Yucca Mountain News Clips - Monday, November 27, 2006

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, November 27, 2006
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Las Vegas SUN
November 27, 2006

Earthquake a real possibility

Report ranks Nevada third for seismic activity behind Alaska and California

By Launce Rake
Las Vegas Sun

To Nevadans who have grown complacent about the potential for a devastating temblor rocking the region, a state earthquake-activity report presents an unsettling conclusion.

Nevada ranks third among the states, behind Alaska and California, in terms of seismic activity - defined by the magnitude of earthquakes that occur on average once per year, according to a report issued last week by UNR's Nevada Seismological Laboratory.

Nevada's ranking may be a surprise, given that the state has been shaken by only 19 significant earthquakes between 1868 and 1994. But a repeat of those earthquakes, which generated a total of $17 million in damage at the time, would cause $1.57 billion in damage today because of how the state has grown, based on estimates by the Nevada Earthquake Safety Council.

Catherine Snelson, UNLV assistant professor of seismology, says a quake causing significant damage in Las Vegas "is very possible."

Some of the eight faults running through the Las Vegas Valley are capable of triggering an earthquake up to magnitude 7 , Snelson says.

A magnitude 7 quake can cause serious damage over a large area. By comparison, a magnitude 3.5 is about the smallest that can be felt by most people and a magnitude 6 can damage buildings.

UNLV researchers have reported that the region could experience an earthquake that could kill hundreds of people and do more than $10 billion in damage.

Snelson says the faults under Las Vegas typically would produce a magnitude 7 earthquake every 1,000 to 10,000 years. The ability to precisely predict earthquakes eludes scientists.

There hasn't been a very large earthquake under Las Vegas in the 150 years of modern record-keeping, but a study by UNLV geology professor Wanda Taylor suggests that a big temblor occurred within the last 2,000 years.

The potential for an earthquake isn't the only seismological threat to the area. A fault system that is believed by geologists to be more active than those in Nevada lies beneath Death Valley in California, 150 miles from Las Vegas but with the potential of causing serious structural damage here.

"That system is close enough to us that it could be rather devastating," Snelson says.

John Anderson, director of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory, says there are about 60 monitoring stations around the state to study earthquakes here and around the world.

About half of those are funded by the Energy Department to monitor seismic activity in conjunction with its efforts to put a high-level radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Anderson says more data are needed to better understand how earthquakes work throughout the state, but one consequence of thwarting the waste dump would be that many of the data-collection points would be lost.

Nevada's earthquakes are triggered largely by the annual, half-inch northward creep of the Sierra Nevada Mountains while Nevada remains mostly in place. When push comes to shove, earthquakes happen.

Southern Nevada's geology makes the region even more susceptible to earthquake damage, Snelson and others say, because development has occurred atop sediment that has washed down into the valley from the surrounding mountains. In parts of the valley, it is hundreds of feet deep.

Ground waves from hundreds of miles away can reverberate through the bowl of the Las Vegas Valley in a process called "amplification."

Also, the water table under much of the valley is just 50 feet below the surface.

That combination of sediment-causing amplification and the underlying water can lead to "liquefaction," resulting in serious damage.

"We live in the nice big valley, and we kind of look at it like a bowl of Jell-O," Snelson says. The parts of San Francisco that saw the greatest damage after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake were those areas that had the greatest amplification and liquefaction.

The same geological pairing played out in a devastating 1985 earthquake in Mexico that killed thousands of residents 200 miles away in Mexico City.

Aly Said, a UNLV structural engineer, says the kind of damage seen in the Mexico City earthquake is not likely in Las Vegas because of better-constructed buildings. Although intuitively the last place most people would want to be is the top of a high-rise building, those buildings in Las Vegas are among the most stable because they were designed to handle strong lateral pressure from wind and earth motion, Said says - even if falling glass and other materials jeopardize people below.

Snelson says risk assessments show the most dangerous buildings would be the four- to nine-story buildings, because they don't absorb the ground waves triggered by earthquakes as effectively.

Said says the same design elements that allow tall buildings to survive high winds also provide lateral strength to overcome earthquakes.

Single-story structures are also generally safe because there is less material to collapse.

A 1999 federal study put Nevada fifth in the country for potential economic loss from earthquakes, echoing the conclusions of a host of studies that put the state close to the top in terms of potential risk.

"We're constantly getting new information that further defines our earthquake risk," says Ron Lynn, head of Clark County's building division and chairman of the Nevada Earthquake Safety Council. "No matter how you look at it, we do have a risk. And we have been addressing that risk."

This year, Clark County and its cities adopted new building codes from the International Code Council that specify building materials, design standards and reinforcing elements within new buildings. The new rules go into effect in May, but rules designed to limit the damage are already in place, Lynn says. High rises, he adds, are "eminently survivable."

Steel and cement in commercial building and wood frames in homes are relatively flexible, providing a measure of survivability to most Clark County buildings, he says. Most vulnerable are older, unreinforced masonry buildings - of which there are none in Clark County, Lynn says, and about five dozen statewide. Most such buildings, such as the state government buildings in Carson City, have been retrofitted for earthquakes.

Lynn, Snelson and others active with the Nevada Earthquake Safety Council say people can at least take safety precautions in their own homes. The biggest killer during and after earthquakes is falling objects, including bookshelves and other tall furniture that can tip in a quake.

Snelson says the admonition to "drop, cover and hold on" is still the best advice: Get close to the ground; get under a heavy structure such as a table, desk or doorway; and stay there until the quake is over.

Earthquake preparedness should include filling an emergency kit with food and water for five days, can openers, portable radio, flashlight, batteries, prescription medications, a first aid kit and cash.

The kits should be refreshed annually.

Snelson says that as Hurricane Katrina dramatically illustrated, disasters happen.

"All we can really do is be prepared," she says. "We can't ignore it."

--Launce Rake can be reached at 259-4127 or at lrake@lasvegassun.com.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
November 27, 2006

Yucca plan revisits region

Zamna Avila
Reno Gazette-Journal

Nuclear waste on its way to Yucca Mountain could pass through Northern Nevada under a proposed railroad shipping route being studied by the Department of Energy that is the topic of a public meeting today in Reno.

The DOE last month said it planned detailed studies of a north-south route in addition to a previously identified east-west rail route through Caliente along the Utah border.

The north-south route, dubbed the Mina Corridor, might be cheaper and faster than the Caliente Corridor because it would use existing rail lines from Winnemucca to Hawthorne, require fewer miles of new track than Caliente and cross fewer mountain ranges in making its way to Yucca Mountain.

Local residents can meet with project officials at Lawlor Events Center to discuss concerns about the proposed Mina Rail Corridor, a train route that would run along U.S. 95 toward Yucca Mountain about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

About 77,000 tons of nuclear waste materials would be hauled on trains from 89 nuclear reactor sites in more than 40 states if the route is selected. DOE officials said shipments could begin in 2017.

"If this route were selected, it would channel all of the nation's nuclear waste through the Interstate 80 corridor and would impact more Nevada cities and towns than any other," said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

The meeting will include experts available to answer questions about environmental impacts and transportation plans. People also will have the opportunity to voice their opinions in front of a DOE officer and a court reporter, who will record the comments.

"You can tailor the conversation to what you want to know and to what your level of knowledge is," said spokesman Jason Bohne of Bechtel SAIC Co., a contractor for the DOE. "That's the beauty of this format. With the variety of experts there, we can take you to the right person."

Similar meetings were conducted in Hawthorne, Fallon, Las Vegas, Amargosa Valley, Goldfield and Caliente.

Community college professor Michon Makedon, who attended a recent meeting in Fallon, said the set-up doesn't relay clear details to the average person and doesn't foster follow-up discussions.

"The format ... did not lead to an honest and critical approach to the subject that was being discussed," Makedon said. "The environment was not conducive to inquiry and response."

But Allen Benson, DOE director of external affairs for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said the format is the choice of most who attend.

