Yucca Mountain News Clips - Thursday, April 12, 2007

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, April 12, 2007
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Rutland Herald
April 12, 2007

Time to switch off nuclear power

By Hattie Nestel

Entergy's aggressive media blitz throughout Vermont portrays Vermont Yankee's energy as clean, green and reliable. Full-page ads and paid public relations consultants are everywhere.

However all the ads in the world and all the glib PR spokespersons don't make any of it true.

Nuclear power is dangerous. Every nuclear reactor releases radioactive substances into the air, water, and biosphere. "Each day, a nuclear reactor releases more than 100 chemicals into the air," states Joseph Mangano, national coordinator of the Radiation and Public Health Project, RPHP. Some of these chemicals are radioactive like iodine 131, strontium 90 and cesium 137. These radioactive emissions accumulate in the biosphere and remain highly toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. There is no level of exposure to ionizing radiation at which the human body is said to be safe (National Academy of Science BEIR V11 report). Radioactive releases can kill or mutate our cells. Cellular mutations cause diseases, mental retardation, infertility and other serious birth defects. Genetic mutations pass from generation to generation through sperm, ovum, mother's milk or the food chain.

Entergy's ads and PR spokespeople do not mention these low-level radiation releases into our air and water. However, noted, credible scientists like Rachel Carson, Linus Pauling and Andrei Sakharov knew about the dangers posed by exposure to radiation and have tried to warn us through their writings. Alice Stewart, a British medical doctor and epidemiologist whose published studies raised awareness about the effects of low-level radiation on genes states, "Even more than the cancer is the threat to future generations. That's what you ought to be really afraid of. It's the genetic damage, the possibility of sowing bad seeds into the gene pool from which future generations are drawn. There will be a buildup of defective genes into the population. It won't be noticed until it's too late. Then we'll never root it out. Never get rid of it. It will be totally irrevocable." (See Gayle Greene's "The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation.")

Entergy's ads neglect to mention how the entire nuclear chain, beginning with the mining of uranium to fuel the reactor and build it, is fossil fuel-dependent. Decommissioning the radioactive building, storing and managing the highly radioactive waste will be fossil fuel-dependent. It is folly to say that nuclear power creates no fossil fuel emissions.

As the uranium undergoes the fission process in the reactor core, it becomes one billion times more radioactive. Vermont Yankee now has over 35 million curies of cesium 137 in its spent fuel reactor pool 70 feet in the air, outside containment under a simple tin roof. Compare that to 2,000 curies of cesium 137 released by the Hiroshima bomb, and the danger becomes much easier to grasp. A single spent fuel rod is so radioactive that a person standing near it will receive a lethal dose of radiation within seconds.

Wanting to get rid of the on-site waste is wishful thinking. Twenty years of planning and $9 billion dollars have been poured into creating a radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. However, it is well acknowledged that Yucca Mountain has too many geological problems to store this dangerous waste and is not a viable option. Therefore, Vermont, along with every other reactor in the country, must deal with its own waste for the foreseeable future.

Water poses another major problem for Vermont Yankee which, like every nuclear reactor depends on an immense supply of water to cool the reactor and spent fuel pool. Each day Vermont Yankee takes in about 20,000 gallons of water a minute from the Connecticut River. Only 5,000 gallons of that return to the river. The other water is emitted as steam from the cooling stack. The heat level of water returned to the river threatens fish and fauna downstream. A court case is under way challenging Vermont Yankee's releases of high temperature water into the Connecticut River. Of course, Entergy ads and PR spokespeople omit this important fact.

How can we be certain that the effects of global warming will reduce the water supply in the Connecticut River? Will agricultural or drinking water needs in future years have to be sacrificed so that Vermont Yankee can cool its reactor core and avoid a catastrophic disaster? Without millions of gallons of water required on a daily basis to cool the reactor, Vermont Yankee cannot continue to operate. This is hardly a reliable or dependable source of energy.

What about accidents? No nuclear power plant can be certified as accident-free. Risks of human and mechanical error are always a possibility. Vermont Yankee at 34 years old is antiquated. As equipment corrodes, cracks and wears out, the accident risk increases greatly. Most old reactors have already closed down.

Aware of the inherent risks of nuclear reactors, no insurance company will provide insurance for our homes or businesses due to a nuclear accident. If an accident should occur, hundreds of thousands of us will have to flee with nothing but the clothes on our backs.

Let's get real. If we want electricity, why not fund sources that do not pose the dangers inherent in nuclear power? Sustainable green sources like wind, solar and small hydro are viable options that need state subsidies to be affordable and available to the average person. Carbon dioxide emissions are mainly caused through the transportation industry. Let's subsidize energy-efficient cars and mass transportation. Conservation of homes, schools and businesses can create local industries and cut our needs for much of the fossil fuels we use to heat our homes and municipal buildings. Energy efficiency can decrease usage by between 25 percent and 45 percent. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory report shows that 99 percent to 124 percent of the nation's electricity can be supplied by renewables by 2020.

Wind power is now a sophisticated industry, growing worldwide from 25 percent to 35 percent per year. The United States is lagging behind much of the world because wind, solar, and energy efficiencies are barely funded in this country. We need to change that.

Instead of spending billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize the nuclear industry while it rakes in multi-millions in annual profits, let's fund safe, truly sustainable alternatives and create local, cost-effective energy. Having sustainables in place will assure that our needs will still be met when Vermont Yankee is decommissioned on or before its license expires in 2012.

Decommissioning Vermont Yankee, managing millions of curies of radioactive spent fuel and guarding it for the next million years or so, create a significant burden for future generations. Enough is enough. Lobby your legislators to vote a resounding no for another the 20-year relicensing of Vermont Yankee.

--Hattie Nestel, a member of Citizens Awareness Network (www.nukebusters.org), lives in Massachusetts 20 miles south of Vermont Yankee.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
April 11, 2007

YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Computer model criticized

It's too complex to be inspected, state official says

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The computer requirements to run the Energy Department's performance program for Yucca Mountain are so complex and daunting that virtually nobody will be able to inspect the government's work, a Nevada official charged on Tuesday.

The simulation that aims to forecast whether Yucca Mountain can safely hold thousands of tons of nuclear waste runs on a network of 30 master servers and 298 process servers containing 752 processors operating in tandem, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

The computer cluster is a configuration that "no participant can reasonably expect to duplicate," perhaps not even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Loux said in a letter to NRC Chairman Dale Klein.

The newest charge in Nevada's long fight against Yucca Mountain stems from a presentation last fall in which DOE officials outlined details of the performance plan including the computing power needed to run it.

Loux, who coordinates the state's official opposition to the project, suggested the computer model, known as the Total System Performance Assessment, will not meet the requirements for DOE to gain a repository license.

"The model is so complicated and so large, and takes so many computers to run it," Loux said. "It is fundamentally not capable of being checked by any third party."

The Yucca Mountain computer model is complex out of necessity to calculate repository safety over thousands of years, DOE spokesman Allen Benson said in response.

"The computer system in place allows for thousands of calculations to be made in a reasonable time at minimal cost," Benson said. "These calculations allow the evaluation of repository safety -- our primary concern -- in the manner required by the NRC."

The Energy Department will provide the NRC with tools to evaluate the model, Benson said.

"This is being done for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and they are the ones who have to be able to operate it," he said.

The performance assessment is the centerpiece of the Energy Department's bid for an NRC repository license.

By lodging its complaint, the state is laying the groundwork for a possible due process lawsuit on the grounds it was denied the ability to properly review the license application that DOE officials say they will file in June 2008.

"From our perspective, this is a huge deal," Loux said in an interview. "If nobody can review this thing, the application is unreviewable, and it can't go forward. I don't know if DOE has an idea of how this can be simplified. I don't think so."

Loux said the state bought a $10,000 software package designed to decipher the TSPA. Still, he said, "It is hard to imagine that we will be able to check DOE's work adequately" because input files "are likely to be extremely large."

The DOE network is modeled on a "Beowulf cluster," a collection of computers wired to Ethernet, a family of computer-networking technologies, and set up with software that enables them to operate as if they were a supercomputer.

In his letter, Loux asked Klein to investigate the issue.

"It now appears to pose the most critical issue vis a vis the transparency of DOE's work," Loux said.

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Las Vegas SUN
April 11, 2007

Nevada says Yucca Mountain computer requirements thwart review

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The computer requirements to run the Energy Department's performance program for a national nuclear waste repository are so complex that they may thwart state review of the government's work, a Nevada official said.

A simulation that aims to forecast whether Yucca Mountain can safely hold thousands of tons of nuclear waste needs a network of 30 master servers and 298 process servers - or a total of 752 processors operating in tandem, said Bob Loux, chief of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

"No participant can reasonably expect to duplicate" the computer cluster, Loux said in a letter sent Tuesday to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Dale Klein.

"The model is so complicated and so large, and takes so many computers to run it," Loux said, "that it is fundamentally not checkable by any third party, including the NRC staff."

The allegation represents the newest challenge in Nevada's fight against accepting 77,000 tons or more of the nation's most radioactive waste for burial at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Loux, who heads the state's official opposition to the project, cited a presentation last fall in which Energy Department officials outlined details of the performance plan including the computing power needed to run it.

Loux suggested the computer model known as the Total System Performance Assessment will not meet requirements for the Energy Department to obtain a repository operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Yucca Mountain computer model is complex because it needs to calculate repository safety over thousands of years, Energy Department and Yucca Mountain spokesman Allen Benson said.

"The computer system in place allows for thousands of calculations to be made in a reasonable time at minimal cost," Benson said. "These calculations allow the evaluation of repository safety - our primary concern - in the manner required by the NRC."

The Energy Department will provide the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with tools to evaluate the model, Benson said.

"This is being done for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and they are the ones who have to be able to operate it," he said.

The performance assessment is the centerpiece of the Energy Department's bid for an NRC repository license.

By lodging its complaint, the state is laying the groundwork for another possible lawsuit alleging that it is being denied the ability to properly review the license application that Energy Department officials say they will file in June 2008.

Congress and the Bush administration picked the site in 2002 - expecting it would open by 2010 to serve as the nation's nuclear waste dump. The project has been stalled by congressional funding shortfalls and questions about quality control work during site selection.

The program chief recently said the opening date could be several years after the current 2017 target.

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

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Pahrump Valley Times
April 11, 2007

Official wants probe into DOE program

Computer Model May Lie Beyond Anyone's Effective Oversight

PVT

CARSON CITY -- The complex computer program being used by the U.S. Department of Energy to provide information about its application for a license to build a proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain is so rife with problems that some Nevada leaders say no one outside DOE can use it.

Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said as much in a letter this week to Dale Klein, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

To acquire access to the DOE information, Loux said it would take an "unbelievable" collection of 752 computer processors and 30 master computer servers running in parallel on a Windows 2000 file server system that is virtually obsolete.

Loux said the Energy Department's so-called Total System Performance Assessment program "does not meet the basic requirements ... to form the basis for a government license." He said the model is so complex that no one, not even the NRC staff, can properly check it. "We doubt there is even anyone in DOE who has a comprehensive command of the entire model."

Nevada has been following the development of the new TSPA simulation program and reviewing documents to try to "decipher" the process. DOE's presentations on this program "raise grave concerns that the hardware configuration adopted by DOE ... is wholly inappropriate for a major safety-related license application that should be accessible for scrutiny by interested third parties."

Loux said DOE is modeling its computer cluster configuration after the "Beowulf Project," which "requires use of an immense cluster of computers and processors that no participant can reasonably expect to duplicate. In other words, simply running, or likely even inspecting, the structure of the ... TSPA for Yucca requires the coordinated use of literally hundreds of computers and processors and software, some of which is already obsolete."

