Yucca Mountain News Clips - Thursday, October 26, 2006

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, October 26, 2006
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 25, 2006

Groups pressure DOE

Activists say changes for waste site rushed

Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Environmental groups and citizen activists Tuesday added to calls for the Department of Energy to broaden chances for the public to comment on potential changes to the Yucca Mountain program.

The groups urged the department to set aside a 90-day period for the public to weigh in on plans for a new railroad corridor to the nuclear waste site and for a redesign of waste-handling areas to accommodate multiple-use shipping and disposal containers.

"They are talking about a massive overhaul to the program, and this is completely under the radar of the public," said Michele Boyd, legislative director of Public Citizen.

The department in a Federal Register notice set aside a 45-day comment period on the two plans that expires Nov. 27.

Meetings in which the public could examine maps and register comments were scheduled over the first two weeks of November in Amargosa Valley, Las Vegas, Caliente, Goldfield, Hawthorne and Fallon.

Representatives of 17 groups signed a letter to Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, that urged the Energy Department to make more information available.

The signers included leaders of two Nevada groups, Citizen Alert and the Nevada Conservation League.

"The descriptions of the proposed actions in the Federal Register lack sufficient detail to enable the public to adequately assess and provide scoping comments," they said.

A third group, the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, also has requested more time.

Also, the state government has urged the department to add public meetings in Reno, Elko, Battle Mountain, Winnemucca, Lovelock and Yerington, and in Sacramento, Calif., and Salt Lake City.

The Energy Department is "seriously considering" the request and is preparing to respond within 48 hours, spokesman Allen Benson said.

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Pahrump Valley Times
October 20, 2006

'Mina' route hearings are set

By MARK WAITE
PVT

The U.S. Department of Energy will hold a series of public meetings on the supplemental Yucca Mountain rail corridor plan, to consider the Mina route, an alternative plan hailed by area officials as more feasible than the initial Caliente route.

The Mina route would extend the rail line that ends just south of Hawthorne south through the western part of Nevada to Yucca Mountain. It would be shorter, at 280 miles, than the 318 to 344 miles of the Caliente corridor. The Mina route would also use existing rail beds and cross fewer mountain ranges, the DOE concluded.

The department reconsidered the Mina route last spring after the Walker River Paiute tribe withdrew its objections to studying the transport of nuclear waste across the reservation. The Mina corridor route would follow the same route as the Caliente corridor south of Lida Junction in Esmeralda County.

Public hearings are scheduled from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Nov. 1 at the LongStreet Hotel and Casino in Amargosa Valley, the Goldfield School gymnasium from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Nov. 13, and at the Hawthorne Convention Center from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Nov. 14.

"I am so happy about this. It will be the least disruptive and least expensive," said Nye County District I Commissioner Roberta "Midge" Carver recently.

Carver said the Caliente route would involve traversing three mountain ranges and cutting into solid rock.

If the Caliente corridor were constructed, Carver said, "Everywhere they would be going, they would be going through a rancher's water."

Carver said DOE officials lied to Nye County residents when they said the land withdrawal for the Caliente route would be only 360,000 acres. In adding up the squares for the land maps showing the land withdrawal, it amounts to 609,000 acres, she said.

Allen Benson, director of the office of institutional affairs for the Yucca Mountain Project, said previously that the corridor wouldn't include all 640 acres in each section.

One rancher who would likely breathe a sigh of relief if the Mina route is chosen is Joe Fallini. The Caliente route would cut right through his 663,000 acres of grazing allotments around Warm Springs. He normally grazes about 2,000 head of cattle but said the numbers were down this year due to the drought.

"The way they (DOE) always figure, we're the least amount of people. Let's put it here. Foreign countries reprocess that stuff," Fallini said in a recent interview. "The way they did it was wrong. If they want to run it through here, they should've talked to everybody that had property rights," he said.

Fallini said the Caliente corridor would cut through access to 17 water sources.

"I've always been in favor of something other than what they've chosen," Carver said. "The Hawthorne route is more viable, hundreds of miles of rail bed are still intact."

Bill Kirby, Esmeralda County's liaison on nuclear waste, said the Mina route would travel through more of his county than the Caliente route. The rail line would be useful if the DOE would allow it to be used for other purposes than shipping nuclear waste, Kirby said, and if it could connect with existing track at the southern end instead of running one-way.

"The sad thing is, you can't roast the hog until you catch him. We're still supporting the Caliente corridor at this time because that's a known quantity," Kirby said.

Nye County District Two Commissioner Joni Eastley, from Tonopah, didn't hold out much hope the railroad would boost the economies of the small towns along the route. "Hawthorne has a rail yard, an airport, and they're still struggling," she said. "The Board of County Commissioners resolved twice to support the Caliente route. I voted with the board to support the Caliente route because it was the best of the options available to us, and the Mina route had never been part of the original (environmental impact statement)."

She added, "If you're talking a strictly economic or fiscal aspect, I never agreed with the Caliente route because of the cost it would take to put it in. The reason I am such a proponent of the Mina proposal (is that) it gives the least amount of impact to mining and ranching in this part of the county."

Jeff Taguchi, a former Nye County District II Commissioner, pushed the Mina route at a May 2004 open house in Amargosa Valley months after he stepped down from the commission. He also pushed for continuing the rail line south to the I-15 corridor.

"We're talking about economic development. All rail ends at Yucca Mountain, which is Nye County. Any rail that dead-ends is not a good thing," said Nye County Commission Chairman Gary Hollis, the county commission's liaison on nuclear waste.

