Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, May 17, 2007
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Environment News Service
May 17, 2007
Insights: Recycling Nuclear Waste Too Dangerous
By Robert Alvarez
WASHINGTON, DC, May 16, 2007 (ENS) - As a senior energy adviser in the Clinton administration, I recall attending a briefing by the National Academy of Sciences in 1996 on the feasibility of recycling nuclear fuel. I'd been intrigued by the idea because of its promise to reduce the amount of waste that had to be buried, where it could conceivably seep into drinking water at some point in its multimillion-year-long half-lives.
But then came the Academy's unequivocal conclusion - the idea was supremely impractical. It would cost up to $500 billion in 1996 dollars and take 150 years to accomplish the transmutation of dangerous long-lived radioactive toxins.
President George W. Bush and his energy secretary, Samuel Bodman, have recently intensified their lobbying to revive nuclear recycling through a program they call the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, GNEP.
As I listened to Bodman describe GNEP as a sweeping panacea to supply virtually limitless energy to emerging economies, to "reduce the number of required ... waste depositories to one for the remainder of this century" and to "enhance energy security, while promoting non-proliferation" I kept waiting, as I did just over a decade ago, for the caveats.
But they never came, even though the idea remains as costly and technologically unfeasible as it was in the 1990s.
Members of Congress, who will soon vote on the President's request for $405 million for GNEP in fiscal year 2008, should recognize that GNEP has no chance in our lifetimes of brightening the prospects of finding safe ways of nuclear fuel disposal.
In 1982, Congress enacted legislation requiring that nuclear power spent fuel be disposed of in ways that shield humans for at least hundreds of millennia.
But today, a quarter-century later, prospects for long-term disposal are dimmer than ever. The government's nuclear waste disposal program is plagued by scandal, legal setbacks and congressional funding cuts. As a result, the schedule for the proposed Yucca Mountain disposal site in Nevada has slipped by two decades.
Under the President's plan, the United States and its nuclear partners would sell power reactors to developing nations who agree not to pursue technologies that would aid nuclear weapons production, notably reprocessing and uranium enrichment.
To sweeten the deal, the United States would take highly radioactive spent fuel rods to a recycling center in this country.
The foreign reactor wastes, along with spent fuel from the U.S. reactor fleet, would be reprocessed to reduce the amount that would go deep underground. Nuclear explosive materials, such as plutonium, would also be separated and converted to less troublesome isotopes in a new generation of reactors.
In short, using the Bush administration's fuzzy nuclear math, more would become less.
In fact, however, to reduce the amount of radioactive wastes slated for a deep geological repository, the majority of radioactive byproducts are planned to be stored in shallow burial.
The site selected for the GNEP recycling center is likely to become a dump for the largest, lethal source of high-heat radioactivity in the United States and possibly the world.
If placed in a crowded area, a few grams of these wastes would deliver lethal doses in a matter of seconds. Concentrations could be so large that if they were disposed of under current standards in shallow land burial as low-level wastes, shortly after separation they would have to be diluted to a volume as large as 500 million cubic meters, enough to fill 500 Empire State Buildings.
The plan would also threaten water supplies. For instance, it could result in levels of radioactive disposal thousands of times greater than now allowed at DOE's Savannah River site in South Carolina.
The Bush administration lacks (or at least, has yet to disclose) credible plans for addressing any of the unprecedented health, safety and financial risks that GNEP would create. Unless the administration can furnish these details, the public should urge their legislators to zero out GNEP's budget.
We are better off by investing in renewable energy and conservation, rather than pouring billions of dollars into the same old limitless energy schemes of our nuclear laboratories.
--{Robert Alvarez is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. Between 1993 and 1999, he served as a senior policy advisor to the secretary of energy and deputy assistant secretary for national security and the environment.}
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Roswell Daily Record
May 17, 2007
Nuke site discussed
Vanessa Beauman
Record Staff Writer
The possibility of locating a nuclear reprocessing plant east of Roswell came up for discussion at two meetings Tuesday evening, one a private luncheon for business owners to discuss economic aspects and the second a public meeting to discuss the plant’s technical aspects.
The public meeting was led by Alan Dobson, senior vice president of fuel cycle and spent fuel management, and Bob Holmes, a scientist, both of EnergySolutions, a Utah-based nuclear recycling company that has teamed up with local company Gandy-Marley, Inc. to promote the Chaves County location.
A total of 11 sites nationwide are being considered by the Department of Energy, which will make the final decision on a location, as part of its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. It is estimated that construction of the plant could begin in 2013, with operations to start in 2020. The ultimate aim of GNEP would be to recycle spent fuel from countries that already produce nuclear fuel: Russia, China, Japan, England and France.
Dobson said EnergySolutions’ recent site report on the Chaves County location deemed it suitable for such a plant.
“The United States is in a quandary. There’s no doubt whatsoever there is an energy shortage,” Dobson said during the technical meeting, held at the Sally Port Inn & Suites, as he took those in attendance through a slideshow explaining the process that would be used at the plant to separate usable uranium from spent nuclear fuel rods.
The separation process would mix the spent fuel with a solvent of water and stripping chemicals, Dobson said, reducing the rods to usable uranium, plutonium and neptunium. The water used in that process would be re-used in the solvent mixture, he said.
The process would sufficiently shield workers and residents from radiation, Dobson said, by enclosing the reprocessing behind heavy concrete walls that block extremely penetrating gamma radiation.
“Yes, it’s highly radioactive,” Dobson said of the materials that would be headed to such a plant. “Can we work with it? Yes.”
Dobson said there would be “tremendous economic benefits to this region if the location just east of Roswell is selected,” including several thousand construction and permanent jobs. Less than one third of these jobs would belong to scientists and engineers, with most of the jobs for craftsmen, process operators and technicians, Dobson said.
In addition to indirect jobs created to accommodate the people working at the plant, Dobson said there would be a “tremendous boost to infrastructure, schools, hospitals and medical businesses.”
Gene Simmons, director of the Small Business Development Center at ENMU-R, agreed. He said the plant would increase quality of life in the region by offering jobs that would pay $20 an hour.
“The nice thing about this business is that it give the region time to gear up. . . the permanent jobs will be coming right behind the bell curve,” said Simmons, who estimated the plant’s impact at a possible $800 million yearly for the region.
“It’s an opportunity of a lifetime for a community like this,” Simmons said. “They’re giving us the opportunity to grow our region, to move people up through education and jobs.”
“This could be a very good anchor to the economy of southeast New Mexico. We would be leading our region into the next generation.”
Dobson said the nation’s only current planned repository for spent nuclear fuel, Yucca Mountain, “can only hold so much,” making recycling all the more necessary.
An estimated 1,900 pounds of usable uranium could be produced from one ton of spent fuel, Dobson said. The remaining waste, which would be encased in glass, or “vitrified,” would then be sent to Yucca Mountain. The capacity at that Nevada location, which is not yet being used, would be heat-based, not volumetric, Dobson said. Recycling nuclear rods, Dobson said, would greatly reduce what would be sent to a repository.
“Even with the expansion of nuclear power, we wouldn’t need another repository until next century,” Dobson said.
But residents must be in support of the idea, he said. And while elsewhere in Roswell, many are signing their names to petitions opposing the idea, Gandy-Marley and EnergySolutions on Tuesday distributed cards at their lunch meeting for people to indicate their support of the Chaves County site.
“If were are unable to show enough people are in favor,” Dobson said, “it would be impossible.”
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Green Bay Press Gazette
May 17, 2007
Nuclear power plants may become easier to build
Legislature likely to consider issue this fall
By Richard Ryman
rryman@greenbaypressgazette.com
MADISON — Legislation to make it easier to build a nuclear power plant in Wisconsin likely will be introduced in the fall, according to Rep. Phil Montgomery, R-Ashwaubenon.
Changes to current law, effectively a moratorium on new construction for 24 years, were recommended last week by the state's Special Legislative Committee on Nuclear Power.
No nuclear plant construction is proposed in Wisconsin, but both Illinois and Mississippi moved a step closer to getting new reactors last month when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved early site permits.
Wisconsin Act 401, passed in 1983, says nuclear power plants can be approved only after the federal government provides a depository for spent nuclear fuel and if a new reactor is economically advantageous to ratepayers compared to other feasible alternatives. A nuclear depository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., is at least 10 years from being available.
"It's time to start the discussion," Montgomery said. "The thing people have to keep in mind, the plants we have now have been operating almost 50 years and we have not had any issues with the storage and disposal of waste. Think of the new technology that has come forward in those 50 years. It's time."
The committee's recommendations are:
Repeal the "moratorium."
Direct the state Public Service Commission to study how to replace the 20 percent of the state's electricity provided by Kewaunee Power Station and Point Beach Nuclear Plant when those plants go out of service.
Kewaunee's license expires in 2013, though plant owner Dominion Resources Inc. of Richmond, Va., has said it will apply for renewal in 2008.
The licenses for Point Beach's two reactors were renewed in 2005. They expire in 2030 and 2033, respectively.
Expand the advocacy duties of the Public Service Commission regarding the national nuclear spent fuel storage site.
"We've paid over $337 million to the federal government for the repository. Congress has spent it on everything else but, I think," Montgomery said.
A variety of groups have lined up against changes, including the Citizen's Utility Board, Sierra Club and the Green Party.
Montgomery said he would submit a proposal based on the committee's recommendations in the fall, after the new state budget is resolved.
Wisconsin is one of several states revisiting the nuclear issue, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
South Carolina, Texas, Minnesota, Kansas and Florida are considering or have adopted laws favoring new nuclear development.
The permits issued in Illinois and Mississippi by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are part of a process federal regulators have developed to streamline the approval process.
The permits give a company 20 years to decide if it wants to build a new reactor. Companies still will have to get permits for building and operating plants. Exelon Corp. received a permit for a reactor at its Clinton, Ill., site and Entergy Corp. for its Grand Gulf, Miss., site.
