Yucca Mountain News Clips - Friday, December 29, 2006

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, December 29, 2006
---------------------------

Lahontan Valley News
December 28, 2006

Letter: Yucca Mountain will One Day be a Reality

Reference Mr. Strolin's letter of Dec. 25 regarding Yucca Mountain.

I wonder what crystal ball he was gazing into remarking the only thing inevitable about the Yucca program is its ultimate end.

The government has spent billions on that hole and one way or another the end result will be nuclear waste stuck in that mountain.

All those so-called watchdog agencies around the state claiming to be experts are just make work projects prolonging the inevitable and wasting money.

I spent 30 years in government service and I know exactly how they operate. What they want they eventually get, regardless of whatever.

I suggest Nevada let them dump at Yucca. However, sock it to the waste makers and Uncle Sam and let them spend big bucks for the privilege.

It's coming Nevada, one way or another.

Bert E. Washer
Fallon

---------------------------

Pahrump Valley Times
December 27, 2006

State seeks ruling barring storage above the ground

Loux Says Storage Could Go On 'for Decades'

CARSON CITY -- The state of Nevada petitioned the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Friday to rule out the U.S. Department of Energy's plans to use the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada for indefinite surface storage of thousands of tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste.

DOE's plan to store up to 21,000 tons of nuclear waste at the site is subject to NRC licensing.

The proposed tonnage would be seven times the planned annual intake of the proposed Yucca Mountain underground repository, according to Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act specifically prohibits a large interim storage site in Nevada as long as the state is the proposed location of a repository. DOE claims the storage facility, which it calls an "aging facility" because it will hold spent fuel until it is cool enough to allow it to be moved underground, is integral to the efficient operation of the proposed repository.

But Loux said the proposed surface storage could last for decades.

"Planned storage of seven times the annual emplacement rate at Yucca Mountain is nothing more than an unlawful interim storage site in embarrassingly thin disguise," Loux said. "Decoupling waste receipt from emplacement is proof of the department's intent to establish a massive storage site at Yucca Mountain.

This would increase transport frequency and the department's haste for rail and highway waste shipments across the nation to Yucca Mountain, only adding to already risky waste transportation."

Loux added, "I can see the need for some limited storage capacity at a site to support operations, and that is why, in this petition, we are proposing that the commission's licensing rule limit surface storage at the site to a time period of no more than one year. The law clearly says that a repository site is for waste disposal, not surface storage. The waste is currently aging at the reactors where it was generated, and that is what the law intended."

Loux also expressed concern about the NRC process, saying, "The NRC is supposed to publish a petition in the Federal Register and seek public comment on whether a rule-making proceeding should be initiated.

"Unfortunately, our experience in petitioning the NRC has not been good. They have simply ignored some of our petitions. We believe in this case the NRC has an obligation to settle the issue before DOE proceeds further."

DOE plans to submit a Yucca Mountain license application for a nuclear waste repository to the commission in June 2008, six years after Congress authorized the submission, which by law was supposed to be done 90 days after the congressional vote.

For a copy of Nevada's Petition for Rule-Making to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and for more information on Nevada's opposition to the proposed nuclear waste dump, visit www.state.nv.us/nucwaste.

---------------------------

Pahrump Valley Times
December 27, 2006

Outgoing commissioners review highs and lows

Trummell eyes family life after lone term

By Mark Waite
PVT

Outgoing Nye County Commissioner Candice Trummell admits she had a rocky four-year term on the board.

Trummell was hailed as youthful wunderkind, only 24, when she upset long-time Commissioner Cameron McRae in 2002.

During the four years since, she became involved in the federal investigation of Crystal brothel owner Joe Richards, fended off ethics complaints about her job as a consultant for a firm promoting Lincoln County's positions on Yucca Mountain, was part of the ban-the-brothels uproar and had a public spat with Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo.

"I think I've changed probably more than the job has as you learn the ropes, and I think I've become a little bit more flexible. I used to hold strong policy positions. Instead, now I look at the problems and try to see as many possible solutions as there could be, assuming everything's politically acceptable," Trummell said. "My position was more oriented toward trying to get things figured out. Then I wanted to have a growth management ordinance. But I learned that I wasn't going to have support (from the commission)."

When that wasn't successful, Trummell said she decided to work within the existing system and voted in favor of the Focus Property Group development agreement, which will allow 5,800 new homes on 900 acres at the southern entrance to Pahrump Valley.

"The Focus development agreement of course got a lot of criticism, but I still believe that given the political realities of what the Board of Commissioners is willing to regulate when it comes to land development, that's the best I could hope for -- getting more benefits instead of limiting the rights," she said.

Trummell said she was nonetheless very concerned over water issues.

"I tried to get the Board of Commissioners to become more involved in water rights because I'm very concerned about our basin. The Board of Commissioners didn't want to get involved. They thought it was the state engineer's job," Trummell said.

"I tried to effect a (growth) moratorium so we could look at impacts better. I tried to get the Board of Commissioners on numerous previous applications to require a development agreement to be approved along with the zone change," Trummell said.

Trummell's position as office manager and senior policy analyst for the Robison-Seidler firm since last January, a firm advising Lincoln County, resulted in the filing of a complaint with the Nevada Ethics Commission. But the commission determined July 20 there weren't sufficient grounds for a hearing.

Trummell said her consulting work with the firm didn't put her at odds with officials from her own county.

"As far as Nye County goes, I always recused myself from any matter that was even remotely related ... My job isn't lobbying, my job is to assess the impacts," she said.

When Trummell was asked about her accomplishments, she spoke about her general style and philosophy as a commissioner, not individual projects.

"I did a pretty good job of learning all the information that you need to know to do the job, trying to be as flexible as possible but still maintaining underlying principles and that's a difficult thing to do," Trummell said. "I also believe I've shown people that even if you're young, you can still do a job if you really devote yourself to it. I hope I've opened the doors up to other young people to get involved in political service and community service."

The land-use implementation policy was one disappointment she cited. "I don't think that I've as yet perfected the ability to be the most effective elected official because I still have problems compromising."

The daughter of a Baptist preacher, Trummell said it was former Commissioner Henry Neth who first proposed a ban on brothels in Nye County that attracted widespread publicity in 2004. Trummell said she pledged in the campaign not to let her personal feelings dictate her positions on those issues.

"When I learned that Henry might intend to outlaw brothels -- while that was something that I would personally support -- I felt the more appropriate route would be to go to the public, the citizens, to find out. But at that meeting Henry withdrew his (item) and I wanted to still move forward with seeing, and then I kind of turned into the villain of the brothels," Trummell said.

The one-term commissioner hinted at another looming, major controversy in the future that has been little discussed.

"In a public meeting I had polled Commissioner (Joni) Eastley, Commissioner (Midge) Carver and the other commissioners that it may come a day when we approved all these developments, we're going to have to start pumping in water from somewhere and the most logical place is probably going to be northern Nevada, particularly when the Southern Nevada Water Authority is more than willing to partner with Pahrump to bring some of that water down here. So those are some of the list of questions that commissioners supporting more and more development are not wanting to get involved in."

Trummell said she feels good about her successor, incoming Commissioner Borasky, the owner of an excavating business and former Pahrump Regional Planning Commission member.

"I know from being at RPC meetings that Butch shares my concern about water issues and so maybe he'll renew that fight that I didn't think was politically feasible and maybe he'll have more success at. I think it's a real pressing issue that needs to be seriously considered," she said.