"We've always been of the opinion that the rail should be used for dual purposes ... It's really not up to Nye County -- either route goes through Nye County," Hollis said. "It's something we don't have much control over."

The supplemental Yucca Mountain rail EIS is due to be completed next year.

While Nye County officials were encouraged by the possible change in the route, Hollis noted, "It's just too early to tell what DOE is going to do."

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Newswise
October 23, 2006

Plutonium Or Greenhouse Gases? Weighing the Energy Options

Newswise — Can nuclear energy save us from global warming? Perhaps, but the tradeoffs involved are sobering: thousands of metric tons of nuclear waste generated each year and a greatly increased risk of nuclear weapons proliferation or diversion of nuclear material into terrorists' hands.

So concludes University of Michigan professor Rodney Ewing, who has analyzed just how much nuclear power would need to be produced to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and the implications of the associated increase in nuclear power plants. Ewing will present his findings Oct. 23 as the Michel T. Halbouty Distinguished Lecturer at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Philadelphia.

"Usually when people talk about nuclear power as a solution for global warming, the issues of nuclear waste and weapons proliferation are footnotes in the discussion," said Ewing, who is the Donald R. Peacor Collegiate Professor and Chair in the U-M Department of Geological Sciences and also has faculty appointments in the departments of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences and Materials Science & Engineering. "I think we have to find a way to consider the complete picture when choosing among energy sources."

In an effort to capture that complete picture, Ewing compared carbon-based fossil fuels with nuclear power, considering not only the technologies involved but also the environmental impacts. Similar comparisons have been made between different energy-producing systems, "but in the case of nuclear power, such an analysis is difficult because there are different types of nuclear reactors and there is not a single nuclear fuel cycle, but rather many variants, with different strategies for reprocessing and disposing of nuclear wastes," Ewing said.

His presentation, which considers various fuel cycles, shows that nuclear power generation would need to increase by a factor of three to ten over current levels to have a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. "We currently have 400-plus nuclear reactors operating worldwide, and we would need something like 3,500 nuclear power plants," Ewing said.

Developing the necessary nuclear technologies and building the additional power plants is an enormous undertaking that probably would take longer than the 50 years that experts say we have in which to come up with solutions to global warming, Ewing said.

Even if they could be built and brought online quickly, that many power plants would generate tens of thousands of metric tons of additional nuclear waste annually. "The amount that would be created each year would be equal to the present capacity anticipated at the repository at Yucca Mountain," Ewing said, referring to the proposed disposal site in Nevada that has been under study for more than two decades. Ewing recently co-edited a book, "Uncertainty Underground," that reviews uncertainties in the analysis of the long-term performance of the Yucca Mountain repository.

Plutonium created as a byproduct of nuclear power generation also is a concern because of its potential for use in nuclear weapons.

"Not everyone thinks this way, but I consider the explosion of a nuclear weapon to be a pretty large environmental impact with global implications," Ewing said. "A typical nuclear weapon will kill many, many hundreds of thousands of people, and the global impact would be comparable to something like Chernobyl in the spread of fallout."

So the real question, said Ewing, is: "Plutonium versus carbon---which would you rather have as your problem? I don't have the answer, but the points I'm raising are ones I think people need to be considering."

For more information:

Rodney Ewing: http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/public/experts/ExpDisplay.php?beginswith=Ewing&SubmitButton=Search

Geological Society of America: http://www.geosociety.org/

Michel T. Halbouty Distinguished Lecturer: http://www.geosociety.org/aboutus/awards/halbouty.htm

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TPMCafe
October 23, 2006

maynard's Blog

'Nuclear Renaissance': 29 New US Nuclear Power Plant License Permits Sought

Dale Klein, Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), was interviewed on C-SPAN's Newsmakers this last Sunday on October 22nd, 2006. Regarding twenty nine recent pending license requests for the construction of new nuclear power plants in the US, he stated that there will be a nuclear renaissance in the United States:

"I do believe that we will see license applications in 2007 and we are looking – we have expressions of intent from a lot of the utilities indicating up – as I said, up to about 29 new nuclear plants. So I believe that there will be a [nuclear] renaissance in the United States."

The interview covered a broad range of nuclear issues, such as: Licenses and permits for pending US nuclear power plant construction, nuclear waste reclamation and the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the threat of terrorism against nuclear electric generation facilities, as well as the scope of citizen involvement in the regulatory process.. He was interviewed by Cox News reporter Jeff Nesmith and George Lobsenz of Energy Daily, with the event being hosted by C-SPAN's Susan Swain.

Pending Nuclear Power Plant Licenses

Both Lobsenz and Nesmith directly questioned Klein on the issue of new nuclear power plant construction within the United States. Citing the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (full text of legislation), which provides billions of dollars in incentives for the construction of new nuclear power plants through tax credits and loan guarantees, Klein says that the NRC has received twenty nine 'expressions of intent' from the nuclear industry to build new nuclear power plants throughout the country. Further, he stated that worldwide, there are "... 140 plants either under construction or being planned."

Klein referred to Department of Energy projections which indicate a 50% increase in electrical demand by 2025, along with environmental concerns over global climate change due to carbon emissions, as principal reasons for the reconsideration of nuclear power generation. Currently the United states generates about 20% of its electrical capacity from 104 nuclear power plants. However, private funding availability for nuclear power generation isn't certain, with Lobsenz noting that:

"There's a lot of questions on Wall Street about whether they want to invest in a nuclear plant. I think if you talk to the industry they’ll tell you, well, we're going to iron out all the kinks in the regulatory process and building these plants with the first six plants and after that it will be more like a cookie cutter and these plants will be a lot cheaper to build and a lot quicker to build.

