guidance from federal lawmakers.
Earley expressed the industry's support for "an active and constructive role for Nevada in the development of Yucca Mountain to help ensure the safety of its citizens" and for compensation for the state to address the program's socioeconomic impact.
"The industry is encouraged by the steps DOE has taken to work with affected local governments in the state, and we further encourage DOE to expand its interactions with Nevadans interested in constructive engagement in the project," Earley said.
One hundred and three commercial reactors in 31 states provide electricity to one of every five homes and businesses. The used nuclear fuel that results from the production of nuclear power is housed in 12-foot-long fuel assemblies that are stored in steel-lined concrete pools and, increasingly, in dry storage containers at plant sites as fuel pools reach their capacity.
Federal law required the Department of Energy to begin disposing of used nuclear fuel in 1998, but the government has defaulted on its obligation, and dozens of utility lawsuits against the government are pending in federal court. DOE's revised schedule for the Yucca Mountain repository envisions the facility opening in 2017 at the earliest.
"The industry's top priority is for the federal government to meet its statutory and contractual obligation to move used fuel away from operating and decommissioned reactor sites. Further delays in federal movement of used nuclear fuel and defense waste products will only add to utility damage claims," Earley said.
The Nuclear Energy Institute is the nuclear energy industry's policy organization. This news release and additional information about nuclear energy are available at http://www.nei.org.
--Source: Nuclear Energy Institute
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Nuclear Energy Institute
September 13, 2006
‘Emerging Nuclear Revival’ Requires Action by Federal Government, NEI Leader Tells House Panel
WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 13, 2006—Challenges requiring action by the federal government confront the nuclear energy industry as it proceeds with the engineering and licensing work that could lead to the construction of as many as 30 new nuclear power plants over the next 20 years, an industry leader told Congress today.
Action needed by the federal government to facilitate this “emerging nuclear revival” lies in the areas of construction finance, congressional oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s new-plant licensing process, and centralized interim storage of used nuclear fuel pending development of the Yucca Mountain, Nev., repository, said Frank L. “Skip” Bowman, the Nuclear Energy Institute’s president and chief executive officer. Bowman testified before the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.
“The industry’s major priority is the immediate imperative to address the significant challenges facing construction of the next nuclear plants in the United States,” Bowman said. “The industry is investing well over $1.5 billion in design and engineering work, licensing and procurement of long-lead equipment like reactor pressure vessels and steam generators.”
To meet a projected increase in electricity demand of 45 percent by 2030, 12 companies or groups of companies are developing federal construction and operating license applications, and four companies already have filed applications for early site permits with the NRC.
“The first wave of these plants could begin site preparation by the end of 2008, move in to full-scale construction in 2010 when they receive their construction and operating licenses, and be ready for commercial operation in the 2014 to 2015 time frame,” Bowman said.
In the area of new nuclear plant finance, he called for congressional oversight of the federal regulations being developed to implement investment stimulus provisions in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
The Department of Energy recently published initial guidelines, developed jointly with the Office of Management and Budget, under which it will implement the Energy Policy Act provisions that authorized loan guarantees for up to 80 percent of the cost of “innovative technologies” that “avoid, reduce or sequester air pollutants or anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases.”
“The guidelines are so restrictive and so conditional that they would not support financing of a nuclear power plant,” Bowman said. “The nuclear industry urges the Congress to exercise the oversight necessary to ensure this essential program operates as intended by Congress through credible, workable regulations.”
He also voiced concern over “extensive, substantive changes” to NRC regulations that govern licensing for new reactors.
“This approach places the industry in the difficult situation of attempting to develop new plant license applications while NRC is rewriting the rules and regulatory guidance governing those applications. Active and continuing oversight by the committees of Congress will be essential to ensure that the NRC maintains schedules, and produces timely, high-quality regulations and regulatory guidance,” Bowman said.