Nevada officials and others charged with reviewing DOE's application may have to buy costly computer equipment or try to access DOE's own computer cluster just to access the information. Even then, Loux expressed concern that no other participant in the licensing process will be able to reproduce, store and properly evaluate DOE's information.

He said there's no guarantee that DOE will preserve the original Beowulf Computer Cluster architecture, or maintain it for a certain period of time.

Loux urged the NRC to investigate this problem before DOE files its application seeking a license for Yucca Mountain.

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Pahrump Valley Times
April 11, 2007

Nuke waste panel to review Yucca

ARLINGTON, Va. -- The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board will meet here Tuesday, May 15.

The board will discuss several topics, including the use of depleted uranium oxide, a drilling program carried out by Inyo County in California, waste package designs and other matters.

A final meeting agenda will be available on the board's Web site (www.nwtrl.gov) approximately one week before the meeting date. The agenda also may be obtained by telephone request at that time. The meeting will be open to the public and opportunities for public comment will be provided.

The meeting will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 1480 Crystal Drive, Arlington, VA 22202. Call 703-416-1600 or fax 703-416-1651.

The meeting will begin at 8 a.m. with an overview of the Yucca Mountain Program.

Presentations on the use of depleted uranium oxide as a chemical barrier, Inyo County's drilling program and the second-generation waste package design will follow.

After lunch, the board will be briefed on waste streams and disposition options related to DOE's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, Sandia National Laboratory's saturated zone model for Yucca Mountain, the potential near-field chemistry in repository tunnels, and waste package design and prototype development. An update on probabilistic volcanic hazards analysis will complete the day's agenda.

Time will be set aside at the end of the day for public comments. Those wanting to speak are encouraged to sign the "public comment register" at the check-in table. A time limit may have to be set on individual remarks, but written comments of any length may be submitted for the record.

For more information, contact Karyn Severson, NWTRB external affairs, 2300 Clarendon Blvd., Suite 1300, Arlington, VA 2201-3367. Call 703-235-4473 or fax 703-235-4495.

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Herald Times Reporter
April 11, 2007

Dominion shares nuclear fuel storage plan

Company wants to build dry-cask storage system

By Richard Ryman
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers

CARLTON — Dominion Resources would like to begin construction on a dry-cask storage system for used nuclear fuel at Kewaunee Power Station by the end of the year.

Currently, used nuclear fuel is stored in the power plant's spent-fuel pool. Point Beach Nuclear Plant, six miles south of the Kewaunee plant, has used dry-cask storage for years.

The open house will be from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Carlton Town Hall, Kewaunee County G and Town Hall Road.

Dominion will need locally issued building permits to proceed with construction. The company has been discussing its plans with local officials for some time. This is an opportunity for the public to see the plans.

"We'll have displays (and) our experts there to talk about our plans," said Jim Norvelle, a spokesman for Dominion.

The Kewaunee power plant will need the additional storage if its operating license is extended beyond 2013. Dominion has said it will apply for renewal.

Zuercher said nuclear plant pools were originally designed to cool fuel rods before reprocessing, but the United States place a moratorium on reprocessing during the Carter administration. Zuercher said the moratorium was lifted during the Reagan administration, but reprocessing is not economically feasible.

He said the preferred storage site would be a planned federal repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. That project has experienced years of delays, forcing nuclear plant operators to increase on-site storage.

Zuercher said Dominion was the first nuclear plant operator to use the dry-storage method and continues to do so at its plants in Connecticut and Virginia.

At Kewaunee, it will use a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission-approved cask design. It would like to begin using that storage method by mid-2008.

Zuercher said each cask would hold 32 fuel assemblies.

The Kewaunee reactor has 121 assemblies, with about one-third being replaced every 18 months. All 121 assemblies are placed into the pool during refueling and those in use for three refueling cycles are permanently removed.

The spent nuclear fuel is radioactive and placed in welded steel canisters designed to be leak-tight. They will be kept in a dry-storage facility consisting of a series of reinforced concrete horizontal storage modules measuring 8.5 feet wide by 14 feet high, and 20 feet deep with walls and roof that are up to 4 feet thick.

"When the time comes to move the fuel (to Yucca Mountain), it can be transported in that canister," Zuercher said.

According to Dominion, more than 30 nuclear power plants in the United States use on-site dry storage.

--Online: www.dom.com

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ECM Capitol
April 11, 2007

Nuclear storage fees at Monticello plant revisited by Senate committee

by T.W. Budig
ECM capitol reporter

Grumbling from local lawmakers about proposed Xcel Energy payments for dry cask storage at the Monticello nuclear power plant has one Senate committee revisiting the nuclear power issue.

The Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities, Technology and Communications temporarily laid aside legislation that would have Xcel paying $350,000 each year for each dry cask containing spent fuel at Monticello — $5.2 million a year if the plant is not operating.

Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFL-St. Paul, described the bill as compromise language worked out with Xcel Energy.

Xcel Energy currently pays some $16 million a year for nuclear waste storage.

Sen. Amy Koch, R-Buffalo, characterized Anderson’s legislation — part of a larger bill — as well meaning but excessive. “I just view the charge as an additional overcharge,” she said of the proposed Monticello cask fee.

Sen. Mike Jungbauer, R-East Bethel, argued that charging Xcel Energy to store nuclear waste was backward. Rather than storing the radioactive material, research should be conducted on secondary uses for it, he argued. Nuclear energy ought to be part of the overall energy discussion, Jungbauer opined. Though adding the waste storage is a concern, he lauded the technology as not contributing to green house gases — a legacy of fossil fuels.

Still, Anderson explained that indications are coming out of Washington that the proposed federal nuclear waste storage facility in Yucca Mountain, Nev., may never be accepting nuclear waste.

“So who knows what’s going to happen,” she said.

The committee is expected to revisit the nuclear power issue, including Anderson’s bill, at an upcoming hearing.

PICTURED: Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFL-St. Paul, listens to testimony during a Senate hearing on dry cask storage fees at the Monticello nuclear power plant. In the foreground is Jim Alders of Xcel Energy.

PICTURED: Sen. Amy Koch, R-Buffalo, was critical of the proposed $350,000 per year fee for each dry cask at Monticello containing spent fuel.Monticello began operations in the early 1970s.

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Chillicothe Gazette
April 11, 2007

Audience told GNEP plan will be 'good for the world'

By Ashley Lykins
Gazette Staff Writer

A new nuclear plant in Piketon would be "good for the world," according to officials who spoke at Ohio University-Chillicothe Tuesday night.

Greg Simonton, director of Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative, said the amount of investment and jobs that could be brought with the project - the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership - would be "unprecedented."

The initiative, part of the Southern Ohio Nuclear Integration Cooperative, conducted its third and last public meeting Tuesday as part of its detailed siting study.

The group was one of 11 sites awarded a grant to do the study, which will determine the appropriateness of Piketon to host a GNEP facility.

If it's chosen as the site, nuclear waste would be transported to the area to be recycled and reprocessed through two possible facilities.

The advanced nuclear fuel recycling center would separate the used nuclear fuel into its reusable and waste components, and the advanced recycling reactor would obliterate radioactive aspects of the used fuel while generating electricity.

SONIC maintains this process would reduce permanent nuclear waste and prevent proliferation because nuclear-capable countries, such as the U.S. and France, would provide reprocessing services to other countries that agree not to pursue their own programs.

"The risk that this is an unsafe operation is just not there, period," said Dan Moore, president of SONIC, referring to some residents' concerns regarding dangers of the project.

The meeting involved presentations by SONIC, with a question-and-answer segment following. Members of the panel answered questions submitted on note cards.

"I think (the meetings are) not for public participation," said Vina Colley, of Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security. "People want to believe them because they want jobs ... People don't have the whole story."

Moore said a comparable 2-mile-long reprocessing plant built in La Hague, France, created jobs for 6,000 people and cost $15 billion. SONIC visited the facility, and persuaded "my mind that this can be done safely," he said.

Ross County Commissioner Frank Hirsch agreed, noting the recycling of nuclear fuel is like recycling other things.

"This is like recycling your cans or newspapers or tires," he said, expressing his support for the project.

Two Chillicothe residents who attended Tuesday night's meeting said they are still learning about the project's process.

"It's definitely interesting," said Justice Gray. "A few things piqued our curiosity."

Teresa Gray said the jobs would be beneficial.

"My biggest thing is it seems like it will create jobs," she said. "It looks like it will be a good thing."

In response to some concerns of whether spent nuclear fuel would be shipped to Piketon and stored permanently, Moore said the site would be "inappropriate" for long-term storage.

It has "none of the characteristics that you'd want," he said.

Furthermore, Tom Anderson, senior environmental project manager, said by the time a GNEP facility would be built, a Yucca Mountain facility out west would be open to accept waste storage.

Joni Fearing, of Portsmouth, however, said she agreed with Colley.

"I don't think the process is fair," she said of the lack of public dialogue at the meeting. "I don't think we're getting the whole story. This is a global issue."

Chillicothe Mayor Joe Sulzer, who addressed the group of about 30 attendees, said in many instances, the public doesn't get the opportunity to play a part in a company's moving to the area and providing jobs.

"This process has been open, and it's been open for a reason," he said. "I want the jobs. I want the economic development."

Information contained in SONIC's study, which is due May 31, might be used in the Department of Energy's Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. The statement will evaluate and analyze both alternatives to the nuclear waste recycling and impacts the facilities could have on the environment.

The public is welcome to provide comments for the statement. The comment period was recently extended to June 4. Submissions can be made to Timothy A. Frazier, GNEP PEIS Document Manager, Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave., SW, Washington DC 20585. Comments also can be made via phone at (866) 645-7803, fax at (866) 645-7807 or e-mail at GNEP-PEIS@nuclear.energy.gov.

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Business Wire
April 10, 2007

Press Release:

Nevada official calls for investigation into DOE computer problems blocking access to Yucca Mountain information

CARSON CITY - The complex computer program being used by the U.S. Department of Energy to provide information about its application for a license to build a proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain is so rife with problems that Nevada leaders say no one outside DOE can use it.

Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said as much in a letter this week to Dale Klein, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the organization that will consider DOE's application to move forward with the Yucca Mountain Project. To access the DOE information, Loux said it would take an "unbelievable" collection of 752 computer processors and 30 master computer servers running in parallel on a Windows 2000 file server system that is virtually obsolete.

"We understand that DOE may now be running or is about to run its Total System Performance Assessment (TSPA) simulation program, the results of which will form the basis for DOE's license application for its proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which DOE plans to file with NRC by June 2008," Loux wrote. "After our detailed review, we thought it imperative to call to your attention a glaring and critical problem with DOE's TSPAs, including its newest one.

"In short, the TSPA does not meet the basic requirements of a calculation intended to form the basis for a government license. The model is so complicated and so large, and takes so many computers to run it, and it must be run so many times for the answer to converge, that it is fundamentally not checkable by any third party, including the NRC staff. We doubt there is even anyone in DOE who has a comprehensive command of the entire model."

Nevada urges NRC to investigate DOE computer problems - page 2

Loux said Nevada officials understand that NRC staff members have developed their own less complicated computer model (called the TPA) in order to help them understand issues related to the Yucca Mountain Project. However, he said the NRC "is not the applicant, and its model cannot be the primary grounds for license approval." Loux said DOE's application has to stand or fall on its own model and results.

"That model must be transparent and checkable," he wrote. "NRC cannot license Yucca Mountain on results from a black box, and it should so inform DOE."

Nevada has been following the development of the new TSPA simulation program and reviewing documents to try to "decipher" the process. DOE's presentations on this program "raise grave concerns that the hardware configuration adopted by DOE - involving hundreds of computers - is wholly inappropriate for a major safety-related license application that should be accessible for scrutiny by interested third parties" such as state, NRC and other officials.

Loux said DOE is modeling its computer cluster configuration after the "Beowulf Project" developed at NASA's Goddard Space Center.