"People said they've preferred it because they are intimidated by microphones or an audience," Benson said. "People come in and sit in with a DOE officer, if somebody else wants to listen to the comments they are welcome to do so."

Sparks Mayor Geno Martini sent a letter requesting a meeting in his city in late October, but DOE representatives said the distance between Sparks and Reno is relatively close and they would not extend their deadlines.

"I am disappointed that they are discounting Sparks like that," Martini said. "We've got a lot people in our community that will be affected by this, and we deserve to have a special meeting with Sparks residents."

Benson said interest in the Mina Corridor was renewed after DOE received a letter in May from the Walker River Paiute Tribe agreeing to a study of the route.

The route was previously considered about 15 years ago in the department's environmental studies for the Yucca Mountain repository but was eliminated because the tribe informed DOE in 1991 that it would not allow nuclear waste to be transported across its reservation.

Tribal chairwoman Genia Williams said in a news release that safety was a motivating factor to agree to the study.

"Let me make it clear that we have not said yes to the route through our reservation until we fully evaluate studies on a new rail route that would be constructed miles away from our main population center," Williams stated. "We have no control over the highway traffic through our reservation and believe DOE will bring high level nuclear waste through our tribal community even if we protest."

Jon Summers, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the nuclear waste routes being studied and the repository in Yucca Mountain will never become reality, especially because Reid is the incoming majority leader. "Yucca Mountain is a dying beast, and everything that we are seeing are last-ditch efforts to breath life into it," Summers said. "The reality of it is that the dump at Yucca Mountain will never be built and Nevada will not become the nation's nuclear dumping ground."

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NPR
November 27, 2006

Health & Science

EPA Expected to Issue Million-Year-Long Regulation

by David Kestenbaum

Morning Edition, November 24, 2006 · In the coming weeks, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to issue a regulation that will extend 1 million years into the future.

The timescale of the regulation, which deals with the disposal of power plant nuclear waste, is unprecedented territory for the EPA.

"This will be the only rule that applies for such a long duration into the future," says Elizabeth Cotsworth, the EPA director of radiation and indoor air. "Most EPA rules apply for the foreseeable future -- five or six generations. This rule is for basically 25,000 generations."

In 2002, after Congress and President Bush approved plans to store power plant nuclear waste material inside Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the EPA was placed in charge of laying out the repository's building codes, designed to last 10,000 years.

"We thought that [10,000 years] was generally the limit of scientific certainty in our ability to predict with confidence," says Cotsworth.

But opponents of the Yucca Mountain plan filed a lawsuit which argued that the regulation did not extend far enough into the future. After the courts agreed, the EPA extended the regulation by 100 times, to 1 million years.

The agency doesn't know if there will be anyone to protect 1 million years from now. No one does.

One way to get a sense for what can change over a million years is to look back into the past. Scientists do know that life has changed dramatically over the past million years. For example, our ancestors had skulls that were a third smaller that ours. They had not harnessed fire or started to make clothing. Neanderthals were still in the future.

Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, says not to underestimate what can happen in a million years.

"A million years ago is an exceptionally long time," he says. "Even though I study [the time period] 1 million years ago and what [that] means, it takes me time to get my head around it."

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A Canticle for Yucca Mountain

by Melody Joy Kramer

In Walter M. Miller's post-nuke sci-fi classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, there are no books. Literate people are killed. And underground monks work to preserve what little pre-war knowledge they can salvage, without knowing what the knowledge actually means.

The monks' illuminated manuscripts, we learn, are actually blueprints for materials used to make nuclear bombs. There's no way for the monks to know that their saved traces of civilization will, most likely, destroy civilization again.

The idea that the dangers of nuclear material might be lost on future descendants is not just limited to apocalyptic science fiction stories. It also worries those who live in Nevada near Yucca Mountain, the site where Congress and President Bush tentatively approved plans to store power-plant nuclear waste for the next 1 million years.

Josh Abbey, the director of the Desert Space Foundation in Nevada, says most people are not aware of the consequences of nuclear waste.

"The decision to place the waste [in Yucca Mountain] will impact humans 1 million years in the future," he says. "To place that kind of responsibility forward, I can't think of anything more audacious."

In 2002, Abbey created a design competition to find a permanent warning sign for the proposed nuclear waste site. The purpose of the competition, he says, is to find a universal warning sign which conveys that the deposit is highly dangerous. One caveat: the symbols have to work even if language or communication breaks down in the future. And the design has to last at least 10,000 years.

"Imagine," Abbey says, "that in the future, whoever's here doesn't communicate the way we do."

Language and symbols do change over time. A report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says that half of the world’s 6,800 languages are in danger of disappearing over the next century. Add the fact that humans are naturally curious creatures who like to explore unknown artifacts (Egyptian pyramids ring a bell?) and you have a potentially deadly situation unfolding eons away. Abbey worries that a universal warning sign could actually encourage exploration.

Still, he says, the government needs to design an effective warning symbol that will last far beyond current generations. In the 2002 Universal Warning Sign competition, the submissions were broken down into two categories: practical, technical solutions and sociological or philosophical statements about the futility of the exercise. Below, just some of the designs submitted in the competition:

Blue Yucca Ridge

Ashok Sukumaran's winning design in the competition features "genetically engineered Yucca catcus which turns various shades of blue depending on the levels of radiation in the area."

"The irony of the concept," says Josh Abbey, "is twofold. First, there are no Yucca cactuses at Yucca Mountain. Secondly, it's like one genetic mutation trying to control another mutation."

Fate of Nevada Seal

Joshua Abbey's design features the seal of the state of Nevada superimposed on a radiation symbol.

Abbey's design contains symbolic references to Yucca Mountain. "The center of the design is a train, which is how the waste will be transported," he says. "The bridge looks like a tombstone, and the rays of sunshine are transformed into radiation waves."

Student Design from SMSU

Southwest Missouri State universityStudents from Southwest Missouri State University entered eight designs into the competition. This one, from student Brian Norris, shows a man bowing to a trefoil radioactive symbol.

The trefoil radioactive symbol was doodled on a notepad at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley in 1946. The design symbolizes rays radiating away from an atom and first featured magenta symbols on a blue background. The blue background was eventually replaced by yellow, which does not fade in sunlight. The use of yellow was standardized in 1948.

Universal Warning Sign

Yulia HanansenDesert Space Foundation

Yulia Hanansen created a model of a giant 3-D rock placed at the entrance at each of the six Yucca Mountain openings. The sphere at the center of the rock represents the element uranium.

In her artist's statement, Hanansen says "The monument itself becomes a symbolic mountain where one will be able to enter it and learn about what lies within."

Nuclear Waste Mausoleum

Scott A. Ogburn and Linda Buzby designed a series of mausoleums over the Yucca Mountain site. The design features the universal signs for "No," "Nuclear Waste" and "Radioactive Material."

From above, the signs form a giant "Radioactive Material" warning sign.

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Lincoln Courier
November 27, 2006

Clinton finds itself at heart of nuclear debate

By Eliot Brown
Copley News Service

CLINTON - This rural community of 7,500 isn't the typical national pacesetter.

However, the rural DeWitt County town 20 miles east of Lincoln has found itself at the head of a renewed debate over nuclear power, as it is host to one of three sites nationwide in the advanced stages of an initial application for a new plant.

A public comment session was held Nov. 8 before a panel of judges for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

This is hardly an everyday occurrence in the energy industry, as the country hasn't seen a new nuclear reactor ordered since 1979, the year of the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. And while the early site permit for which energy company Exelon is applying would not allow construction, it is a clear step in that direction.

Clinton is no stranger to nuclear power, as a single-reactor 1,000-megawatt plant sits seven miles from the downtown, just outside city limits. And it is for this reason, in part, that Clinton was chosen by energy company Exelon as its first for an early site permit - a second reactor initially was planned for the site in the 1970s and later abandoned.