To fully realize the benefits of clean, reliable and affordable nuclear energy and to address legitimate questions about the government’s stewardship of the uranium fuel used to generate 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, the United States must have a credible, long-term used nuclear fuel management program, Bowman said. He detailed several essential components that should be integrated into the federal government’s used fuel management program, including:
* a centralized disposal facility at Yucca Mountain, located in the Nevada desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas;
* proliferation-proof fuel processing and uranium fuel fabrication facilities and advanced reactors designed to extract the maximum possible energy from used nuclear fuel and to reduce the radiotoxicity and volume of the byproducts requiring permanent isolation in the repository, and
* interim storage facilities until the Yucca Mountain disposal facility is operational.
* “Used nuclear fuel is stored safely today at nuclear plant sites, either in pool storage or in dry casks. That said, however, it is absolutely essential to public and state policymaker confidence that the federal government identify and develop sites for centralized interim storage, ideally linked to future reprocessing facilities, and begin the process of moving used nuclear fuel to these interim storage facilities,” Bowman said.
One hundred and three nuclear power plants operating in 31 states provide electricity to one of every five U.S. homes and businesses. They provide more than 70 percent of the electricity that comes from energy sources, including renewables and hydroelectric power plants, that do not emit particulates linked to smog and acid rain nor the greenhouse gases linked to the threat of global warming.
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Provo Daily Herald
September 13, 2006
A big win for Utah
Daily Herald
Utah appears to have won its fight against nuclear waste storage on the Goshute reservation in Skull Valley.
The U.S. Department of the Interior rejected Private Fuel Storage's plans to operate there. The consortium had sought the department's approval for a land lease and rights of way, either for a rail spur to the proposed dump or for a transfer facility that would switch casks from trains to trucks for the last 26 miles of the trip.
The department found plenty of reasons to reject the concept:
The newly designated Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area blocks a railroad spur to the site.
Oversized, lumbering waste trucks would cause traffic problems on Skull Valley Road, a narrow, two-lane highway that already services a busy landfill on the Goshute reservation.
PFS spent too much time talking about how it would move waste into Skull Valley while putting little thought into the plan for removing the 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel when the facility eventually closes.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs official who granted conditional approval of the lease was not authorized to do that, nullifying the tribe's agreement.
Neither the Tooele County Sheriff's Office nor the BIA has the resources needed to provide police protection for the site.
On the strength of those and other problems, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne pulled the plug.
The sheer number of objections cited in the 46-page report suggests that this time the war is really over. Even though PFS says it is reviewing the matter and examining its options, it is unlikely that the plan will suddenly revive like a horror movie monster.
After eight years of defeats in the courts and at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, we can start breathing a little easier. We don't have to worry that nuclear waste shipments will put Utahns at risk of radiation exposure in an accident or terrorist attack. Nor do we have to worry that the "temporary" waste site will become permanent if Yucca Mountain fails to open.
As we celebrate victory, however, let's not forget the Goshutes. The impoverished tribe saw nuclear waste as a ticket to prosperity, so this is a setback in the view of some.
With waste off the table, the tribe's desire to work with the state on economic development may improve -- which would be a good thing. But the well of possibilities is admittedly not deep. Government needs to make a genuine effort to help the Goshutes develop new sources of income.
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Minnesota Public Radio
September 13, 2006
Xcel spent $23 million on scuttled nuclear storage plan
Minneapolis — (AP) Xcel Energy says it spent $23 million on its efforts to ship its nuclear waste to an Indian reservation in Utah, a project that may well be dead. The Interior Department scuttled the project last week by rejecting the lease that Xcel and other utilities had signed with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes.
That lease would have allowed the utilities to ship as much as 44,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel to Goshute land about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, where it would have been stored for up to 25 or 50 years, or until a permanent federal repository becomes available, either at Yucca Mountain in Nevada or elsewhere.
Charles Bomberger, general manager of nuclear assets for Xcel, said he was disappointed with the decision because the utility has been trying for years to move its nuclear wastes out of Minnesota.
Xcel led the effort in the mid-1990s to recruit nuclear utilities across the country into Private Fuel Storage, a company formed to search for a private storage site. The Goshutes would have benefited from the project with lease payments and jobs.
Bomberger said Xcel spent significantly more than its other utility partners in PFS because it feared that its nuclear plants at Prairie Island and Monticello would have to shut down prematurely if out-of-state space for the wastes was not available.