As for herself, Trummell married commuter airline pilot Travis Jordan May 13, a major reason she decided not to run for re-election.

"I want to start a family, hopefully within the next four years. Politics is tough without having kids. So I think that starting a new family and being in politics and working full-time would be too much for me. That was probably the primary reason, and then of course I have a new job that I want to do well so I want to give my time to that."

Trummell said she won't be moving out of town: in fact, the Jordans are trying to buy a home in Pahrump. When asked about any future political ambitions Trummell said, "I don't have any immediate plans, but we'll see."

---------------------------

Platts
December 26, 2006

Nevada petitions against indefinite interim spent fuel storage

Washington (Platts)--26Dec2006 Indefinite interim spent fuel storage should not be allowed at the proposed Yucca Mountain repository site, the state of Nevada said in a petition filed December 22 with the NRC.

Robert Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said in a statement that DOE's proposal for interim surface storage at the Yucca Mountain site could lead to decades of surface storage and violates federal law which, the Nevada agency asserted, "prohibits a large interim storage site in Nevada as long as the state is the proposed location of a repository."

The petition is available online at:
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2006/pdf/nvag061222petition.pdf.

---------------------------

Las Vegas SUN
December 26, 2006

Editorial: A new day for energy

Under the new Democratic leadership, Congress has a chance to boost green industries

The 110th Congress will convene Jan. 4, with Democrats in charge for the first time in 12 years. One of the changes that we believe will become almost immediately apparent is Congress' new attitude toward energy.

The Republican-controlled Congress almost exclusively embraced - for now and the long term - the traditional energy industries that deal in oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear power. It is true that the country is dependent upon these industries, but it is also true that this dependence should not go on forever.

For the United States, dependency on oil means dependency on the Middle East, jeopardizing our national security.

And while the U.S. has plenty of natural gas, as does Canada, where most of our imported natural gas comes from, it is vulnerable to sudden and sustained price increases.

The burning of coal contributes greatly to air pollution, and extracting the mineral is dangerous and exposes miners to health hazards.

Finally, nuclear energy produces waste that remains deadly for hundreds of thousands of years, and the federal government's only plan for the waste is to bury it in Southern Nevada in unsafe tunnels at Yucca Mountain.

It is clear to us that the Democrats were right, given these problems, to have committed themselves to begin planning for the day when renewable energy provides a much greater percentage of our total energy use.

Democrats want 25 percent of all new cars by 2010 capable of running on alternative fuels. And they want the government to provide incentives, beginning immediately, to jump-start a nationwide boom in industries that produce either renewable energy or products that are much more energy-efficient. In addition to their environmental benefits, the industries would spur the economy by creating tens of thousands of new, well-paying jobs.

We hope the Democrats can initiate this new day for America without encountering resistance from a source whose current policies have been repudiated by the voters - the White House.

---------------------------

Los Angeles Daily News
December 26, 2006

Yucca dump doomed?

Dems takeover may kill project that would ship nuke waste through Valley

By Lisa Friedman
Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — While supporters vow to plow forward with plans for a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nev., critics hope Democrats will be able to kill the project — which would take highly radioactive material transported through the Southland — when they take control of Congress next month.

Led by incoming Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who already has declared the federal nuclear waste repository "dead," congressional Democrats are expected to severely decrease funding for the dump.

That, opponents say, is good news for Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and other communities through which approximately 70,000 tons of radioactive waste would likely be shipped on its way to the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"All of us in the Inland Empire will be safer if shipments of nuclear waste are not traveling through our communities on local highways or railroad tracks," said Democrat Rep. Joe Baca, whose San Bernardino district lies smack in the middle of the proposed shipment route.

"An accident could have deadly consequences," Baca said. "We are fortunate that Harry Reid will be the Senate majority leader and in a better position to block the Yucca Mountain project."

First proposed in 1982, the Yucca Mountain depository has been strongly supported by President George W. Bush and the nuclear energy industry. Proponents say it is a secure alternative to storing waste at nuclear plants and hundreds of other sites around the country.

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

Southern Californians are concerned about proposals to ship spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain from the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County — a trek that could take it by train through Ventura County and the San Fernando Valley.

There have also been discussions about a rail line through the Antelope Valley and across the High Desert; multiple rail links through the San Gabriel, Pomona and San Bernardino valleys; and a truck route from the San Onofre nuclear power plant along the Santa Ana, San Gabriel and San Bernardino freeway corridors.

The DOE is poised to submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in mid-2008 that will allow it to proceed. But activists on both sides of the issue acknowledge that the DOE is quietly preparing for the likelihood of reduced funding and political support for Yucca.

"I'm getting the sense there may be some reluctance to submit a sizeable, needed budget if Mr. Reid is just going to have it reduced," said Brian O'Connell, director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners' nuclear waste program.

He and other supporters of the repository have accused Reid of overstepping his power by refusing to allow Yucca legislation to come for a vote, and they argue that safety concerns have been blown out of proportion and politicized.

"The typical representation of nuclear waste is a 50-ton cannister with green goo hanging out the sides," O'Connell said. "It is well-protected. And the reality is that it has been shipped safely for over 30 years."

Annual federal funding for Yucca Mountain has ranged from $450 million to $550 million in recent years. O'Connell predicted that Reid and other lawmakers will "drastically reduce" that amount.

Michelle Boyd, legislative director at Public Citizen, agreed, saying Yucca officials "are hobbling along, and they're going to be hobbling even more when they have less money. It's certainly on its last legs."

She and others also noted that the newly empowered anti-Yucca coalition in Congress has vowed to block bills like the one introduced last year by Sen. Pete Dominic, R-N.M., and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, to guarantee funding for the repository.

"No legislation will occur as long as Reid is there," said Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects. "We believe this project has been on life support anyway for the last several years. This may be the final nail."

O'Connell disagreed that the death of Yucca is near.

"I don't think so," he said. "(Reid) will do everything he can to impede it, but he can't kill it outright."

Argun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research agreed.

Though an opponent of Yucca Mountain who calls it a "badly botched project," Makhijani said he expects plans for the repository to move ahead with shrunken resources.

"I don't think the project can be stopped altogether without setting in motion some larger scheme for the management of spent fuel," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

--Lisa Friedman, (202) 662-8731 lisa.friedman@langnews.com

---------------------------

Lahontan Valley News
December 25, 2006

Letter: The Only Thing Certain about Yucca Mountain is That it Will Never Happen

Several aspects of Viktoria Pearson's article on Churchill County's comments relative to the proposed Schurz-Mina rail spur to Yucca Mountain need clarification.

First, Commissioner Lynn Pearce's assertion that there could be nuclear waste shipments by truck through Churchill County is wrong. Federal regulations require that highway shipments of spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive waste must use the interstate highway system to the nearest U.S. highway. That makes I-15 and U.S. 95 in Southern Nevada the default route for such shipments. The only way shipments could be routed on another highway would be if the state were to formally designate an alternative route and get agreement from bordering states that would be affected. There is virtually no chance that Nevada would designate I-80 and US 95 in the northern part of the state as an alternative nuclear waste route.

Second, and most important, Commissioner Pearce's inference that Yucca Mountain is inevitable and the only thing that will stop it is insurmountable scientific problems is misleading. In fact, those "insurmountable problems" already exist in abundance at the Yucca site.The project is in such bad shape that Congress, even before the recent party changeover, was beginning to look at alternatives. The same is true for formerly hard-core Yucca Mountain supporters in the commercial nuclear industry.