Dominion Resources has applied for an early site permit for its North Anna Power Station in Virginia. That application is under review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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WIFR
May 17, 2007
Nuclear Waste Piling up at Byron Nuclear Power Plant
Tina Stein
It takes very little atomic energy to produce electricity at the Byron Nuclear Power Plant. But the amount of waste leftover is staggering. In fact, the very same waste produced when the plant opened in 1985 is still sitting at the bottom of their spent fuel pool.
"When the nuclear power industry and nuclear power plants were built none of them were built with the understanding that you would have to create a spent fuel pool large enough to hold the fuel the entire life span of the plant," says Exelon Communications Manager Bob Kartheiser.
Byron's spent fuel pool is at 80-percent capacity and is expected to be completely filled within four years. And until Yucca Mountain in Nevada, a federal repository site opens up, nuclear plants like Byron must develop a new way to store this radioactive waste.
"Once this does reach it's capacity we'll take the oldest assembles out of here and keep them in dry casks some where on our property," Kartheiser says.
The dry casks are concrete steel lined canisters. These can withstand natural disasters and other dangerous situations.
"They've done physical tests where fire, explosive trucks running into them trains running into them to show that any leaking of radiation is hasn't happened," he says.
Yucca Mountain was supposed to open in 1998, but political snags have caused quite a delay. And now won't be ready until 2017 at the earliest.
Byron officials say there are no health risks to building the dry casks. And they hope to start construction sometime next year. Which will cost about 10-million dollars. But don't worry that's not tax payer money. It's coming out of Exelon's pocket. However, a portion of our ComEd bills go towards construction at Yucca Mountain.
Other countries such as Japan and France recycle their nuclear waste. However they still build repository sites similar to Yucca Mountain. That's because they still get nuclear waste off of the material. So Byron officials say recycling wouldn't work here.
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Pahrump Valley Times
May 16, 2007
Pahrump spurs county growth
PVT
The population of Nye County was estimated by the Nye County Planning Department at 46,041 as of March 31, with Pahrump's population at 38,068, or 82.6 percent of the total.
Pahrump gained 372 residents in the first quarter of 2007, according to planners' estimates, but losses elsewhere in the county meant the overall population rose by only 338.
Amargosa Valley's population rose by 14 from 1,365 to 1,379 residents after the first quarter. Beatty had five more residents, from 1,120 to 1,125. But Tonopah lost 28 people, dropping from 2,905 to 2,877. Smoky Valley's population went down by 23 residents, from 1,780 to 1,757. Gabbs held steady at 383 residents and Reese River Valley at 114.
The planning department uses hookups to electrical utilities multiplied by the average number of persons per household as determined by the U.S. Census to come up with estimates. Planners use a trending factor to estimate the population of people in group quarters like nursing homes and detention facilities, which are monitored annually with telephone interviews.
The population estimates are used to assess conditions for the Yucca Mountain project, for public and private agency planning and other uses.
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Joliet Herald News
May 16, 2007
Activists: Wait for new technology
Nuclear Recycling
By Christina Chapman
Staff Writer
MORRIS -- Since spent nuclear rods can safely be stored in dry canisters for 100 years, some activists who oppose nuclear fuel reprocessing said they'd rather wait for new technology than have the Department of Energy attempt to recycle nuclear fuel now.
A press-only meeting was held Tuesday by David Kraft, nuclear energy information services director of the Nuclear Energy Information Service. Two guests spoke about the DOE and President Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which seeks to build three facilities: an advanced fuel cycle research facility, a nuclear fuel recycling center and an advanced recycling reactor. The reactor would destroy long-lived radioactive elements in the new fuel while generating electricity.
The DOE is considering General Electric Co.'s Morris-area site for the recycling center and reactor. GE is partnering with Argonne National Laboratory for the technology and research.
The speakers were Shaun Burnie, an independent consultant specializing in nuclear spent rod recycling, and Aileen Mioko Smith, the founder and director of Green Action, which is a Japanese citizen organization that opposes plutonium fuel use in commercial nuclear reactors in Japan.
Bad experiences
The United Kingdom and France have already been reprocessing plutonium, but began doing so to create weapons, Burnie said. The reactors require plutonium to run, which creates a plutonium byproduct that the facility then must reprocess.
In 1994, a commercial thermal oxide reprocessing plant was constructed. For the 13 years it operated, it discharged radioactive materials into the Irish Sea and the atmosphere, he said. About 3 million gallons of low-level nuclear waste dissolved in the water, he said.
"It made a nuclear disaster zone," Burnie said.
Since then the government has taken a stance against reprocessing, but not reactors. And there are still thousands of tons of nuclear waste, he said.
Smith said Japan has been conducting a program for the quick development of reactors for 50 years, but it has yet to be commercialized. Japan's first reprocessing plant is planned for November in Rokkasho.
The problem, she said, is the process creates more waste than what is in the spent rods.
"Lets not make it worse. It's best to keep it in the rods, and monitor them," she said.
Kraft said through hardened on-site storage (HOSS) rods can be safely stored for as long as 100 years while new technology is mastered.
Not the same technology
Tom Rumsey, manager of communications for GE, said he understands the concern, but that the technology causing problems across the world is not what will be used in Morris.
"We cannot separate out plutonium. It is burned and destroyed in the reactor on site," Rumsey said. "This isn't a way to create more plutonium."
Rumsey did say only 95 percent of a spent fuel rod can be recycled, but the remaining 5 percent waste is a solid and will not be released into a body of water, but stored on site or at Yucca Mountain or somewhere similar in the future. The difference is that it is only stored for hundreds of years, rather than tens of thousands.
In addition, Rumsey said the spent rods that are broken through the reprocessing are not releasing any more radiation than the whole rods do.
"(The whole process) doesn't create any more radiation than is already there," Rumsey said.
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Decatur Daily
May 16, 2007
Unit 1 gets NRC green light; should restart this month
By Holly Hollman
hhollman@decaturdaily.com · 340-2445
ATHENS — Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant soon will be among the largest in the country.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region II office in Atlanta notified Tennessee Valley Authority officials that the agency is authorizing the restart of Unit 1.
The $1.8 billion project will give the plant three units that can produce enough power for nearly 2 million homes.
"There are only two or three plants in the nation that have three units," said TVA spokesman Terry Johnson. "It will make Browns Ferry the only three-unit plant TVA has."
Unit 1 first went online in 1974, and was TVA's first completed reactor. It caught fire in 1975 when a worker used a candle to check for leaks.
TVA shut it down, along with Browns Ferry's other two units, in 1985 to address safety and management issues. Unit 2 restarted in 1991, and Unit 3 restarted in 1995.
Unit 1 should restart this month, and it won't be like a 33-year-old unit or a unit that's been idle for 22 years.
During the decontamination phase of the unit in 2004, Dave Nelson, manager of project costs and project management, said materials and technology for nuclear plants have evolved. The unit's pipes are chrome, not steel, for example. TVA also installed a digital-feed water system and other technology to automate many tasks .
When Unit 1 restarts, it will mark the first increase in nuclear power production since TVA's Watts Bar went online 11 years ago.
And it will mark a new trend toward nuclear power.
During a November 2006 visit to Browns Ferry, NRC Chairman Dale Klein said the nuclear industry will need 90,000 workers between now and 2011. Klein said 14 entities had expressed interest in starting 29 new reactors.
Many of those proposed sites are in the Southeast, including one at Southern Co.'s Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Ga., and Entergy Nuclear's Grand Gulf station near Vicksburg, Miss. He said TVA also is evaluating whether to start Watts Bar's Unit 2.
TVA is the country's largest public utility, serving 8.7 million consumers in Alabama and six other states.
The NRC already has granted license renewal for Browns Ferry's units, which means the plant can operate Unit 1 until 2033, Unit 2 until 2034 and Unit 3 until 2036.
More reactors and longer life spans mean more spent fuel, but the proposed waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., has not broken ground.
Klein said the Department of Energy plans to submit a license application to the NRC for Yucca Mountain in June 2008.
Despite repository concerns, officials herald Unit 1's restart and the possibility of new reactors.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, said the nation should make the transition to producing more energy from nuclear generation.
"Nuclear power represents our best source of domestically produced, emissions-free energy," Sessions said.
"It is a cost-efficient way to produce electricity."
Johnson said restarting Unit 1 is a good business decision for TVA because it is cleaner than coal and diversifies TVA's power supply. Nuclear power accounts for 30 percent of TVA's supply, he said.
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USA Today
May 16, 2007
Our view on atomic energy: As globe heats up, nation warms to nuclear power
Burst of new plant applications reflects changed environment.
Regulators gave the green light Tuesday to restart an old Alabama nuclear power plant, signaling the rebirth of an industry put into the deep freeze by a 1979 accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant that spewed radiation for miles.
Cause for concern? Hardly.
Even some environmental groups have come to realize that a new generation of safer nuclear plants is the best option for addressing the nation's mounting energy needs. But construction has been stymied by huge costs and regulatory opposition.
The last plant went into service 11 years ago, though more than 100 older plants are still in operation.
The Tennessee Valley Authority's decision to restarting the Browns Ferry 1 unit in Athens, Ala., at a cost of almost $2 billion, breaks the pattern. But it is just one of several markers measuring how much has changed.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which approved the Browns Ferry restart, expects applications for as many as 11 new units this year, and for as many as 28 by the end of 2009. This comes as electricity demand is projected to jump more than 40% by 2030 — not including potential demand from a shift to plug-in hybrids and other forms of electric cars.
What's changed? A lot. Burned by the ruinous expense of custom-building nuclear plants, the industry has settled on a handful of standard designs. That's much safer. Regulators also have streamlined the permitting process: Instead of requiring separate permits to build and operate a plant, which invited two rounds of litigation, a utility now gets one permit for both.
Perhaps the biggest single factor is growing anxiety about global warming, which makes nuclear power attractive even to many former critics. Nuclear units emit no greenhouse gases from plant operations, which makes nuclear a compellingly green alternative to coal, oil and natural gas.