"Nevada was most surprised to learn that the specific Beowulf Computer Cluster proposed by DOE for Yucca's licensing requires use of an immense cluster of computers and processors that no participant can reasonably expect to duplicate," he said. "In other words, simply running, or likely even inspecting, the structure of DOE's TSPA for Yucca requires the coordinated use of literally hundreds of computers and processors and software, some of which is already obsolete."

Nevada officials and others charged with reviewing DOE's application to build the repository at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, may have to buy costly computer equipment or try to access DOE's own computer cluster just to access the information. Even then, Loux expressed concern that no other participant in the licensing process will be able to reproduce, store and properly evaluate DOE's information.

He said there's no guarantee that DOE will preserve the original Beowulf Computer Cluster architecture, or maintain it for a certain period of time.

"Hardware elements will need to be replaced and modifications will need to be made to the operating systems used," he said. "Thus, there will be a need to ensure that TSPA-LA calculations can be retrieved, scrutinized, modified and repeated, as required, both during and after the Yucca licensing hearings."

Nevada urges NRC to investigate DOE computer problems - page 2

Nevada's research of these issues "raises serious concerns, including due process concerns" about DOE making it nearly impossible for stakeholders like Nevada to access the information they need to review and evaluate the Yucca Mountain Project.

Ironically, Loux added, DOE's 2002 Yucca Mountain site recommendation to President Bush promised to make the federal licensing process and methods "more transparent and verifiable." Those assurances "now ring hollow," he said.

For all these reasons, Loux urged the NRC to investigate this problem before DOE files its application seeking a license for Yucca Mountain.

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

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Green Bay Press Gazette
April 10, 2007

Dominion shares plan for nuclear fuel storage at Kewaunee Power Station

Company wants to build dry-cask storage system

By Richard Ryman
rryman@greenbaypressgazette.com

CARLTON — Dominion Resources would like to begin construction on a dry-cask storage system for used nuclear fuel at Kewaunee Power Station by the end of the year.

Currently, used nuclear fuel is stored in the power plant's spent-fuel pool. Point Beach Nuclear Plant, 6 miles south of the Kewaunee plant, has used dry-cask storage for years.

The open house will be 7:30-9 p.m. Thursday at Carlton Town Hall, Kewaunee County G and Town Hall Road.

"We'll have displays. We'll have our experts there to talk about our plans," said Jim Norvelle, a spokesman for Dominion.

The Kewaunee power plant will need the additional storage if its operating license is extended beyond 2013. Dominion has said it will apply for renewal.

Zuercher said nuclear plant pools originally were designed to cool fuel rods before reprocessing, but the United States placed a moratorium on reprocessing during the Carter administration. Zuercher said the moratorium was lifted during the Reagan administration, but reprocessing is not economically feasible.

Zuercher said Dominion was the first nuclear plant operator to use the dry-storage method and continues to do so at its plants in Connecticut and Virginia.

At Kewaunee, it will use a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission-approved cask design. It would like to begin using that storage method by mid-2008.

Zuercher said each cask will hold 32 fuel assemblies.

"When the time comes to move the fuel (to Yucca Mountain), it can be transported in that canister," Zuercher said.

According to Dominion, more than 30 nuclear power plants in the United States use on-site dry storage.

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StockInterview
April 10, 2007

Super Molybdenum Stainless Steel Vital

to Global Nuclear Reactor Build Up

New Power Plants Likely to Increase Use of Corrosive-Resistant Steam Condenser Tubing

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Molybdenum plays a more vital role in the global nuclear renaissance than you might suspect. Without the silvery white metal, the world’s energy infrastructure would somewhat suffer. But, nuclear power plants would be set back at least two decades. The new high performance stainless steels (HPSS) contain as much as 7.5 percent molybdenum and can add more than three times the life to the world’s aging nuclear fleet condenser tubes.

During the early construction of nuclear power plants, steam condensers relied upon copper base alloys – brass and copper nickel – for heat transfer capabilities. These alloys have high coefficients of thermal conductivity required in steam generation to power nuclear reactor turbines. But copper-alloyed tubes were being replaced too quickly – with an average life of eight years – because of sulphide pitting. Hardest hit were those reactors using polluted seawater to cool their reactors.

Over the past 30 years ago, nuclear utilities slowly began turning to the super austenitic stainless steels as one way to make their nuclear reactors last longer. The addition of molybdenum, initially starting with percentage of less than four percent, helped increase the thermal conductivity lacking in nickel, iron or steel. At nuclear stations which replaced the copper alloys with HPSS condenser tubes, 57 percent rated the thermal performance good and all but one rated it normal. Molybdenum had helped overcome the thermal hurdle.

A large number of the 190 nuclear reactors, which now utilize HPSS condenser tubes, reported an average life in excess of 18 years. The longest stainless steel condenser installation has remained in service more than 26 years, according to a study done several years ago. According to a report published in 2000, more than 100 million feet of super-alloy stainless steel tubes have replaced the older, copper-alloy tubing.

Condensers are large heat exchangers used in nuclear power plants. Condensers have thousands of tubes horizontally mounted to condense and recover the steam passing through turbines. Each low-pressure turbine generally has a condenser, which also maintains a vacuum to optimize the turbine’s efficiency.

Water fouling deposits were cited as a major problem at many reactors, especially with condenser tubes where seawater or high-chloride brackish water was the coolant. Pitting corrosion, tube sheet crevice corrosion and galvanic corrosion put the tubes at risk for leakage. Plugging, mud, or detritus accumulating in condenser tubes reduce a power plant’s efficiency.

Utilities use cleaning systems with small, abrasive sponge-like balls to keep the tubes clean and test for tube defectives with probing devices. Tube thinning and corrosion create the opportunity for tube leakage. This can not be tolerated because chemicals such as sodium and chlorides find their way into the reactor vessel or steam generator.

Upgrading the steam condenser tubing to stainless steel also plays a vital role in the ‘power uprate’ program utilities have used to increase generating capacity for existing reactors as we recently discussed . The more advanced uprate program could add up to 20-percent capacity to existing U.S. nuclear reactors.

There are several HPSS manufacturers for nuclear reactor condensers. The most prominent in the nuclear sector include Pennsylvania-based ATI Allegheny Ludlum and Finland’s Outokumpu. Each offers austenitic steels with chromium and nickel composition of between 20 and 25 percent for each alloy and a range of 6.2 to 7.5 percent molybdenum.

In a paper presented by Jan Olsson of Avesta Sheffield (before the company was acquired by Outokumpu), he highlighted the results of tests performed on the new super-austenitic stainless steel, 654 SMO®. Metals comprising this brand include 25-percent chromium, 22-percent nickel and 7.5-percent molybdenum. To increase pitting resistance, the manufacturers added up to 0.5-percent nitrogen and three-percent manganese (for make the nitrogen more soluble).

As with all pioneering developments – and remember that R & D breakthroughs have taken place over a two-decade-plus period, manufacturers have re-designed their metallurgical composition to find the most encouraging percentages of nickel, chromium, molybdenum and nitrogen. The earlier stainless steels relied on higher nickel content and lesser percentages of chromium and molybdenum.

At first, conventional austenitic grades, such as 316L, or high chromium-ferritic grades, were utilized. Pitting struck down widespread use of the 316L series and was replaced by higher alloy steels. For example, others, such as the 254 SMO® stainless steel, began aggressively replacing the copper alloy tubes and in some cases the 316L series. The 254 is comprised of 20-percent chromium, 18-percent nickel, 6.2-percent molybdenum and 0.20-percent nitrogen. It has also offered a high level of corrosion resistance at desalination plants without becoming cost-prohibitive.

The most significant breakthrough came after various stainless steels were tested at Scandinavian coastal reactors. In the Avesta paper, the failures of each lesser austenitic grade were checked off. Significant deficiencies included insufficient stress corrosion cracking resistance and resistance to natural seawater. Even titanium tubing was used as an interim measure because it increased total heat transfer by 17 percent, but the metal failed to stand up to high velocity steam and suffered ‘water droplet erosion.’

According to the study, “The only alloy fully resistant to all test conditions was 654 SMO®.” The results at nuclear power plants in Finland and Sweden, along the Baltic Sea, were astonishing! Four important conclusions about this super alloy were reached after the testing.

* Its corrosion resistance could cope with the hostile environments existing inside condenser tubes of desalination plants and power plants.

* Its corrosion resistance was good enough to cop with many other hostile brine and seawater environments.

* Its erosion resistance was advantageous where it was exposed to high velocity streams.

* There was no concern about its heat transfer characteristics.

Nuclear Consumption of Molybdenum

About 48 nuclear reactors are reportedly scheduled for construction by 2013. It may be possible that up to 100 could be constructed by 2020, depending upon political and financial climates. The largest number proceeding through the proposed, planned or construction phases will be located along coastal areas to service the most populated areas. The greatest numbers of new constructions are expected from China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and Japan (and possibly the United States).

Existing reactors along coastal areas in Asian countries presently breaks down as follows: Japan (57), South Korea (26), China and Taiwan (19) and India (11). Because these are the most prone to seawater or brackish corrosion, they are also the likely candidates for upgrading existing condenser tubing to high alloy stainless steel. And their new reactors are likely going to be constructed along their coasts, requiring the super austenitic grades. As an aside, of the previously mentioned 190 nuclear power plants which had replaced their condensers with HPSS, 45 percent used fresh water as coolant. Those plants chose the high alloy steel as a ‘fail-safe’ measure to prevent interrupted service or a potential reactor incident.

The United Nations estimates that two-thirds of the planet’s population will be living with water stress by 2025. Global freshwater scarcity may demand the use of brackish or seawater as nuclear reactor coolant. To prevent the accompanying corrosion, the higher-percentage molybdenum alloy, specifically the 654 SMO®, could emerge as the condenser tubing material of choice. Either the 254 SMO® or the 654 would be utilized in desalination plants required to overcome water shortages in the hardest hit areas: North Africa, the Middle East and West Asia.

Typically, nuclear power plant condenser tubing requires approximately 520,000 feet of stainless steel. According to the International Molybdenum Association (IMOA), larger reactors could utilize up to one million feet of stainless steel. With the higher molybdenum grades found in the super alloys, new nuclear reactors could require tens of thousands of metric tons of molybdenum.

By comparison, nuclear waste containers proposed for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository were forecast to consume about 15,000 metric tons of moly. While this project may or may not proceed as planned to the construction phase, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) has proposed regionalized storage of spent fuel.

Should comparably designed storage canisters be utilized to ‘temporarily’ contain the nuclear waste, it is likely molybdenum will play a key role. According to the U.S. Government’s Energy Citation Database, as published by the Department of Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information, “Alloys with combined chromium plus molybdenum contents greater than 30 percent were the most resistant to general and local attack.” This was the conclusion reached after corrosion scouring tests were performed on stainless steel and nickel-based alloys to immobilize high-level, radioactive waste.

Another aspect where high-percentage molybdenum stainless steel would double up is with the expansion of nuclear desalination plants. In the past, and in our publication, “Investing in the Great Uranium Bull Market,” we have discussed the rise of nuclear desalination across those coastal areas, requiring far more freshwater than can possibly be transported through other means. The World Nuclear Association (WNA) has reported of numerous such desalination projects in progress.

Will The Energy Bull Have Sufficient Moly?

From nearly every energy project – oil, gas, coal and nuclear, and for water, molybdenum demand will continue increasing. Super austenitic grades demand a higher moly content to combat corrosion and provide reliability of service. Of course, there will be substitution in the face of future supply shortfalls. In some instances, there are reports the Russians have substituted vanadium for molybdenum in some of their oil and gas pipelines to conserve on moly consumption. ATI Allegheny Ludlum has argued for the substitution of two-percent manganese for every percent of nickel, but in the lower grade austenitic groups which do not demand the corrosion resistance of energy projects.