Given the major scientific and technical problems with the site and the changes taking place in Washington, D.C., the only thing inevitable about the Yucca Mountain program is its ultimate end.

Joseph C. Strolin
Planned division administrator
Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects
Carson City

---------------------------

Detroit News
December 25, 2006

Nuclear waste powers disposal struggle

Mich., U.S. and Canada face lengthy storage issues

Deb Price / Detroit News Washington Bureau

With no end in sight for the opening of a proposed communal dump in Nevada to permanently store the nation's nuclear waste, Michigan's radioactive waste is piling up -- a costly and perplexing legacy of the reliable generator of electricity that residents have depended on since 1962.

It's also a costly and perplexing legacy for the environmentally sensitive Great Lakes basin, where 31 reactors are near lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario, producing waste that must be stored on site for now.

Like the United States, Canada is searching for a permanent community dump site for high-level waste. But a proposal unfolding in Ontario to build a permanent underground repository less than a mile from Lake Huron to store low and intermediate radioactive waste -- such as contaminated mops, clothes and tools -- from all of the provinces' nuclear plants is being fought by a Michigan congressman who fears a leak could make its way into Lake Huron, creating a nightmare throughout the Great Lakes region.

"It's a technology that they pushed forward without resolving what to do with the end product -- the nuclear waste. It's like building a house without a toilet," said Michael Keegan of the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes.

Michigan has four operating commercial reactors at three sites that daily add to the nation's as-yet unresolved problem of long-term storage of waste, the radioactive leftovers from reactors that no longer produce economically viable energy, but are so hazardous that they will have to be stored safely for 1 million years.

And Detroit Edison, the owner of the Fermi 2 Power Plant, is considering building a new nuclear plant to meet the state's electricity needs.

But even the state's closed commercial facility -- Big Rock Point Nuclear Plant near Charlevoix -- is sparking controversy because of its remaining radioactive waste.

A local conservancy and the state's natural resources agency would like to buy a huge scenic and pristine stretch of land along Lake Michigan where the Big Rock plant once operated and turn it into a public park. Critics vow to stop it, charging that the eight 20-foot-tall casks of radioactive material on the property threaten the health of humans, wildlife and Lake Michigan.

Of the four sites in Michigan that have or are producing nuclear energy commercially, Big Rock Point and Palisades near South Haven have outdoor casks storing radioactive waste.

The two other facilities -- Cook, with two reactors in Bridgman, and Fermi 2 in Newport -- have been able to keep radioactive spent fuel in indoor cooling and shielding pools adjacent to the reactors. But Cook and Fermi 2 are running out of space in the pools and will have to build outdoor storage in the next few years in order to keep operating.

U.S. entices plant builders

Michigan gets about 13 percent of its energy from nuclear plants, although most -- more than 75 percent -- of Cook's production goes to Indiana.

Meanwhile, as the nation's energy needs soar, the federal government is trying to entice companies to start building new nuclear plants.

The energy bill signed by President Bush last year provides loan incentives, tax credits and federal risk insurance for builders of new nuclear plants. No nuclear plants have been built in the United States since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.

But even without new plants, more than 100 facilities around the country are waiting for a permanent burial site for their waste. Ten sites with 13 reactors -- in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and New York -- are along the U.S. side of the Great Lakes.

Ontario has 20 reactors and proposes more.

The sprawling Bruce nuclear facility, 150 miles northeast of Detroit, wants to build a huge repository for low- to intermediate-level radioactive waste less than a mile from Lake Huron. In addition to storing its own lower-level wastes, Bruce would take the lower-level waste of the Pickering and Darlington plants.

Concerned about potential leaks, U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, a supporter of nuclear power generally, is trying to stop the repository in Kincardine.

"How foolhardy to have this on the shores of Lake Huron," said Stupak, who is in line to lead the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight in the next Congress and hopes to hold hearings on the Bruce proposal. "How do you clean up (nuclear contamination) in water?"

Michigan nuclear site owners are exasperated by how long it's taking the federal government to take over the waste.

A huge fight is under way over the sole site being studied as the nation's potential permanent dump -- Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Questions have been raised about whether Yucca Mountain has two of the characteristics needed for long-term storage to work -- being geologically stable and dry.

The Democratic takeover of the U.S. Senate means that Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, a longtime opponent of having the national dump at Yucca Mountain, will become Senate majority leader, giving him huge levers to delay or even derail it.

"Who knows when Yucca Mountain will be ready?" said Mark Savage, spokesman for Nuclear Management Co., which operates the Palisades plant.

"The waste sits here, and the operators have to maintain its safety and security. We're doing that, but the federal government really has shirked its responsibility."

Even if Yucca Mountain works out, the most rosy projection for when it could open is 2017. And once it or an alternative site opens, Michigan's waste will be in line with all the other states that are just as anxious to get rid of their waste piling up at commercial power plants.

In the meantime, Michigan and the other Great Lakes states have to wait, though storage casks are built to safely store waste for 100 years.

You can reach Deb Price at dprice@detnews.com or (202) 662-8736.

---------------------------

Grand Rapids Press
December 25, 2006

Great Lakes area's nuclear waste vexes U.S., Canada leaders

Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) — Like the United States, Canada is searching for a permanent home for its high-level nuclear waste. But a proposal unfolding in Ontario to build a permanent underground storage facility within a mile of Lake Huron is being fought by a Michigan congressman.

Michigan residents have relied on nuclear power for electricity since 1962, and the state now has four operating commercial reactors. For now, radioactive nuclear waste is being stored on site at the 31 reactors in the U.S. and Canada in the Great Lakes basin.

Ontario's proposal would send low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste, such as contaminated mops, clothes and tools, from all the province's nuclear plants to a storage facility at the Bruce nuclear power complex in Kincardine, about 120 miles northeast of Detroit.

Ontario has 20 reactors, with more under consideration.

U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, generally a backer of nuclear power, is trying to stop the repository from being opened.

"How foolhardy to have this on the shores of Lake Huron," Stupak told The Detroit News for a story Monday. "How do you clean up (nuclear contamination) in water?"

Stupak is designated to head the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight in the next Congress , and he said he wants to hold hearings on the Bruce proposal.

Michael Keegan of the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes said the problem began when nuclear power plants began operation without a plan for disposing of the radioactive waste they create.

"It's a technology that they pushed forward without resolving what to do with the end product — the nuclear waste. It's like building a house without a toilet," he said.

About 13 percent of Michigan's electrical power comes from nuclear plants.

The state's active plants are DTE Energy Co.'s Fermi 2 Nuclear Power Station near Monroe, Palisades Nuclear Plant near South Haven and Donald C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant in Bridgman. All have radioactive waste stored on site.

Nuclear waste also is stored at the site of the decommissioned Big Rock Nuclear Plant near Charlevoix.

A fight is under way over the site being studied as the nation's potential permanent nuclear waste dump, Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The Democratic takeover of the U.S. Senate will make U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, D-Nev., a longtime opponent of the Yucca Mountain plan, the Senate majority leader.

"Who knows when Yucca Mountain will be ready?" asked Mark Savage, spokesman for Nuclear Management Co., operator of the Palisades plant.

"The waste sits here, and the operators have to maintain its safety and security," he said. "We're doing that, but the federal government really has shirked its responsibility."