There's still no getting around nuclear's downsides. A meltdown at a nuclear plant could be catastrophic. But there has been no repeat of Three Mile Island, and many new safety measures are in place.
There's also still no satisfactory answer to the question of what to do with the radioactive spent fuel rods stored at scores of plants. It seems reasonable and safe to transport the waste across the country in secure containers and store it at Nevada's heavily studied Yucca Mountain site. But states and localities are worried about the shipping, and there's enormous political resistance in Nevada to storage there. Alternatively, the fuel could stay at individual plants, where it can be encased in steel and concrete once it cools.
The case against nuclear power reminds us of what Winston Churchill said about democracy being the worst form of government — except for all the others. Coal production kills miners and denudes the landscape; burning it to produce electricity pollutes the atmosphere. Natural gas is an increasingly scarce, clean-burning fuel that ought to be reserved primarily for its best use — home heating. Importing oil enriches some of the world's worst regimes.
Solar, wind and other renewable energy sources are more desirable than nuclear — but they're not ready to produce the huge amounts of electricity the USA consumes. Nuclear power isn't a perfect answer, but safely managed and regulated, it needs to be a bigger part of the nation's energy future.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
May 15, 2007
Erin Neff: Obama and Yucca
The Yucca Mountain Project has fallen off the political radar in Nevada because, among other reasons, the planned nuclear waste repository has no certain opening date. The state's elected officials have battled that bogeyman by withholding funding from the Department of Energy and challenging the project in court.
In the political realm, the Yucca Mountain issue has been so carefully muddled that candidates who've voted in favor of the dump have been able to twist their positions to seem friendly to Nevada. Thus, as the major parties prepare for Nevada's Jan. 19 presidential caucuses, Republican Sen. John McCain, who openly supports the project, can defend his stance only by claiming other contenders are simply hypocrites.
John Kerry's vote against the Yucca Mountain Project and his promise to shutter the facility as president were ignored by the GOP attack machine in the 2004 presidential election, thanks to a letter Kerry had written advocating the exploration of deep geological burial of nuclear waste. Kerry's running mate, Sen. John Edwards, actually voted for the Yucca Mountain Project, requiring state Democrats to accept his "new thinking" on the project as an honest change of heart. Instead it appeared as just more political pandering.
That's why Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., will have a hard time answering questions about the Yucca Mountain Project this year in the run-up to Nevada's early 2008 caucus.
When he was in Las Vegas in March for a health care forum, Obama told The Associated Press he opposed the repository and would look to regional storage as a solution. Surely that could not have meant keeping the stuff in Illinois, where much of the nation's commercial nuclear waste is generated.
On June 30, 2006, Obama and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wrote a letter to Sen. Pete Domenici, D-N.M., who at the time chaired a key energy subcommittee.
"Senator Obama and I want to make it clear to the chairman that any plan to create regional nuclear waste sites without any local veto power is unacceptable," Durbin said at the time. "Illinois must not become a dumping ground -- even a temporary one -- for nuclear waste brought in from other states."
Of course, that's what the junior senator from Illinois is supposed to do. Illinois has 11 nuclear power plants, which generate 48 percent of the state's power. But what should Nevadans think now as Obama runs a national campaign? If he still supports regional storage, might not Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, be acceptable as a "temporary" site?
But Obama's Yucca problems don't end with his parochial view of the dump. He's also hip-deep in financial ties that McCain or Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney will be able to exploit.
Obama has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the nation's largest nuclear power operator. Exelon Corp. is the second-largest contributor to Obama's presidential campaign, after financial services company UBS, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Exelon executives and employees have given $161,000 to Obama's presidential bid. He's received an additional $86,000 since 1998 from Exelon's political action committee, employees and predecessor, Commonwealth Edison. Obama got money from the company in his 1998 bid for the Illinois state Senate and for his failed 2000 congressional campaign. Exelon also donated to Obama's PAC and his successful 2004 U.S. Senate bid.
Someone donating that much cash wants an ear in the White House. So what does Exelon Chief Executive Officer John Rowe want? Fortune magazine, in a May 15, 2006, article titled "Meet Mr. Nuke," details Rowe's call to solve the waste problem before additional nuclear power plants are built. "We have to be able to look the public in the eye and say, 'If we build a plant, here's where the waste will go,' " Rowe told Fortune.
The Yucca Mountain Project is the "linchpin" to solving the waste problem and building new plants, Rowe told U.S. News and World Report for an Oct. 22, 2006, article, "Mired in Yucca muck." Rowe is co-chairman of the National Commission on Energy Policy, a privately funded advocacy group formed in the aftermath of Dick Cheney's secret energy task force. Rowe is also on the board of the Nuclear Energy Institute.
If it were just Rowe's support, or just the donations, or just the Domenici letter, Obama might be able to successfully play the Edwards card to Democratic caucus voters. Iraq, health care and education still trump Yucca Mountain among Nevadans. But having that combination of money, the executive's advocacy and a letter the candidate wrote could definitely tip the scales.
Maybe that's why Obama didn't bring up Yucca Mountain during his big public rally in Las Vegas in February.
The Obama campaign said Monday the candidate did not accept money from Exelon's lobbyists. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the letter shows Obama "doesn't believe any state should be burdened with storing the waste from others as long as the state has a storage site to deal with its own waste."
--Erin Neff's column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at (702) 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.
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ENS
May 15, 2007
AmeriScan: May 14, 2007
Feds Offer $60 Million to Jumpstart Nuclear Fuel Recycling
WASHINGTON, DC, May 14, 2007 (ENS) - The Department of Energy, DOE, will pay up to $60 million by the end of 2008 to nuclear industry experts who can provide the conceptual design of an initial nuclear fuel recycling center and advanced recycling reactor as part of the Bush administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, GNEP.
Under GNEP, President George W. Bush plans to have nations with "secure, advanced nuclear capabilities" provide fresh fuel and recover used fuel to other nations who agree to use nuclear energy for power generation purposes only.
This closed fuel cycle model requires development and deployment of technologies that enable recycling and consumption of long-lived highly radioactive waste.
The $60 million in design funding will be disbursed subject to appropriation from Congress.
Stressing that nuclear power is "safe, environmentally sensitive, and affordable," Energy Deputy Secretary Clay Sell announced the funding while addressing the United States Energy Association in Washington, DC on May 9.
"By further engaging engineering and design experts in the nuclear industry, we can spur radical development of new nuclear recycling technologies that are more proliferation-resistant and economically attractive," said Sell.
In addition to the conceptual design studies, the recipients of funding will develop technology development roadmaps to describe the state of the current technology, perform a technology "gap" analysis, and define the methods and plans to acquire technology needed to achieve the GNEP goals.
Business plans will address how the market may facilitate DOE plans to develop and commercialize the advanced fuel cycle technologies and facilities.
Communications plans will address the dissemination of scientific, technical, and practical information relating to nuclear energy and closing the nuclear fuel cycle.
In a factsheet on GNEP, the Energy Department says the program includes, "An aggressive plan to manage spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste in the U.S., including permanent geologic disposal at Yucca Mountain."
GNEP technologies yet to be developed will "change the characteristics and, potentially, significantly reduce the toxicity of spent fuel and nuclear waste to be disposed of in Yucca Mountain," the Energy Department says. "This will make disposal less complex and potentially extend the capacity of Yucca Mountain for generations to come."
For more information on GNEP, log on to: http://www.gnep.energy.gov/gnepProgram.html
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The American
May 14, 2007
Solar Power’s Time to Shine?
By Ilya Shapiro
Thanks to cheaper solar cells, the technology may finally be economically viable, says a new book.
Solar Revolution: The Economic Transformation of the Global Energy Industry by Travis Bradford (The MIT Press, September 2006)
I have a confession to make: I’ve never been concerned about energy.
I’m not worried about running out of fossil fuels because, as the marginal price of each barrel of oil increases, developing new technologies will be more cost-effective. Remember when we were supposed to run out of copper for the world’s wired telecommunications network—and then found out about fiber optics?
Instead, I’ve always been of the Economics 101 school that, at least until we reach the Star Trek world of replicaters that will obviate scarcity—and thus economics itself—the invisible forces of supply and demand will always fuel, as it were, exploration, development, and innovation. Necessity is, as the saying goes, the mother of invention.
Travis Bradford, financier and now president of the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development—a nonprofit dedicated to bringing the power of the business sector to bear on the development of sustainable energy—argues that solar power will step in to energize our economy when fossil fuels become too expensive and impractical. In Solar Revolution, he outlines a possible future in which we move to heavy reliance on solar power.
Developments in the photovoltaic (PV) industry over the last ten years have made direct electricity generation from PV cells much more cost-effective. The idea that solar cells appeal only to a niche market of the crunchy left-wing elite is a relic of a time when the cells cost more and the economic rationale for using them was correspondingly weaker. Bradford shows that PV electricity has already become the choice of hundreds of thousands of mainstream homeowners and businesses in many markets worldwide, including Japan, Germany, and the American Southwest.
PV-based energy systems are attractive, Bradford emphasizes, because they can bypass the aging and fragile electricity grid and deliver their power directly to the end user, fundamentally changing the underlying economics of energy. And as the scale of PV production increases and costs continue to decline at historic rates, demand for PV electricity will inevitably create its own supply of such systems.
Of course, the tale of a coming solar panacea has been told for decades, at least since the new class of post-war homeowners discovered they could heat their new kidney-shaped pools by running water through black plastic piping on their sun-drenched roofs. As with hydrogen and ethanol (or gasohol, or any number of other trendy products) for cars, however, we never quite seem to get there.
And we’ve rejected the one technology that has long been around to solve our problems. Any time anyone mentions nuclear energy, coal and oil lobbyists, in a Bootleggers and Baptists coalition with environmentalists, raise the specter of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. This alarmism, combined with what could possibly be the most tangled bureaucracy in the entire regulatory state, has prevented the U.S. from joining the fossil-fuel-starved likes of Japan, Korea, and France on the nuclear bandwagon.