Knowing that the existing site already has been approved for one plant, Exelon applied in 2003 to build a second nearby plant. While the company said it has no plans to immediately try to build a reactor if the permit is approved, further permitting, construction and completion of the reactor could take at least a decade.

Regardless of whether a plant gets built anytime soon at the Clinton site, energy analysts say it's significant that the energy companies have demonstrated an interest in nuclear power - the other two early site permits are in Richmond, Va., and Vicksburg, Miss.

Many call this movement a possible nuclear renaissance, and this tiny agricultural town in central Illinois is at the forefront.

Harnessed for means other than weaponry following World War II, nuclear power was viewed in the 1950s as a cheap, easy means of energy production. Lewis Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, once prophesied nuclear energy would be "too cheap to meter," based on the low price and high yield of uranium used as fuel in reactors.

While Strauss' prediction proved to be a bit off, energy companies built scores of plants around the nation through the 1970s, with plans in the works for far more. But in March 1979, the industry changed forever with the partial reactor meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pa., and regulation and construction costs skyrocketed.

Like many reactors across the country, the plant at Clinton was under construction at the time of Three Mile Island and was then subject to various design changes and new safety measures, eventually forcing up the cost of the structure by around $3 billion. Started in 1975, it wasn't completed and hooked up to the grid until 1987, seven years late at a cost exceeding $4 billion, a delay that still causes grumbles among the townspeople of Clinton.

With added regulation costs and a hesitancy from an American public scared by both Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the reactor explosion in a Soviet plant in 1986, energy companies have stayed away from nuclear for years. Today's 100-plus reactors create about 20 percent of the country's power, with most new electricity generation coming from natural gas plants or wind turbines.

But with volatile natural gas prices, an increasing concern over global warming and electricity demand expected to rise by about 50 percent over the next 25 years, energy companies are once again scoping out nuclear power.

Adding some urgency is the expiration of existing nuclear plants, the vast majority of which will be closed in the next 30 to 40 years due to lifespan limits on their reactors, according to Lester Lave, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh who studies the energy industry.

"If we didn't build any more nuclear plants, (within) 20 or 30 years from now, we'd have no nuclear plants anymore, and we'd be left with other ways of trying to satisfy our energy needs," he said.

The decision whether or not to build new plants, Lave said, will be based in large part on the construction costs. Since the 1980s, reactor manufacturers have designed new plants with more efficient safety measures that supposedly will cost around $1.5 billion for a 1,000 megawatt plant. But since none of these reactors have been built, no one knows how much they will cost in reality, leaving energy production companies like Exelon watching one another, seeing if another will take the first move.

Tom Mundy is the early site permit project manager for Exelon and is coordinating the company's application for the early site permit at Clinton.

"It's just the financial risk of incurring the risk to build them," he said of the hesitancy to build. "Some of these plants (in the 1970s and 1980s) were slated for hundreds of millions of dollars and ultimately cost tens of billions of dollars, and we don't want to go through that process again."

Further adding to the industry's caution is the solution - or lack thereof - for nuclear waste. The spent uranium from plants remains dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years, a difficult time frame to plan for. The federal government has assumed the task of creating a disposal area, though many question the long-term stability of Congress' proposed site inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

With no federal solution yet, Exelon has expressed its refusal to build until one is reached, though other companies may not wait.

Exelon has said it will not roll straight into the construction permitting process at Clinton should it receive the early site permit. If approved, the permit would let the company bank the site for 20 years, saving time on its construction permitting process in the future.

Either way, those for and against a nuclear renaissance have already made their voices heard. Within Clinton, supporters of a new plant are easy to come by, as they often cite an expected boom to the economy, especially as an estimated 2,000 construction workers would be needed to build it.

"I think it'll help the town a lot. Right now, nobody can find a job," said Darvin Volker, a local barber. Recalling the boost in business during construction of the existing plant, Volker said the downtown had more life to it.

"There wasn't a room available," he said, pointing to the Taylor Magill hotel across the street from his shop. "But now it's been closed 25 years."

Others cite the need to get away from fossil fuels, looking to nuclear energy as a low-carbon choice.

"We've got to find alternative fuels and atomic power is one of 'em," said Jerry Watkins, owner of a jewelry shop in Clinton. The tax revenue from a second plant would be much appreciated, Watkins added, as the schools have struggled to close budget shortfalls since the existing plant was significantly devalued around the time it was sold in 1999.

While Watkins seems to be in the majority of Clinton residents, many from nearby communities have been vocal in opposing the plant at public meetings, questioning the reality of storing nuclear waste for millennia in a safe location.

Carolyn Treadway of Normal was part of the group No New Nukes that opposed the early site permit. Renewable energy and conservation, she said, are far better, cleaner alternatives to nuclear power, which is not worth its risk.

"The thing is, we don't need this. There are other sources that are already functional that could be developed a lot more," she said.

The Nov. 8 meeting before the NRC at Clinton Junior High served as the last public meeting for the early site permit but will hardly be the last Clinton will hear from Exelon should a second reactor be built. A judicial panel will issue a decision on the permit in December or January, which will then be considered by a commission at the NRC, which is expected to make a determination on the permit around May.

Should the permit be issued, Exelon has said it will not immediately seek a combined operating and construction license for a new reactor, but rather will wait to build until the time is right for Clinton, if at all. Even if the company moved straight into the next phase of permitting, the earliest a plant could come would be 2015, according to Exelon's Mundy.

And while energy experts see the return to nuclear power as likely, it is far from an inevitability. At Clinton and elsewhere, the decision rests with both the energy production companies, who decide whether to pay for the plants, and the federal government, which approves or rejects all applications via the NRC.

But until those decisions are made, the second plant in Clinton is nothing more than a plan, existing only on papers of engineers and in chatter around the small town.

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Las Vegas SUN
November 26, 2006

Letter: People in power see wrong shade of green

The freeway in front of the Los Angeles airport was closed Wednesday when 20 drums of hazardous waste fell off of a truck. Authorities wouldn't immediately say what was in the 55-gallon drums except that it was toxic and flammable.

I think that it's time that our politicians should let the Energy Department officials know that we don't want their hazardous radioactive waste transported through our communities.

They keep talking about building a railroad to Yucca Mountain to store nuclear waste from the states other than Nevada, but they seem to have forgotten all the rail wrecks that happened from Los Angeles to Nevada and Utah last fall and winter.

They keep telling us that it will be safe but accidents keep happening.

While the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., keeps supplying technology to the governments of Mexico and China on how to build solar collectors and wind turbines, our boys in the Energy Department keep fooling around with the high-priced stuff.

Some people seem to think that by going to bed with the Energy Department they will become rich through real estate deals or other business transactions. I hope their money doesn't glow in the dark.

Richard A. Brown
Pahrump

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Green Bay Press Gazette
November 25, 2006

Guest column: Country can't afford delay in spent nuclear fuel repository

As plans take shape for the Yucca Mountain waste repository in Nevada, the broader mission is ensuring the expanded use of nuclear power. That will take time and resources, but Congress can start now by removing one of the last obstacles: establishing a few regional facilities for spent-fuel storage until the permanent repository is built.

Proposed legislation that bears on the 55,000 metric tons of spent fuel now in temporary storage at nuclear power plant sites requires attention. Though the spent fuel has been stored safely and securely, it's not the sort of material that can remain indefinitely in water pools at power plants across the country that were not designed for waste management.

About 1,000 metric tons of spent fuel is stored at the Kewaunee, La Crosse, and Point Beach nuclear plant sites in Wisconsin.

Interim storage at government facilities is crucial. Many of the storage pools that have held spent fuel for decades are running out of space, but the Yucca Mountain repository is not scheduled to open until 2017. Creating one or more federal storage sites would also help resolve utility lawsuits stemming from the government's failure to remove spent fuel from nuclear plant sites by 1998, as required by law. Utilities estimate damages in excess of $50 billion.