---------------------------

Las Vegas SUN
December 24, 2006

THE YEAR IN POLITICS:

By J. Patrick Coolican

Harry Reid

The seeds of Sen. Harry Reid's ascendancy to become Senate majority leader also were planted in 2005, during the winter and spring defeat of President Bush's attempt to partially privatize Social Security.

Reid held Democrats together, and they beat Bush badly. Through the end of that year and into 2006, Reid ran circles around Sen. Bill First, the Republican leader in the Senate, and blocked the Republican agenda.

He created an effective media operation and kept the party's liberal base - and especially those who frequent the Internet - energized.

Reid cannot take too much credit for the Democrats' rise, however. He failed to recruit a good opponent to take on Nevada Sen. John Ensign, who cruised to easy re-election against Jack Carter, son of former President Jimmy Carter. Jack Carter was painted by Republicans as a carpetbagger running for the Senate pretty much for the lack of anything better to do.

In reality, it was the increasingly grim war in Iraq and scandals in Washington that beat Republican incumbents across the country.

As majority leader, Reid will have a seat at the table for every major decision the government makes. Nevada now boasts the most powerful elected official ever to represent it, and Reid's post will likely pay dividends in federal money, the appointment of Nevada residents to government posts and new leverage in the drive to defeat a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

Reid, meanwhile, continues to consolidate his hold on the state Democratic Party. If not a machine exactly, it's certainly moving in that direction.

---------------------------

Chicago Tribune
December 24, 2006

Nuclear energy nearing revival

30 new reactors are being considered as power demands rise

By Robert Manor
Tribune staff reporter

After hibernating for decades, the nuclear industry is cautiously gearing up to build a new fleet of reactors to generate electricity, benefiting from political support while hoping to avoid the blunders of the past.

"Nuclear power is going to be an essential source, in my judgment, of future electricity for the United States," President Bush said last week at a press conference. "Nuclear power is renewable, and nuclear power does not emit one greenhouse gas."

The Bush administration has consistently supported construction of new nuclear plants, offering billions of dollars in subsidies, but the industry says real momentum is only growing now. The attraction of nuclear energy is that it can generate massive amounts of electricity very cheaply, assuming the nuclear plants are run efficiently.

"At least 30 reactors are being considered," said Scott Burnell, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. As recently as two years ago, a handful of new nuclear plants were under consideration.

The nation currently has 103 operating power reactors.

Anti-nuclear activists warn that the nation is about to repeat the mistakes of 30 years ago, when nuclear plants suffering from bungled design and delayed construction led to huge cost overruns, much of it paid for by consumers.

But Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Dale Klein has a positive term for the new interest. He calls it "the nuclear renaissance." He said recently that the NRC expects to receive the first application for a new reactor next year, with as many as 30 to follow.

Most of the interest is in the South or Southeast, where the demand for electricity is growing quickly, Burnell said. None are planned for Illinois.

No new U.S. nuclear plant has been ordered since the 1970s.

The partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, the disaster at Chernobyl and vastly inflated building costs pushed the nuclear industry into limbo for decades. Meanwhile, electricity demand rose more slowly than forecast, reducing the need for new generating capacity.

The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen says the energy bill of 2005 offers more than $13 billion in subsidies to induce companies to build a handful of nuclear plants.

Michele Boyd, legislative director for Public Citizen's energy program, said no utility would build new reactors without subsidies.

"They are uneconomical," Boyd said. "Even the subsidies are insufficient."

"The companies are desperate to find more subsidies, and there is going to be an effort to get more money out of Congress," she said.

The energy bill, a priority for Bush and the Republican Party for years, offers loan guarantees, tax credits, insurance and other benefits to the nuclear industry. Much of the assistance is aimed at helping utilities build six new reactors.

For example, a consortium of 10 utilities including Chicago-based Exelon Corp. will get up to $260 million to compensate them for design and application costs for new reactors in Mississippi and Alabama. The consortium, called NuStart, is under no obligation to build the plants after it gets the money.

Nuclear energy is not a major issue now for Democrats, who will control the House of Representatives beginning next month.

"The focus on energy is on other things like alternative fuels," said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

In an interview last fall, Pelosi said that nuclear energy was worthy of examination, but otherwise she has said little about the issue.

The nuclear industry actually got its first boost in 2002, when the federal government urged utilities to look for new nuclear opportunities.

The theory behind the subsidies is that if the country can successfully build a half-dozen reactors, it will demonstrate to utilities and Wall Street investors that nuclear power is viable.

Many nuclear backers agree that government help is needed to resume construction of plants, but those plants are inevitable .

"If you look at nuclear without any incentives or tax credits, it's very competitive," said Andy White, president and CEO of nuclear energy at General Electric, a global power in nuclear energy. GE is offering new designs for nuclear plants.

"We probably would have gone ahead" in backing new nuclear plants, White said. "We would have done it at a slower pace."

One financial analyst agreed, saying nuclear power is economically viable but needs government help for now.

"Having federal backing is important," said Paul Justice, an analyst with Morningstar. "There is a growing case for nuclear power."

While remarkably expensive to build, a properly operated nuclear plant produces electricity more cheaply than practically any other source. The price of coal and natural gas have risen sharply in recent years, making nuclear more attractive because its uranium fuel is relatively cheap.

"There are people out there who are ready for the undertaking," Justice said of the new plants. "I think it's part of a long-term solution and eventually they will be built."

An argument often made in favor of nuclear energy is that it produces less greenhouse gas than other types of power generators, though the issue of what to do with the remarkably radioactive nuclear waste generated by reactors remains a tremendous problem for the industry.

Exelon Chief Executive John Rowe has repeatedly said that Exelon will not build a new nuclear plant until there is a permanent solution to the disposition of spent fuel.

The industry had counted on interring its waste at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. But that project is many years overdue, and it is unclear whether it will ever open.

Nevada politicians are nearly unanimous in opposing plans to turn part of their state into a nuclear waste dump.

Nevada's opposition got a boost in the last election. Sen. Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat and fierce opponent of Yucca Mountain, is the incoming Senate majority leader.

Reactor program botched

If ever there was a poster child for the past failures of nuclear power, it is the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Created in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the TVA provided electricity, flood control and economic development to one of the poorest regions of the country.

The federal corporation's power-service area covers 80,000 square miles in the Southeastern United States, including almost all of Tennessee and parts of Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

In the 1960s the TVA embarked on an ambitious nuclear campaign to build 17 reactors.

The going was never smooth.

For example, the Browns Ferry Unit 1 reactor in Alabama started generating electricity in 1974. A year later, a workman using a candle to search for air leaks near the plant's control room accidentally ignited some insulation.

The resulting fire destroyed electric cables essential for safely operating the reactor and filled the control room with smoke. The reactor was out of control for a time, until workers were able to manually shut it down.

It was one of the worst incidents ever to occur at a U.S. utility-operated nuclear plant. Unit 1 was off line for a year.

In the 1980s, the TVA suffered so many management and construction problems that it shut down its entire fleet of reactors. Instead of 17 reactors, the TVA built just six, with only five operating today. Browns Ferry Unit 1 has generated no electricity for more than 20 years.

For example, the TVA canceled its Bellefonte nuclear plant in Alabama midway through construction, eventually taking a financial charge of nearly $4 billion for a project that has never generated a single watt of electricity.

David Lochbaum, director of nuclear safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, is critical of the TVA's first foray into nuclear power.

"They were horrible," he said. "That history has not been very good."

And now the TVA is thinking about building new nuclear power plants.