I think a lot of people need a lot of convincing on that, particular the money men."

Nuclear Waste Reclamation and Yucca Mountain

Speaking to the issue of Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Storage Facility and nuclear waste reclamation, Klein appeared to contradict long standing US policy against the use fast breeder reactors to reclaim and extend the life of nuclear fuel stock. Calling it "recycling," and noting the large number of nations that already reprocess spent nuclear fuel, Klein suggested it might be a wise policy decision:

"France currently recycles, Japan is recycling, Russia will recycle, United Kingdom recycles. And so there is a lot of experience in the recycling era."

[...]

There are advantages to do that reducing the volume for the – for the material."

This is in contrast to longstanding US policy against the construction of fast breeder reactors, going back to former President Jimmy Carter's 1977 veto of the Department of Energy Authorization Bill on several grounds, one of which being that it funded the construction of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor. Since then, no new fast breeder reactors have been proposed on US soil for commercial fuel reclamation.

One of the principal concerns over the use of breeder technology is that it converts non-weapons grade nuclear waste from uranium into highly radioactive plutonium, which can then be used in the construction of a nuclear weapon. However, reclamation would also stretch out the expected life of a limited nuclear resource, and in the process, reduce the amount of radioactive waste that would need to be stored at the upcoming Yucca Mountain. As Mr. Nesmith noted, one of the primary arguments against construction of the facility is the problem of transporting large amount of nuclear waste cross country for storage.

Threat of Terrorism

Dr. Klein did not speak long on the threat of terrorism against nuclear electric generation facilities, such as crashing a jet airliner into a nuclear power plant (warning: PDF; google cache html version), however, he did address the subject after several direct questions were posed. Lobsenz asked, within the context of 9/11:

"However, the NRC has said that in doing environmental reviews of new plants it will not be looking at possible impacts from terrorism. And I think that there's been a contrary court decision questioning the NRC’s position on this. And I guess the question I would have for you is, this is clearly an issue that’s in the public’s mind about nuclear plants. And if you don’t have a public dialog in the course of doing an environmental review, how are you going to address this public concern? Shouldn’t there be a public dialog in relation to the building of these new plants about what would happen if there is a terrorism attack and maybe you could even reassure the public somewhat that something is being done?"

Dr. Klein responded by pointing out that the specific issue being questioned had to do with a dry cast storage facility at Diablo Canyon. He then offered a to sooth concern about the potential threat, saying that "...nuclear power plants are examined for terrorist activities. We take that very seriously. We have a very robust program."

Nesmith, noting that the National Academy of Sciences report on nuclear power plant terrorism was less optimistic of US defenses, asked if a plant-by-plant review of safety procedures, as the report recommended, due to it's finding (his words): "that it’s only a matter of time before a determined, well-equipped terrorist crashes an airliner into one of these plants and releases a large amount of radioactivity."

Dr. Klein assured Nesmith that such a review had been conducted, "Yes. We do have a very robust plant-by-plant analysis both for pressurized water reactors, boiling water reactors. We have a very detailed assessment."

Scope of Public Participation

Lobsenz also discussed with Dr. Klein the scope of public participation, and limit thereof. Noting that the only means for public participation the review process was through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), he asked about security requirements in disclosing information to the public. Dr. Klein responded:

"In terms of the public’s participation, because of the security requirements that are there, there are certain things that we don’t go into a lot of detail on how we address security for obvious reasons. The terrorist get too many hints the way it is. So we don’t want to provide a lot of information about how we address that, but I can assure you we do look at safety, security and reliability and we are addressing potential terrorist threats in a very robust and effective way."

How this addresses public concern for reactor safety, or what other venues might be opened for the public, was not addressed. However, it would appear that a good deal of thought has been put into place to prevent a new resurgence of the anti-nuclear movement so popular back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Conclusions

Based upon this interview one can reasonably assert several statements of fact:

The Bush Administration is vigorously promoting a dramatic expansion of nuclear power generation throughout the United States. There are 29 pending 'expressions of interest' for licenses to construct new plants. And there are 140 plant facilities on the drawing board or currently in construction throughout the world.

A policy review of fast breeder reclamation technology appears to be underway, with the likelihood of a transition away from opposition to new breeder facilities as set by former President Carter.

Dr. Klein acted to assure the public that the threat against nuclear power plants from terrorism is being handled with all due diligence. Even as the two reporters directly questioned him about a NAS report that suggests the threat is real and highly dangerous.

The limits to public participation in regulating the nuclear industry are in the form of EPA procedures, thereby forcing all concerns to fit within the framework of environmental concerns. Terrorism, and other issues, are apparently not relevant issues for public participation.

Based upon this interview one might reasonably ask: is the threat from global warming due to human carbon emissions greater than the threat of radioactive contamination due to a nuclear accident or terrorist attack? Is the transition to promoting nuclear fuel reclamation through a new class of fast breeder reactors a wise policy move, or a dangerous one considering its nuclear proliferation potential? And what should the scope of public involvement be for future nuclear regulation?

All worthy questions. The answers, however, are far more difficult to discern.

---Updates and archive available at Daduh.org
---Text Copyright ©2006 J. Maynard Gelinas.