The landmark Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established a Nuclear Trust Fund to finance construction of the Yucca Mountain facility, paid for by a one-tenth-of-a-cent per kilowatt-hour fee on electricity users. So far, consumers of nuclear power have paid more than $27 billion in fees, and continue to pay $750 million a year.

However, only $9 billion has been spent on the project, and the government still has not met its obligation under the law to take the spent fuel. As a result, the same utility customers have had to finance costly on-site storage facilities.

Delays in the licensing and construction of the Yucca Mountain repository are cause for concern, since it's a stumbling block to the expansion of nuclear power that could contribute significantly to staving off global warming. Nuclear power plants emit no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases.

According to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, since 1970, some 16 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide have been avoided in the United States from the use of nuclear power instead of fossil fuels. But America needs a dramatic increase in new reactors to merely maintain its current 20 percent share of electricity from nuclear power, let alone reduce carbon emissions to acceptable levels.

Further progress in nuclear power — and possibly recycling spent fuel for use again in generating electricity — seems likely to hinge on legislation that the administration has proposed. It would guarantee that the administration's budget requests to Congress for nuclear waste management, including the Yucca Mountain project, are fully funded according to the fees paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund. And it would raise the limit on the amount of spent fuel and other waste material that can be stored at Yucca Mountain from 70,000 metric tons to 120,000 metric tons.

By fully utilizing Yucca Mountain's potential capacity, there would be no need for multiple repositories to dispose of the nuclear waste.

It is estimated that each year in the delay of Yucca Mountain's completion will result in utility expenditures of $500 million. Without legislation to provide predictable funding and eliminate some of the project's uncertainties, the significant delays in the repository's operation will jeopardize the entire program.

Congress cannot afford to let that happen, for Yucca Mountain's completion is critical to our energy security and environmental well being.

-—Michael Corradini is chairman of the Department of Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Guardian
November 24, 2006

Nuclear Waste Dump Faces New Roadblocks

By Erica Werner
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - When Congress targeted Nevada as the nation's nuclear waste dumping ground, the state didn't have the political power to say no. Twenty years later, the most ardent foe of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump is about to become Senate majority leader. Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid's new job, which gives him control over what legislation reaches the Senate floor, could deal a crippling blow to the already stumbling project.

Among Reid's first acts after this month's election was to convene a conference call with home-state reporters to declare Yucca Mountain ``dead right now.''

``It sure is different now than when I came (to the Senate) in 1986,'' the senator observed.

The dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas is planned as the first national repository for radioactive waste. It's supposed to hold 77,000 tons of the material - from commercial power plants reactors and defense sites across the nation - for thousands of years. About 50,000 tons of the waste is now stored in temporary sites at 65 power plants in 31 states. Reid would leave all of it in place.

Originally targeted to open in 1998, Yucca Mountain has been repeatedly set back by lawsuits, money shortfalls and scientific controversies. The Energy Department's best-case opening date is now 2017.

The effort to create a national storage site has already cost about $9 billion, $6.5 billion of which has been spent on Yucca. Four years ago, the Energy Department estimated the project would cost $58 billion to build and operate for the first 100 years. New cost projections are being worked up, and they are expected to total more than $70 billion.

The department proposed legislation earlier this year meant to fix problems with the dump, which is a mounting liability to taxpayers because the government was contractually obligated to take nuclear waste off utilities' hands starting in 1998. Energy Department officials say at least one legislative change - formally withdrawing land around the dump site - is needed before construction can begin.

Reid, however, pledged after the Nov. 7 election that not only will no bill to help Yucca Mountain reach the Senate floor under his leadership, funding for the project also will dry up quickly. Annual spending on the dump that has ranged between $450 million and $550 million in recent years ``will be cut back significantly, that will be for sure,'' he vowed.

Reid said he couldn't single-handedly kill the dump outright, something that would require a vote of Congress and approval by President Bush. But he added: ``There's not much to kill.''

The project also is losing some of its most persistent supporters as Republicans relinquish control of Congress. Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., has been a vocal advocate for years; he'll be replaced by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who supports Yucca Mountain but is viewed by Nevada officials as more open to their viewpoints.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who will chair the Environment and Public Works Committee with authority over some aspects of the project, is a vocal Yucca Mountain opponent. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., worked unsuccessfully to corral opposition to the project in a crucial House vote four years ago, when she was minority whip.

Administration and industry officials insist the changing of the guard on Capitol Hill won't be the death knell for the project. About 1,500 people in Nevada are now employed there.

Yucca Mountain also has lured research grants to the University of Nevada, and even Reid aides say some spending should be maintained.

``I don't think the program's gone off the edge by any means,'' said David Blee, executive director the U.S. Transport Council, an industry group that works on nuclear waste transportation. ``It'll be more complicated and take a more creative approach, and more of an approach outside the (Washington) beltway.''

Supporters say they will now focus on submitting a required license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Energy Department wants to do that in 2008 and it's not dependent on congressional action, though severe budget cuts would be an impediment.

Reid says putting the highly radioactive wastes in dry storage casks at power plants will keep it safe for 100 years or more. To industry officials and the Energy Department, that's no answer.

``Leaving everything where it is, is not a solution to the problem,'' said Edward F. ``Ward'' Sproat, director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Failure to pursue the Yucca project, Sproat said, ``is pushing the solution off to future generations, which is pretty much what's been happening with this program up until now.''

---On the Net:

State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/

Energy Department Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/

Sen. Harry Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 24, 2006

Letter: Nuke dump

To the editor:

In regard to Mike Baughman's Oct. 17 letter headlined "Yucca politics":

In the years Mr. Baughman has worked for the Lincoln County Nuclear Waste Oversight Program, he has never objected to transporting nuclear waste through Caliente by either train or truck. That is because Caliente Mayor Kevin Phillips is in charge of the program, and he wants the jobs and money from the Caliente route to Yucca Mountain.

If the Department of Energy should choose the Mina route, Mr. Baughman will not receive further funding and he will be out of a job. Mr. Baughman has made nearly $2 million already from federal funds, money that belongs to the citizens of Lincoln County.

Mr. Baughman is also a member of the Central Nevada Protection Working Group, which is an organization that is working diligently to get a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository licensed. Mr. Baughman is also president and owner of Intertech Services Corp., based in Carson City. He is also a registered Nevada lobbyist.

As can be seen, Mr. Baughman is not merely a concerned citizen writing to the editor. I do not want the Mina route, the Caliente route (where I live), or any other route for transporting nuclear waste to Nevada.

There is no safe way to transport nuclear waste through 43 states to Yucca Mountain. If Mike Baughman truly cares about protecting the public, why doesn't he support the state of Nevada?

Marge Detraz
Caliente
The Writer is Co-Chair of The Lincoln County Nuclear Opposition Committee.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
November 24, 2006

Guinn urges DOE to release key documents related to licensing of Yucca Mountain

CARSON CITY -- A letter sent Tuesday by Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn called for U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to release millions of important documents related to DOE's plans to store nuclear waste in Nevada.

The plan calls for nuclear waste to be transported through Fallon to Yucca Mountain.

Guinn strongly opposes DOE's plans to license and develop a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Calling DOE's continuing refusal to make critically important licensing documents available to the State "needlessly punitive," Guinn asserted that "there is no justification for withholding public access to these documents now when the task of reviewing them is so overwhelming later."

In the letter, Guinn refers to the fact that Edward Sproat, director of DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Management, has announced a June 30, 2008 date to submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for construction of a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. As a prerequisite, the Department must certify to the NRC that its Licensing Support Network (LSN) electronic database of relevant licensing documents is complete and publicly accessible. This must be accomplished at least six months prior to DOE submitting an application, according to NRC's regulations. Sproat has scheduled the application for LSN certification of its documents for Dec. 21, 2007.

As stated in the letter, the purpose of the LSN is to make these millions of documents related to the Yucca Mountain Project available electronically to all interested parties, beginning before DOE applies for a license. DOE's first effort to certify its LSN, on June 30, 2004, was set aside as insufficient by the NRC.