Industry improvements noted

Lochbaum and critics say the TVA, like the nuclear industry overall, is now doing a much better job running its reactors.

Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, seriously questions the economics of new nuclear plants. But he acknowledges the TVA is doing a better job of operating its nuclear plants than in the past.

"Generally the whole industry has trended up," he said. "TVA has been consistent in that trend."

Over the years the TVA methodically restored its reactors to service. The last to come online is Browns Ferry Unit 1. It is due to begin generating electricity again in a few months, the result of several years of rehabilitation accomplished on time and on budget.

Now the TVA is considering finishing a partly built reactor adjacent to an operating reactor at its Watts Bar nuclear plant in Tennessee.

And the TVA is working with the NuStart consortium to study the feasibility of building two modern reactors at its Bellefonte site.

"We are already spending money to bring new nuclear capacity on line and other people are just talking about it," said Jack Bailey, vice president of nuclear generation development for the TVA.

Bailey said the Bellefonte reactors probably would cost between $4 billion and $6 billion to complete and could be producing power sometime between 2015 and 2017. The final cost has not been determined, however.

Bailey said the industry is well aware that cost overruns will stifle any investment in future nuclear plants.

"It is one of the issues that people looking at new plants are very concerned about," he said.

Standardization pushed

The nuclear industry is counting on standardization among nuclear plants to cut costs.

Existing nuclear plants were customized by utilities, making the design and operation of one plant significantly different than another.

Future plants are planned to be much more similar to one another.

"The designs will be 75 to 80 percent identical," said Marilyn Kray, president of NuStart and vice president of project development for Exelon. Besides working with the TVA, NuStart is looking at a Mississippi plant in conjunction with the utility Entergy.

Kray said the lessons learned in building one plant can be applied in construction of the next. In the same way, improvements in operations at one plant can be more easily transferred to another.

"Now you can plagiarize," Kray said. "Plagiarism is a good thing in the nuclear industry. It standardizes things."

The designers of nuclear plants are also working to simplify construction and operations to restrain costs.

Andy White, the GE nuclear executive, said his company's new reactor relies on passive safety systems rather than complex mechanical systems..

For example, water needed to cool the reactor core flows via gravity, rather than being pumped as in older models. It's more reliable and intended to be cheaper to build.Pools to store highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel will be located underground for improved security. Older-design reactors store spent fuel in pools located on their roofs, which critics say makes them vulnerable to terrorist attack..

White said new reactors could safely handle a serious emergency for three days without human intervention.

Erich Pica, spokesman for the Friends of the Earth, doesn't buy the nuclear industry's arguments.

"We haven't built a nuclear plant in this country in 30 years," Pica said. "It's highly optimistic to think they can standardize" to save money

"Cost overruns, mismanagement . . . all play into the right interpretation that this is the wrong way to go," he said.

---rmanor@tribune.com

---------------------------

Detroit News
December 24, 2006

Keep the Christmas lights burning

Nolan Finley

M y neighbor has one of those gigantic, blow-up Christmas things in the front yard, a two-car railroad train with a merry-go-round in the caboose.

It covers most of the lawn and is a terrifically tacky expression of the excesses of the season. I consider it one of the marvels of Christmas, but can't drive by without wondering how much power it takes to keep the blower blowing, the lights lit and the happy, little animals spinning about as fast as the disk in the electric meter.

But who worries about such things at Christmas? Too soon, perhaps, all of us.

There's no danger of this Christmas going dark. But in 25 years, America's consumption of electricity will increase by 50 percent, and yet we keep putting off decisions about how we'll meet that demand.

Energy policy today is driven by the myth that conservation and green power sources will be enough to head off the coming crisis. Conservation is a righteous thing, but not something Americans have proven themselves capable of doing, especially as long as energy is cheap.

And the utility companies could put solar panels on all of our backs and windmill beanies on our heads and still not have enough power to satisfy our appetite for things like this year's hottest gift -- big screen LCD TVs that suck seven times as much electricity as traditional sets.

California buries its head

Many of our energy guzzling toys come from California's high-tech labs.

Yet California leads the nation in energy denial. It won't allow new electricity plants that produce significant carbon dioxide, meaning no coal, and it won't allow new nuclear plants until a national waste storage site is set.

California's only practical option left is natural gas, a commodity that is increasingly scarce and expensive.

If California's mimics in the Northeast adopt similar policies, natural gas will become even more costly, creating severe hardships in states like Michigan, where it is relied on to heat homes.

Let's be honest. We aren't going to conserve our way to a sound energy policy. We have to produce more electricity, and that means ending our resistance to the most logical and economical sources of electricity.

We must invest more in clean coal technology, and tear down barriers to getting coal out of the ground. We have coal reserves to last 300 years, which should be enough time to come up with other energy sources.

We also have to end Nevada's stonewalling of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility. Yucca is the safest and most sensible option for housing the waste. But with Nevada's Sen. Harry Reid now running the U.S. Senate, it has about as much chance as a snowball in Death Valley of getting approval.

We have to do whatever it takes to keep America an electric nation. Cheap, plentiful electricity has fueled the development of most of the gadgets and gizmos that make our lives rich.

Not the least of which is my neighbor's enormous, blow-up Christmas train with the merry-go-round inside.

--Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News. Reach him at nfinley@detnews.com or (313)222-2064. Read his daily blog at forums.detnews.com/blogs/ and watch him at 8:30 p.m. Fridays on "Am I Right?" on Channel 56.

---------------------------

Nevada Appeal
December 23, 2006

Nevada moves to block surface storage of waste at Yucca Mountain

Appeal Capitol Bureau

Nevada has petitioned the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to prevent indefinite surface storage of thousands of tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

Bob Loux, head of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the Department of Energy wants to store up to 21,000 tons of nuclear waste at the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Loux said the Nuclear Waste Policy Act specifically prohibits a large interim storage site in Nevada as long as the state is the proposed location of the permanent repository. He said the proposed surface storage could last for decades.

Loux termed the proposal "nothing more than an unlawful interim storage site in embarrassingly thin disguise."

He said it would increase the frequency of rail and highway waste shipments across the nation to Yucca Mountain, increasing the already risky waste transportation.

He asked the commission to limit surface storage at the site to no more than one year. And he urged the commission to settle the issue before DOE proceeds further.

DOE plans to submit a Yucca Mountain license application for a nuclear waste repository to the commission in June 2008, six years late according to the law.

---------------------------

KUTV
December 23, 2006

Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Plan Challenged
LAS VEGAS The state of Nevada is challenging the newest Energy Department blueprints for aboveground handling of spent nuclear fuel before burial at Yucca Mountain.

In a protest prepared for submittal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the state calls the size of concrete pads on which highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel would be “aged” in reinforced containers far beyond what Congress authorized for the Yucca site.

Nevada officials accused the Energy Department of planning speed removal of waste from sites in 39 states by circumventing a federal law forbidding nuclear waste from being placed in aboveground “monitored retrievable storage” at the Yucca site.

“Clearly, DOE’s proposed ‘aging facility’ is nothing more than an unlawful MRS in embarrassingly thin disguise,” state officials said in documents obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal for a Friday report.

The state said that while some aboveground handling might be necessary before burial, an aboveground facility with a capacity of 21,000 metric tons of nuclear waste would be too big.

Energy Department spokeswoman Gayle Fisher told the Review-Journal the aging pads were being designed to cover about 75 acres and hold 2,500 canisters, but could be reduced to 45 acres.