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U.S. News & World Report
October 22, 2006

Mired in Yucca Muck

Nuclear power is trendy again, but what about the waste?

By Bret Schulte

Until just recently, no American president had toured a nuclear plant since Jimmy Carter-fitting for a country that's been spooked by atomic power since the partial, albeit contained, meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant in 1979. But President Bush has ended the freeze and taken tours of two nuclear plants. In May, he stood under twin cooling towers in Limerick, Pa., announcing that nuclear power is vital to energy independence and fighting global warming. "And," he noted, "nuclear power is safe."

Beleaguered nuclear supporters have waited decades to hear such full-throated support. No new nuclear plant has been licensed since 1978-in part because of public backlash, but also because of basic economics. Cheap natural gas became the standard for the power industry. But the calculus is changing as natural gas prices have skyrocketed, energy independence has become a political mantra, and pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions-nuclear is virtually emission free-has increased. Some believe a "nuclear renaissance" is at hand. The industry got a boost when Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which gave federal risk insurance to new nuclear plants, along with generous tax breaks and loan guarantees.

Since then, at least a dozen utilities have filed plans to apply for new nuclear licenses. Still, major obstacles remain-chief among them what to do with nuclear waste. Solving the waste problem is the "linchpin" to expanding nuclear power, says John Rowe, CEO of Exelon, the largest nuclear operator in the country. The answer was supposed to be the Yucca Mountain Repository, to be built inside a mountain 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Yucca Mountain, says Rowe, is essential to the industry's future. But eight years after Yucca was scheduled to start accepting waste, even optimists say the earliest the controversial repository could open is 2017. So Washington is wrangling anew over what to do with the 54,000 metric tons of accumulated nuclear waste that has been produced by the country's 103 reactors. Most of it sits in temporary concrete and steel casks on the plant sites-waiting for a permanent home whose future is very much in doubt.

Whose backyard? It wasn't supposed to be this way. In 1982, Congress directed the Department of Energy to build a secure place to hold nuclear waste by 1998. Five years later, Congress narrowed the list of studied sites to one: Yucca Mountain. Nevadans cried foul, noting that the state lacked a single nuclear plant and that it was selected only because it had little political clout. Authorities say Yucca Mountain, on federal land that had already hosted nuclear tests, is an ideal location; indeed, a law passed by Congress in 2002 reaffirmed that Yucca is the official site of the federal nuclear repository. Authorities say it's isolated, dry, and has a low water table, decreasing the chance of rainwater carrying contaminants into the environment. "Scientists tell us this is the right place to store this fuel," says Sen. Pete Domenici, chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Right or not, the site has been bedeviled by problems. In 1986, the DOE issued a stop-work order to the U.S. Geological Survey because of "quality assurance" issues, said a federal report. In the 1990s, audits found recurring problems with accuracy of scientific data, software, and computer models simulating possible geological events. And in 2004, a federal court ruled that the EPA must increase its study of the possible effects of radiation at the site from 10,000 years out to 1 million years out. That, of course, takes time. Meanwhile, the Nevada delegation, led by now powerful Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who has denigrated Yucca as "a dying beast," has had some success fulfilling that prophecy by slowing money to the project.

Nine billion dollars and 24 years later, what's been produced at Yucca Mountain are two tunnels, a temporary research facility, and a heap of geological science, much of which aims to refute Nevadans' claims that Yucca is unfit because of fault lines in the area. "It's not a boondoggle," says Edward Sproat, who directs the program for the DOE. "But, yes, people should be upset about how long it's taken and how much money's been spent." Sproat, a former nuclear industry executive, took early retirement to head up Yucca a few months ago. "The reason I'm here is my own frustration," he says.

Sproat says Yucca will file for a nuclear license in 2008. That's a huge step, but he and others say Yucca already needs a massive overhaul before real construction begins. When the idea of a repository was conceived in the 1980s, policymakers assumed a cap of 70,000 metric tons of waste would suffice. "That's all changed," says Bill Greene, a DOE spokesman. "Now everything with Yucca Mountain is through the lens of expanding nuclear energy." Indeed, by the time Yucca is complete, under any projected timetable, enough waste will be waiting to fill it immediately. This year, the White House submitted legislation to prod the slow-moving project. It would raise the cap to as high as 120,000 metric tons, increase the DOE's access to a Nuclear Waste Fund financed by utilities-which pays for Yucca Mountain-and claim adjacent federal land for Yucca use. Domenici has introduced two bills of his own. One resembles the administration bill but with a major distinction; it would create ground-level storage on Yucca land until the repository is complete. Domenici's other bill takes a different approach; it would facilitate a fledgling, but crucial, nuclear fuel recycling program that might limit the amount of waste and-in the near term-consolidate nuclear waste at interim storage sites (likely existing nuclear plants) across the country. That would theoretically reduce government payments to utilities storing waste at plant sites-payments that resulted from litigation over Yucca delays.

Both face uncertain prospects. Some House members fear that directing resources to interim storage will undercut Yucca Mountain. Rep. Gene Green, a Texas Democrat, suggested that it's a "creative way" of killing Yucca, noting that Reid supports that measure; none of those interim sites would be in Nevada. Reid, who has pledged Yucca "is never going to open," supports interim storage in states that have plants but does not support interim storage in Nevada, fearing that once the waste is in Nevada, it will stay there.