The more than 1 million documents from DOE's original certification effort are currently publicly available on the LSN Web site maintained by the LSN Administrator. But since June 30, 2004, 2,123,265 additional documents have been turned over to for processing. None of this information has been made public.

"And Mr. Sprout estimates that approximately 6.8 million more documents will be placed on the LSN at the time of certification," Guinn wrote. "We are deeply concerned that the 2 million-plus documents provided since 2004, and subsequently indexed by the LSN administrator, under instruction by the department, have not been made publicly available on the LSN, and that the balance of the 6.8 million documents that the department will continue to provide to the LSN over the next 13 months will likewise not be made publicly available."

Guinn noted that while the NRC's regulations appear to permit this, "the regulation's authors and those commenting during the rule-making did not contemplate a six-year gap between the secretary's 2002 site recommendation and Congressional designation of the Yucca Mountain potential repository site, and the department's submission of a license application."

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act calls for the license application to be made six months after Congressional site designation. This obviously did not occur.

"Thus, we have faced a period of many years in which a large part of the department's repository plans at Yucca Mountain remain a mystery," Guinn said.

DOE's design and operational approach have changed significantly since the site was recommended in 2002, according to the letter. To date, DOE has released only very limited information on these changes developed over these past three and a half years.

The letter goes on to say that "the information is critical to advance public understanding" of the repository and that the LSN administrator, "literally with the flip of a switch, could make these additional 2 million-plus documents publicly available."

The state has also been objecting for years to DOE's continued "embargo" of documents Nevada needs to review before DOE applies for a license to build the proposed dump, said Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects.

Guinn letter to DOE -- page 3

Withholding the material serves no purpose other than intentionally impeding Nevada's ability to prepare for a licensing proceeding."

Guinn urged Bodman to lift the "embargo" on this information so it can be made public on the LSN Web site. To show good faith, the state has already placed all of its documents on the LSN site and will continue to make new documents available to the public on an ongoing basis.

For the letter and more information on Nevada's opposition to the proposed nuclear waste dump, visit www.state.nv.us/nucwaste.

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Pahrump Valley Times
November 23, 2006

Guinn wants release of documents

MILLIONS OF PAPERS HAVE BEEN WITHHELD SINCE 2004

CARSON CITY -- A letter sent Tuesday by Gov. Kenny Guinn calls for U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to release millions of important documents related to DOE's plans to store nuclear waste in Nevada.

Guinn strongly opposes DOE's plans to license and develop a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

In the letter, Guinn refers to the fact that Edward Sproat, director of DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Management, has announced a June 30, 2008, date to submit a license Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for construction of a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

As a prerequisite, the department must certify to the NRC that its licensing support network (LSN) electronic data base of relevant licensing documents is complete and publicly accessible. This must be accomplished at least six months prior to DOE submitting an application, according to NRC's regulations. Sproat has scheduled the application for LSN certification of its documents for Dec. 21, 2007.

The more than 1 million documents from DOE's original certification effort are currently publicly available on the LSN Web site maintained by the LSN Administrator. But since June 30, 2004, 2,123,265 additional documents have been turned over for processing. None of this information has been made public.

Guinn noted that while the NRC's regulations appear to permit this, "The regulation's authors and those commenting during the rule-making did not contemplate a six-year gap between the secretary's 2002 site recommendation and congressional designation of the Yucca Mountain potential repository site, and the department's submission of a license application."

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act calls for the license application to be made six months after congressional site designation. This did not occur, according to the governor.

"Thus, we have faced a period of many years in which a large part of the department's repository plans at Yucca Mountain remain a mystery," Guinn said.

"DOE continues to hide this important information from Nevada," Loux said. "As Gov. Guinn said today, these documents need to be made public as soon as possible to give Nevadans, and all Americans, time to review this massive amount of material. Withholding the material serves no purpose other than intentionally impeding Nevada's ability to prepare for a licensing proceeding."

Guinn urged Bodman to lift the "embargo" on this information so it can be made public on the LSN Web site.

To show good faith, the state has already placed all of its documents on the LSN site and will continue to make new documents available to the public on an ongoing basis.

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Times and Democrat
November 23, 2006

‘We’ve got to change’

Sen. Graham talks challenges facing U.S. in Calhoun forum

By Lee Hendren
T&D Staff Writer

ST. MATTHEWS – U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham stopped in Calhoun County on Tuesday for a casual listening session with community political and business leaders.

The senator from Seneca also offered a bit of advice, urging Calhoun County to “embrace the future” by positioning itself to respond positively as the world inevitably changes.

Partisanship was set aside for the most part as the Republican senator asked the mostly Democratic elected officials to list “three things that you think would do the most” good for the county.

County Council Chairman David Summers said the county was seeing steady residential growth, and not where county officials expected it.

“We thought the bulk of our growth would be in Sandy Run, in the upper part of the county,” Summers said. But a study conducted for the school district “says it’s going to be on the lake.”

Graham wasn’t surprised. Waterfront property has surged in popularity and price, he said.

Residential developments aimed at retirees “changed McCormick County’s whole economic structure,” the senator said. “You just mark my words: What happened in McCormick County is going to happen here.”

Graham said Lake Marion is “a big asset” for each of the counties it touches. Not only that, but the area has excellent highway access, nice golf courses and “some of the best hunting land around.”

* Water issues:

quantity, quality

Summers said his goal is to provide every county resident with access to a water line. That depends on the success of the Lake Marion regional water plan, he said.

“But, see, they took the money from ’em and they moved it down to that Katrina crowd down there,” said state Rep. Harry Ott, D-St. Matthews.

“In other words, it was scheduled to be completed and then they reshuffled the deck,” Summers said.

“The Corps of Engineers said (the money) was not coming back,” Ott said.

“Well, we’ll see about that,” Graham responded. “There’s two things about the water here: there’s not enough of it and the quality of it.”

“I think,” Graham continued, “you need to approach it from two perspectives: economic development and quality of life. Some of the water really is not worth drinking.”

“You’re exactly right,” Summers said.

* New interchange?

Summers said county officials dearly want an additional interchange on Interstate 26 in the vicinity of the industrial park and several other industries, such as Zeus and a frozen food operation.

“It would be the biggest single thing we could do up there,” Summers said.

Graham said it won’t be easy to get money for that, but he would take note of the request. He also said the county needs to develop definite plans for attracting industries in that area that can compete in the global economy over the long term.

“This inland port (proposed in Orangeburg County), I’m working on that,” Graham said. “I don’t know if it’ll ever happen, but it makes sense to me.”

He asked what his audience thought of the area technical colleges, and received several verbal thumbs-up.

“That’s your ace in the hole,” Graham said. “Our rural tech schools are the best thing going for South Carolina.” He credited retired U.S. Sen. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, a Democrat, with the foresight to create the system that’s “second to none.”

* ’Biggest problem

facing America’

One audience member asked about health care costs.

Affordable health care is “the biggest problem facing America right now, I think,” Graham said.

“South Carolina has got to come up with more Medicaid matching money,” the senator said. “It’s the best deal in town. For every $1 you put on the table, you get $3” from the federal government.

Ott had raised a similar argument in support of a cigarette tax increase in the state Legislature earlier this year.

Graham said medical costs will go down when more people are engaged in “preventive health care” and when more consumers “make better choices.”

They’ll take better care of themselves and shop more wisely for medical services when they have to bear more of the cost, the senator said.

Graham said he foresees, in the near future, that employees will have to pay the first $5,000 or $10,000 of health care bills, but “tax deductions” will soften the blow to the average family.

Above $10,000, employers and employees will share the health care burdens, Graham envisions, with the government stepping in “to provide catastrophic coverage, you know, when bills get really big and way out of control.”

Graham envisions the creation of “associated health plans” in which chambers of commerce and small businesses can “form alliances to buy insurance in ways that big companies do,” at a lower cost.