Xcel's concern eased, he said, after the 2003 Legislature passed a law allowing Xcel to expand its on-site storage of wastes well into the future, subject to state review and approval.
Still, Bomberger said, Xcel and other utilities would like to have private storage available in Utah or elsewhere in case a permanent federal repository is delayed further or not approved.
Leon Bear, chairman of the Goshute Band, said it's premature to call the project dead, but the band has not decided whether to appeal the Interior Department decision. PFS officials are reviewing the decision, according to a spokeswoman. However, Bomberger said, Xcel will not fund the review or any possible utility appeal.
Two Interior Department divisions outlined their objections to the PFS proposal in a 46-page document.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs said storing nuclear wastes on an "interim" basis on tribal land might easily turn out to be permanent because federal efforts to build a national burial site have been plagued with uncertainty and missed deadlines. The BIA also said the nuclear wastes could become a terrorist target and that federal, tribal and local law enforcement was inadequate to protect the site.
The Bureau of Land Management said the rail line to the proposed storage site could not be built because it would cross a newly established wilderness area, and that loading the wastes from rail to trucks would cause traffic problems and expose too many workers to radiation.
Utah officials, including Sen. Orrin Hatch and Gov. Jon Huntsman, strongly opposed the project. Bear said a "small minority" of his 125 members opposed it as well.
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Minneapolis Star Tribune
September 12, 2006
Xcel's effort to store wastes in Utah is halted
Nuclear wastes from Minnesota and elsewhere will not be going cross-country anytime soon. The Department of Interior has rejected a lease with an Indian reservation.
Xcel Energy has suffered a major setback in its efforts to ship highly radioactive wastes to an Indian reservation in Utah until a permanent federal repository is available.
The Interior Department brought the project to a halt last week by rejecting the lease that Xcel and other utility companies had signed with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes in Utah -- after Xcel had spent $23 million on the proposal since 1997, according to company officials.
That lease would have allowed as much as 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel to be shipped to Goshute land about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. There, it would have been stored for as many as 25 years with the option for another 25, or until a federal site for burying the wastes becomes available at Yucca Mountain in Nevada or elsewhere.
The wastes will remain dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years.
Charles Bomberger, general manager of nuclear assets for Xcel, said he was disappointed with the Interior Department's decision because the utility has been trying for years to move its nuclear wastes out of Minnesota. Xcel led the effort in the mid-1990s to recruit nuclear utilities across the country into Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a company formed to search for private storage away from nuclear plants where wastes have accumulated during the past three decades or more.
For their part, the Goshutes would have benefited significantly from the project with lease payments and jobs.
Bomberger said Xcel spent significantly more than the other utility partners because it feared that its Minnesota nuclear plants at Prairie Island and Monticello might be forced to shut down prematurely if out-of-state space for the wastes was not available. That concern lessened, he said, after the 2003 Legislature passed a law allowing Xcel to expand its on-site storage of wastes well into the future, subject to state review and approval.
Nevertheless, Bomberger said, Xcel and other utilities would like to have private storage available in Utah or elsewhere in case a permanent federal repository is delayed further or not approved.
Potential problems
In a 46-page document, two Interior Department divisions objected to the PFS proposal.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) said that storing nuclear wastes on an "interim" basis on tribal land might easily turn out to be permanent because federal efforts to build a national burial site have been plagued with uncertainty and missed deadlines. The BIA also said that the nuclear wastes could become a terrorist target and that federal, tribal and local law enforcement is inadequate to protect the site.
The Bureau of Land Management said that the rail line to the proposed storage site could not be built because it would cross a newly established wilderness area and that loading the wastes from rail to trucks would cause traffic problems and expose too many workers to radiation.
Relief and frustration
Utah officials, including Sen. Orrin Hatch and Gov. Jon Huntsman, both Republicans, hailed the Interior Department decision as a victory. The other members of Utah's congressional delegation also have opposed storage at the reservation.
"We just wanted to put a spike right through the heart of this project, and this does it," Hatch said in a statement.
However, Leon Bear, chairman of the Goshute Band, said it's premature to call the project dead.