Nuclear power enjoys increasingly bipartisan support-though plenty of Democrats, public interest groups, and environmentalists say the risk of radioactive fallout is still too great. Reid's stature as ranking member complicates Democratic attempts to advance an energy source they see as vital to the fight against global warming. If Democrats win the House or Senate in November, analysts say, the prospects for passing those bills-and accelerating Yucca's development-will dwindle, which they say could spell disaster for nuclear power. "You can't afford to kill Yucca Mountain," says Scott Peterson of the Nuclear Energy Institute. "It's the only long-term solution we have on our books."

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Napa Valley Register
October 22, 2006

Preparing for a safe nuclear future

By Jeffery P. Schaffer

Jeremy Rifkin (a.k.a. "the most hated man in science" -- Scientific American, August 1997) is at it again with his Luddite views and latest pseudoscience book, "The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the World Wide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth." He advocates the hydrogen economy, which sounds great, yet currently the energy web he proposes is technically nonfeasible and to some physicists, it appears theoretically impossible. (Maybe we can violate some laws of physics?)

That said, we just might get some kind of hydrogen economy in about 50 years, although only a fraction of what Rifkin ("Nuclear energy still a bad idea," Oct. 3) and others envision. And if we are equally lucky -- another far shot -- we might get hydrogen fusion. Don't hold your breath for either.

In the meantime, we have to live with existing technologies, and state-of-the-art nuclear reactors are about as distant from Chernobyl as modern jetliners are from the Wright Brothers? flyer. The new pebble-bed nuclear reactors are fail-safe; they cannot melt down. Furthermore, reactors can be built that will produce less of the nuclear waste that current ones do. Where to put any waste? Perhaps Yucca Mountain, but as has been known by scientists for decades, we can encase the wastes and drop them in the middle of the North Pacific, since it is a biological desert at the surface and even more bleak at the bottom. The wastes would sink deep into the bottom's sediments some 20,000 feet below the surface. No terrorist could retrieve them.

Current alternatives to the nuclear option include the following:

We could drill for oil off all of our shores. So long as we are feeding our SUVs, we might as well do it with U.S. oil, not overseas oil. We can switch to biofuels, but in the near future, that can only support some of our petro-thirst. Wind energy is good when the wind is blowing, solar energy when the sun shines. Geothermal has great potential, but hot springs are sacred to many Native Americans, and so are off limits. That leaves hydropower. Should we build dams to create a few dozen more Hetch Hetchy Reservoirs? Of course, all of us could conserve our energy use, which would go a far way toward reducing our foreign-oil dependence, now at about 62 percent of our total consumption.

Regardless of what we do, China and India each will eventually build two or three dozen nuclear power plants. They will need them to replace their dirty coal-burning power plants, and each country plans on rapidly building hundreds more of these to provide energy until nuclear power comes on line. China's coal pollution blows across to California and our air quality will worsen in the coming decades, and add to global warming. In the September issue of Scientific American, two MIT professors advocate the nuclear option (and address Rifkin's criticisms). Most important is the first sentence: "A threefold expansion of nuclear power could contribute significantly to staving off climate change by avoiding one billion to two billion tons of carbon emissions annually."

(Schaffer lives in Napa.)

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Herald Times Reporter
October 22, 2006

Kewaunee nuclear plant plans to ask for more storage

Associated Press

CARLTON, Wis. — The Kewaunee nuclear plant plans next year to ask the local board to build dry storage bunkers for radioactive, spent nuclear fuel at its facility on Lake Michigan.

The bunkers will be updated versions of those already used at Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant, just a few miles south. The dry storage would replace the current pool storage inside the plant, which is nearly full.

“These will be standalone above-ground bunkers, not visible from the lake,” said Rick Zuercher, spokesman for Kewaunee Power Station owner Dominion Resources.

The company doesn’t need a federal permit to add the bunkers, but it does need a local building permit. Those permits will be sought sometime in the next year, Zuercher said.

The building permit would have to be discussed in public meetings.

Carlton Town Chairman David Zeller said he would rather see the nuclear waste stored at a planned national facility in Yucca Mountain, Nev.

“I don’t care for it, but I feel I would go along with it, as a temporary thing,” Zeller said of the storage plan. “But you know how government is, sometimes temporary things last longer than you’d expect.”

The bunkers are pre-approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said Jan Strasma, Region 3 spokesman in Chicago. The Kewaunee plant would simply have to notify the commission of its plans and specific bunker design.

Zuercher said the company and the federal government consider the bunkers safe, but the intent is to eventually move the radioactive material to a permanent national facility.

The dry casks are designed to handle transport to the planned site in Yucca Mountain, Nev., which is undergoing environmental studies and is scheduled to open in 2017.

The Kewaunee plant and other nuclear producers in Wisconsin have contributed more than $320 million to help build a national storage facility.

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Green Bay Press Gazette
October 22, 2006

Kewaunee Co. nuclear plant needs new storage option for waste

Local board must approve above-ground bunkers

By Paul Brinkmann
pbrinkma@greenbaypressgazette.com

CARLTON — The Kewaunee nuclear plant is preparing to add dry storage bunkers for radioactive, spent nuclear fuel at its facility on the Lake Michigan shoreline.

"These will be standalone above-ground bunkers, not visible from the lake," Rick Zuercher, spokesman for Kewaunee Power Station owner Dominion Resources, said in a recent interview.

The bunkers will be similar, but updated versions of those already used at Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant just a few miles farther south. The dry storage would replace the current pool storage inside the plant, which is almost full.