He said the insurance industry is fighting the proposal “tooth and nail.”

* Guest worker

program pitched

Graham said immigration is “the most emotional topic you can talk about.”

“Anybody in the farming business, in the construction business, in tourism, knows that we need labor,” he said.

“We need to have workers that will come into this country and do things that Americans no longer wish to do,” he said. “Most Americans are not telling their kids, ’I hope you grow up and pick lettuce.’”

“What happens with every generation of immigrants, they come in and take the bottom jobs and work their way up,” he said.

“From what I can tell, the Hispanic workers out there work hard, and they’re very family oriented,” he said. “They’re not coming across the border to blow us all up.”

They come here because “they can make $5 an hour here or 50 cents a day” in their poverty-stricken home countries, and “you can’t build a wall high enough” to keep them out, he said.

“But we’ve got to control who comes here and how they get a job,” Graham said. Otherwise, terrorists will slip in.

“We need to have laws that work and can be enforced,” Graham said. “What we have today is a joke. We need a guest worker program. We need to create a work force that employers can rely upon that is legal.”

* Social Security:

’false promises’

Social Security is a safety net for millions of Americans.

“Did you know, 40 percent of the seniors would be in poverty if it weren’t for Social Security?” Graham asked.

The problem is, “we’ve got more obligations in Washington than we’ve got money,” Graham said. “We’ve made promises ain’t nobody can afford to pay. I’m tired of making false promises.”

“I’ve gotten over being afraid,” he said. “One thing I’ve learned in the last four years, if you’re going to have this job, tell people what they need to hear, not what you think they want to hear.

“And I think the country needs to hear that Social Security is going to go bankrupt if we don’t do something.

“People are living longer than they’ve ever lived, and there are fewer workers and more retirees. When the baby boomers retire, which starts in about two years, we’re going to flood Social Security.

“We’ve got to fix this, or it’s going to cripple our economy and we’re going to put a lot of people at risk.

“If you were born after 1980 and you’re an African-American male, you get a negative rate of return on Social Security because your life expectancy is so much shorter than a white woman. If you sold an insurance policy that’s structured that way, they’d put you in jail.

“Now, every time you put something on the table (to reform Social Security), people attack you and try to scare everybody off and say you don’t know how to do it.

“Here’s the one idea I’m going to put on the table: If you don’t have one, shut up. If you’ve got a better one, put it on the table. I’ll reward any politician who comes up with a solution to save Social Security from bankruptcy, whether I agree with them or not.”

* ’Tell that nut in Iran

... go take a hike’

Graham said he and a growing number of members of Congress believe that mankind is negatively affecting the Earth’s climate.

Too, “I’d like to see in my lifetime getting away from Mideast oil. Wouldn’t it be great to go to Saudi Arabia and say, ’We’d like to help you with your problems, but we don’t need your oil’?

“Wouldn’t it be nice to tell that nut in Iran he can just go take a hike and we don’t buy another drop of oil from Iran?

“The way you do that is create alternatives,” Graham said. “It would be good for the environment. It would be good for our economy. And rural South Carolina would benefit.”

“(Calhoun) County, among all counties, can benefit from alternative fuel sources. Y’all are crazy if you’re not going out there and trying to recruit somebody to build an ethanol plant in this area. Anybody that farms for a living, you need to be looking at sawgrass ethanol-based products.”

In 40 years we could be “almost independent of coal and oil, if we wanted to,” Graham said. Brazil is there today: “Every automobile engine in Brazil can burn off ethanol and gasoline.”

* ’Surely we can be

as bold as the French’

Don’t just look south; look across the Atlantic Ocean, Graham said.

“France has somehow been able to take the demagoguery about nuclear power and put it in a box,” Graham said. “France generates 80 percent of their power from nuclear. They’re going to dominate the European economy.”

Compare that to the United States.

“President Carter stopped the recycling plant down there at Barnwell, where you could take the spent fuel rod and put the material back in the reactor. That’s exactly what France does,” Graham said.

“About 90 percent of what we’ll put in the ground at Yucca Mountain, they put back into the reactor. I’d like the Savannah River Site to be a test site to create a recycling center for nuclear spent fuel in South Carolina, to see if we can do it here.

“What I want to try to do is create some energy – no pun intended – to embrace nuclear power, because we don’t have a rational debate about it. It’s all fear tactics.

“You know what my new line is? Surely we can be as bold as the French!

“I know enough about it. I live within five miles of a nuclear power plant in Oconee County. I’d rather spend a day around the nuclear power plant than in Washington, D.C., walking down the street, in terms of safety.

“We’re going to be very aggressive trying to restart the nuclear industry. There are 38 nuclear power plants that are on the drawing boards.

“We’re years away from having a robust nuclear program, but we’re heading in the right direction,” he said. “We’re years away from having hydrogen and ethanol fuel our cars, but we’re headed in the right direction.”

* Other issues

* Tax cuts – “We’re going to have a big fight in Congress about the tax cuts,” Graham predicted. But farmers shouldn’t have to worry that upon their death, their survivors will have to sell the family farm to pay “death taxes,” he said. “I hope we can solve that problem.”

l Fair trade – “How can you grow peaches in China and ship them here cheaper than you can grow them on the Ridge?” he asked. “The Chinese are subsidizing their industry.”

l Farm bill – Graham promised to consider the farmers’ perspective in the next farm bill. “Farming is a national security issue. You take a country that can’t feed itself and clothe itself and you’ve got a country at risk,” he said.

* Looking ahead

“There are big issues facing this country,” Graham said. “We’re big people, not small people. We’ve become a great people because we took risks and we took challenges.”

“The new economy that’s coming about is based on innovation, and what America does better than any country on the planet is innovate,” he said.

“What I’m trying to do is create an environment for the self-starter to flourish in the global economy. That means we’ve got to change. That means Calhoun County has got to change. We need to embrace the future.”

--T&D Staff Writer Lee Hendren can be reached by e-mail at lhendren@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5552.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 22, 2006

Guinn urges documents' release

Yucca Mountain materials at issue

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- A dispute between Nevada and the federal government over Yucca Mountain flared anew Tuesday when Gov. Kenny Guinn accused the Department of Energy of hiding more than 2 million documents concerning the nuclear waste site.

The agency has prepared science and engineering documents for placement on a licensing database for the planned Nevada nuclear waste repository but has declined to make them public until the database is certified, Guinn said.

Certification is scheduled for Dec. 21, 2007, giving the state, environmental groups and the nuclear industry six months to review and respond to them by a licensing deadline, state officials said.

The database is expected to contain as many as 6.8 million documents.

Federal law does not require the documents to be made public until the database is officially certified, Nevada officials said.

But Guinn said the wait until certification was "needlessly punitive."

"There is no justification for withholding public access to these documents now when the task of reviewing them is so overwhelming later," Guinn said in a letter to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman made public Tuesday.

The database administrator "literally with the flip of a switch could make these additional 2 million-plus documents publicly available," Guinn said.

He asked Bodman's help on "lifting the embargo" on material that could be made public now and others when they are indexed for public use.

A spokesman for Bodman had no comment on Guinn's letter.

Nevada has feuded with the Energy Department over access to documents backing the government's choice of Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste burial.

A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit the state filed in federal court in Reno is challenging the agency's refusal to supply Nevada officials with a copy of a draft repository license application.

Energy Department lawyers have said the document is legally shielded.

"With DOE's lawyers it is clearly the motivation to give the state as little time as possible to raise objections," said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

"If DOE says this is the most open program in the world, why are they not letting people look at the documents?" Loux said.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
November 22, 2006

Editorial: End of road for Yucca Mt.

The biggest loser in this month's election may well have been the federal government's plan to store high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Controversial and long-delayed, the nuclear repository already faced an uphill battle in Nevada, where the congressional delegation and statewide office holders have been united in its opposition to the plan.