She said system engineers determined the capacity of the pads by calculating the rate at which nuclear waste containers would arrive at Yucca Mountain.

The state intends to ask the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide that no waste would be allowed at Yucca Mountain without a “reasonable assurance” that it could be moved underground within a year.

Above ground, the containers would be vulnerable to earthquakes, plane crashes or terrorist attacks, the state said.

Energy Department officials previously described aging pads as part of a “thermal loading” strategy, where the heat of highly radioactive waste would be allowed to dissipate to safe levels before canisters would be entombed.

Congress in 2002 approved burial of 70,000 metric tons of the nation’s most radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The plan has since been stalled by lawsuits, budget shortfalls and quality assurance questions. The target date for opening the repository, originally 1998, has been pushed back at least to 2017.

---------------------------

Bangor Daily News
December 23, 2006

Saturday's Letters

Nuclear waste storage

Your Dec. 18 editorial "Don’t change course on nuclear waste" ignores the root cause of delays in the federal government’s attempts to site and construct a geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive wastes.

When Congress, in 1987, bowed to political pressure and ignored warnings that the proposed Yucca Mountian site in Nevada was defective and not able to safely isolate deadly nuclear waste from the environment for the extraordinarily long time required, it set the stage for the current state of affairs. Twenty years ago, the Nevada site was singled out solely on the basis of politics – with Nevada being politically vulnerable and unable to stop Congress from making the mistake it did.

Fortunately, today there is no crisis that requires movement of spent fuel from safe, secure storage locations at reactor sites to an unsafe and unworkable site in Nevada — movement that would mean making thousands of shipments of deadly spent nuclear fuel through heavily populated cities and communities.

New dry storage technologies are making at-reactor spent fuel storage even a safer and more cost-effective alternative. Even the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that regulates health and safety at nuclear power plants, has determined that such on-site storage is safe for 100 years or more. If nuclear utility companies were smart, they would be demanding rebates of money already paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund to cover the costs of dry storage systems.

Twenty years ago, Congress and the federal government made a huge mistake in making Nevada’s Yucca Mountain the only site to be studied as a nuclear waste repository. The new Congress has the opportunity to correct that mistake by using at-reactor dry storage to buy time for the development of safe, effective and scientifically sound nuclear waste management alternatives.

Joseph C. Strolin
Carson City, Nev.

---------------------------

Business Wire
December 22, 2006

Nevada Petitions NRC to Overrule DOE Plans to Store Nuclear Waste above Ground at Yucca Mountain

CARSON CITY, Nev.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The state of Nevada petitioned the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission today to rule out the U.S. Department of Energy’s plans to use the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada for indefinite surface storage of thousands of tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste.

The Department of Energy’s plan to store up to 21,000 tons of nuclear waste at the site about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas is subject to NRC licensing. The proposed tonnage would be seven times the planned annual intake of the proposed Yucca Mountain underground repository, according to Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act specifically prohibits a large interim storage site in Nevada as long as the state is the proposed location of a repository. DOE claims the storage facility, which it calls an “aging facility” because it will hold spent fuel until it is cool enough to allow it to be moved underground, is integral to the efficient operation of the proposed repository. But Loux said the proposed surface storage could last for decades.

“Planned storage of seven times the annual emplacement rate at Yucca Mountain is nothing more than an unlawful interim storage site in embarrassingly thin disguise,” Loux said. “Decoupling waste receipt from emplacement is proof of the department’s intent to establish a massive storage site at Yucca Mountain. This would increase transport frequency and the department’s haste for rail and highway waste shipments across the nation to Yucca Mountain, only adding to already risky waste transportation.”

Loux added, “I can see the need for some limited storage capacity at a site to support operations, and that is why, in this petition, we are proposing that the commission’s licensing rule limit surface storage at the site to a time period of no more than one year. The law clearly says that a repository site is for waste disposal, not surface storage. The waste is currently aging at the reactors where it was generated, and that is what the law intended.”

Loux also expressed concern about the NRC process, saying, “The NRC is supposed to publish a petition in the Federal Register and seek public comment on whether a rule-making proceeding should be initiated. Unfortunately, our experience in petitioning the NRC has not been good. They have simply ignored some of our petitions. We believe in this case the NRC has an obligation to settle the issue before DOE proceeds further.”

For a copy of Nevada’s Petition for Rule-Making to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and for more information on Nevada’s opposition to the proposed nuclear waste dump, visit

---------------------------

Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 22, 2006

YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Nuclear waste aging facility challenged

State says DOE plans end-run around federal law

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The state of Nevada is challenging the Department of Energy's newest blueprints for Yucca Mountain that would allow large amounts of nuclear waste to be "aged" onsite before being buried inside the mountain.

The protest aims at DOE plans to pour concrete pads on which nuclear fuel would be kept in reinforced containers for varying amounts of time before being wheeled into repository tunnels.

Although some above-ground components may be necessary, a DOE-designed aging facility with a waste capacity of 21,000 metric tons is "gigantic" and "goes far beyond what Congress authorized" for normal operations, according to state officials.

In Nevada, officials charge that DOE is planning an end-run around a federal law that forbids nuclear waste from being placed in temporary "monitored retrievable storage" at the Yucca site in order to speed its removal from commercial power plants.

Under DOE's design, the amount of nuclear waste that could be stored above ground at Yucca Mountain is "more than five times" the amount that could be moved into the mountain in any one year, state officials said.

"Clearly, DOE's proposed 'aging facility' is nothing more than an unlawful MRS (monitored retrievable storage), in embarrassingly thin disguise," state officials said in documents obtained Thursday that were scheduled to be filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

DOE officials previously have explained the aging pads are part of a "thermal loading" strategy, where the heat loads of the highly radioactive waste would be allowed to "cool" and be brought into balance before canisters are placed in the tunnels.

The aging pads would cover about 75 acres and are being designed to hold 2,500 canisters, DOE spokeswoman Gayle Fisher said Thursday. She added DOE is considering whether to reduce the pad size to 45 acres.

Fisher said DOE systems engineers determined the capacity of the pads after taking into account the rates at which nuclear waste containers arrive at Yucca Mountain and could be handled at the site.

But Nevada leaders and representatives of environmental groups that oppose the repository say nuclear waste stored atop Yucca Mountain could remain there indefinitely if problems develop underground.

On the mountain surface, the containers would be vulnerable to earthquakes, plane crashes or terrorist attacks, they said.

"It would be a giant radioactive bull's-eye," said Kevin Kamps, waste specialist with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "If you concentrate it in one space you are just asking for trouble."

DOE has said it plans to move nuclear waste into a Yucca repository at a rate of 3,000 tons annually, said Steve Frishman, a technical adviser to the state of Nevada. An aging system with a capacity of 21,000 metric tons would amount to seven years' worth of waste sitting atop the mountain, he said.

Nevada attorneys on Friday planned to urge the NRC to set limits on how much nuclear waste could be stored above ground at Yucca Mountain.

The state will ask the NRC to decree that no waste would be allowed at Yucca Mountain unless there was "reasonable assurance" that it could be moved underground within a year, according to a copy of the petition.

"Clearly, spent fuel can more easily be 'aged' where it is currently safely located -- on reactor and spent fuel storage sites," the petition states.

---------------------------

Las Vegas SUN
December 22, 2006

Nevada challenging plan for handling Yucca Mountain nuclear waste

ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The state of Nevada is challenging the newest Energy Department blueprints for aboveground handling of spent nuclear fuel before burial at Yucca Mountain.