New storage is needed soon, but the storage plans also fit with Dominion's long-range outlook to extend the plant's operating license 20 years beyond its original expiration date of 2013. The plant intends to file for license extension in mid-2008.

The company doesn't need a federal permit to add the bunkers, but it does need a local building permit.

Those permits will be sought sometime in the next year, Zuercher said.

The Carlton Town Board is the political body that would approve the building permit, which will be discussed in public meetings. David Zeller, town chairman, said he would rather see the nuclear waste stored at a planned national facility in Yucca Mountain, Nev.

"I don't care for it, but I feel I would go along with it, as a temporary thing," Zeller said of the storage plan. "But you know how government is, sometimes temporary things last longer than you'd expect."

Dominion officials already approached the Town Board to inform them of their plans. The plant has produced a DVD showing how the storage system will work.

Bunker safety

The Kewaunee plant has been storing used nuclear fuel rods in the wet pool for more than 30 years. The oldest fuel has lost some radioactive heat.

In adding dry storage, plant workers would extract the oldest spent fuel from the pool, insert it into sealed multi-layered containers, and move it on trucks to dry, horizontal storage bunkers.

"We have a list of dry storage equipment we have reviewed and certified for use at nuclear plants in this country," Strasma said. "If a utility chooses to use an already-certified cask, they do not have to seek additional permits to use dry cast storage."

Safety during transfer to dry storage would be considered a routine operation and monitored by on-site commission inspectors, he said.

Nevada option

Zuercher said the company and the federal government consider the bunkers safe, but the intent is to eventually move the radioactive material to a permanent national facility.

The dry casks are designed to handle transport to the proposed national storage site in Yucca Mountain, Nev., which is undergoing environmental studies and is scheduled to open in 2017.

The Kewaunee plant and other nuclear producers in Wisconsin have contributed more than $320 million to help build a national storage facility.

The state has more than 1,150 metric tons of uranium (mtu) from past nuclear operations, including a closed plant in La Crosse. A small fraction of that, about 200 mtu, is in dry storage, according to 2005 figures.

The Kewaunee plant is currently coming out of a shutdown period to refuel, a $20 million process that replaces one-third of the fuel about every 18 months.

Zuercher could not immediately say how much adding dry storage will cost, but he said it wouldn't be passed on to Wisconsin customers.

"We will only add the storage as it is needed," he said.

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New London Day
October 22, 2006

The Costs Of Delaying Yucca Mountain

By K. Steinmeyer

To understand why we need a central repository for the radioactive waste that's stored at more than 100 nuclear power plants around the United States, look no further than the site of the decommissioned Connecticut Yankee nuclear plant at Haddam Neck.

In 1996, after nearly three decades of service, Connecticut Yankee stopped generating electricity. But all 412 metric tons of spent fuel, which is what is typically called radioactive waste, is still at the nuclear plant, stored in concrete-and-steel casks. The spent fuel is not at Yucca Mountain, the federal government's waste repository in Nevada, where it was supposed to be shipped beginning eight years ago.

The reason is simple. Billions of dollars paid into the government's Nuclear Waste Fund have not been used for its intended purpose, but instead winds up in the General Treasury to pay for other programs. This diversion of funds — nearly $20 billion since the program's inception in the 1970s — is delaying the repository's licensing and construction. Congress needs to address this in legislation that removes the Yucca Mountain project from the annual appropriations process and gets it back on track.

Connecticut Yankee's spent fuel is being stored safely and securely a short distance from the plant. But it's being done at considerable expense to utility customers.

Connecticut Yankee is not the only decommissioned nuclear plant with spent fuel left behind. Seven other plants are in the same situation, including Yankee Rowe in Massachusetts and Maine Yankee. Instead of permitting the spent fuel to remain indefinitely at the plant sites, Congress should direct the Energy Department to take possession of the spent fuel and transport it to an interim above-ground facility in the Nevada desert for storage until the permanent repository opens.

In addition, there are 103 U.S. operating power reactors — including the Millstone units — that store their spent fuel in water pools and increasingly in concrete-and-steel casks. Nearly all will need additional storage capacity within five years.

It stands to reason that consolidating the 52,000 tons of spent fuel, and additional tons of nuclear waste from the defense program, in one repository at Yucca Mountain will make it much easier to maintain and protect over the long term. Certainly that makes more sense than continuing to keep the spent fuel at 131 different sites in 39 states around the country.

Endangers rivers

Some of the spent fuel is stored adjacent to rivers or above water tables. It's estimated that 161 million Americans live within 75 miles of one of these sites.

Nuclear power's opponents want the government to abandon the Yucca Mountain project and leave the spent fuel where it is. But deep geologic disposal in a stable rock formation — the approach recommended by scientific organizations around the world, including our own National Academy of Sciences, is the best option.

And Yucca Mountain is the right place. After $7 billion and 20 years of research, Yucca Mountain — which sits on federal land, in a remote stretch of desert, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas — is the most studied piece of real estate in the world. Critics who oppose the Yucca Mountain site would most likely oppose any location in the country, because their real goal seems to be blocking the growth of nuclear power by arguing that there is no plan for disposing of the spent fuel.

Because managing spent fuel is a very long-range process, the Energy Department understandably wants to keep its options open.

It does not need to make decisions now that cannot be revisited in the future, as we learn more about managing radioactive materials. The current plan is to keep the repository open and accessible for 300 years so that scientists and engineers can make sure the waste containers perform as designed and do not later cause problems. If the storage plan isn't working as it should at any time over the next three centuries, the government will be able to make corrections or even retrieve the spent fuel.