Utilities have spent "millions and millions" on the proposal, he said, including engineering studies, an application for a federal license that was approved in February, a six-volume environmental impact study and legal costs to respond to a constant stream of appeals and litigation from the state of Utah.
"This issue is not going to go away," Bear said. "We've been fighting too long to get it here."
Some of the controversy has occurred within the band, and Bear acknowledged that a "small minority" of its 125 members have opposed the plan.
Bear was especially upset with the BIA and said it was "paternalistic" for officials in Washington to reject the lease with the utilities. The action raises serious questions about tribal sovereignty, he said. "For the BIA to second-guess our decision without even a consultation is amazing," he said.
The band has not decided whether to appeal the decision. PFS officials are reviewing the decision, according to a spokeswoman. However, Bomberger said Xcel will not fund the review or any possible utility appeal.
--Tom Meersman • 612 673-7388 • meersman@startribune.com
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Discovery Channel
September 12, 2006
Study: Yucca Mountain Once a Rowdy Place
Larry O'Hanlon
Discovery News
Sept. 12, 2006 — It may be quiet now, but about 80,000 years ago the land just 10 miles from the proposed U.S. High-Level Nuclear Waste Depository at Yucca Mountain, was rocking and rolling with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, says a government geologist.
By digging trenches through three Yucca Mountain faults in Nevada and studying the rocks within, paleoseismologist Tom Parsons of the U.S. Geological Survey and his colleagues have been able to gather data and study the upheavals of the past with a computer model. They found evidence that earthquakes and eruptions tend to conspire in the Yucca Mountain area, making for a sometimes geologically rowdy scene.
“What we kind of stumbled over is some volcanic ash at the bottom of earthquake fissures,” says Parsons, describing the initial key discovery.
The fissures are shallow cracks in the ground that can form during strong quakes, and then fill up with sediments in pretty short order. “Days or weeks, we can’t tell for sure,” he said of the refilling.
That these fissures had ash in them is startling because it means either the nearby 80,000-year-old Lathrop Wells volcanic cinder cone was spewing ash into the air at the same time as the earthquake, or that the eruption had occurred just days or weeks before the quake. Before this discovery, geologists had tended to think of the quakes and eruptions in the Yucca Mountain area as separate and largely unrelated events.
With this new tantalizing clue to the clustering of at least the Lathrop Wells eruption and earthquakes, Parsons and his colleagues set about making a model to simulate how the gradually spreading crust of the Earth in the Yucca Mountain region might create the troublesome coincidence.
“The whole area is being stretched,” said Parsons.
Faults that cut through the region allow blocks of crust to slide alongside each other in all sorts of directions and help the crust to stretch — the same way books on a shelf can cover more of the shelf when they are tilted and sliding along each others’ covers.
Every now and then magma has found a conduit through the sliding blocks and erupts on the surface. Over the last eight million years there have been about 30 such eruptions in the region — the latest being at Lathrop Wells.
In their simulation of the Yucca Mountain area, Parsons and his team tried applying pressure to the crust in different ways to see what happened. Their work paid off when they let the simulated central Yucca Mountain faults slip. When that happened, which would have created strong quakes; there were also eruptions at Lathrop Wells — just like in the real world.
As for how this contributes to the controversy about whether Yucca Mountain is the right place to store high level nuclear waste for 10,000 years, volcanologist Chuck Connor of the University of South Florida claims it doesn't.
Connor, who sits on a Department of Energy panel studying the volcanic risks of Yucca Mountain, explains scientists now have to assess the risk that this kind of activity could occur over the next 10,000 years.
“It’s a question of whether it’s safe enough for the site,” said Connor.
Parson’s work is helpful, said Connor, for assessing this risk.
Before Parsons, no one had a mechanism to explain the eruptions and quakes in the Yucca Mountain area, said Connor. Without a mechanism, it's pretty hard to make any meaningful assessment of the risk.
“Parsons’ paper begins to provide a mechanism for it,” Connor said. “It’s going in the right direction, for sure.”