That opposition will take on renewed strength thanks to the Democratic Party's victory in the Nov. 7 congressional elections. When Nevada Sen. Harry Reid becomes majority leader in the U.S. Senate in January, he will control the upper house's agenda, and the repository isn't likely to find a place on that agenda.

Reid, in fact, has pledged to seek approval of a proposal to store nuclear waste right where it's produced, at the nation's nuclear power plants. If the Department of Energy takes the time to read the tea leaves, it, too, will agree that the opposition facing the plan will be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome and begin the work necessary to develop a feasible alternative.

It's an important issue for the nation. Experts are convinced that a new generation of nuclear power plants, cheaper to build and safer to operate than the previous plants, will be built in the United States. It's just a matter of time, they say, before the first one receives its license to begin construction.

There can be no new nuclear power plants, however, if there is no plan for getting rid of the radioactive waste they generate.

Supporters of Yucca Mountain continue to insist that it is the best solution to the problem, and the DOE insists that it will submit an application for a license for the repository by mid-2008, with the goal of opening the project by 2017.

That appears to be wishful thinking, however. So far, the DOE and its contractors have been their own worst enemy in the project. There have been serious allegations that data was falsified and a court forced it to go back to develop new standards for the project, among a host of other problems that have helped Nevada in its efforts to prevent the repository from being built.

Now, the project is facing new opposition as a result of its proposed transportation routes to Yucca Mountain, which could take trains laden with radioactive waste through the heart of Reno and a host of smaller Nevada towns.

It's well past time to get serious about trying to find an acceptable alternative to the Yucca Mountain plan. If it wasn't apparent before, it should be quite obvious now that Sen. Reid is about to become majority leader of the Senate.

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Kansas City infoZine
November 22, 2006

From Obscurity to Center Stage, Nevada Rises with Senators' Political Victories

Brian Duggan - Nevada, a state once regarded as the nation's "rotten borough," will begin a new era as its Democratic senator, Harry Reid, takes over as majority leader of the U.S. Senate.

Washington, D.C. - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - infoZine - "It's a coming of age for the state, politically," said Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., takes it a little further: "It is so huge and so important for the state of Nevada, it's akin to the parting of the Dead Sea."

For the Silver State, often defined by vice not virtue, Reid's post could spell big things. Add in Sen. John Ensign's new role as National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, the new January 2008 Democratic presidential caucus and the state's national clout gains a few notches.

"It's more than just that temporary boost of power," Herzik said. "There's a certain amount of legitimacy that now comes to Nevada."

Reid, a mild-mannered miner's son from Searchlight, Nev., will significantly shape the direction the U.S. takes for at least the next two years.

"If there's something he considers detrimental to Nevada, he can stop it," said Jon Ralston, a Las Vegas political analyst.

Reid's No.1 issue, according to Herzik and Ralston, is Yucca Mountain, a controversial multi-billion dollar project outside Las Vegas where the nation's nuclear waste could be buried.

Legislation to fund the project's next step is now unlikely to make it to the Senate floor, Herzik said.

"That doesn't mean Yucca is dead," he said. "But various alternatives that people maybe didn't want to bring up, I think, will start seeing some new light."

Reid is known for getting things done on Capitol Hill. But it isn't because he's firebrand politician.

Berkley, a long-time friend of the 66-year-old senator, said Reid is better known for his savvy parliamentary skills, not his speaking.

She recalled a lunch in Las Vegas with Reid and two potential campaign donors during his 1970 bid to become Nevada's lieutenant governor. When she got home, her mother asked her how it went.

Berkley, then a sophomore at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, wasn't optimistic.

"I said, 'I don't think Harry Reid has a chance to be lieutenant governor. He is so quiet,'" she said. "I've never met a quieter politician in my life."

With a chuckle, Berkley said she was wrong about Reid, who won that race and was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986.

From renegade to national player

To put Nevada's newfound legitimacy into perspective, State Archivist Guy Rocha sums up the state's early political influence: "Inconsequential ... an anomaly ... a political aberration."

Case in point: William Sharon, a Nevada senator from 1875 to 1881, who Rocha said helped sour the nation's attitude toward Nevada, earning it the moniker "rotten borough."

"The common joke at the time was the only time he spent in Nevada was when he was taking the train from Washington to California" where he lived, Rocha said. Not to mention that Sharon's Senate attendance record reached only 1 percent.

"Nevada for the longest time had been a great rotten borough," Rocha said. "It had been a very small state with some powerful senators, but still not a player in the political dynamic."

And with its liberal divorce laws plus legalized prostitution and gambling, Nevada's reputation suffered, Rocha said.

But by the second half of the 20th century, Nevada politicians were making a larger mark on the nation.

Sens. Patrick A. McCarran, from 1933 to 1954, and Paul D. Laxalt, from 1974 to 1987, became household names in Nevada. Despite their clout within the state, both exerted their national influence behind the scenes.

McCarran, an anti-communist Democrat who rode the coattails of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1932 presidential win, was Sen. Joseph McCarthy's other half during the communist witch hunt of the 1950s.

"It probably should have called 'McCarranism,' not McCarthyism," Rocha said.

Before Laxalt, a Republican, beat a young Reid in the 1974 U.S. Senate race, he was Nevada's governor from 1967 to 1970. His close friend, Ronald Reagan, was California's governor at the same time.

Rocha said it was Laxalt who encouraged Reagan to run for chief executive.

Fast forward to 2006, and Nevada's national political influence is defined by two senators in highly visible leadership positions.

"We've gone from a backwater to the road to the White House goes through Nevada," Rocha said.

The presidential path to 2008

That road is paved with a 2008 presidential caucus. Nevada becomes one of the first four states to help pick the Democratic nominee, with Jan. 19 caucuses, just after the Iowa caucuses and just before the New Hampshire primary. South Carolina follows with a primary Jan. 29.

It's something Reid heavily influenced.

"I played a very big role in it," Reid said. "Howard Dean [the Democrats' national chair] and I worked closely together to make it happen. ... I made a lot of phone calls in order to bring this to Nevada."

Kirsten Searer, a spokeswoman for the Nevada State Democratic Party, said the senator's lobbying made a difference.

"It's safe to say it wouldn't have happened without Sen. Reid," she said.

So why bring the caucus to Nevada? Democrats say it's because of the state's increasing Hispanic population - 23 percent of the state's 2.4 million residents - and growing union membership.

But Ralston said it could just mean candidates pay homage to Las Vegas - the state's most populous and diverse city - and make "cosmetic" stops in Republican-dominated rural areas. Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, voted for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 as both were losing the state.

"Nevada has been an important state and has contributed to the president's victories in 2000 and 2004," said Zac Moyle, executive director of Nevada Republican Party. "We suspect it will continue to play significant role in electing Republicans to office."

Republicans dominated the major races again this year, winning the governor's mansion, two competitive congressional races along with Ensign's easy re-election over Democrat Jack Carter, the former president's son. Berkley, a Democrat, won an easy re-election over Republican Kenneth Wegner.

But this year's election marked the first time Democrats gained any of the state's six constitutional offices, picking up four, and keeping a majority in the Nevada State Assembly and nearly taking the Senate.

Herzik said Nevada's trend of voting red in national elections could stop if Democrats put up a moderate candidate.

"It's a good window on the middle of American politics," he said.

Reid's ascension to the top of the most exclusive club in the nation says a lot about Nevada, the fastest growing state in the nation for more than a decade - its population has doubled since 1990.

So as Reid takes over as majority leader and Ensign begins his quest to take that job away by electing a GOP majority in 2008, the nation will begin to get to know the real Nevada.

"For a state that is generally disdained or lampooned by everyone else in the country, to have their two senators in those types of positions, it's pretty impressive," Ralston said.

Herzik said it tells of the changing times for the Silver State - a progression from its renegade past.

"We're the Wild West in the way that neon cowboy ... is the Wild West," he said, referring to the 40-foot sign that symbolizes downtown Las Vegas.