While reviewing the anticipated new projects from the molybdenum mining sector, we foresee the high probability of supply inadequacy. Aside from China Moly’s Sandaozhuang molybdenum mine, which the company hopes could produce 28,000 tonnes of molybdenum concentrate this year and perhaps grow by another 17 percent the following year, there is a paucity of new molybdenum projects coming fully online before 2009.

Based upon China’s voracious appetite for molybdenum – one research firm estimated compounded annual growth rate over the previous five years at 17 percent, whatever excess moly production comes from China Moly’s mining efforts could very well be domestically consumed.

Future North American molybdenum producers may need to ramp up their projects to meet the growing demand. During 2006, demand grew above the historical norm of four percent; most of the consumption came from China. This is unlikely to stagnate or decrease, and could interfere with North American and European consumption of molybdenum.

Only one company is scheduled to commence molybdenum mining in 2007, Roca Mines. Because the company is limited to a small-mining permit, anticipated production could not exceed three million pounds. By late 2008, or early 2009, Adanac Molybdenum hopes to commence its start-up efforts to reach eight-figure moly production. Later, Blue Pearl Mining hopes to commence high-grade molybdenum mining at the Davidson deposit in British Columbia. Around this time, the Climax molybdenum mine could re-open and begin production in Colorado. Moly Mines hopes to begin production at the company’s Spinifex project. Possibly, before the decade ends, Idaho General might commence operations in Nevada. Perhaps before those 48 nuclear reactors come online, US Energy’s moly deposit may be mined in Colorado.

Many of these projects are subject to environmental permitting and/or financing, putting any material amount of forecasted supply in jeopardy. And this comes at a time when some experts believe byproduct molybdenum production at copper mines could be constrained. There are many conditional requirements which do not necessarily guarantee a reliable supply from the new breed of primary moly producers. We have witnessed comparable obstacles in the uranium sector, which has since been accompanied by a hyperbolic price rally in this metal.

There could come a time in the molybdenum sector when the silvery white metal could mimic such a breakout scenario. Nearly three years ago, StockInterview.com featured a forecast of US$100/pound uranium. No one believed that prediction at the time. On Friday, TradeTech announced a spot price of US$113/pound.

WEBSITES and Trading Symbols of companies mentioned in this feature:

Adanac Molybdenum Corporation TSX: AUA      www.adanacmoly.com
Blue Pearl Mining              TSX: BLE      www.bluepearl.ca
Idaho General Mines            AMEX: GMO     www.idahogeneralmines.com
Moly Mines                     TSX: MOL      www1.molymines.com
Roca Mines Inc.                TSX: ROK      www.rocamines.com
US Energy Corp                 NASDAQ: USEG www.usnrg.com

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Reno Gazette-Journal
April 09, 2007
Transporting waste will put state at risk

April 9, 2007

by Robert R. Loux

David Sweetman's article ["Transport to Yucca Mountain no real threat," Hot Topic, April 4] is flat out wrong on a number of points.

First, Yucca Mountain is far from "the most geographically sensible site in the USA" for isolating deadly spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The site is located in a geologically active region; the U.S. Geological Survey places it in an areas of major earthquake risks; there is the potential for renewed volcanic activity at and near the site during the time period when the nuclear waste will be dangerous; groundwater within the mountain is highly corrosive, creating circumstances where the containers the waste would be buried in will corrode fairly rapidly and allow the waste to escape and move to the aquifer beneath; and the site is highly fractured and water moves very rapidly through it, creating fast pathways for moving radiation out of the repository, into the aquifer below and eventually into the environment.

In fact, even the U.S. Department of Energy has acknowledged that the geology at Yucca contributes almost nothing to waste isolation and protection. Instead, DOE plans to rely almost exclusively on "manmade barriers," such as waste disposal containers that must remain intact for between 10,000 and 1 million years, a premise that almost no one in the scientific community believes is remotely possible, never mind that the material DOE proposes to use for the containers has been shown to corrode very rapidly in water with the chemical composition of that found at Yucca Mountain.

Second, the risks of transporting spent fuel and high-level waste are not trivial and are being exacerbated by the way in which DOE and the federal government are approaching the matter. For starters, there is no requirement for the transport containers or casks to be physically tested to withstand accidents and terrorist attacks. The feds allow manufacturers to use computer modeling of anticipated cask performance to demonstrate the casks' ability to withstand credible accidents and attacks.

And while the commercial nuclear industry does have an acceptable safety record with respect to past shipments of spent fuel, the amount of waste that would be shipped in the first year or two of a future Yucca Mountain shipping campaign would exceed the entire number of such shipments in the U.S. over the past 38 years or more. This unprecedented shipping effort would be conducted by the federal DOE, an agency that has an atrocious track record when it comes to nuclear safety and contamination.

Extensive research done by Nevada and Clark County suggests that risks of transport have been greatly underestimated by DOE, especially the risks of terrorism and sabotage. An accident involving the release of even a small fraction of the radionuclide inventory of a shipping cask in an urban setting like Reno-Sparks could contaminate a large area, cause hundreds of latent cancer fatalities and cost hundreds of millions in clean up costs, according to DOE's own estimates -- in addition to the damage that would be done to the area's economy.

There is a very good saying among emergency preparedness people: Hope for the best but plan for the worst. Seeking to trivialize the risks posed by DOE proposed transport of deadly radioactive waste through Reno-Sparks and Washoe County represents and promoting complacency is the absolute wrong approach.

Robert R. Loux is executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
April 09, 2007

Political Notebook:

By Molly Ball
Review-Journal

Health Issues

Edward McGaffigan has withdrawn his offer to resign from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, saying there has been "significant improvement in my health prospects" as he battles cancer.

McGaffigan, the longest serving member on the five-seat safety commission, caused a stir in January when he told reporters the Yucca Mountain project was deeply flawed and "it may be time to stop digging."

The remarks were heralded by Yucca critics while the Energy Department rushed to defend its efforts to build the Nevada nuclear waste repository.

McGaffigan, fighting metastatic melanoma, said in January that he would step down as soon as a successor could be put in place.

He has been a commissioner since 1996.

But on March 27 he sent President Bush a one-sentence letter asking that his offer to resign be withdrawn, citing a health improvement. NRC spokeswoman Elizabeth Hayden said McGaffigan has undergone gamma knife surgery and is still undergoing radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had been looking for a replacement for McGaffigan, a Democrat. But Reid now "is glad that Mr. McGaffigan's health has improved to the point that he feels comfortable staying on the job," spokesman Jon Summers said.

At the Energy Department, spokesman Craig Stevens said: "We are all thankful that Commissioner McGaffigan's health has improved, and we look forward to working with him and the other NRC commissioners as we continue our legally mandated responsibility to get Yucca Mountain opened."

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Fresno Bee
April 09, 2007

PG&E breaks ground on storage facility for spent nuclear fuel

Spent nuclear fuel rods currently resting in a decommissioned nuclear power facility in the King Salmon area appear to be destined for a safer location from the North Coast's hefty seismic hazards.

Residents, community leaders and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. employees gathered Wednesday to break ground on a PG&E project to build an underground concrete storage facility inside a hill on the Humboldt Bay Power Plant property. The bunker is designed to withstand a 9.3-magnitude earthquake and shield the fuel from a terrorist attack.

The facility is scheduled to be completed by 2008 and will be an interim stop for the 390 fuel rods until the U.S. Department of Energy completes its Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada.

"This dry cask storage project will take some material out of what I think is a fragile environment ... and make it safer for the people who live nearby," said Jimmy Smith, a Humboldt County supervisor.

PG&E also plans to modernize the facility over the next three years with 10 natural gas burning engines that could be run independently and more efficiently to provide up to 163 megawatts of electricity.

--Information from: Times-Standard
http://www.times-standard.com

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Wilmington Morning Star
April 09, 2007

Brunswick prepares nuclear-fuel site
Outdoor storage of spent material begins in 2010

By Ken Little
Staff Writer
ken.little@starnewsonline.com

Site preparation at the Brunswick Nuclear Plant near Southport has started for the outdoor storage of spent nuclear fuel.

Actual storage of the spent fuel in garage-sized "dry cask" bunkers made of steel and concrete will not begin until 2010.

"We have begun some on-site work and we are on track. We have started to clear the area and we are starting to do some soil remediation studies to determine what we have to do to the area," said Francis McComas, spokesman for plant operator Progress Energy.

Fuel assemblies containing rods filled with radioactive uranium-enriched pellets will be stored in cylindrical metal canisters, which slide into concrete bunkers.

Industry critics say outside storage of the fuel assemblies opens up the possibility of attack by terrorists.

McComas said security measures will be taken, including the use of guards.

"We are confident that the storage facility will be a viable option," McComas said. "It will be a safe way to store the fuel."

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Roger Hannah said dry cask storage was re-examined after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We did consider it post 9/11. There were a number of efforts to look at issues that were not considered before with dry cask storage. There were a number of enhancements made and there were some number of things done with equipment and personnel," Hannah said.

He would not elaborate.

The storage canisters to be used at the Brunswick property are of a horizontal, rather than vertical, design. Twenty of the modules, each with a storage capacity of four to five years, are scheduled to be on site by 2010. The canisters will be located about 200 yards north of the plant, near an access road running parallel to the plant's intake canal, utility officials said.

The storage site won't be visible from the road or from the Cape Fear River.

The commercial nuclear industry does not expect to be able to use the proposed federal repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., anytime soon.

Resistance to the project remains strong in Nevada. Industry observers have said the earliest the underground disposal site would begin accepting spent nuclear fuel is 2010, with more realistic projections of 2016 or 2017.

"The expectation is that at some point there will be a permanent disposal facility, but we are obviously cognizant of the fact it will be some time," Hannah said.

McComas said an electricity transmission line must be moved to make way for the Brunswick outdoor storage site, along with some towers that the line runs across. Underground fiber-optic cables, along with telephone and electricity lines, must also be rerouted, McComas said.

About 20 metric tons per year of used nuclear fuel is generated by a typical plant; about 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel is generated each year by the nuclear industry, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Used fuel is already stored at the Brunswick site in "spent fuel pools" in buildings housing the plant's two reactors.

"There are a number of plants that have been doing this for a while and a number of plants that are going to dry storage," Hannah said.

The pools inside the Brunswick reactor buildings are about 40 feet deep. The 14-foot assemblies housing the rods containing spent fuel emit radiation and must be cooled in water for five years until they lose some of their radioactivity and can be placed in dry cask storage.

Progress Energy must meet all NRC requirements before outside storage begins at Brunswick, Hannah added.

Progress Energy uses the same dry-cask technology at its Robinson Nuclear Plant in Hartsville, S.C., where outside storage of spent nuclear fuel began in 2005.

The utility also continues to transport fuel assemblies by train from the Brunswick plant in sealed canisters to Shearon Harris, a Progress Energy-operated nuclear plant in southwestern Wake County. The material is stored there in spent fuel pools.

The NRC license to ship the canisters by rail to the Shearon Harris plant will expire in 2008. There is enough capacity in the two spent fuel pools at the Brunswick plant to store the radioactive material until on-site dry storage is available, Progress Energy officials have said.

Ken Little: 343-2389

ken.little@starnewsonline.com

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WHEC-TV
April 09, 2007

Ginna is running out of room for its spent fuel rods
By Ray Levato

The Ginna Nuclear Power Plant has been producing electricity for our area for nearly 40 years. But, what happens to all that left over fuel?

Plant operators say they're running out of space, but have a safe plan to address the problem.

We're talking about enriched uranium. Think of a fuel rod as a little thinner and longer than a broomstick handle. And Ginna has used tens of thousands of them since it opened in 1969.

In fact, the Ginna Nuclear Power Plant is storing every spent fuel rod it has ever used and they are highly radioactive.