In a protest prepared for submittal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the state calls the size of concrete pads on which highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel would be "aged" in reinforced containers far beyond what Congress authorized for the Yucca site.

"Clearly, DOE's proposed 'aging facility' is nothing more than an unlawful MRS in embarrassingly thin disguise," state officials said in documents obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal for a Friday report.

The state said that while some aboveground handling might be necessary before burial, an aboveground facility with a capacity of 21,000 metric tons of nuclear waste would be too big.

Energy Department spokeswoman Gayle Fisher told the Review-Journal the aging pads were being designed to cover about 75 acres and hold 2,500 canisters, but could be reduced to 45 acres.

She said system engineers determined the capacity of the pads by calculating the rate at which nuclear waste containers would arrive at Yucca Mountain.

The state intends to ask the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide that no waste would be allowed at Yucca Mountain without a "reasonable assurance" that it could be moved underground within a year.

Above ground, the containers would be vulnerable to earthquakes, plane crashes or terrorist attacks, the state said.

Energy Department officials previously described aging pads as part of a "thermal loading" strategy, where the heat of highly radioactive waste would be allowed to dissipate to safe levels before canisters would be entombed.

Congress in 2002 approved burial of 70,000 metric tons of the nation's most radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The plan has since been stalled by lawsuits, budget shortfalls and quality assurance questions. The target date for opening the repository, originally 1998, has been pushed back at least to 2017.

--Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com

---------------------------

Lahontan Valley News
December 22, 2006

County gives suggestions on rail route for nuclear waste

Viktoria Pearson
vpearson@lahontanvalleynews.com

Churchill County commissioners have submitted concerns related to a proposed rail route to ship nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain that would pass through Churchill County.

County commissioners sent a packet including 74 comments regarding the Environmental Impact Statement for the Mina rail corridor scoping meeting held last month to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for its review.

According to the document, several comments refer to the DOE evaluating future development along the route and the potential increase of volume of rail activity along the corridor.

The newly proposed Mina rail corridor, a 280-mile route to transport nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, would pass north of Fallon, through Hazen and head south to Yucca Mountain along a route near that goes through Silver Springs and close to Schurz, Hawthorne, Mina, Tonopah and Goldfield.

Comments about further evaluation of the impact to areas along the corridor were stated throughout the document.

"The Mina route should be open to all commercial use without restrictions," stated one of the comments. "DOE needs to consult directly with the Department of Defense including the U.S. Naval Air Station at Fallon and the Hawthorne Army Ammunition Depot for any potential impacts to military operations in the area."

It stated military overflights became an issue with the proposed Skull Valley project previously being studied as a location for nuclear waste storage. The proposed Skull Valley project is located in Gransville, Utah, approximately 97 miles east of Wendover.

The document stated that it is unrealistic to limit truck routes to Interstate 15 and U.S. Highway 95 because generator sites will incur a substantial increase in shipments in order to access a point of entry to a rail line.

Lynn Pearce, county commissioner and Yucca Mountain representative for Churchill County, said he has some concerns. Although most of the concerns will indirectly affect the county, they are important issues, he said.

"The three grade crossings are a concern," he said. "One at the beginning of Silver Springs, one at the south end of Silver Springs at the Ramsey Weeks Cutoff and a third in Wabuska, they are not in our county, but they are still a concern."

He said the train is not intended to run at night and must be housed along the corridor during the night, as well as during any potential mechanical errors.

"The potential of parking trains overnight could be a concern," he said. "The train could come into the Reno and Sparks area. This is not our area, but still a concern."

He said 10 percent of the waste will be hauled by trucks because of the lack of rail access.

"The number of trucks hauling would be fairly substantial," said Pearce. "A fair portion of those could come through Churchill County on Highway 95."

Pearce said he wants to ensure local first responders are well trained and equipped.

"The problem is, the money is given to the state. The state doesn't have a good track record of sharing the money with the rurals," he said.

The state will continue to fight the federal government's pursuit of the Yucca Mountain repository, he said. However, county representatives are planning as if the nuclear repository will open in the future.

"Now we're working on how to deal with it safely," he said. "The only thing that will stop it from being built is insurmountable scientific problems."

The city of Fernley also sent a report on the scoping meeting to the U.S. Department of Energy stating many of the same concerns as Churchill County.

Included in the comments from Fernley were concerns about a state recreation area, Lake Lahontan, being affected. The recreation area is a concern because of the 40,000 people who use the lake on holidays.

The Fernley report also states scoping comments should be considered for existing rail tracks, not limited to potential new tracks along the corridor.

--Viktoria Pearson can be contacted at vpearson@lahontanvalleynews.com

---------------------------

Reno Gazette-Journal
December 22, 2006

Correction: Wednesday story

A Wednesday story incorrectly reported who proposed dumping nuclear waste in Southern Nevada. The decision to dispose of the nation's high-level waste at Yucca Mountain was made by President Bush and the U.S. Congress, according to David McIntyre, public affairs officer for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

---------------------------

Reuters
December 22, 2006

Nevada seeks to nix govt nuclear waste storage plan

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The state of Nevada on Friday asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reject the U.S. government's plan to store thousands of tons of nuclear waste temporarily above ground at a mountain located about 90 miles from Las Vegas.

The Energy Department is set to file an application with the NRC in mid 2008 for a license to operate the Yucca Mountain permanent nuclear storage repository in Nevada, which would hold radioactive waste underground from more than 100 nuclear power plants, along with the tons of leftovers from the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

The permanent storage site is years behind schedule and until it is ready, the department wants to place the nuclear waste temporarily above ground.

Nevada has vehemently opposed Yucca Mountain becoming the country's nuclear waste dump, but has been overruled by the U.S. Congress. Blocking above ground interim storage at the site would delay the eventual arrival of any radioactive waste put permanently inside Yucca Mountain.

Nevada says it is worried the radioactive waste could linger at the allegedly temporary surface site for decades, pointing out that the 21,000 tons of waste that might be stored above ground is seven times the amount of waste the permanent underground storage facility would be able to receive each year if it is finally opened.

In a petition to the NRC, Nevada said federal law specifically prohibits large interim storage in the state as long as it is the location for the country's permanent nuclear waste repository.

"Planned storage of seven times the annual emplacement rate at Yucca Mountain is nothing more than an unlawful interim storage site in embarrassingly thin disguise," said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

Nevada asked the NRC to restrict the time any radioactive waste could be stored above ground to no more than 12 months.

"I can see the need for some limited storage capacity at a site to support operations, and that is why, in this petition, we are proposing that the commission's licensing rule limit surface storage at the site to a time period of no more than one year," Loux said.

Yucca Mountain originally was to open in 1998 but has been delayed until at least 2017 due to scientific foul-ups and political stonewalling.

Nuclear waste sits at 131 temporary locations in 39 states, including the 103 nuclear reactors where it is produced.

There are currently about 54,000 metric tons of waste from civilian nuclear plants and 13,300 metric tons of U.S. military waste. Every year, the civilian waste stockpile grows by about 2,000 metric tons.

---------------------------

Pahrump Valley Times
December 22, 2006

State protests plans to 'age' nuke waste

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The state of Nevada is challenging the Department of Energy's newest blueprints for Yucca Mountain that would allow for large amounts of nuclear waste to be "aged" on-site before burial inside the mountain.