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Gainesville Sun
November 22, 2006

The national trend toward nuclear

By Nathan Crabbe
Sun staff writer

A national trend to expand the use of nuclear power could mean two new nuclear plants, including one near the existing reactor in Crystal River

Push to expand the use of nuclear power in the U.S. could mean two new reactors in Florida, including one near the existing nuclear reactor in Crystal River

Crystal River is about 60 miles southwest of Gainesville, but its political climate is a world away from the contentious battle over a proposed coal-fired power plant here.

Progress Energy is considering building another nuclear reactor to join its existing reactor and four coal-fired plants near Crystal River. The long-delayed announcement on the location of the new reactor is now expected before the end of the year.

Both the Citrus County Commission and Crystal River City Council have unanimously passed resolutions welcoming a new reactor. Crystal River Mayor Ronald Kitchen Jr. said the community's nearly three-decade history with the plant has quelled concerns about safety.

"Quite frankly, I think it's one of the most regulated and overseen industries out there," he said.

The company's plans are part of a national trend that the nuclear industry hopes closes the book on the story of Three Mile Island. Since the Pennsylvania nuclear plant suffered a partial meltdown in 1979, no new nuclear plants have been built in the U.S.

Increasing demand for energy, concerns over greenhouse gases and government subsidies could change that in the next several years. Nationally, there are 103 existing reactors, and as many as 31 more could be built under current proposals, including plans by both Progress Energy and Florida Power and Light.

Nuclear provides energy that is cleaner than coal and less expensive than natural gas, said Buddy Eller, spokesman for Progress Energy. Cooling towers merely emit steam as compared to greenhouse gases from a coal-fired power plant.

While the $5 billion in possible construction costs would bump rates in the short-term, Eller said a new reactor could result in lower rates over time.

But others say the investment in nuclear plants diverts money from renewable energy, results in dangerous waste and creates new terrorist targets. Radioactive waste is stored on plant sites as the federal government has had continued difficulties in establishing a permanent site.

"The biggest downside is nuclear power creates some of the most dangerous waste known to mankind," said Holly Binns, field director for the Tallahassee-based nonprofit Environment Florida.

Gainesville Regional Utilities gets 11 megawatts of power from the Crystal River reactor, representing nearly 4 percent of the energy in its system. Nuclear energy is the utility's least expensive power and the first option when available, said Heidi Lannon, managing utility analyst for GRU.

"It's serving your base level - your refrigerator, your lights, the things that are always on," she said.

GRU bought 1.4 percent of the plant during construction, when cost overruns forced then-owner Florida Power to sell off pieces. The federal approval process has since been streamlined to reduce overruns, said Garry Miller, project director for Progress Energy's new plant.

The industry has also created a standardized technology that is already approved by federal regulators, he said.

"We're getting all the work done in advance before putting lots of money down on a potential plant," he said.

But it could still take a decade before the plant is fully operational, Eller said. He also cautioned that plans could be scrapped at any time.

"There are lots of off ramps in this process," he said.

The company has whittled down the list of possible locations to fewer than 10, he said. The Crystal River site presents advantages because of political support but provides downsides due to the concentration of generation there, Miller said.

In addition to the reactor, there are four coal plants on the site for a total of 3,200 megawatts of electricity. The size of the new reactor hasn't yet been determined.

Plans for a new reactor come at a fortuitous time. In 2005, Congress passed an energy bill providing $2 billion for cost overruns associated with delays at the first six reactors that get built and another $125 million in annual subsidies for new nuclear production.

The Florida Legislature passed an energy bill this year that makes it easier for utilities to get nuclear plants approved and allows utilities to immediately pass construction costs to customers.

Binns said such subsidies divert spending from renewable energies such as solar. The push for more nuclear power comes as the country still hasn't devised a long-term solution for storing waste, she said.

"We still haven't figured out for several decades how to deal with that," she said.

Currently, nuclear plants store waste in on-site pools. But pools at the nuclear plants of both Florida Power and Progress are expected to be filled over the next six years.

forcing the creation of above-ground dry storage sites.

The U.S. Department of Energy has long proposed building a storage site in Nevada's remote Yucca Mountain and now plans to open the site in 2017. But the elevation of Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, a project opponent, to majority leader could stop those plans, said Scott Cullen, director of the nonprofit GRACE Energy Initiative in New York.

He said the potential for terrorist attacks on waste sites is among the long list of reasons expanding nuclear energy is a bad idea. The money and time spent building a nuclear plant would be better spent developing renewable resources such as solar and wind power.

"There are a lot of solutions out there that are a lot faster and a lot cheaper," he said.

The efficiency of nuclear technology has dramatically improved, and the industry has had a good safety record since Three Mile Island, said Alireza Haghighat, chairman of nuclear and radiological engineering at the University of Florida.

He said politics have long stunted the growth of nuclear power, which he said he hopes will change as more people learn about its advantages.

"We really need to look at this more logically rather than emotionally," he said.

Kitchen shares that view. He said the plant long become accepted in Crystal River, its looming cooling towers just another part of the landscape.

"I sometimes forget there's a nuclear plant," he said.

Nathan Crabbe can be reached at 352-338-3176 or crabben@gvillesun.com.

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LaCrosse Tribune
November 22, 2006

U.S. needs a nuclear fuel disposal site

By L. Del Butterfield
De Soto, Wis.

Because it happened so uneventfully, it’s easy to forget that almost 20 years has passed since the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor nuclear plant in Genoa, Wis., shut down. But 38 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel, which is usually referred to as nuclear waste, is still stored at the plant site. Why hasn’t the spent fuel been carted away for permanent disposal?

The short answer is that the federal government has failed to meet its legal obligation under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to take possession of spent fuel from nuclear power plants as it was supposed to do beginning in 1998.

A plan to store the spent fuel temporarily at the Goshute reservation in Utah seems to have fizzled. And although the spent fuel is being stored safely and securely at the La Crosse plant, Dairyland Power Cooperative is in the business of producing electricity, not radioactive waste management.

Nationally, there is more than 50,000 metric tons of spent fuel stored at 131 nuclear-plant sites in 39 states. What’s troubling about this is that an estimated 160 million Americans live within 75 miles of one of the waste facilities, and many of the facilities are close to lakes and rivers.

If the long-delayed Yucca Mountain waste repository in Nevada were actually open, much of the spent fuel would have been shipped there years ago. But after $7 billion and at least two decades of scientific study, the repository’s future is in jeopardy, threatened by funding shortfalls that are hampering its licensing and construction. Now the facility is not expected to open until 2017.

Establishing a geologic repository is not a new idea. As early as 1957, the National Academy of Sciences determined that isolating radioactive waste in a deep, underground repository would be safe.

For the past seven years, long-lived radioactive waste from the defense program has been deposited in an underground repository known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico. Since WIPP opened in 1999, more than 80,000 containers of so-called “transuranic” waste, which contains plutonium, have been placed in its chambers. Most importantly, in 5,000 truck shipments of the radioactive waste to WIPP from defense nuclear installations hundreds of miles away in the Southeast and Northwest, there hasn’t been a single release of radiation that’s harmed the public.

Congress needs to address the waste issue, and it should direct the government to establish an interim waste facility in Nevada for spent fuel from eight decommissioned nuclear plants, including the La Crosse plant. Also, it needs to pass legislation introduced by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., head of the Energy Committee, that would provide assured funding for the Yucca Mountain project, drawing on the $800 million a year that goes into the Nuclear Trust Fund.

It’s past time that the government met its obligations to take title to the spent fuel now stored at dozens of sites around the country. A good start would be to focus on the decommissioned plants, since they’re not producing any electricity.

Resolving the waste problem deserves high priority so we can renew the operating licenses of nuclear plants and proceed with the construction of new plants. Here in Wisconsin and elsewhere, more nuclear power will be needed to provide clean “base-load” electricity and limit global warming.

--L. Del Butterfield is a retired nuclear engineer.

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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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