Until the Yucca Mountain storage site in Nevada is open, by law, nuclear power plants are required to store their spent fuel. But Ginna will run out of room in its spent fuel pool in 2009.

So Ginna will use what are called dry storage canisters made of steel and lead. The spent fuel will be put in those radioactively safe containers and stored in above ground concrete bunkers. Other nuclear power plants have been using this technology for almost 20 years.

“Our number one priority at Constellation Energy, owner of Ginna, is safety. We’ve taken a hard look at this design and we’ve benchmarked the industry. We think we have a very sound design. And I feel very confident that these dry storage canister will operate safely,” said Maria Korsnick, Vice President at Ginna.

“I know it is new to this area, but in terms of the industry as a whole, this is to some extent a ‘been there, done that’ kind of situation” said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. “Of the roughly 120 operating and closed nuclear power plant sites in the United States, over the past 20 years, half of those facilities have gone to dry storage.”

These same dry storage canisters are the ones that would be used to ship the fuel to Yucca Mountain. The Yucca Mountain storage site is not expected to be open until 2017 at the earliest.

The Ginna Nuclear Power Plant generates 585 mega watts of electricity, enough to supply about 350,000 homes.

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Fresno Bee
April 08, 2007

Conservatives warm to climate concernsFrom dams to power plants, GOP suggests its own fixes.By E.J. Schultz / Bee Capitol Bureau

How popular is global warming as a political issue?

So popular that even conservative state lawmakers are getting into the act, using the issue to sell everything from building dams and nuclear power plants to thinning forests.

The arguments are simple enough:

Higher temperatures reduce mountain snowpack, so more dams are needed to capture winter precipitation that falls as rain.

Nuclear power plants produce few greenhouse gases, the leading cause of man-made warming.

Forest fires, on the other hand, send plenty of gases into the air -- so why not encourage timber companies to clear more brush to reduce fire risk?

Environmentalists, who are skeptical of the proposals, are peeved that the other side has stolen their issue.

"Clearly these legislators are just dressing up their existing legislation with a thin veneer of a pretended concern about global warming," said Bill Magavern, senior representative for Sierra Club California.

Republican lawmakers strongly opposed last year's landmark legislation to cut the state's greenhouse gases by 25% by 2020. They criticized the bill as a job-killer and primitive attempt at placing local controls on a global problem.

Have they converted?

Not necessarily, says Assembly Member Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, author of the nuclear bill.

"It's politics," he said. "If the [Democratic] leadership has said this is a problem ... then all I'm suggesting is maybe this is one of the solutions we should look at."

That Republicans are now talking about climate change shows how far it has come, said GOP strategist Dan Schnur.

"You can always tell that an issue has evolved when both parties start using it," he said. "They're not arguing about global warming anymore in the state Legislature. They're arguing about what issue it next influences."

Without the backing of environmentalists, the Republican proposals will likely face an uphill fight in the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

But if passed, the bills could have a major effect in the Valley. The Fresno area is being targeted for a new dam and nuclear power plant. And the region is home to a struggling timber industry.

Here's a closer look at the legislation:

Momentum builds behind nuclear plants

DeVore's Assembly Bill 719 would lift a 31-year-old state ban on new nuclear power plants, clearing the way for a $4 billion plant proposed for Fresno by a group of prominent business leaders. He's titled the bill the "California Zero Carbon Dioxide Emission Electrical Generation Act of 2007."

About 13% of the state's electricity supply comes from nuclear plants, including two in California -- San Onofre in Southern California and Diablo Canyon in San Luis Obispo County -- according to a report last year by the California Energy Commission. But a state law passed in 1976 prohibits the construction of more plants until the federal government finds a way to dispose of high-level nuclear waste.

The most-discussed proposal is a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The project, opposed by Nevada officials, has stalled, however. The delays led the energy commission to say in its report that it "cannot conclude that the [federal government] will ever operate the permanent repository at Yucca Mountain."

DeVore says that even if a plant were approved today, it would be at least 10 years before it's operational. So by keeping the ban in place, "other states will be the first in line to build new, modern, and highly safe nuclear power plants, delaying the availability of this large-scale and reliable source of zero carbon dioxide emission electricity," he says in the bill.

Unlike plants that burn fossil fuels, nuclear plants emit few greenhouse gases. Such gases trap heat in the atmosphere, causing global warming, according to scientists.

Nuclear watchdog groups say nuclear plants are too expensive, pointing to cost overruns that have plagued previous projects. Construction of the Diablo Canyon plant exceeded the $320 million estimate by more than $5 billion, according to the energy commission.

Yet the emergence of global warming as a hot issue has given nuclear supporters some momentum. The 2005 Energy Bill passed by Congress includes federal loan guarantees for nuclear plant financing. Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, has said nuclear power should at least be on the table.

But Rochelle Becker, executive director of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility in San Luis Obispo, said DeVore is jumping the gun.

"Lifting this ban," she said, "would be absolutely irresponsible" without a solution to disposal of nuclear waste.

State moves to build more dams

Gov. Schwarzenegger, whose drive against global warming has gained international attention, has not taken a position on the nuclear bill. But the governor has used climate change to push for more dams.

His plan -- contained in Senate Bill 59 by Sen. Dave Cogdill, R-Modesto -- would put a $4 billion water bond on the 2008 ballot, including $2 billion for two dams. One dam is targeted for Temperance Flat, upstream of Friant Dam.

The state Department of Water Resources predicts warming will result in a loss of at least a quarter of the state's snowmelt runoff by 2050. This has led the department to recommend more surface storage to capture winter rain that today falls as snow.

"We are in desperate need to have more above-the-ground water storage," the governor said at a recent appearance at Friant Dam.

Environmentalists, who prefer conservation and more ground-water storage, say the governor is misguided.

The proposed site at Friant sits at the base of some of the highest mountains in the state. So even with rising temperatures, there will be plenty of snowpack at those higher elevations, said Barry Nelson, a senior analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"If you're going to build new storage to respond to climate change, probably the last place you'd build that storage is the southern Sierra," he said.

Also, research suggests global warming will cause more evaporation, meaning less runoff from the state's rivers and streams, Nelson said.

"You could be building a dam to capture water that won't be there in the future," he said.

Dam supporters say global warming is just one of many reasons to build dams. The other main argument is that more water is needed for the state's growing population.

"In reality," Cogdill said, "we just let too much [water] run into the ocean."

Tweaking the timber laws

Cogdill said he voted against last year's global warming legislation -- Assembly Bill 32 -- because he is skeptical that Californians can do much to reverse climate change: "To me, it's a big stretch to say that human beings can turn this around."

But now that the bill is law, Cogdill is not afraid to propose his own solutions. His Senate Bill 572 would direct the state to consider emissions created by catastrophic wildfires as officials implement AB 32.

Cogdill is still finalizing the bill's details but said it could allow timber companies to cut down more trees without going through extensive and costly environmental reviews. That would give loggers more of an incentive to clear the smaller brush that fuels forest fires, he said, and at the same time could help revive the region's long-struggling timber industry.

"The whole thing could be a win-win," he said.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide -- a greenhouse gas -- from the atmosphere. But when forests burn, gases are released, contributing to warming.

Cogdill's argument rests on the belief that reducing devastating forest fires will cut carbon emissions. But forest management is a delicate art.

Cutting down large trees can actually increase fire risk because "those are the fire-resilient trees," said Dave Jaramillo, fire protection coordinator of the Sierra Forest Legacy, an environmental coalition.

When a forest burns, the amount of gases released depends on the intensity and size of a fire. But, in general, carbon dioxide emitted from forest fires pales in comparison to emissions from power plants, cars and airplanes, said Jim Randerson, a professor of earth system science at the University of California at Irvine, who studies fires and climate change.

In California, for example, fossil fuel consumption by vehicles accounts for 41% of all greenhouse gas emissions, according to a report by Schwarzenegger's Climate Action Team.

In general, loggers can remove trees of up to 18 inches in diameter without going through a rigorous review, as long as they remove brush to reduce fire risk. Cogdill's proposal would allow loggers to take bigger trees. (A bill by another lawmaker seeks to allow cutting of trees up to 24 inches.)

"I'm not talking about going in and massively clear cutting," Cogdill said. "I'm talking about some tweaks to our law."

The Sierra Club California hasn't taken a position on Cogdill's plan because it is still being developed.

Paul Mason, a legislative representative with the group, said the devil is in the details. If you allow for too many exemptions, he said, you "undermine the logging review process."

--The reporter can be reached at eschultz@fresnobee.com or (916) 326-5541.

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San Francisco Chronicle
April 08, 2007

Fresno a player in debate over nuclear power

Proposal for plant in city faces obstacles, but technology is on cusp of national rebirth

Keay Davidson
Chronicle Science Writer

Fresno, a fast-growing former farming community popularly associated with raisins, is seeking a higher-tech image -- as the future home of a nuclear power plant that could supply power for 1.6 million to 2 million homes.

"Nuclear power holds great promise for the entire San Joaquin Valley," Fresno Mayor Alan Autry told reporters in December, when a group of local businessmen unveiled plans for the plant. "We must find a way to become energy self-sufficient."

The Fresno plan is one of dozens for new power plants in the United States, where the rising costs of natural gas and coal, concerns about global warming, and $8 billion in incentives from the federal government are renewing interest in atomic energy.

Almost all of the 30 applications for new reactors expected in the next few years are likely to come from Southern states, which need relief from the cost and pollution of coal plants.

While wider acceptance of nuclear power might be more of a struggle in California due to a strong anti-nuclear movement and a 31-year ban on reactor development, some experts think many of the proposed reactors in other states will be built.

Groups in Virginia, Maryland, Idaho, Texas, Michigan and New York are considering building new plants, but the nuclear power industry sees its brightest future in Southeastern states, which, unlike California, look to nuclear plants as engines of economic development.

The first formal applications for new plants are expected to begin coming into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later this year, said agency spokesman David McIntyre.

"Nuclear energy seems to be poised on the verge of a significant rebirth in this country and around the world," Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, said at a House of Representatives hearing in September. "For reasons of energy independence, national security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear energy seems to be our best option for providing significant base load generating capacity in the foreseeable future."

Credit for the newfound interest in nuclear power can be traced to the Bush administration, which was responsible for the 2005 Energy Policy Act. The act, approved by Congress, dangled $8 billion in incentives for nuclear power plant construction. Since then, more than 20 utilities and private groups have expressed interest in constructing new reactors, in most cases on the sites of pre-existing nuclear power plants.

In December, North Carolina-based Progress Energy announced a tentative plan to build a nuclear power plant in Levy County, Fla., that would generate between 1,100 and 1,600 megawatts, enough to power at least 675,000 homes, said Progress spokesman Buddy Eller. Nuclear power is "one of our most economical forms of energy," Eller said. "We've seen tremendous growth here in Florida in recent years. Our obligation is to provide reliable and affordable energy that will meet the needs of our customers."

Additionally, he said, nuclear energy produces no greenhouse gases, an argument shared by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lobbying arm in Washington, which claims that the United States will need 45 percent more electricity by 2030 than it generates today. Constructing 50 new 1,000-megawatt reactors -- a 50 percent increase in the number of U.S. commercial reactors -- in the next 23 years would not only significantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, but would also help meet the nation's electricity needs, institute officials say.

Such an increase in nuclear plant production would mark quite a reversal in fortune for an industry whose domestic sales have been stagnant thanks to cost overruns and numerous atomic power accidents, most notoriously at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979.

In the popular imagination, these debacles made TV's buffoonish nuclear plant worker Homer Simpson into a symbol of the atomic age.

McIntyre said it's been nearly 33 years since an application was received for a nuclear power plant that was subsequently built and 11 years since an operating license was issued to operate one. That Watts Bar, Tenn., plant is still operating.