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E and E TV
September 11, 2006
Nuclear Power: CASEnergy's Whitman says Yucca issues should not halt discussion about benefits
As Congress continues to debate the issue of nuclear repositories, nuclear energy activists are touting this technology as a viable source of clean energy. During today's OnPoint, Christie Todd Whitman, co-chair of Clean And Safe Energy (CASEnergy) explains why she thinks it is important to begin talking to Americans about nuclear energy. She also discusses the licensing issues facing nuclear facilities and talks about nuclear technology as a way to solve the global warming issue.
Transcript
Mary O'Driscoll: Welcome to OnPoint. I'm Mary O'Driscoll. Our guest today is Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey and EPA administrator, who has now helped found an organization of utilities, labor unions, interest groups, businesses, and universities in support of new nuclear power plants. Welcome to the show.
Christine Todd Whitman: It's a pleasure, Mary.
Mary O'Driscoll: You helped form this group called Clean and Safe Energy, or CASEnergy for short, with Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore, showing that the case can be made, on an environmental basis, for new nuclear power plants. Now everyone knows, pretty much, that nuclear power doesn't emit any greenhouse gases. Yet it does create a significant amount of nuclear waste that has to be separated from the environment, separated from the public. It's now stored in dry casks at nuclear power plant sites, has no permanent repository to call home. So in light of that, a lot of people wonder, how can nuclear power be so environmentally friendly?
Christine Todd Whitman: Well, for several reasons. The first of all, you're right. And let me just say, that CASEnergy is about more than just the environmental arguments for nuclear. It's really about getting an intelligent discussion going about nuclear that includes everything, all the benefits, the upside, downside, and answering these kinds of questions. And clearly a national repository is something that has got to be dealt with. But it's important to understand that the on-facility storage, the holding tanks for the rods, were designed to hold them for a hundred years. So they really are very safe there at the moment. There is a big push, as I think is very appropriate, to start looking at recycling, because 95 percent of the energy is still there, you ought to be able to recapture it after one use. And you see a lot of that recycling research going on in Europe now. There's a great deal of it happening. It's starting to happen in other places around the world. We should be taking a look at that too. New nuclear facilities are producing now, instead of rods, pellets, so they're easier to deal with. There are a host of things that are coming to fruition that give us some hope that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel on this. And right now the safety issue is one, where they are now it is safe for the foreseeable future. It's not the permanent and never was designed to be the permanent home for the spent rods, and we do need to deal with that. But to refuse to talk about the potential good side of nuclear because of this issue alone, doesn't, I think, make a lot of sense. And what we really should be doing is saying how do we solve this problem? How do we deal with this issue? Or do you just want to take nuclear off the table when you have the Department of Energy that estimates that there's going to be a 45 percent increase in demand, from where we are today, by 2030. And we already have twenty percent of our energy is from nuclear and those are facilities that some of which are going to be closing down in the future.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. Well, you touched on several interesting topics. I wanted to start out with the environmental one. You know, talking about greenhouse gas emissions, the big push now is because they produce no emissions. At EPA you took heat from the White House and from your fellow Republicans for your position on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet a fellow Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger, over in California, has just cut a deal with the legislative Democrats over there to cap emissions in California.
Christine Todd Whitman: Right.
Mary O'Driscoll: And, interestingly, there's a moratorium on new nuclear power plants in that state. So I just raised a couple questions.
Christine Todd Whitman: No, and that's very good, and it's something that the governor is going to have to look at.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK.
Christine Todd Whitman: Because you can't have it both sides, and if you look at California's problems, air emission problems, a lot of them actually are from mobile sources. So California really has to deal with their issue of cars. That's one of their biggest problems from their perspective. So that's where he's going to be trying to get at his greenhouse gases. But ultimately, for their power increases and their power demands, I think they're going to start to look there. I mean you have even countries like France, which are eighty percent nuclear, but very environmentally sensitive. They're expanding their nuclear base. It's happening around the world because they don't produce any of the currently regulated gases. They don't produce greenhouse gases. The footprint of a nuclear facility is actually very small, so that there is a lot that can happen around them that is good for nature because while the footprint of the facility is small, you have a bigger perimeter for safety and security reasons that are totally undeveloped in there. So it's something that we're going to have to have the kind of common-sense approach that says how do we see our way through? And it's precisely because you have initiatives like Governor Schwarzenegger's, which I applied by the way. I mean I think that's a very good initiative. We actually now have some 40 initiatives in 29 states and localities aimed at capping greenhouse gases. And, in fact, even when I was governor back in 1997, we put a cap on greenhouse gas emissions in the state. We started bringing them down. So it's been going on for a long time. But that kind of patchwork quilt is a nightmare for any kind of a business. And so there's going to be pressure on Congress to come up with some kind of a national standard. And when that happens it's going to make other forms of energy - it's going to make nuclear much more competitive with other forms of energy in the start up. That's where nuclear, from a financial point of view, is more expensive. It's just the start up. Once it's online it's much more efficient. And, in fact, is much less expensive than other forms of energy.