Bradford similarly dismisses nuclear energy for non-economic reasons, such as worries about weapons proliferation, the politics of waste disposal (e.g., the Yucca Mountain imbroglio) and construction approval, and the “hidden cost” of cleanup when nuclear plants fail. As for other “alternative” technologies, he brushes aside hydro, wind, biomass, geothermal, and ocean power for various economic and geographic (or geologic) reasons.
That is, only certain places can sustain hydroelectric dams (or wind farms, or geothermal reservoirs, etc.), and energy sources generally need to be deployed on a large scale to be cost-effective—let alone to revolutionize the world’s electricity provision. (Why the analysis of solar energy—fine for Arizona and Florida, say, not viable at current energy prices for Buffalo and Des Moines—doesn’t track the same way Bradford doesn’t say.)
Whether Bradford ultimately proves prophetic or not, one aspect of this story is particularly appealing to devotees of classical economics and Hayek’s concept of “spontaneous order” in particular: The shift from fossil fuels to solar energy will take place, he argues, not because solar energy is better for the environment or energy security, or because of future government subsidies or as yet undeveloped technology. Instead, he says, the “solar revolution” is already occurring through individual decisions made by self-interested energy users.
Perhaps most controversial, and difficult to swallow, is Bradford’s contention that the coming shift to solar energy, which he forecasts using standard business models, will be as transformative as the last century’s revolutions in information and communication technologies. On reflection, however, it’s not that bold a statement: Whatever replaces oil, gas, and coal as the fuel that powers the engine of world development will understandably be seen as revolutionary.
The jury is still out on whether solar energy will fit that bill, but Solar Revolution makes a compelling case for this clean, plentiful, and renewable resource.
--Ilya Shapiro is an associate at the Washington office of Patton Boggs LLP. He writes the “Dispatches from Purple America” column for TCS Daily. The opinions expressed here are his alone.
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Palm Beach Post
May 13, 2007
Revisit the nuclear power option to save the planet
By Jerry Lavish
We Americans usually do the right thing, once we know the facts. Our country now needs a new, long-range energy policy that will end our dependence on foreign oil, and help save our environment. Americans need to overcome our 1970s neuroses and examine the past 28 years since we stopped building commercial nuclear power reactors.
Nuclear power can be provided, and now on a competitive basis. In 1979, the cost of a barrel of oil was $22; today, it's $66, and rising. The Nuclear Engineering Institute reports that average electrical production cost in 2005 per kilowatt-hour for nuclear energy was 1.72 cents, for coal-fired plants 2.21 cents, for natural gas 7.71 cents and for oil 8.09 cents.
Meanwhile, global warming threatens civilization. Glaciers are melting, our seas are becoming more acidic, and major events like Hurricane Katrina are more likely to occur. The Department of Energy reports that America, with only 4 percent of the world's population, consumes 25 percent of all the world's energy and accounts for 25''percent of pollution. Between 1990 to 2004, America's annual pollution rate increased by 17 percent.
Nuclear power plants produce no controlled air pollutants, such as sulfur, or greenhouse gases. Use of nuclear energy helps to keep the air clean, preserve the Earth's climate, avoid ground-level ozone formation and prevent acid rain.
As a Navy nuclear engineer with 40 years' experience, I would like to share some information with you.
No question, Chernobyl in 1986 was a disaster. That reactor design, however, never would be licensed in America. In our design, when we lose coolant and the reactor heats up, the chain reaction slows down. In seconds, no additional heat from fission is added to the reactor.
When the Chernobyl reactor lost coolant, it also heated up. But the chain reaction in the Soviet plant increased, adding increasingly more heat, leading to disaster. It was inexcusable that the Soviet reactor had no containment, used burnable materials inside the core, and provided inadequate emergency safety systems. Chernobyl, though, should be viewed as the product of a failed, incompetent Soviet regime, not representative of responsible reactor design.
Ironically, the accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island reactor was a success. In every engineering venture, you test the device for failure to determine its safety margin. It would have been irresponsible for nuclear engineers to run that test.
But at Three Mile Island, when we turned the reactor over to two poorly trained operators who did everything wrong, we got that test. What was the test result? No one died; no appreciable radiation escaped the containment area. After 28 years, there is no increased rate of cancer in the community around the reactor. The molten fuel did not melt through the 6-inch-thick vessel wall and go into our underground streams. The "China Syndrome" never happened because of our safe design margins.
The independent commission that investigated the Three Mile Island accident reported that "human error" had converted minor equipment malfunctions into a severe accident. The most obvious and serious problem was that training requirements for reactor operators and supervisors were "inadequate" and "shallow."
After the accident, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission strengthened our training requirements. In the past 28 years, we have not had a serious incident at any of the 103 nuclear plants operating in 31 states. Florida Power & Light operates four reactors, two on Hutchinson Island in St. Lucie County and two at Turkey Point in Miami-Dade County.
Our nuclear Navy experience is more proof that reactors are safe. Since the submarine Nautilus was launched in 1954, our nuclear ships have traveled more than 150 million miles and circled the globe 40,000 times without a nuclear accident. Unlike the Soviets, we built margin into our reactors, ran our problems to ground until we knew their cause, and developed lessons learned.
Since 1979, several countries have become heavily dependent upon reactors without incident. The Nuclear Engineering Institute reports that 79 percent of the electrical power in France is generated by nuclear plants. In South Korea, it's 45 percent. In Germany, it's 31 percent. In Japan, it's 30 percent. In the United States, it's only 18 percent.
Look at the facts. Then call your Washington representatives to request that they approve the deep geologic repository for nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, and aggressively pursue nuclear energy to save our planet.
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San Antonio Express
May 12, 2007
Comment: Nuke plants sensible for energy-hungry Texas
Bernard L. Weinstein
For decades, Texas has been the fastest-growing large state, adding population and employment at a multiple of the national averages.
The state has a population of 23.5 million and an employment base of 10 million. According to the Texas Workforce Commission, more than 892,000 jobs were in the manufacturing sector, accounting for more than 9 percent of nonagricultural employment. The state is projected to grow to 40 million by 2030 and add nearly 5 million jobs.
Implicit in these projections is an assumption that reliable and adequate supplies of electricity will be available at a reasonable cost.
But by the end of the decade, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, electricity demand could well outstrip supply.
Indeed, ERCOT projects Texas will need up to 48,000 megawatts of new power just to keep up with expected demand.
Some have argued that Texas' future power demands can be satisfied largely through conservation and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. But even under the most optimistic assumptions, the state's utilities will still have to construct dozens of base-load power plants in the next several decades.
Texas relies predominantly on natural gas for power generation — about 72 percent of capacity — compared to a national average of 46 percent. Coal accounts for 19 percent of Texas' capacity, while nuclear plants produce only 6 percent of the state's electricity.
Because natural gas prices have tripled during the past several years, electricity costs in Texas are well above the national average and by far the highest in the Sunbelt. High power costs not only put Texas' many energy-intensive industries at risk but also burden the large and growing number of low-income households.
If new coal plants are more or less off the table, how will Texas produce the needed megawatts to keep the economy humming?
Additional natural gas plants are one solution, though increasing their share of the power mix will propel electricity costs even higher. Texas is already the No. 1 producer of wind energy in the U.S., and plans are under way to double the number of windmills. But all the operating and planned windmills in Texas will produce power equivalent to only one midsize coal boiler.
Building new nuclear plants in Texas is the sensible option. America hasn't seen an order for a new nuclear plant that's been completed since the 1970s. Fortunately, favorable public sentiment toward nuclear energy is rising, and even some environmental groups have changed their tune regarding nuclear power. Nuclear is also gaining favor because production costs don't fluctuate as they do with fossil fuel plants.
In Texas, several large utilities are planning to build new nuclear facilities. TXU is considering up to five new plants while NRG, Exelon and Amarillo Power are also evaluating new nuclear plants. If all the plans materialize, Texas could have more reactors than any other state a decade from now. What's more, since these plants will be built in a deregulated market, any missteps would be borne by shareholders — not the ratepayers.
As for safety issues, the nuclear industry can point to almost 60 years of commercial operation without a fatal radiation-related accident. And the industry has transported more than 10,000 used fuel assemblies without incident to temporary storage sites. Once the U.S. Department of Energy begins accepting nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, the controversy over what to do with high-level waste will finally be over.
Businesses must operate with an eye on their global cost structure. To remain competitive, Texas must offer an attractive economic environment and cost structure on all fronts — including utility costs. Thus lower-cost and dependable nuclear generating plants are a sensible choice for a portion of the state's future power needs.
Adding these plants to the fuel mix will diversify Texas' energy sources, ensure reliability and help hold down electric power costs in the decades ahead with attendant benefits to current and prospective households and businesses as well as the environment.
--Bernard L. Weinstein is a professor of applied economics and director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas in Denton.
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Chillicothe Gazette
May 12, 2007
Bill bans dumping waste at Piketon
Area reps don't want GNEP funds used for storage
The Gazette Staff
WASHINGTON, D.C. -Friday, Congresswoman Jean Schmidt with original cosponsors Congressmen Zack Space and Charlie Wilson, introduced H.R. 2282, the Nuclear Waste Storage Prohibition Act.
The Nuclear Waste Storage Prohibition Act states no funds from the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) may be used for the creation of a permanent storage facility for spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive waste. It further states no such waste may be retained for long-term storage at a site where the facilities are intended for reprocessing of fuel or waste.
"I am pleased to have the support of Congressmen Space and Wilson on this important, bipartisan bill," said Schmidt, R-Miami Township. "By working together to get this bill passed, we can ensure the Piketon plant cannot ever become a nuclear waste dump."
"This bill demonstrates that economic development and public health can go hand in hand to build a brighter future for southern Ohio. I am proud to work across party lines to pass this important piece of legislation," Wilson, D-Bridgeport, said.
Space, D-Dover, said, "The GNEP project would not only bring new jobs to the Piketon Plant, but it will also spur economic development throughout southeastern Ohio in other industries. With such economic potential, it just makes sense to assure our Ohioans from the outset that this project will be a safe, secure facility - never anything like a Yucca Mountain-type nuclear waste dump."