America has the know-how to make this work. New advances in technology in the years to come may result in the development of even more robust containers — and even ways to harness the significant energy remaining in spent fuel.

With the right technology, spent fuel could be economically recycled to extract valuable uranium and plutonium for use again in power reactors to produce electricity. Known as reprocessing, this approach would capitalize on the 95 percent of the energy remaining in spent fuel, while significantly reducing the amount and the hazard of radioactive waste requiring disposal in the repository. Several other countries, including France and Great Britain, are already recycling their usable fuel materials and, as a result, cutting back considerably on the amount of waste they must dispose of.

Inevitably, the need for a U.S. repository will grow, as there will likely be more nuclear power plants built, to meet our demand for electricity that's projected to climb 45 percent by 2030. Nuclear power is an especially important component of our power supply because it provides large amounts of electricity at industrial strength that don't pollute the atmosphere with greenhouse gases that might cause global warming.

Storing the spent fuel at Yucca Mountain is clearly in the public interest. Leaving it at dozens of sites around the country, some where decommissioned nuclear plants stand, is not a credible long-term solution. The repository needs to be completed and made operational as soon as possible.

K. Paul Steinmeyer is a senior health physicist and president of Radiation Safety Associates, Inc., a consulting company to commercial users of radioactive materials, located in Hebron.

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Kennebec Journal
October 22, 2006

Column: Stephen Ward

Sorry saga of the waste we paid to get rid of -- but $38 million later, still haven't

Not long ago a Washington think tank was assembling a panel of conflicting viewpoints to debate the merits of building new nuclear units as part of the nation's response to global warming. They asked me to join.

As Maine's public advocate for utility consumers since 1987, I accepted -- joining environmentalists, academics and industry representatives. I remembered that an old friend had participated in a similar effort back in 1999 and contacted him to compare notes about the questions that his working group confronted in 1999, compared with the issues on the table for nuclear power today.

What I learned to my surprise was that the topic list in 1999 was identical in all respects to the agenda for the 2006 working group. There has been no progress whatever in three major areas: permanent disposal of spent fuel from nuclear plants; a coherent policy for the storage of spent nuclear fuel at locations other than the power plants themselves; consistent and uniform requirements for the concrete-encased and-steel canisters used for storage, transportation and pre-disposal "aging" of spent nuclear fuel.

These topics may seem arcane but, taken together, they explain why the nuclear industry is crippled in the United States, with no new plants built since the 1980s.

These policy failures are the direct result of budget-cutting or inattention by Congress and the federal agencies responsible for the safe disposal of nuclear waste -- the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy.

These failures date back to 1982, when Congress authorized the Department of Energy to start collecting a tenth of a cent from retail customers on every kilowatt-hour of electricity generated at a nuclear plant in the U.S., ostensibly to fund the construction of a permanent repository for spent fuel. In exchange, the federal government agreed to accept spent fuel rods from power plants to be transported to a disposal facility, as of February 1998.

In fact, the $ .001 collections for energy kilowatt-hours have simply disappeared into the federal budget.

The February 1998 date came and went -- with no material progress in opening a waste repository, at the congressionally-designated Yucca Mountain site in Nevada or anywhere else. The most optimistic federal bureaucrats now envision the opening of the Yucca Mountain facility no sooner than 2017.

Meanwhile, all the high-level waste generated during Maine Yankee's 25 year life sits in 64 steel-and-concrete canisters on a concrete slab in Wiscasset, going nowhere. With no observable progress at Yucca Mountain, we confront a grave risk that the Maine Yankee site will be a de facto disposal facility located in a seriously inappropriate location: 21 feet above sea level, protected only by fencing, electronic sensors and a guard house.

This unacceptable outcome represents a professional challenge for Maine's state nuclear safety adviser, Charles Pray, who works fulltime at the Public Advocate Office on finding out-of-state solutions for Maine Yankee's high-level radioactive waste problem. Pray works closely with the multi-state Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, a national transportation task force and other groups. It truly is unfortunate that Mr. Pray's job remains an essential one, both for Maine's electric ratepayers and for local Midcoast Maine's environment and economic development prospects.

Last month, finally there was some good news in this sorry saga. The Court of Federal Claims in Washington responded to a lawsuit brought by Maine Yankee, Connecticut Yankee and Yankee Atomic in Rowe, Mass. by awarding almost to the dollar the full measure of damages requested due to the federal government's failure to accept spent fuel in 1998. The full damage award came to $142,795,501 for all three nuclear plants and that was only for actual costs incurred through 2002 by the plaintiffs for their own on-site storage of spent fuel. Future damage awards for all costs incurred since 2002 are now all but certain and will come from a source supported by federal taxes, not from electric ratepayers.

The good news is that ratepayers of Bangor Hydro, Maine Public Service and CMP will be receiving a bill credit for their 50 percent share of Maine Yankee's damage award, in the tidy sum of $37,887,277.

But the Department of Energy's payment of damages does not -- by itself -- lead to any change in the status quo: for Maine Yankee, 64 canisters of nuclear waste remain stranded for the indefinite future on a grassy knoll above the Sheepscot River.

Stephen Ward is the state public advocate.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 21, 2006

Getting Nuclear Waste to Yucca:

More time urged to examine route

Loux asks DOE to extend comment period

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department was urged Friday to grant more time and more public meetings for Nevadans to examine plans for a new nuclear waste railroad corridor to Yucca Mountain.