Mary O'Driscoll: Do you think what California did will make it easier for the states and for interest groups to say, listen Congress, look what's going on, where California goes, so goes the rest of the country with ...
Christine Todd Whitman: Absolutely. And I think ultimately, again, nuclear isn't the answer. It's not going to be all nuclear and that's what we want to see. It's just got to be a bigger part of the solution than people are willing to talk about today.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. And you think then that California will have to abandon its nuclear moratorium?
Christine Todd Whitman: I wouldn't be at all surprised if they didn't start to reconsider that, because they have got serious grid problems. They've got serious energy demand problems, and they want to continue to grow.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. All right. There appears to be growing interest among utilities in building new nuclear power plants. And Congress, last year, provided in the energy policy act, significant financial and regulatory incentives for the industry to go out and get them licensed and to get them built. And just recently NRC said about 19 companies have signed letters of intent for, I think, 27 reactors, which is more than what they had said in previous years and months. But the real deep interest doesn't appear to be kind of there yet. Constellation Energy is the only company that's actually announced that it's out there looking to buy parts. You have other companies, other utilities, like PP&L, saying that they are going to clean up the emissions from their existing coal plants. So, you know, in light of all of that, I mean did last year's energy bill actually do anything? Was it a significant move? You know, in light of kind of this, there seems to be churning, but no one really taking that first step.
Christine Todd Whitman: Well, next years when you're going to see the change, and that's because of the energy bill and the way they set it up. But next year you will probably see about a dozen consortiums or individual companies come forward with permit requests, or start to get in the pipeline, for permits and licensing for some 17 to 20, as you point out, facilities. It will probably get down to maybe a hard half a dozen. The next step after that is they have to get on that queue that you mentioned, which most people don't recognize is there. For some parts of nuclear reactors, they're only made by one company in one place in the world. And so there is becoming more and more pressure, people want to buy that particular part. So you have to get in line, and you have to buy your place in line and hold that. Then you start to go through the permitting process, and after that, once they have gotten the license, that's when the final decision will be made. When companies will decide what do the economics look like? What does the growth pattern in the area look like? What is the mix of energy that's right and does this make sense to me, for me and my company? But certainly around the Southeast, where you see the biggest projected growth in the near future, there's a lot of interest in nuclear from the states themselves, from some of the communities themselves, as well is from the industries that are located there. And so I think you will see some real action. They will start to move forward.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. It's kind of interesting, you're seeing where there's a lot of nuclear down in the south right now. And that it looks kind of like the way that the LNG plants, you know, where people know the LNG plants, the liquefied natural gas import terminals in the Gulf of Mexico. That's where all the new ones are being built. They're not being built in the areas where the demand really is, in the Northeast or California. Do you see ... is there a danger of that kind of a scenario kind of evolving with nuclear power plants?