The protest aims at DOE plans to pour concrete pads on which nuclear fuel would be kept in steel or concrete reinforced containers for varying amounts of time before being wheeled into repository tunnels.

While some above-ground components may be necessary, a DOE-designed aging facility with a waste capacity of 21,000 metric tons is "gigantic" and "goes far beyond what Congress authorized" for normal operations, according to state officials.

In Nevada, officials charge that DOE is planning an end run around a federal law that forbids nuclear waste from being placed in temporary "monitored retrievable storage" at the Yucca site in order to speed its removal from commercial power plants.

"Clearly, DOE's proposed 'aging facility' is nothing more than an unlawful MRS, in embarrassingly thin disguise," state officials said in documents obtained Thursday that were scheduled to be filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Energy Department officials familiar with the repository design were not available on Thursday to provide information or comment on the issue, according to a DOE spokeswoman.

DOE officials previously have explained the aging pads are part of a "thermal loading" strategy, where the heat loads of the highly radioactive waste would be balanced before they are placed in the tunnels.

But Nevada leaders and representatives of environmental groups that oppose the repository say nuclear waste stored atop Yucca Mountain could remain there indefinitely if problems develop underground.

On the mountain surface, the containers would be at risk to earthquakes, plane crashes or terrorist attacks, they said.

"It would be a giant radioactive bullseye," said Kevin Kamps, waste specialist with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "If you concentrate it in one space, you are just asking for trouble."

Steve Frishman, a technical adviser to the state, estimated the pads would cover an area of 50-100 acres at the Yucca site and could hold as many as 2,000 nuclear waste casks.

DOE has said it plans to move nuclear waste into a Yucca repository at a rate of 3,000 tons annually, Frishman said. An aging system with a capacity of 21,000 metric tons would amount to seven years' worth of waste sitting atop the mountain, he said.

Nevada attorneys on Friday planned to urge the NRC to set limits on how much nuclear waste could be stored above ground at Yucca Mountain.

"Clearly, spent fuel can more easily be 'aged' where it is currently safely located -- on reactor and spent fuel storage sites," the petition states.

---------------------------

Pahrump Valley Times
December 22, 2006

Nye County cuts lobbyist from Washington duties
PVT

Nye County Commissioners Tuesday decided they didn't need one consultant lobbying Washington on nuclear waste issues and another lobbyist talking to the same people about acquiring federal appropriations in upcoming Congressional bills called earmarks.

A contract with the Russ Reid Co. won't be renewed after Jan. 31, 2007.

Instead Nye County will rely on Rick Spees, from Akerman Senterfitt attorneys at law to do both jobs. Spees had been the county's exclusive paid lobbyist on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. He will now also lobby for funding from federal legislation, known as earmarks.

Besides nuclear waste policy issues, Spees is expected to be the county's lobbyist in Washington, D.C., on public lands and mining issues, U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Energy activities in Nevada, highway and infrastructure funds and any other federal projects assigned by Nye County.

"He's talking to the same people as the Russ Reid Co. on our appropriations on bills," County Commissioner Joni Eastley said.

Akerman Senterfitt will be paid an additional $5,000 per month, bringing their monthly contract up to $17,500, but Eastley said that added cost is half of what the county has been paying the Russ Reid Co.

Akerman Senterfitt has 300 attorneys and consultants representing companies, government entities and educational institutions on government relations, litigation, labor negotiations and other matters, according to information posted on their Web site.

Spees specializes in international, legislative and governmental affairs policy. He served in the U.S. Senate for 11 years, three of those years as staff director for the Senate Commerce, Justice and State Appropriations subcommittee. He was also an assistant to former U.S. Sen. Paul Laxalt, R-Nev.

Spees received his law degree from Georgetown University in 1979 and graduated with honors from the University of California with a bachelor of arts degree in 1976, majoring in economics.

Russ Reid lists its specialty as acquiring funding for non-profit organizations. It also works in government and public relations.

The commissioners vote was 3-0. Commissioners Patricia Cox and Candice Trummell were absent.

---------------------------

Pahrump Valley Times
December 22, 2006

County to update itself on the Web

By Mark Waite
PVT

Nye County Commissioners Tuesday decided to go in-house on updating the county's Web site, paying emergency services worker Tim McCarty up to $4,500 to include added perks like a county on-line newspaper .

The county Web site could be used to advertise details on job openings, news items like an increase in impact fees or information about the West Nile virus or practical information like the veterans tax exemption.

"It's been a long time coming. The county needs to do something with that Web page. It's been dormant for a number of months," said Nye County Assessor Sandy Musselman.

The site will include an on-line newspaper, "News from Nye County," with the slogan, "brought to you as a public service message from the great county of Nye." A sample page showed Nye County Manager Ron Williams' smiling photo next to a story about the county's second-quarter population estimates.

"We hope to do stories of interest for each department, just things to keep people aware of things that are happening in the county, some of the good things as well," Musselman said.

McCarty will be paid for any hours he works on the Web site in addition to his emergency services work. Human Resources Director Danelle Shamrell didn't expect his Internet work to exceed $20,000 per year. It will be paid out of the Payment Equal to Taxes Nye County receives for Yucca Mountain.

That's seen as less costly than contracting out for the service, which Nye County Emergency Services Director Brent Jones estimated would cost $35,000. Jones liked the idea of using in-house personnel for the loyalty factor.

"They buy into it. They believe in it. They have their heart and soul in it to make it a success," Jones said. "When the public reads the paper in this section they can get a good feel for Nye County and the wonderful things that go on here on a daily basis."

Commissioner Joni Eastley noticed the suggestion the county could save some money on its $199,232 in annual advertising costs. But she said some notices will still be legally required to be advertised in the newspaper, like payroll disbursements, delinquent tax lists and legal notices. Information on job notices will be trimmed down in the newspaper, with viewers referred to a more extensive job description on-line, leading Amargosa Valley town board chairwoman Jan Cameron to express concern for people who don't read the Internet.

"The Web site desperately needs to be updated," Eastley said. "It is just not attractive, it is not user-friendly. I don't even use it because it's just a mess."

---------------------------

Pahrump Valley Times
December 22, 2006

Volunteers honored at EMS dinner

By Christina Eichelkraut
PVT

It's a little known fact that Santa Claus is also a fireman.

So it was only appropriate that he showed up at the Nye County Emergency Services annual volunteer dinner dressed in turnout gear.

The annual potluck dinner, held at the Bob Ruud Community Center last Monday, Dec. 11, is how Nye County says thank you to all its volunteers. (See photos, page A23.)

"The volunteers that make up our services do so much for our community," Brent Jones, the director of emergency services said. "This is just a small way we can show our appreciation."

It seemed as though every facet of emergency aid was represented at the dinner.

Representatives and volunteers from Animal Control, HazMat and the Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES) and Radio Amateur Communication Emergency Services (RACES) were all present.

The Crystal Fire Department was there, as were Boy Scout Explorer Post 51 and Cub Scouts Pack 180.

After chowing down on a plethora of dishes, there was a gift giveaway, and then Jones thanked everyone personally for their services.

Jones also spoke about the many improvements that are in the works for Nye County Emergency Services, including ambulance service being offered to Yucca Mountain in January, a new truck for Animal Control, and a new facility that will open in March.

"It's an exciting time, and to see 30 or 40 people in the room tonight is really encouraging," said Jones.

For more information about Nye County Emergency Services, go to their Web site at www.nyecoutnyemergencyservices.net.

---------------------------
State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
---------------------------