The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant, more commonly known as the Piketon Plant, has been chosen as one of 11 sites the Department of Energy is reviewing for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. GNEP is a program that plans to recycle spent fuel rods and convert them to new fuel for the nation's nuclear power plants. GNEP holds promise for revitalizing nuclear power in the United States, increasing national security, and reducing nuclear waste in the environment. Billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs will go to the final site selected.
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Cincinnati Enquirer
May 12, 2007
Rep. Jean Schmidt introduces bill on nuke waste
By Malia Rulon
mrulon@enquirer.com
WASHINGTON - If anyone has any doubts about Rep. Jean Schmidt's plans for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, a bill she and two colleagues introduced on Friday should clear that up.
That bill - the Nuclear Waste Storage Prohibition Act - would ensure that no funds from the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) may be used for the creation of a permanent storage facility for spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive waste.
The partnership is part of President Bush's advanced energy initiative that seeks to reduce reliance on imported oil.
Eleven sites, including Piketon, are in the running to be chosen as a GNEP site where yet-to-be-developed technology would be used to recycle spent nuclear fuel.
The concern from opponents of the plan is that the nuclear fuel wouldn't be kept at the designated location temporarily, but would be stored there long term.
Schmidt, a co-sponsor of the bill, came under heavy fire during her re-election campaign last year for backing Piketon's bid to become a GNEP site.
Her opponent, Democrat Victoria Wulsin, had accused Schmidt of lobbying for a nuclear waste dump in the 2nd Congressional District.
Schmidt, of Miami Township, said Friday that she's glad Democratic Reps. Zack Space of Dover and Charlie Wilson of St. Clairsville have joined her on the bill.
"By working together to get this bill passed, we can ensure the Piketon Plant cannot ever become a nuclear-waste dump," she said. Wulsin has announced that she'll again run against Schmidt.
Space said the GNEP project would bring new jobs to Piketon and spur economic development throughout the depressed southeastern Ohio area.
"With such economic potential, it just makes sense to assure our Ohioans from the outset that this project will be a safe, secure facility - never anything like a Yucca Mountain-type nuclear-waste dump," he said.
The Piketon Initiative for Nuclear Independence received $673,761 in January to conduct a detailed site study, which was submitted to the Energy Department on May 1. It's now under review.
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New Haven Register
May 12, 2007
After nukes
Luther Turmelle and Abbe Smith, Register Staff
-HADDAM — It has been closed for more than a decade, but the end is near for the Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant, at least as a federally licensed facility.
Sometime this summer, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to terminate the license for the 550-acre plant, said Bob Capstick, a spokesman for the consortium that owns the plant.
Then, all that will remain on the property on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River is a storage facility, where 43 dry cask storage units of spent nuclear fuel are being kept until a national repository for nuclear waste is developed.
Sometime this summer, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to terminate the license for the 550-acre plant, said Bob Capstick, a spokesman for the consortium that owns the plant.
Then, all that will remain on the property on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River is a storage facility, where 43 dry cask storage units of spent nuclear fuel are being kept until a national repository for nuclear waste is developed.
Some in Haddam view the plant’s slow fade into history with some nostalgia.
Seamus Danaher, who grew up in Haddam Neck, remembers hanging out near the power plant with friends as a kid.
He said Connecticut Yankee was always a good neighbor to residents, even donating money and equipment to the Haddam Neck Volunteer Fire Department, where Danaher used to be a firefighter.
He said the power plant, which began operating in 1968, kept taxes low in town and maintained a quiet, unobtrusive presence in Haddam Neck, which changed as the plant came tumbling down and the debris-filled dirt was carted away.
"It’s louder now with all the construction trucks going in and out," Danaher said.
The trucks are involved in grading projects on the site, one of the final steps before decommissioning becomes official.
A contractor working for the NRC, the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, visited the Connecticut Yankee site late last month, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC Northeast office in Philadelphia.
ORISE performed surveys and took soil samples to verify that any radioactivity left at the site is within allowable levels, Sheehan said.
In order for the NRC to give clearance for the Connecticut Yankee land to be used for any type of activity — called "unrestricted release" — radioactivity must be below 25 millirems per year, he said.
"That is, a member of the public who stayed on the site for an entire year should not receive more than 25 millirems," Sheehan said. "The average American is exposed to about 360 millirems of radiation each year from natural and man-made sources."
Connecticut’s limit is 19 millirems, he said.
Until the NRC determines whether the Connecticut Yankee site can be released for unrestricted use, exactly what its future holds remains unclear.
Connecticut Yankee has hired a consultant to determine the best possible use for the majority of the land, Capstick said. And Dennis Schain, a Department of Environmental Protection spokesman, said this week that the state agency has had preliminary discussions about purchasing the property.
"It is so close to several state parks in the area," he said, adding: "It would be safe and suitable for recreational use once the decommissioning of the plant is completed."
Connecticut is not alone in considering a former nuclear plant site for park land.
Michigan officials announced last July that they were considering buying the 500-acre site that was formerly home to the Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant. The plant, which has a mile of shoreline on Lake Michigan, is located in the northernmost reaches of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.
Haddam First Selectman Tony Bondi said residents are split over what they would like to see happen with the land. He said open space or another generating plant — or both — would be welcome.
One thing state and local officials don’t want to see the site become is a permanent storage facility for spent nuclear fuel.
For the past year, Gov. M. Jodi Rell has been waging a campaign, along with other governors of states with nuclear plants, to persuade the federal government to honor its commitment to build a permanent waste storage facility in Nevada.
The U.S. government established a fund in the early 1980s to build a centralized, permanent storage facility at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles north of Las Vegas. But the project has seen numerous construction delays and isn’t expected to be completed until 2017.
Further complicating efforts to keep the Yucca Mountain plan moving forward is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has vowed to block the multibillion-dollar project’s completion.
All the gamesmanship between the state and federal governments has Bondi worried.
"From the ‘smell’ we get, I’m going to have nuclear spent fuel over here in Haddam Neck for the next 20 to 30 years," he said.
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Lincoln County Record
May 11, 2007
Editorial
Municipal Welfare
One of the most controversial, divisive issues of the last half century is the governmental innovation known as Welfare.
Like most Federal programs, it was a good idea in the beginning that eventually evolved into something ugly that was loved by those who dipped their beaks into the public coffers yet was despised by those filling the well.
Welfare is free money given by a government with too much of it to recipients who did nothing to earn it.
Today, there is a new form of Welfare.
It’s called Yucca Mountain.
More specifically, it is the incredibly deep pocket of a Federal government trying to buy the goodwill of local governments with their spare change.
It is being done with grants given under the laughable cloak of pretending to allow those municipal agencies to use money from the Feds to find ways to fight the Feds over the nuclear waste repository.
And there are few local governments with their noses any deeper in that Department Of Energy trough than Lincoln County.
On Monday, the county rolled out their 2007-08 budget for their Nuclear Oversight department.
One point nine million dollars.
That’s how much the county plans to spend in the next year.
Unfortunately, while some of that money will stay here to fund local people in made-up county jobs, the bulk of it will go to various “consultants” with their hands out.
There are local residents trying to get their roads paved, others struggling to survive on the pennies to be made in 21st century agriculture, and county agencies using 20-year-old vehicles to take care of too many people in need.
Meanwhile, wealthy consultants whose biggest task is giving a book report or reading an obscure newspaper clipping to the County Commission once a month will reap hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The money isn’t being used for legitimate scientific research, or legal maneuvering or even the use of lobbyists that might be able to make a difference when it comes time for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to make a decision about Yucca Mountain.
It’s being used to conduct studies and interpret paperwork.
Sorry, $1.9 million seems like a lot for a glorified C3PO unit whose only task is to translate data.
And to those who support this bizarre form of municipal Welfare, it’s all okay because “it’s Federal money, it’s not county money.”
Well here’s a news flash:
It IS county money.
And city money, and state money.
It is OUR money.
The tax dollars being wasted on this boondoggle come from U.S. citizens.
Believe it or not, that includes us.
On Monday, County Commissioner Ronda Hornbeck had the guts to say “Stop the Madness” and actually question whether it’s in the best interest of the county to continue blindly forking over blank checks to these consultants.
Her reward was a blistering hue and cry from those wounded consultants who can’t understand why a county where families have to make a decision every day between whether to buy food or whether to buy shoes, would have the audacity to challenge their hundred-thousand-dollar studies over whether the route to Yucca Mountain should go through an empty stretch of desert or an empty stretch of desert.
Somehow, the consultants seemed to express a certain amount of “entitlement” to that money.
Just like some third-generation Welfare recipients who have developed the mindset that they are somehow entitled to government money.
Maybe there is a certain amount of value to the work being done by some of the consultants.
But the benchmark should be this: if we were writing the checks ourselves, if we were squeezing the quarters out of our own pockets, is this an endeavor we would be willing to pay nearly $2 million a year for?
In a county where those quarters are not easy to come by, the answer would be no.
And taking these Federal handouts just to turn around and line the pockets of out-of-town professionals with lots of letters behind their names shouldn’t make the decision any easier.
Hornbeck is right to ask questions.
If more municipal leaders showed that kind of stewardship, maybe our country wouldn’t be carrying trillions of dollars in debt that our grandchildren will someday have to pay.
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Pahrump Valley Times
May 11, 2007
Nye officials aim at Pahrump water problems
By MARK WAITE
PVT
DEATH VALLEY, Calif. -- Officials in Nye County are finally taking some political steps to address water problems in Pahrump, Walt Kuver, member of an ad-hoc water committee and owner of Directed Solutions, a consulting firm, told delegates at the annual Devil's Hole workshop here last week.
Kuver mentioned two initiatives, the most important being a state bill to create a Nye County water district, first suggested by county hydrologist Tom Buqo in his 2004 water resources plan (see related story on page A2). The second involves efforts by county commissioners to form a general improvement water and sewer district in Pahrump Valley.