Christine Todd Whitman: Well, that's really what CASE is all about, because one of the things that's interesting is they did a study early on, did a survey, that shows that basically the American people, about 58 percent of the American people are comfortable with nuclear. You start talking to them about nuclear and giving them answers to the questions and that goes up to 76 percent very, very quickly. The strongest support for nuclear is in that area closest to the nuclear facility, because they live there. They know them. They know they're safe. They know what they can bring to the community. They know about the high paying jobs and what it does and all of that. And as you get further away from the plant is where you start to get more confusion and less knowledge. But if you can bring some of the knowledge, answer some of the questions, get into a real dialogue with people, then they get much more comfortable much faster. And then it's up to them to decide, yeah, I really am comfortable. Or, no, I still think that there are issues there that mean I don't want to see it in my community. But you're far more likely to get people to be willing to accept a nuclear facility, actually want a nuclear facility, see it as a viable alternative to some of the fossil fuels that we have or many more. I mean coal will always be an important part of our energy mix. That's a given. But people will be much more likely to be accepting of nuclear when they have the facts. And that's what CASE is really about.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. The new combined construction and operating license, the process it's going to go through, is that an important element of what's going on?
Christine Todd Whitman: It really is because one of the big detriments or big obstacles for nuclear, for a facility, for a company to bring nuclear on is just the cost, the time and the cost. Time is money. The permitting process has been so long and taken so long that it can go up to 10 or 20 years. That's money - by the time you get through that process the whole world has changed around you and you may no longer want it. So to put those two things together, A, it makes sense. You're not short-cutting any safety by doing that. And it means that you are shortening, tightening up the process, not skipping any of the steps, but you're tightening the process for the company. And that means it becomes a much more attractive investment to make.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. And then not only is it the people who are nearby and the whole licensing, but you've also got to satisfy Wall Street. And Wall Street is very risk averse.
Christine Todd Whitman: Oh, yeah.
Mary O'Driscoll: And when you got something that's as big as a nuclear power plant that has a payoff over many years and is front-end loaded with a lot of, you know, you've got a lot of upfront expenses that aren't going to be paid off for a long time, compared to the quicker, easier licensing for a gas or coal plant. How do you square that?
Christine Todd Whitman: Well, I'm not sure it's so much quicker and easier for coal-fired or LNG facilities. There haven't been a lot of those built, particularly in the Northeast, as you point out, where there's a lot of demand, because people are afraid of what might happen, having one of those lines located near them in one of those facilities near them. As we get more concerned about the quality of our air and about climate change, coal-fired fossil fuel facilities become a little more problematic. I mean people are starting to look at everything that comes with a facility, an energy facility of any sort. But we're very good in this country at saying no. And we've got to get over that. I mean we say no to new coal. We don't want any new exploration. We don't like being dependent on foreign oil and what that does to us from a policy point of view, as well as a security point of view. We won't talk about nuclear. Even the environmentalists aren't all thrilled on wind power. Hydropower only works when you don't have a drought. And when you have a drought it affects the fish. So we keep saying no, no, no, and yet we all want our power the instant we want it.
Mary O'Driscoll: Right.
Christine Todd Whitman: And so we're going to have to step back and say, look, it's always going to be a mix. There is no one panacea. There's no one form of power that's going to be the solution to everything. But when you have the opportunity to have one that, once it's up and running, you know provides some of the most reliable, it's the most efficient, most reliable, low cost, least environmentally harmful form of energy. It's something we really ought to take a look at.
Mary O'Driscoll: Well, the $64,000 question then, what about the uncertainty over Yucca Mountain and the timeline? A lot of people point to that as you don't have Yucca Mountain. That's a real problem. The industry doesn't know where they're going to be putting the waste on a long-term basis. Is that a major concern here when you're looking at it?
Christine Todd Whitman: That clearly is a concern, there's no question about that. A national repository is something that everyone wants. But again, everyone wants, the industry certainly would like to have it. But right now, as I say, the spent rods are stored on-site, in holding ponds that were designed to hold them for a hundred years, and none of them are close to that time frame. So we do have some time to solve that problem. But it's clear the problem has got to be solved, and it needs to be addressed.
Mary O'Driscoll: OK. Well, that's all we have time for today. Thank you Christine Todd Whitman for joining us.
Christine Todd Whitman: My pleasure.
Mary O'Driscoll: And thank you for joining us. We'll see you next time on OnPoint.
Click here to watch this episode:
http://www.eande.tv/main/?date=091106
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Tooele Transcript-Bulletin
September 12, 2006
N-waste storage plan grows dim in Skull Valley
Written by Mark Watson
"No."