Still, several obstacles stand in the way of a nuclear revival in the United States, including the wariness of Wall Street.

Nuclear power plant construction "is incredibly capital-intensive, both the research and the construction of facilities," said Andrew Friendly, a venture capital investor with Advanced Technology Ventures in Boston, a company that helps fund cutting-edge energy technologies. "No one wants it in their backyard and we still haven't figured out what do with the waste."

On paper, nuclear power has always looked great. Since the 1950s, one of the industry's most effective boasts has been to point out how a few thimblefuls of uranium can generate as much energy as dozens of trainloads of coal, which is a major source of greenhouse gases. They also note that North America has abundant uranium, so nuclear power doesn't require reliance on foreign fuel.

But opponents will point out there is more to the nuclear industry than the nation's 100-plus operational atomic power plants scattered across the map. There is also a national infrastructure of rail lines and highway shippers whose job it is to ferry nuclear and spent fuel to and from reactors and to temporary storage sites.

If anything kills further nuclear reactor development in the United States, though, it's likely to be a problem that has haunted the entire nuclear age: nuclear waste.

In the 1970s, federal officials promised to take spent nuclear fuel off the utilities' hands and bury it somewhere. One possibility included burying it inside craters gouged in the Nevada desert by atom bomb tests.

Ultimately, the U.S. Energy Department came up with a plan to build a dump site 1,000 feet under Yucca Mountain in Nevada, a site surrounded by earthquake faults and dormant volcanoes. But ferocious opposition from Nevada residents and scientific uncertainties about the safety of the site have stalled the plan for years.

The death knell may have come in November when Democrats were handed control of Congress. Yucca Mountain is "dead right now," declared Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., shortly before his elevation to Senate majority leader.

For now, 50,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and waste remain at 72 reactor sites across the country, including in dry cask containers at Diablo Canyon.

Ignoring California's ban on new nuclear power plants, a group of local businessmen in December unveiled tentative plans for Fresno Nuclear Energy Group LLC in collaboration with a Baltimore-based reactor construction firm.

Backers say that new, improved nuclear reactor designs will make the Fresno plant safer than its accident-prone predecessors. They believe the plant will provide not only abundant electricity to the fast-growing region and state, but also attract hundreds of jobs and generate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tax revenues.

"Domestic violence in our area went up 60 percent in the last 10 years," said John Hutson, who until recently chaired the Fresno Utility Commission and is backing the plan. "Why is this? Lack of opportunities. When guys don't have jobs, they beat their wife and kids. ... All of these community-related problems can be addressed by creating opportunities (for jobs), and nothing creates opportunities like cheap electricity."

The business group has found favor with Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine (Orange County), who has introduced legislation to lift the ban. Few expect DeVore's bill to pass in a Democratically controlled Legislature in a state where environmentalism is strong.

New nuclear plants won't open for business in California, "and it's not because of any legal prohibitions," said Ralph Cavanagh of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "There's an abundance of better alternatives."

And for environmentalists, safety is still of paramount concern.

"What is Fresno thinking?" demanded longtime activist Rochelle Becker, executive director of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility in San Luis Obispo. "Nuclear power is not safe, cheap or insurable, and it leaves behind highly radioactive waste for our children, and their grandchildren and their grandchildren."

The state has begun a study into the future of nuclear power in California.

Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee, a San Luis Obispo Republican whose legislation created the study, said he is neither for nor against nuclear power, but prefers alternative energy sources, which are more forgiving when things go awry. "No one's suggesting that terrorists are going to fly aircraft into solar panels, or that if wind power doesn't live up to its hopes, it will result in a legacy of thousands of years of wastes," he said.

Energy consultant Charles Cicchetti of Pacific Economics Group and the University of Southern California thinks future nuclear power could be cost-effective outside of California, especially with dramatic increases in oil prices.

As for California, though -- forget it. "California leads the nation in wind power and is approaching the lead in solar, and has geothermal resources that are among ... the biggest such sources in the world," Cicchetti said.

But Hutson, the nuclear backer in Fresno, sees nuclear energy as a solution for the Golden State.

"I would characterize myself as a liberal-left Democrat," he said. "The only thing I've got in common with the Bush administration is that we're both for nuclear."

NUCLEAR HISTORY

Dec. 8, 1953: President Dwight Eisenhower starts his "Atoms for Peace" project, which will push for development of commercial nuclear power worldwide.

July 12, 1957: Santa Susana (Los Angeles County) begins receiving the nation's first commercial electricity from a small civilian-owned nuclear reactor. Over the next decade, the plant will suffer two partial meltdowns; it is closed for good in 1964. An independent team of scientists later reports the plant might be responsible for hundreds of cancer cases.

Sept. 2, 1957: Eisenhower signs the Price-Anderson Act, which limits firms' liability in commercial nuclear disasters.

Dec. 2, 1957: The nation's first full-scale nuclear power plant switches on in Shippingport, Pa.

1964: After a six-year battle with environmentalists, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. abandons plans to build a nuclear reactor at Bodega Bay. The fight marks the emergence of the California anti-nuclear movement.

1973: U.S. utilities order 41 new nuclear plants in one year, more than any ordered for a single year. Most of them will never be built.

1976: The California Legislature bans new nuclear plant construction until certain problems are overcome, notably how to dispose of nuclear waste.

April 7, 1977: To discourage nuclear weapons proliferation, President Jimmy Carter stops the reprocessing of used nuclear fuel rods. The move is a blow to the U.S. commercial nuclear industry, which had counted on reprocessing to minimize spent fuel and nuclear waste.

March 28, 1979: Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Harrisburg, Pa., forces thousands of residents to evacuate. Cleanup costs more than $1 billion. The accident energizes anti-nuclear movements across nation.

April 26, 1986: Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster near Ukraine in Soviet Union renders thousands of square miles uninhabitable and forces hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate permanently. Many experts suspect the long-term contamination will cause thousands of cancer deaths.

1989: The Sacramento Municipal Utility District shuts down the Rancho Seco nuclear plant because of high costs and repeated failures.

1998: President Bill Clinton authorizes U.S. nuclear reactor sales to China in an effort to revive the stagnant U.S. nuclear industry.

May 17, 2001: The Bush administration launches its pro-nuclear power campaign, saying that atomic energy must be "a major component of the United States fuel mix."

Feb. 15, 2002: President Bush announces that he hopes to open Yucca Mountain, Nev., as a final burial site for the nation's nuclear spent fuel and waste. The project remains bogged down in scientific uncertainties about groundwater risks, litigation with the state of Nevada and a scandal involving three scientists' alleged manipulation of project data.

March 2002: Investigators shut down a nuclear reactor vessel at the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio after discovering corrosion that has put it close to rupture. Experts call it the worst incident at a nuclear power facility since Three Mile Island.

Jan. 31, 2006: Bush announces plans for a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership under which United States would promote nuclear energy development at home and abroad.

Sources: Nuclear Energy Institute, Chronicle news sources

--E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com.

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Palm Beach Post
April 08, 2007

Has nuke's time returned?

By Kristi E. Swartz
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Editor's note: This is the second in an occasional series examining alternative approaches to providing America's energy supply.

Like skinny jeans, wedge heels and bubble skirts, nuclear power is making something of a comeback after being shunned for nearly three decades.

A new plant hasn't been built in the United States since 1978, but electric companies now say nuclear power might be the best way for the nation to cut its dependence on volatile foreign sources of fossil fuels - primarily oil and natural gas - as well as scale back the carbon emissions that are believed to contribute to climate change.

"Nuclear has a very important role to play in a carbon-constrained environment," said Lew Hay III, chief executive officer of FPL Group Inc. Subsidiary Florida Power & Light Co. operates four nuclear reactors in Florida and last week said it wants to build two more.

But nuclear power has the same downsides it had 30 years ago.

The country's nuclear industry slowed in the late 1970s as interest rates and inflation mounted, but things ground to a halt in 1979 after the accident at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pa. A series of mechanical failures caused the nuclear fuel pellets to melt.

Seven years later, a steam explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, heightened fears and spread doubt about the future of such plants.

In addition, the byproduct of nuclear fission is a dangerous waste that needs to be carefully stored. Congress has promised a national storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, but the project has been stalled repeatedly by federal lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, now the Senate's majority leader.

Further, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks didn't instill any confidence in the plants' security, as more questions were raised about whether planes would be able to fly into any one of the nation's 103 operating reactors.

"The only reason we're discussing reactors at this point is because of climate change," said Jim Riccio, nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace. "That's what's given them the leg up. But it's only rhetorical."

Adding megawatts

One of the primary reasons utilities want to build more nuclear reactors is the massive amount of energy they provide.

That's critical for FPL, which adds an average of 100,000 residential and business customers each year. It's just as important for the nation as a whole. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says the country's demand for power will soar 45 percent over the next 30 years, mostly because of the rapid increase in the number of electron-gobbling gadgets consumers plug in every day.

"Given the demand they are facing and the overall demand increase through 2030, they know they have to build some baseload power," said Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Washington-based Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group.

The federal government agrees.

President Bush has created the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which calls for new plants, the reprocessing of nuclear waste and a demonstration project that would use the reprocessed waste as fuel. The administration also has split the cost of siting three new reactors with Exelon Corp. of Chicago, Dominion Power of Richmond, Va., and Entergy Corp. of New Orleans.

"We're trying to create an environment where we can have a nuclear renaissance," U.S. Department of Energy spokesman Craig Stevens said. "Nuclear is the only available baseload power generation we have that can meet the growing demand of energy technology around the world."

FPL President Armando Olivera told the Florida Energy Commission in February that FPL thinks nuclear power is the best long-term strategy for the United States. It's also the cheapest fuel, costing the utility - and consumers - much less than natural gas and coal.

FPL operates four nuclear reactors in South Florida - two at the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant on Hutchinson Island, and two at Turkey Point in Miami-Dade County - and said last week that Turkey Point is "one potential site" for one and perhaps two more reactors.

Olivera wants to build more plants to the point that nuclear power makes up between 50 percent and 60 percent of FPL's fuel mix. Right now it makes up about 20 percent. Natural gas is at the 50 percent point, making FPL and its customers vulnerable to price fluctuations as well as supply shortages.

Hay said last month he's a "big fan" of nuclear power, not least because of its potential to help the nation out of its energy-independence bind. In the next breath Hay acknowledged the negatives - what to do with the spent fuel rods and the possibility that reactors could be the target of terrorist attacks.

And, for a utility, the major challenges are how long it takes for federal and state agencies to approve a plant - more than 10 years - and the billions of dollars it takes to build one.

Still, "nuclear has to be a part of the solution," Hay said.

Chief Development Officer Michael Leighton said that building two reactors at Turkey Point "makes more sense than one" but that the company has not committed to a type of reactor technology or any other specific plans.

The last nuclear reactor to go online in the U.S. was Watts Bar I near Spring City, Tenn., which began supplying power in 1996.

Construction on the Tennessee Valley Authority plant began in the early 1970s. There's a second reactor at Watts Bar, but TVA suspended its construction in 1988 because the demand for power was expected to slow, the company said.

For the two decades after Three Mile Island, the nuclear industry suffered from a tainted safety record as well as an average of four or five unplanned outages each year, caused when something other than routine maintenance forces a utility to shut down a reactor for at least a couple of days.

Regular shutdowns for maintenance and refueling typically take place once every year to 18 months.

Now, those unplanned shutdowns average less than one a year, and the industry's Occupational Safety and Health Administration record is better than some manufacturing and service industries.

"I think some people remember back in the early 1990s when our performance wasn't really that good, and the policymakers through the public didn't support nuclear," said Adrian Heymer, the Nuclear Energy Institute's senior director for new plant deployment.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says FPL's safety performance at its two plants has been very good.