The annual Devil's Hole workshop attracts scientists and other experts involved in groundwater studies in the watershed leading to Devil's Hole, including consultants working on the Yucca Mountain project.
Senate Bill 222, to create the Nye County water district, was passed unanimously by the state Senate. It was heard by the Nevada Assembly Government Affairs Committee Tuesday morning.
Kuver said, however, some "interesting constraints" were put on the membership of the Nye County water district board.
"The board's appointed by the county commissioners but only three members are from Pahrump of a seven person board. Four will be from outside. There needs to be a fairness to this if we're ever going to get water from northern Nye County down to the Pahrump Valley," Kuver said.
He added, "as another consideration they will not allow a board member to be affiliated with a private utility company. Those three utility companies in Pahrump now are driving all the infrastructure improvement."
County commissioners can still recall water district board members and they can reverse their decisions if someone appeals to the county, Kuver said. But with the county-wide water district scheduled to take effect July 1 if the state legislature approves the bill, Kuver added, there's "still a lot of political overtones to this."
A super-majority of the water district board would be required to approve the inter-basin transfer of water, Kuver said, like bringing Railroad Valley water down to Pahrump Valley.
Buqo, the county hydrologist, told the delegates when the new state engineer Tracy Taylor met with Pahrump Valley utility companies last fall, he remarked "it's not a matter of if you're going to bring the water to Pahrump, it's a matter of when.
"One thing we've learned in Southern Nevada by looking over the hill at Las Vegas is that the people just keep coming whether the water's there or not," Buqo said. "We can take these people off of domestic wells and put them on municipal wells, but that just transfers it to high-volume wells located in the areas with the worst withdrawals."
In a basin with more domestic water wells than any other in Nevada, Buqo repeated warnings he made elsewhere: that the water table in Pahrump is expected to drop below 130 feet near Highway 160 in 2020 near Highway 160, with most areas in the valley below that level by 2040.
"That's important because most wells are 140 feet," Buqo said. "Once you drop that water table down to 130 feet, they start having problems. They're going to have to deepen their wells or go to a municipal system," Buqo said.
Those water levels could be exacerbated by drought, Buqo said. The water table is expected to drop more rapidly under the valley floor than under the alluvial fan, he said.
Water levels at the Echo Well, 9,500 feet up in the Spring Mountains, show wide variations of 100 feet in depth between wet and dry years, he said. The fact the well depth doesn't stay up after a wet year indicates there's heavy pumping somewhere, he said.
"That high-altitude data is kind of interesting because it shows a high seasonal variability. If the water levels come up they automatically drop down, they don't stay up. As more wells are drilled in Pahrump and more water extracted, water level declines in Pahrump are expected to accelerate over the coming years," he said.
Buqo pushed for a long-term water study to answer the questions about the Pahrump water table. One of the most comprehensive studies was done by Jim Harrell in 1986, he said, much of it documenting the intensive pumping years of the 1960s and 1970s during the cotton boom.
"There's a great deal of information available but there's limitations on the accuracy of the locations," Buqo said. "If you go to what you want in the long-term data, it turns out there's only a few sites."
While Harrell's study estimated the Pahrump Valley could support water withdrawals of 40,000 acre feet per year, Buqo said water withdrawals will increase to an estimated 80,000 acre feet per year as the valley builds up to 150,000 people.
"If serious problems arise, it will probably not be related to running out of water on a valley-wide basis, but instead situations such as deteriorating water quality, land subsidence or too closely-spaced pumping," Buqo said.
When asked by a delegate to the workshop if there's an upper limit of development in Pahrump Valley due to water concerns, Buqo replied, "It's not the way it works. I mean, the people keep coming. Water will keep coming because water follows the money."
The creation of general improvement districts for water, sewer and flood control will be necessary partly because the county has to use its impact fees within a certain period of time, Kuver said. The sewer service plan hit a snag when Pahrump utility companies complained they didn't have enough input.
Kuver said the creation of those districts will also finally make the public aware of the water supply problem. He said proponents of general improvement districts have to get past the independent nature of some domestic well owners. Part of the problem is that planners don't know how much water domestic well owners use, he said.
While Kuver spoke about Senate Bill 222, his fellow water committee member, Donna Lamm, also a member of the Amargosa Conservancy and Southern Nye County Conservation District, mentioned Assembly Bill 447, which would create a bi-state advisory water commission including Inyo and San Bernardino counties in California as well as Clark and Nye counties in Nevada.
Greg James, who reported on the Nevada state engineer's recent rulings, mentioned the Lincoln County public lands bill contains a provision that, if Nevada is going to pump water from that county, there has to be an agreement with Utah. Nye County is in the process of working on its own public lands bill.
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Green Party US
May 11, 2007
Lifting moratorium on building nuclear plants is an idea that should be buried and stored for 10,000 years
Wisconsin Green Party
Ruth Weill Co-Chair, Wisconsin Green Party, spokesperson@wisconsingreenparty.org 414-350-2107
WISCONSIN -- Today the Wisconsin Green Party stated its opposition to lifting the state moratorium on building additional nuclear power plants in Wisconsin.
"We disagree with the Special Legislative Committee on Nuclear Power's decision to recommend to the Wisconsin legislature that the moratorium be lifted," said Ron Hardy, Co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party. "All of our energy needs must be evaluated within a sustainable framework. Nuclear energy is neither economically nor environmentally sustainable. Our current Wisconsin moratorium has basic reasonable criteria with which to evaluate whether to build more nuclear power plants - that the nuclear plant must be a better deal for the ratepayer when all alternatives are considered, and that a federal facility is available to accept all nuclear waste generated. Clearly no proposed nuclear power plant could currently meet those criteria."
"It seems the Committee has asked the question - 'How can we get rid of consumer and environmental protections so that we can produce more energy to support our unsustainable way of life?'" said Ruth Weill, Co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party. "The question we should be asking is, 'How can we live in a way that enables all in Wisconsin to meet basic needs without compromising the well-being of those generations that come after us?' Nuclear power may be the answer to the first question, but it isn't the answer to the second."
The United States has the largest ecological footprint of any nation, meaning that residents consume the largest amount of the earth's resources. Worldwide, there are 4.5 productive acres per person. The average U.S. citizen uses 24 acres. If everyone lived at United States levels of consumption, 5.3 earths would be needed.
"Greens advocate for a seventh generation mindset," said Hardy. "The reason we are in a crisis situation today is because we and those before us have not considered the consequences of our actions. Nuclear waste will need to be stored far longer than seven generations - in fact, it will need to be stored for longer than the duration of any civilization so far. We believe in true cost pricing. The cost of 10,000 years of storage needs to be figured into the price tag for nuclear power."
The National Academy of Sciences has called for a nuclear storage system that would protect against radiation releases beyond the next 10,000 years.
More than 1,100 metric tons of used fuel is in temporary storage in Wisconsin in water-filled vaults. Nuclear Management Company also operates a dry cask storage facility at the Point Beach site.
The Yucca Mountain federal nuclear waste storage facility is slated to open to receive waste in 2017. However, Harry Reid, Speaker of the House of Representatives, has expressed his commitment to preventing that from happening. The citizens of Nevada are opposed to opening a national nuclear waste storage facility in their state.
Wisconsin is one of the states near the top of the list of perspective national sites for radioactive waste.
Greens support conservation as the most important step in addressing energy needs, followed by developing renewable energies. According to the Wisconsin Clean Energy Plan, greater energy efficiency, conservation, and clean energy generation would greatly reduce the need for new nuclear power plants, or polluting coal-fired power plants. In studies conducted by the University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, renewable energy, cleaner fuels, and greater energy efficiency could save Wisconsin consumers $490 million, create 8,500 new jobs, and reduce air pollution by 70 billion pounds.
Nuclear power currently provides approximately 20% of Wisconsin's power.
For more information about the Wisconsin Green Party visit:
http://wisconsingreenparty.org
For more information about ecological footprints visit:
http://ecofoot.org/
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SocialFunds
May 11, 2007
Risky Business: The Outlook for Investing in Nuclear Power
by Anne Moore Odell
A new report scrutinizes the nuclear industry from an investor’s perspective and finds a rotting fantasy of cheap energy and huge returns.
SocialFunds.com -- The question is no longer if humans have contributed to global warming by releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, but what we can do to stop more damage from occurring. As governments, businesses and concerned citizens from every corner of the planet think about global warming and growing demand for energy, solutions to these problems abound. As people consider currently available energy sources, the role nuclear power should play is being hotly debated.
An influential coalition of socially responsible investors and environmental, health, and public interest organizations recently released the report “Why a Future for the Nuclear Industry is Risky” that strongly comes down against the inclusion of nuclear power in the future energy equation. The report argues that nuclear power is not a good investment for people interested either in a healthy return or a healthy planet.
The report is based on presentations by Peter Bradford and David Schlissel, both of whom have extensive experience in the technical and governmental aspects of the nuclear power industry. Report sponsors include Friends of the Earth,, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network (NC WARN), Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), Public Citizen, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), and U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).
According to the report, new nuclear power plants would be bad investments: “New nuclear power plants will not be cost competitive with other electricity generating alternatives.” Instead, pointing to renewable energy sources such as wind, the report states that in 2005 investment in renewable energy capacity was almost $40 billion and is continuing to grow.
US nuclear power plants will likely be phased out by mid-century, said Leslie H. Lowe, Program Director at ICCR. US nuclear power plants are part of an aging infrastructure and although the government has re-licensed many nuclear plants for the next twenty years, at the end of these twenty years, the plants will not be operational.
Not all investors agree with the report’s conclusions on the role of nuclear power. Bill Page, Vice President of State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) and Head of SSGA’s environmental, social and governance team, sees nuclear energy as one of the pieces of the energy solution pie.