A state official said the transportation plan, and another proposal dealing with surface designs for the radioactive waste repository, were "significant potential changes" that merit additional input.

Notices that DOE issued last week on both matters provided only minimal information, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

Loux sent a letter Friday requesting Yucca Mountain Project Director Ward Sproat withdraw the public notices and issue new ones that would double public comment periods on the studies to 90 days.

The state official also called for broader public meetings on the plan to characterize the Mina rail corridor that would carry nuclear waste through western Nevada to the Yucca site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"There is no good way to get nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain," Loux said, "That being said, DOE's latest plan to transport waste through the so-called Mina corridor actually impacts more Nevada cities and towns than any other route they could have selected."

Scoping meetings should be added in Reno, Elko, Battle Mountain, Winnemucca, Lovelock and Yerington, Loux said.

Additionally, DOE should make maps public in advance of the sessions, he said.

Since nuclear waste would enter Nevada from the east and the west under the Mina scenario, the state requested DOE also have meetings in Sacramento, Calif., and Salt Lake City.

Meetings have been scheduled during the first two weeks of November in Amargosa Valley, Caliente, Goldfield, Hawthorne and Fallon.

DOE officials said maps will be displayed and residents will have the chance to comment on the proposal.

The public comment period closes Nov. 27.

DOE spokesman Allen Benson said the department will review the state's request and respond to it.

State officials, who oppose the Yucca repository, are aiming to draw attention to DOE's consideration of the Mina route, which has generated little public reaction so far.

From the east, nuclear waste would enter Nevada on Union Pacific tracks that run parallel with Interstate 80, turning southeast near Fernley, crossing west of Fallon, then across the Walker River Indian Reservation to Hawthorne.

At that point, DOE would build a rail line or rebuild on old mining rail beds near the town of Mina and running south toward Tonopah and Goldfield, and on to Yucca Mountain.

Nuclear waste from the west would travel through downtown Reno including a new below-grade railroad "trench," Loux said.

The Energy Department has focused so far on the corridor segments south of Hawthorne. Benson said DOE will consider suggestions that the impact of nuclear waste shipments on segments to the north be studied as well.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., believes DOE should perform environmental studies of the entire Interstate 80 corridor, spokesman Jon Summers said this week.

Mike Baughman, a nuclear waste and environmental consultant in Carson City, said the northern route was troubling.

"The (Mina) route follows the Humboldt River for over 250 miles, the Truckee River for 65 miles, the Walker River for 12 miles and the Carson River for 2 miles," Baughman said in a letter to the Nevada Appeal published Sunday.

"Nuclear waste would also be shipped through or adjacent to several state and federal wildlife management areas, the Rye Patch State Recreation Area and Ft. Churchill State Historic Park," Baughman wrote. "Thousands of acres of private land, a scarce commodity in a state whose land area is 87 percent federally-controlled, would be crossed by the Mina Route."

Baughman is executive director of the Humboldt River Basin Water Authority. His clients have included Lincoln County, where leaders have lobbied DOE to run a nuclear waste railroad near Caliente in eastern Nevada.

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Deseret News
October 21, 2006

Hold Yucca hearings in Salt Lake City?

Nevada says residents of Utah and other states need say on rail

By Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret Morning News

WASHINGTON — The Energy Department should hold public meetings in Salt Lake City and other Western cities on its latest transportation plan to move nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, the state of Nevada argued in a letter sent Friday to the department's radioactive-waste management director.

Shipments of nuclear waste moving from Eastern states to Nevada would go through Utah if the government approves the federal storage site planned at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The department opened a 45-day public comment period on Oct. 13 for a new environmental study on a potential rail route that would take loads of nuclear waste to the mountain. It also planned several public meetings in Nevada to discuss the new rail route and plans to develop new storage options at the federal repository.

But Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said most of the waste would go into Nevada via Salt Lake City and Sacramento, Calif., so residents of those states need public scoping meetings and more time to evaluate the proposal.

Loux said the latest route moves waste on existing railroad lines running parallel with I-80 from the California border on the west and the Utah border on the east.

"The notices of Oct. 13, 2006, are yet another example of DOE burdening Nevadans with short time limits and inadequate information for meaningful participation," Loux wrote in a letter to Edward Sproat, director of DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Loux noted that the time frame is too short for local governments to meet and approve what comments they would submit based on county commission and city council meetings.

He wants the department to extend the comment period to at least 90 days and to have detailed maps ready to show the public on the new route. He wants public meetings in Salt Lake City, Sacramento and other cities.

The department had favored a route known as the Caliente Corridor, which would have taken waste along a specific rail line that the department would build to bring waste to Yucca.

Another potential route, known as the Mina route, was off the table because the Walker River Paiute Tribe Reservation, northwest of Hawthorne, Nev., had refused to allow the department to move waste through the reservation.

But in May, the tribe said it would allow the department to finish the environmental study it needed to see how it would transport waste across the reservation.

A preliminary study showed the route could be better for the department, but the tribe was to know the results before it would decide whether to allow shipments. So the department opted to create a federal environmental study to formally evaluate the route, which required the public comment period and scoping meetings.

Meanwhile, the department issued a separate announcement saying it planned to redesign a surface building at Yucca where waste would be handled before going into the mountain. This also has 45-day public comment period going on at the same time. Loux said it is too much at once for anyone to get through the information involved and make a proper comment.

---E-mail: suzanne@desnews.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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