"From the agency's perspective, there were some issues from a number of years ago, but the company addressed those issues, and currently the plants are meeting all of the NRC operations and guidelines," said Roger Hannah, a spokesman for the agency's Atlanta-based Region 2.

In St. Lucie County, the homeowners association that governs Hutchinson Island considers FPL to be a "valued neighbor," said County Commissioner Charles Grande, who sat on the citizens advisory board when the reactors were being planned. He considers FPL to be a good operator of the nuclear plants and said having those plants creates good jobs as well as adds to the county's tax base.

"They are a plus rather than a minus, which is a funny thing to say because, well, hey, you live next to a nuclear plant," Grande said. "Almost any way you look at it, they are a plus, and we are happy to have them here."

Governments add incentives

Federal and state governments are trying different incentives to encourage utilities to build nuclear plants and investors to finance them.

In Florida, Virginia and the Carolinas, for example, utilities can now start recovering construction costs from consumers while the plant is being built instead of when it starts operating.

The federal 2005 Energy Policy Act offers loan guarantees for nuclear and any low-emitting plant, allowing what's known as merchant power plants to be built with 80 percent of the financing being underwritten by the federal government.

"If you do that, the debt service is substantially lower, and it's very attractive," Heymer at the Nuclear Energy Institute said.

When it comes to nuclear plants, it's the money issue that riles some opponents the most.

"Lots of companies are lining up to file license applications," said Geoff Fettus, senior project attorney with the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council. "They are getting in line for massive federal subsides."

As part of the 2005 Energy Act, Congress set aside nearly $13 billion in subsidies for nuclear plants.

The incentives include:

* Production tax credits.

* Paying for half of the cost it takes for utilities to get a license to build and operate the plant.

* Regulatory risk insurance, which allows utilities to recover money from customers even if there is a regulatory delay in securing the operating license.

Fettus said he'd rather see that money go toward promoting renewable energy or energy efficiency so the plants don't have to be built at all. When it comes to nuclear, he said, there are too many problems with handling the waste and with safety and security to promote it with financial incentives.

"We think subsidies for a mature, polluting industry aren't right," he said.

Florida's fifth nuclear reactor, at Crystal River north of Tampa, is operated by St. Petersburg-based Progress Energy Florida.

The company wants to build another reactor in nearby Levy County, and Progress spokeswoman Cherie Jacobs said things are turning more favorable for nuclear power.

"The tide is changing," Jacobs said. "I think that people are realizing the impacts that power plants can have on the world we live in, namely environmental."

Environmental groups such as Greenpeace aren't so sure.

"The intractable opposition is because we have memories that extend beyond 10 minutes ago," said Riccio, the policy analyst. "The history of this industry is not one that engenders confidence, especially for investors."

The future of nuclear power in the state and the nation might come down to the everyday person for whom the potential dangers might outweigh the risk.

"Their inability to get rid of the spent fuel is what's the most frightening, and you just don't build something with no way to handle the spent fuel," said Helen Spivey, a former Florida House representative and co-chairwoman of the Save the Manatee Club. "Now you've got it, what are you going to do with it?"

Spivey lives in Homosassa, 12 miles from the Crystal River nuclear plant.

"I don't want to glow," she said.

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Columbus Free Press
April 07, 2007

Solartopia! An achievable vision of a sustainable future
by Daniel Redwood

Harvey Wasserman is an activist sage, a social change visionary and prolific author. A journalist and historian, he has for over three decades fought for a renewable green future and an America that lives up to its professed ideals. His new book SOLARTOPIA! Our Green Powered Earth, A.D. 2030 is a report from the future, from a world that has successfully made the transition from the age of coal, oil, and nuclear energy to a fully sustainable civilization built on renewable energy.

What is most striking about Wasserman's vision, as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. notes in his foreword to SOLARTOPIA! is that all of the technology needed to midwife this transition already exists. All that is needed is the will to make the change.

In 1968, Wasserman helped found the Liberation News Service and Massachusetts' communal/organic Montague Farm, now home to the Zen Peacemaker Community, International. In 1973 he helped pioneer the global grassroots movement against atomic reactors, and coined the phrase "No Nukes" in 1974. He was a media spokesperson for the Clamshell Alliance and helped organize mass demonstrations at Seabrook, New Hampshire against reactors being built there.

Wasserman has appeared on National Public Radio, Today, Nightline, Lou Dobbs Tonight and other major media. He has been a senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, an investigative reporter, and senior editor of The Columbus Free Press and www.freepress.org.

SOLARTOPIA! is available at www.solartopia.org.

REDWOOD: At a time when great environmental destruction is occurring and a worldwide scientific consensus predicts much, much more, your book SOLARTOPIA! comes as a surprise. It looks back from the vantage point of the year 2030, when the world has transitioned to a sustainable economy and culture. Are you as optimistic as your book is?

WASSERMAN: I am. I'm genuinely optimistic because I see we have the technology to make the transition to a world based on renewable energy, and I've always been a believer in the ability of human social movements to make political and cultural change. I believe that our species has a built-in survival mechanism and that we will not allow ourselves to be extincted on this planet. I see getting to Solartopia more as a question of ecological and economic survival and less as a utopian fantasy. The year 2030 is chosen because I don't think the planet can sustain our ecocidal rampage much past that. So I think our survival mechanisms will kick in and we will do what we must to survive, which is transition to Solartopia.

In his introduction to SOLARTOPIA!, Robert Kennedy, Jr. mentions the 1953 Paley Commission report, commissioned by President Truman and delivered in 1952. It recommended that the United States lead the world by building an economy based on renewables. Why didn't this happen?

Because in 1952, Dwight Eisenhower opted for the so-called 'peaceful atom,' which is the ultimate oxymoron. He took us down the wrong path. It was a trillion dollar error and really has cost us many trillions of dollars when you figure in the true costs of the wars we have fought for energy since 1953. We could have embarked on a path of renewables 54 years ago that would have gotten us to a place where we would now be energy self-sufficient. All of the things that I predict in SOLARTOPIA! could have been real today had it not been for the essentially military decision to build nuclear power plants.

There are many examples in SOLARTOPIA! of practical applications of wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable energy sources, where your narrator-historian looks back from 2030 and cites examples of projects started somewhere between 1980 and 2006, mostly in Europe, that eventually fully replaced the petroleum economy. Could you tell us about some of these things that are happening now, that you see as the first steps?

Germany is actually saturated on its land-based wind sites. They have built so many windmills that they're pretty much out of space for building more. Spain is approaching a similar situation. You're going to see -- certainly by 2030, and way before that - all of Europe covered with wind power wherever it's available. One of the important things about Solartopia is that none of it is magical. It's all based on currently available technology. One of the messages is that you can project out, based on what we have now, a totally sustainable economy in 2030. We don't have to have any magical new inventions to get us over some hump. No perpetual motion machine, no multiplying the energy of solar. Everything we need to get to a 100 percent green economy, we have today. It's reasonable to project improvements but it's also reasonable to understand that this is not some pie-in-the-sky, deus ex machina scenario. We have what we need right now.

One of the things I talk about a lot is offshore wind power, which was first envisioned by William Heronemus, from the University of Massachusetts, who did sketches of large wind arrays which would be set up offshore. I just came across some sketches of his that were sent to me by a cohort of his at the University of Massachusetts, and he does not have windmills inside what we call the Golden Triangle between Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

Because?

That's where they're fighting over it. All the big windmills are five miles offshore. So what I envision in SOLARTOPIA! is very large platforms in the ocean, as Heronemus did. Multiple windmills on them and solar collectors, tidal and ocean thermal generators, and also artificial reefs, so that we can start to revive our oceans.

What are the artificial reefs made of?

Strong filaments which will collect algae and barnacles and serve as feeding stations. I believe that, at least in the interim, we're going to have to put nutrients into the ocean to revive the fish populations, and that's do-able based on new algae that we're finding already, and renewable-based growth of sustainable crops that can help rebuild fish populations and other key pieces of the marine ecology. The oceans are now in very bad shape. They're being over-fished. And the answer is not fish farming. We may have to juice up the ocean with nutrients to revive fish populations, but fish farming is not going to work.

It seems to be just factory farming under water.

That's right. That's a good phrase, actually.

In Solartopia in 2030, our current use of vast tracts of land to raise animals for meat, and to raise the grain to feed them, has changed drastically. There are both environmental and moral aspects to this issue. How did you deal with it in your book?

In Solartopia, much less meat will be eaten, for health, financial and ecological reasons. Factory farming has already been proven unsustainable. But Solartopia is a feisty, argumentative place. Not everyone will be a "Vegetopian," nor will meat, fish or dairy consumption disappear. Likewise, there will be no magical unanimity on issues of population and reproduction. But with the empowerment of women, we can envision a natural balance.

Why are renewables considered by some to be less economically viable today than petroleum?

They're not doing the math. You have a lot of people with vested interests in petroleum. But if you do the math and calculate in the ecological costs of petroleum, the health costs of petroleum and the military costs of petroleum, it's not even close. There's no real price competition between solar and other forms of renewables, when compared to petroleum. Petroleum has been priced out of the market. And the scenario of getting to Solartopia is based in part on a rational assessment of the true costs of petroleum. Once you do that, petroleum is out of the ballpark.

So absent the need for petroleum, you don't think the United States would be engaging in wars in the Middle East.

No, absolutely not. This war in Iraq is about Bush proving himself to his father, it's about Republican scare tactics to hold onto the government, it's about military profiteering by Halliburton. But ultimately, it's about oil. There's simply no mistaking the fact that Iraq is a country that happens to have huge oil reserves, that the United States is addicted to oil, and that's why the military is there. It's no different than a junkie breaking into someone's house to take their dope stash. That's what this war is, really.

Corn and soy based ethanol and often touted (particularly when presidential candidates campaign in Iowa) as model renewables. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach? Are people still burning corn in Solartopia in the year 2030?

Absolutely not. There is no corn-based ethanol in the future and no soy-based diesel. Maybe for the next few years. But in Solartopia and, you will see, very soon in the real world, there will be no using annual food crops for fuel. It's not sustainable. I do believe there is an energy gain from using corn for ethanol. People argue about that one. There's very definitely an energy gain using soy for diesel. That is clearly a more efficient use of a food crop than corn-based ethanol. Ethanol is a very good idea, and there's a huge place for ethanol in the future, but it's not going to come from corn or any other food crop.

What will it come from?

It will come from hemp, from miscanthus, from switchgrass, from poplar trees. There will be other crops very soon that we'll get our ethanol from.

Why are these sustainable?

First of all, they're perennials. The major problem with corn is that you have to plant it every year. It makes no sense. It's a tremendously energy-intensive process to plant crops. You want crops that will come back year after year, like hemp. Anybody who's grown hemp (and I'll bet many of your readers have) understands that it reseeds itself. You can plant a crop like hemp for many years without having to rotate your crops plant that does not wreck the soil in the short term; it puts nutrients back into the soil, unlike corn, which really ruins the soil if you plant it too often. Soy is also an annual crop. That means you have to expend the energy to replant it year after year. But rapeseed (canola), hemp, and other good-for-oil crops are perennials. They will displace soy very quickly. Biodiesel and bioethanol are both very useful and important fuels, but we're not using the right crops right now.

How important are photovoltaics in the Solartopian future?

Photovoltaics (PV) constitute one of the three basic fuels of Solartopia. They are what I call the Solartopian Trinity, which is wind, solar (most importantly PV) and biofuels. Photovoltaics are at the core of the Solartopian model because they allow the generation of electricity on every building in the world. There's this myth that King CONG (the Coal, Oil, Nukes, and Gas industries) puts out, that in order to have photovoltaics you have to cover a land mass the size of Arizona. That might be true, but the land mass is not going to be Arizona, but the rooftops of every building in the world. That's the beauty of photovoltaics. You put them on the rooftop or on the south side of the buildings and you have no transmission costs. This is a huge deal; we lose a tremendous percentage of our generated electricity by putting it over wires. Whereas if you put it on your rooftop there's no such problem, no loss of capacity. So photovoltaics are right at the heart of the Solartopian model of energy self-sufficiency.