The findings of the UK’s Stern Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the “Wedge” theory from Princeton, authored by Robert Socolow and others as described in the paperp, “Solving the Climate Problem: Technologies Available to Curb CO2 emissions” all point out the need for a change in the way energy is currently being produced. Page thinks that new nuclear research and construction could definitely help the CO2 crisis.
“Carbon legislation is forthcoming and this legislation is going to create opportunities for forward looking companies. The companies that have been preparing for climate changes, not just preaching, but actually preparing, are going to do very well,” Page said. “We can either spend a little money now, or a lot of money later. With carbon, there is mitigation and adaptation. The bottom line is we can’t do those things with renewables alone. If we are going to mitigate carbon, we need to sustain a wide portfolio,” Page added.
According to Lowe, “SRI investors for years have known there is huge risk in new nuclear power. There have been utility companies that have been running nuclear plants successfully, but there have been issues as well, like releases of hot water and faulty alarms.”
One reason why nuclear power is considered cost prohibitive, according to the report, is the expense of building new nuclear power plants, despite the large subsidies provided in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT 2005). Building new nuclear power plants also takes a long time, and no new nuclear power plants have been built in the US for almost thirty years. The report suggests that future plants could run into some of the same difficulties that previously built plants did, such as running over initial cost estimates by more than 200%.
“Nuclear power is not a market solution,” Lowe said. “We could not have nuclear power without government subsidies. Plant liability is capped by the government and with the Price-Anderson Act, the public is on the hook.” The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act was first passed in 1957 and renewed several times since then. It installed a no fault insurance system for nuclear power plants with any claims above $10 billion to be picked up by the federal government.
The report states, “in the last 50 years, nuclear energy subsidies have totaled close to $145 billion and amount to more taxpayer dollars for R&D than for all other energy sectors combined.”
Page thinks that it is not construction cost alone that has keep new nuclear plants from being built in the US. He names other factors including a long permitting process and organizations that work to keep reactors out of their back yards. He points to France and other European countries that are successfully building plants and embracing new technologies.
To meet projected global energy needs, there would have to be between 1000-2000 new nuclear reactors built, Lowe told Socialfunds.com. However, if these plants were constructed, the supply of fuel grade uranium would be exhausted within five years.
“When you look at the full life cycle of a nuclear power plant, nuclear power is not a ‘nimble solution,’” Lowe said.
The inherent danger of a radioactive event is also important for investors to consider. Negative public opinion in the wake of an accident or attack would likely hamper new plant construction. The report quotes the S&P rating service’s findings that “an electric utility with a nuclear exposure has weaker credit than one without and can expect to pay more on the margin for credit. Federal support of construction costs will do little to change that reality. Therefore, were a utility to embark on a new or expanded nuclear endeavor, Standard & Poor’s would likely revisit its rating on the utility.”
Another argument that this report debunks is that nuclear power will reduce US dependence on energy supplies from abroad. Nuclear power cannot replace importing of oil by the US the report states because only 3% of electricity in the US comes from petroleum.
The report identifies spent nuclear waste as another problem that needs to be addressed before more power plants are built. Yucca Mountain storage faculties are 20 years behind schedule with a target opening date of 2017. The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), the Bush administration’s plan to allow the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, still faces technical and political hurdles. The report says that reprocessing would increase the opportunity for fissile materials to land in the wrong hands and be used in building a nuclear bomb.
Investment in US solar-based companies doubled between 2004 and 2005 to $150 million, the report notes. In 2005, it was largely private risk capital that financed micro-power that provided 32% of additional global output. The report concludes that “investors focusing on actual market behavior must conclude that nuclear power is not preferred.”
Lowe told Socialfunds.com that we are living in a time of transition, with people asking for more energy-efficient appliances and cleaner energy. Electricity sources are becoming decentralized compared to centralized power sources like nuclear power reactors. Lowe is hopeful that people today faced with rising energy costs and rising temperatures will modify their behaviors, as they did the 1970s when concern over peak oil and rising fuel prices led to many changes in power consumption.
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Political Affairs Magazine
May 11, 2007
Global warming, nuclear power: double trouble
By Peter Mac
As a twelve year old I visited a new engineering exhibition which included a model of a nuclear power station. That model promised a future in which electrical energy would be produced without atmospheric pollution, at a minute cost, and safely.
That promise is long gone. In the 1960s radioactive gas emissions from nuclear plants caused public alarm. In 1973 the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, USA, suffered an extremely dangerous accident, and in 1982 the nuclear power station at Chernobyl in the Ukraine suffered a catastrophic "meltdown," surely the worst environmental accident in human history.
Moreover, we now face major changes in the world's climate and ecosystems. These changes arise from "global warming," a phenomenon in which certain gases in the atmosphere prevent much of the earth's reflected solar radiation from escaping back into space. Carbon dioxide CO2 comprises about 50 percent of these gases, and is mostly produced by the combustion of coal or oil in power stations, vehicles and industrial engines.
Global warming will cause rising sea levels, ocean current variations, an overall increase in global temperatures, increasing incidence and severity of forest fires and major storms, prolonged drought and intermittent flooding, increasing serious disease outbreaks, massive biodiversity losses, sea water acidification and deteriorating air quality.
The historical coincidence of global warming and a revived nuclear industry magnifies the hazard. For example, resource depletion in some countries because of global warming will jeopardize their nuclear plants' maintenance and health and safety programs. Climate change will also reduce water supplies, which are crucial to avert reactor meltdowns [1].
Global warming is likely to result in international struggles over water and other resources. Some individuals and national governments will also be tempted to use radioactive waste from nuclear plants to fashion nuclear weapons [2].
Acquisition of nuclear power facilitates acquisition of nuclear weapons. It provides technical expertise and fissile materials and companies that are involved in nuclear power generation are also involved in nuclear weapons manufacture.
It could happen here. Robert Menzies, John Howard's mentor and idol, took the first steps to establish a nuclear power industry and wanted Australia to acquire nuclear weapons [3]. Howard's recently-released Zwitkowski report [4] concluded that Australia could develop uranium enrichment capabilities, and enriched uranium may be used to manufacture nuclear weapons.
The global warming spin
Energy corporations and their parliamentary representatives have lied or dissembled about global warming for years. In 1989 fifty US automotive, oil, gas, coal and chemical corporations formed a lobby group, the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which argued that global warming was a fiction. Some coal corporations admitted that global warming was a reality, but claimed it would bring an "eternal summer" and eliminate malnutrition [5]. GCC is now disbanded, but some US organizations are still describing global warming as a myth [6].
It now appears that the US Government itself has deliberately altered, dismissed or suppressed scientific reports which were likely to raise concern over global warming [7].
The predictions of global warming have given a new lease of life to the commercial nuclear power industry, which is enthusiastically promoting the supposed lack of atmospheric emissions, particularly CO2 from nuclear power generation. The "Chernobyl Forum" group argues that the Chernobyl hazard has been greatly exaggerated [8].
Howard has only acknowledged the threat from global warming in order to promote the introduction of nuclear power in Australia. The uranium mining industry stands to make a vast fortune out of Australia's huge share (40 percent) of the world's uranium [9]. However, Howard has never acknowledged that at the current rate of use, the existing reserves of usable grade uranium will only last fifty years [10].
Green and cheap?
Nuclear plants emit virtually no C02 during operation, but they frequently release radioactive gases and fluids. Uranium enrichment, advocated in the Zwitkowski report, also produces emissions of chlorofluorocarbons, banned greenhouse gases, which are 10,000 to 20,000 times more damaging than CO2 and which destroy the ozone layer [11].
Moreover, building a nuclear power station results in huge CO2 emissions. So does mining uranium ore, milling it, remediating the tailings, converting the ore, enriching the uranium, fabricating the reactor elements, cooling and disposing of the reactor water, storing, cooling and guarding the waste for 60 years, and transporting it to safe and secure storage [12].
One scientist has calculated that reducing global temperatures by half a percent through use of nuclear power would require construction of 1200 nuclear power plants and 15 uranium enrichment plants. This would produce a million tons of highly radioactive waste, containing sufficient plutonium for thousands of nuclear weapons, and would cost between one and two trillion US dollars [13].
The cost of milling US ore is met by the government, which also provides huge industry subsidies [14] and nuclear plant insurance [15]. The cost of mining and processing the ore rises over time because the highest-grade ore is mined first, and the energy required for mining increases in inverse proportion to the grade of the remaining ore, until the process becomes uneconomical [16].
The cost of storing and guarding nuclear waste during its radioactive life is incalculable. To date, attempts to dispose of waste without hazard or leakage, including the $10 billion Yucca Mountain experiment in California, have failed. Our descendants will have to pay for further experiments or, if they're not successful, to guard the waste for up to 500,000 years [17].
How safe is nuclear power?
Nuclear power generation is extremely dangerous, despite Howard's reassurances. The 1976 Three Mile Island explosion caused major radioactive emissions, mass evacuation, and an increasing incidence of birth deformities and radiation-related diseases [18].
The Soviet Union's worst environmental accident was the 1986 Chernobyl explosion, which caused a nationwide drop in Soviet morale, and contributed to the eventual defeat of socialism in that country and in the Eastern European states.
Part of the Chernobyl radioactive plume reached the US. European farms limited or ceased production [19]. Some 400,000 people were evacuated from the worst-affected portion; 150,000 sq. kilometers of the Ukraine, Russia and Byelorussia were contaminated, of which 52,000 sq. kilometers are ruined [20]. The protective cover over the crippled Chernobyl reactor is said to be fracturing and the reactor may even erupt again [21].
The incidence of thyroid cancer has soared. In Belarus between 1986 and 2001 there were 8358 cases, including 716 in children [22]. The number of birth defects and other diseases are increasing. Between 5,000 and 10,000 of the 650,000 workers involved in the clean-up died prematurely [23]. The full medical and biological effects will not be known for decades.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) blocked the release of a 1998 World Health Organization (WHO) report on Chernobyl [24]. The WHO is forbidden by a 1959 agreement with the IAEA from investigating the impacts of nuclear technology on public health and even from warning endangered communities [25].