That appears to be the U.S. Department of Interior's "final answer" to Private Fuel Storage's 12-year-old question as to whether or not it can store spent nuclear fuel at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation.
On Thursday, both the Interior Department and Bureau of Indian Affairs published lengthy reviews detailing why none of PFS's various proposals for transporting and storing the highly radioactive waste are acceptable.
Transportation problems, proximity to the West Desert Test and Training Range, public outcry in the form of 4,500 letters sent to the Bureau of Land Management, the creation of the Cedar Mountain Wilderness area were all issues that doomed PFS.
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who used every stratagem imaginable to kill the deal, was elated about the news and called the Transcript-Bulletin Thursday. "We've got a big story," he said. "I just got off the phone with the Department of the Interior and they pulled the plug on PFS," the senator said. "Not only did they deny PFS's rights of way to transport the waste, but they also denied the lease."
"PFS is dead. It's that simple," he said. "Storing nuclear waste in Skull Valley would have put Utahns on a collision course with catastrophe. Transporting and storing nuclear fuel so close to an active military training ground was a recipe for environmental disaster. I'm relieved that the DOI realized that and killed the Skull Valley plan."
James Cason, associate deputy secretary of the Interior wrote: "Upon weighing the benefits to the band against the significant uncertainties and other factors discussed, we conclude that it is not consistent with the conduct expected of a prudent trustee to approve a proposed lease that promotes storing spent nuclear fuel on the reservation."
Sue Martin, spokesperson for PFS, said her company still needs to review the findings from the Interior Department and that Hatch's pronouncement that PFS is dead could be premature. "It will take some time before we determine our next step."
Tooele County Commissioner Dennis Rockwell said pressure from Utah's congressional delegation was instrumental in squashing the plan. "Orrin Hatch and Jim Hansen, when he was there, and then Rob Bishop and Sen. Bob Bennett worked hard to keep it out of Utah. I think it's good news for Tooele County. I still think that nuclear waste can be stored safely, but transporting it is another thing," Rockwell said.
"Gov. (Mike) Leavitt was against the plan from the very start. The state basically took control of the Skull Valley road when he was there," Rockwell said. The road is now designated as a state route instead of county road.
While environmentalists, state leaders and LDS Church officials rallied against PFS's plan, the county commission remained quiet because of a contract with PFS. Part of the deal was that they would not speak out against PFS. Meanwhile, PFS paid for trips for county leaders to Yucca Mountain in a quest to educate them about the nuclear waste business.
"We're indebted to the thousands of Utahns who took the time to write DOI on this issue," Hatch said. "It proves that every citizen can make a difference, Utahns spoke, and the DOI listened."
Rockwell said he feels the state's main concern is to dispel its image as a dumping ground. Current Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. recently rejected a plan to allow Energy Solutions to expand its operations in the west desert. The governor was also ecstatic with last week's announcement.
"This is the best news I think our state has seen in recent years," Huntsman said. "We can finally put a period at the end of a sentence."
Last year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a license to PFS to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel in Skull Valley contingent on the Interior Department's approval. After that, Utah's congressional delegation picked up the pace in battling PFS.
They pushed legislation to create the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area next to the Goshute Reservation knowing that it would block building rail access to the site.
In December 2005, Hatch pushed the White House and the Department of the Interior to re-open a comment period to let Utahns have a say on PFS's applications for transportation routes across Bureau of Land Management land. In a rare move, the government complied with the request and allowed Utahns to make the case for whether or not the applications were in the public interest.
The first two PFS proposals included building rail lines to the reservation. The first two proposals differed in only the location for storing the fuel. A third proposal included building an intermodal transfer facility near Timpie, where the waste would be taken from the train and then heavy-haul vehicles would transport the waste down the Skull Valley Road. The fourth proposal included the intermodal facility, but storing in a different area on the reservation.
The Interior Department did not want to grant rights of way needed to transport the waste, a part of all four proposals.
The DOI documents also indicate that the Department of Defense did not prepare a study and submit an analysis of the military readiness and operational impacts of a proposed revision to a land use plan for the Utah Test and Training Range.
--e-mail:mwatson@tooeletranscript.com
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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