Is the idea here that buildings will produce more energy than they will consume?

Yes, because you are also going to have ultra-efficiency. You know, we're putting in these compact fluorescent bulbs. They're very good and very important, but they will very quickly be transcended by LED (light-emitting diodes) which use a fraction of the electricity used by compact fluorescents. We have a huge surplus of production that is wasted and that can be recaptured with increased efficiency. So the path to Solartopia is already partly greased with all this excess energy we can very simply and cheaply reclaim and re-direct. The presumption that we need huge new levels of consumption in the future is thus false, because we waste so much of what we have now, and what we will be building will be so much more efficient, especially as we transition to mass transit.]

In the Solartopian future, do the countries that we now call the Third World manage to leap-frog past the Age of Oil?

Yes, you'll see a lot of Third World countries that are never going to get addicted to coal, oil, or even natural gas for their energy sources. They won't have to build a grid either. Some of the countries in Africa don't have a grid, don't have central generating stations and never will because they can go straight to photovoltaics. It's just the same as with cellular phones; countries that are industrializing, those few that are left that don't have telephone systems, will never build a telephone grid. They'll all be using cellular phones. You have a lot of houses built in the United States today that don't have telephone wiring. You don't need it. What's the point? That's a big plus for the future of Solartopia, a huge avoided cost.

You write that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were the end of the Age of Oil. This obviously hasn't quite played out yet. The Bush Administration seems to be the quintessential Age of Oil administration. Looking back from 2030, how did we get past this?

I made a decision not to mention Bush in the book. He will be so insignificant. He's done a tremendous amount of damage but he's a dinosaur. Everything they're doing is the flailing of the tail of a dying dinosaur. So, they have done their best to hold back the necessary technological revolution, but ultimately the steps they're not taking will be rapidly taken by other people and by future leaders. And actually, they will be driven by money. That's the other thing that's important to understand about the future of renewables. There are political decisions to be made. The primary political decision is to force fossil fuels and nuclear power to pay their true costs, which they're avoiding currently.

The people with the money, the big money, are going to abandon fossil and nuclear power very rapidly. They're in the process now. There is unlimited capital right now for wind power. If you have a viable wind site and you can get a buyer for your wind-driven electricity and the necessary permits, there will be people lining up at your door to fund your project. John Deere, Warren Buffet, Edison Capital, Goldman Sachs, all the big players have seen that the investments in wind power are hugely profitable. Next will be photovoltaics and biofuels.

Do you see a massive number of wind farms blooming across the prairies and other parts of the United States?

West of the Mississippi, we will be saturated, although I think we'll run out of demand before we run out of supply from wind power west of the Mississippi. The windmills in Minnesota now are incredibly profitable. The return on the dollar is enormous and getting higher. I won't say there's infinite wind out there, but we know that with current technology, there's enough wind in North Dakota, Texas and Kansas alone to provide 100 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States, even as inefficient as we are.

I doubt that many people are aware of that.

Between the Mississippi and the Rockies, there is 300 percent. In other words, you could take currently available wind turbines, plant them in the states between the Mississippi and the Rockies, and harvest 300 percent of the electricity that we now use. Now, it's not going to happen quite that way, because we will also break into the world of efficiency. Also, it's not the best place to have all of the electricity coming from, because there are large transmission costs. That's why photovoltaics are so important. And biofuels will complement them, especially in the transportation sector.

The other major transition, of course, is away from the automobile and back to mass transit. One of the things people have to understand is that this country had a magnificent mass transit system prior to the 1950s, and it was deliberately dismantled. This is not one of those off-the-wall conspiracy theories. It's a conspiracy, but it happened, it's been documented, there was a federal court case on it, and there's no disputing that the public transportation systems in 80 cities in the United States were purposely destroyed by General Motors, Standard Oil and the glass and rubber companies.

How did they do that?

Through financial and political power. They went city by city, and either bought up -- or had municipal governments destroy -- the light rail systems, the trolley systems. I'm old enough to remember a trolley system in Columbus, Ohio. This is an indisputable fact. I would like to make a movie called The Murder of the Red Line, which I mentioned in the book as having been made. Part of that is actually a film proposal for a documentary film.

It's an amazing story. The Red Line in Los Angeles went from Santa Monica on the ocean all the way to the valleys. There were hundreds of miles of trolley line in Los Angeles. People had no idea about automobiles, didn't want automobiles. This alleged love affair with the automobile was a shotgun wedding, because they killed the first spouse, and that was the mass transit system. Interestingly, there is a very accurate portrayal in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? the mixed cartoon-human comedy film. They talk about the Red Line and how great it was and then they have the evil Christopher Lloyd come in and talk about how beautiful the freeway system will be.

People in the 1920s were not interested in private automobiles until the mass transit system was destroyed. There was a conscious effort by Albert Sloan of General Motors, who realized that his true competition was not Ford or Chrysler, but rather the trolley car system. They consciously destroyed those systems and they need to be rebuilt. We cannot stand the automobile. Much as people claim to love their automobiles, they also have always loved trains in this country. We have to restore city-to-city passenger rail service and we also have to restore the intra-urban trolley system.

Among the most striking changes you report on from the year 2030 is the dismantling of the dams that now control the flow of great rivers. Why did this turn out to be a good idea? What's wrong with dams?

It's not merely a good idea, it's a necessity for survival. The biggest crisis we face in the future, bar none, is not oil or gas or coal or nuclear power -- it's water. These dams have completely screwed up our arteries and veins, which are our river systems. You have, throughout the world now, dead inland seas like Lake Mono in California and dying rivers like the Yellow River in China, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, rivers that don't reach the ocean any more, that have dried up. We can't live without water and the dams have screwed up our natural life support systems. In Solartopia, they are no longer necessary for electricity, they're obsolete. There are also ways to use hydropower without building dams, free-floating turbines and wave bobbers that don't require the damming up of an entire river. We can't sustain rivers being dammed up anymore. One of the things that happens when you dam a river is that you lose a tremendous amount of water from evaporation from the lakes that are behind the dams. We will not be able to sustain that. We need to restore the riverine ecosystems and the fish they support. These dams will come down. There's no alternative to that in terms of our survival.

What happens to the nuclear industry in your future scenario?

It completely disappears except for its waste, which we'll be dealing with forever. There's absolutely no place for nuclear power in the present or future. It is the worst technological failure in human history. We can only thank our lucky stars that on September 11, those guys didn't drop down and hit Indian Point, [a nuclear plant] 75 miles north of Manhattan. Every single nuclear plant we have now is a terrorist target, a weapon of mass destruction. They cannot be defended militarily and economically they are a disaster. You are going to see this alleged revival of nuclear power is not going to materialize. These plants cannot compete with renewables. There is not a single nuclear power plant in the world that can compete with wind power right now. If you properly account for the true costs, they certainly cannot compete with photovoltaic cells or with biofuels.

You are not hearing any great enthusiasm for nuclear plants from Wall Street. We've wasted a trillion dollars on nuclear power, and it is getting less safe and less economical. A Nuclear Regulatory Commission member, Edward McGaffigan, has basically said that Yucca Mountain, the first alleged nuclear waste storage facility, can't come online for at least 15 years and probably more like 20. By that time, you are going to have more than twice as many spent fuel rods to be stored as Yucca Mountain can handle. In SOLARTOPIA! as we fly over Yucca Mountain, the narrator comments that it has now been turned into a casino and a health spa in the middle of the desert. I will tell you flat-out that it will never house nuclear waste. We have got to stop producing the stuff. In SOLARTOPIA! we look back at the March of the Meltdowns. This industry is the biggest albatross around our necks of any in human history. It actually makes the oil industry look good.

The Tom Hanks-Ron Howard movie Apollo 13 is required watching for all students in Solartopia. Why?

Apollo 13, as you will recall, barely made it back to Earth, and they did it by preserving every electron of energy that they could muster on that stricken spaceship. In my scenario, it became the model for energy conservation. Because we on this Earth, like Apollo 13, are in a spaceship hanging onto survival by our fingernails, and what we have to do is preserve every ounce, every joule that we can muster. You know, there is an Apollo Project of labor unions and others that are pushing renewables. In Solartopia, they're still around and still very much involved in making sure that the solar industry is unionized. There is a dimension of social justice in SOLARTOPIA! We presume that in Solartopia, nobody starves. We still have rich people and moderately poor people, but everybody gets food, clothing, housing, transportation and education. Women control the reproductive process; that's how the population problem is solved. But ultimately, everything has to be accounted for and there is no waste. The number one rule in Solartopia is that nothing is produced that can't be 100 percent recycled.

In SOLARTOPIA! you allude to a very difficult period of time, especially in the United States, during the transition from where we are now to where we will be in 2030. It sounds like you think that it will be a very bumpy ride, perhaps more so here than elsewhere, Europe in particular. And you didn't go into too much detail on the bumps and the process. Anything you'd like to add?

Yes. We are on the brink of a major depression economically, because of our dependence on foreign oil, and the enormous debt that has been incurred with this war in Iraq and the total irresponsibility of the current administration. Our currency is very much on the brink and we are not self-sufficient. We are still dependent on imported energy for our future. The bumps we are going to hit, which Europe is not going to hit because they're going very quickly to renewables, have to do with our continued addiction to imported fuels. This administration has turned the United States into a junkie strung out on debt. That's a bad combination and we are not going to escape paying for it. I think that basically we will suffer the fate of Greece and Rome and other countries that overextended themselves militarily. I think our saving grace will be our democracy and our diversity.

Aside from SOLARTOPIA! what other books would you recommend to people who want to transcend despair and cynicism and help build a world that lives up to our highest ideals?

I haven't read a whole lot of optimism lately and that's one of the reasons I enjoyed writing SOLARTOPIA! I'll tell you the genesis of this book. I got a grant from The International Forum on Globalization to write a report on the future of hydrogen, because Jeremy Rifkin had just come out with his excellent book, The Hydrogen Economy, and they wanted to investigate the technical underpinnings. So I started reading technical papers about hydrogen and it was excruciatingly dull. I didn't see how I could ever write anything that would really be interesting. Also, I realized that hydrogen is vastly overhyped. The issue in the future is not hydrogen. Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not a fuel. You have to produce hydrogen. Even George Bush is in favor of hydrogen, as long as it is produced through means by which his cronies in the oil and nuclear industries can make a lot of money.

Hydrogen is no more of a fuel than electricity. You have to produce electricity, you have to produce hydrogen. What I realized very quickly is that the key to the future is production, and that means solar. I did discover that there is a bus company in Southern California, SunLine, that has stations where photovoltaic cells are used to create hydrogen. That's the future. It occurred to me that all the technology we need is available now. It's just a question of mass producing it.

So then I wanted to write something I thought would be interesting and this was it. I thought it would be most important for people to have a visual image of what the world really could look like. Because, you know, on a piecemeal basis, people are saying wind is good, biofuels are good, this is good, that is good. But the crucial thing is to see the whole picture as we did from the space satellite that went around the moon, when we suddenly saw the Earth as this unified, blue-green organism.

So, to me, the important thing became to realize, visually and intellectually, that this is a real future that we not only can have, but that we have to have. And that's the real emphasis here. It's not just that we can have this green powered future, and it's not just that it will be more prosperous (which it will be), but also that we have no alternative. This is not the "alternative energy," this is the energy future that has to happen or we're not going to survive on this planet. The real limits to consuming fossil fuels are not the supply of fossil fuels. The real limits are the ability of our ecosystem to sustain burning those fossil fuels. We're going to run out of carrying capacity for burning coal and oil long before we run out of coal and oil.

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