Nuclear plants are highly susceptible to terrorist attacks [26] the probability of which has increased enormously in Australia because of the Howard Government's policies. In the US the security of nuclear plants is precarious. An eruption at the Indian Point reactor could effectively incapacitate New York, 35 miles away, and there are thirteen nuclear plants located around Chicago [27].
Many US plants are also susceptible to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis and rising sea levels [28] and their operation requires huge amounts of water, a major deficiency in Australia. Leakages of gas or fluids from nuclear plants is a major hazard, because nuclear reactor fluids are extremely corrosive.
Emissions trading
Emissions trading schemes aim to limit annual greenhouse gas emissions within a country or group of countries [29]. The limit amount is represented by a certain number of permits, granted to organizations or countries whose industries emit greenhouse gases. Those whose industries exceed the limit can purchase extra permits from those with a better performance, e.g. those which produce or use renewable source energy, or effectively capture carbon from the air, as in forestation.
Emissions trading is sometimes described as a tax. This is incorrect, because extra credits accrued by emission-conforming enterprises are sold to defaulting industries, rather than entering consolidated revenue.
The European Economic Union (EEU) has introduced a trading scheme, in which India and China are participating. Australia has the potential to benefit from such a scheme, but at the moment our level of combustion of coal and oil give us the world's highest per capita emission rate [30]. Moreover, under Howard's "nuclear vision" we would accept uranium waste from many countries and would probably also process the uranium ore, as in the US. In short, we would increase our emission rate by carrying out all the CO2 activities in the nuclear cycle.
The constraints of time
Construction of facilities for nuclear power or coal geosequestration (burying liquified C02) in Australia would take far longer than is permitted by the climate crisis. Completion of a pilot geosequestration plant (for burying massive amounts of CO2,) could not be completed until 2026 [31], while target dates for constructing nuclear plants are notoriously unreliable [32]. However, the Stem Report [33] concluded that major reductions in emissions should be achieved before 2016.
Some of the world's energy needs may eventually be met by nuclear fusion rather than fission. Fusion technology promises abundant energy with little radiation hazard, but involves difficulties in achieving continuous operation and dealing with emitted helium. The first experimental fusion plant will probably not be operational for decades.
Renewable and political
Renewable energy options particularly wind and solar power, are clean and green, and provide the best means of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change within the global warming time frame. Reserves of oil will probably reach the critical "peak-oil" point by 2010 [34]; reserves of natural gas will reach "peak-gas" point between 2030 and 2035 [35].
Difficulties which have inhibited renewable technologies have been solved or are being rapidly overcome [36]. However, the development of renewable energy sources is opposed by the petroleum, coal and uranium mining companies. Their profits are threatened by renewable technologies, which offer the most efficient form of energy generation, because natural energy is not a commodity but is supplied by nature, free of charge.
The US also opposes the development of renewable energy technology and the introduction of emissions trading, because the US economy has benefited for decades from use of the dollar as the international oil trading currency. This convention underpins the value of the dollar and provides the US with highly lucrative commissions on oil transactions [37].
This is undoubtedly one of the primary reason why General Motors terminated the leases on their astonishing electric cars and destroyed them in 2005, after Californian anti-pollution legislation was overturned [38]. (The electric cars were leased rather than being sold).
Vehicles such as these would greatly reduce overall emissions even if recharged by power from coal-fired power plants, and would eliminate emissions altogether if recharged by power from renewable energy sources. However, they also have the potential to render use of petroleum largely obsolete. The contribution such vehicles offer in the battle against global warming is, therefore, equal in magnitude to the threat they pose to the "petrodollar" and to the future of the oil corporations.
A choice of systems
In the 21st Century, nations and political systems will be judged by their relative contribution to the struggle against global warming. Particular issues will include the rapid and extensive utilization of renewable energy, support for other areas of research, public health and safe, government control of private firms involved in research, investment and implementation, and the prevention of nuclear proliferation and armed conflicts over resources.
Among the western nations, the EEC nations have performed well. The worst were the United States and Australia, (which has the world's worst per capita emission rate), whose governments have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
In 2005 Hurricane Katrina provided a foretaste of coming climatic crises, and also the level of readiness of affected nations. Again, the US was the worst performer, as demonstrated by the entirely avoidable devastation of New Orleans.
In comparison, Cuba endured Katrina with admirable preparation and few casualties. Moreover, Cuba had successfully managed a major drop in access to petroleum in the early 1990s [39]. This is of major importance, because international reserves of oil are beginning to run out, and because vehicle emissions and the global consumption of resources must be cut, to avert climate change. (This means that in order for the developing nations to reach the same standard of living as the developed nations without bankrupting the earth's resources, that standard will have to be lower than at present.)
China intends to build 35 more nuclear power stations [40] but that's a small part of its future energy requirement. It is planning a series of ecologically-sustainable new cities, and intends to reduce its power consumption by 20 percent by 2010 [41].
Society's judgment of each nation's global warming performance will be influenced by a propaganda struggle. Cuba's achievements are virtually ignored in mainstream western media. The powerful environmental laws which the USSR introduced to prevent environmental disasters from its rapidly developing industries [42] are also ignored. (Western nations also enacted environmental laws, but these were frequently challenged, often successfully, by affected corporations [43].)
The Howard Government's proposal to introduce nuclear power is extremely unpopular. The situation provides excellent opportunities for united joint action regarding global warming and nuclear power. However, such action should include support for employees, for example coal miners and timber workers, some of whom will be adversely affected by initiatives to avert global warming, despite new employment opportunities offered by those initiatives.
Conclusion
Nuclear power generation would be too slow and too expensive to implement, and would pose appalling difficulties for future generations in dealing with nuclear waste. It would also create enormous security problems, constitute a potential danger for communities living near reactors, and provide a negligible contribution, if any, to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, before uranium of usable grades begins to be worked out. It is certainly no solution to global warming.
The current US and Australian governments are procrastinating over the development of alternative energy systems. Immediate and draconian measures to reduce emissions, for example, government closure of high-emission power plants and industries, would be economically disastrous, and should not be contemplated now. However, the longer it takes for emissions to be reduced, the greater will be the future impact of climate change, and the greater the likelihood of passing one of the "tipping points" of qualitative change, beyond which horrific natural changes will become irreversible.
The best criteria for dealing with global warming is to support those initiatives which will contribute as rapidly as possible to the health and safety of Planet Earth. In Australian conditions this must mean giving priority to the development of solar energy, wind power and other means of using renewable energy sources.
Acknowledgements: Sincere thanks to Peter Symon for comments. Most of the references below are derived from Dr. Helen Caldicott's Nuclear Power is Not the Answer to Global Warming or Anything Else (Melbourne University Press, 2006) and from Professor Tim Flannery's The Weather Maker; The Text Publishing Company, 2005.
Endnotes:
1. Schwarz, Paul, For Nuclear Power, the Heat is on, WBAI Pacifica Radio, 11.11.2003 (Caldicott, Helen, Nuclear Power is Not the Answer to Global Warming or Anything Else, Melbourne University Press, 2006, p.86).
2. Caldicott, op. cit., p.xv.
3. Butt, Peter, (Dir.), Fortress Australia, Film Australia, 2002. Broadcast on ABC TV 27.8.2002.
4. Zwitkowski, Ziggy, Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy: Opportunities for Australia? Commonwealth of Australia, 2006.
5. Freeze, B., Coal, a Human History, Perseus Publishing, 2003 (Flannery, Timothy, The Weather Maker; The Text Publishing Company, 2005, p.240.
6. Monbiot, George, The Denial Industry, Guardian Weekly; 29.9.2006 to 5.10.2006.
7. Anon., How Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming, New York Times, 8.6.2005, also Kennedy, R.F., Crimes Against Nature, How George Bush and His Corporate Pals are Plundering the Country and Hijacking our Democracy, Harper Collins, New York 2004. Caldicott, Helen, Nuclear Power is Not the Answer to Global Warming or Anything Else, Melbourne University Press, 2006, p.24
8. Chernobyl: Nuclear Nightmares, BBC Horizon TV. Director unknown, broadcast on SBS TV, 7.1.07.
9. Caldicott, op. cit., pvii.
10. NEA-IAEA, Uranium 2003, Resources, Production and Demand, OECD, Paris, 2004 (Caldicott, op. cit., p.8).
11. Caldicott, op. cit., p.xiii.
12. Ibid., p.4.
13. Cochran, Thomas, title and date of report unknown, quoted in Caldicott, op. cit., p.180.
14. Caldicott, op. cit., pp.21-24
15. Ibid., p.30.
16. Ibid., p.8.
17. Ibid., 107 - 114.
18. Ibid., 68, 69.
19. Ibid., 76 -78
20. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs, "Chernobyl Needs Great 18 Years After Nuclear Accident", UNOCHA press release, New York, 26.4.2004 (Caldicott, op. cit., pp.78, 79)
21. Marples, David R., Chernobyl, Ten Years Later " The Facts, University of Alberta, 21.3.1996 (Ca op. cit., p.80)
22. Report of the Government of Ukraine, Optimizing the International Effort to Study, Mitigate and Minimize the Consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, Annex III of the Report of the Secretary General, UN General Assembly, 29.8.2003. (Caldicott, op. cit., p.77). This report notes that the number of people who had "disabilities connected with the Chernobyl disaster" increased from 2000 in 1991 to almost 100,000 by 1.1.2003.
23. Medvedev, The Truth about Chernobyl, date and publisher unknown (Caldicott, op. cit., p.
24. Bramhall, Richard, Busby, Christopher and Dorfman, Paul, CERRIE Minority Report 2004, UK Dept. of Health/Dept. of Environment Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters, Aberstwyth, Sosiumi Press, 2004 (Caldicott, op. cit., p.75).
25. Caldicott, op. cit., p.7S.
26. Ibid., p.89-92.
27. Ibid., p.xiv.
28. Ibid., p.87.
29. Mullins, F., and Barron, R., Questions and Answers on Emission Trading Among Annex 1 Parties, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the International Energy Agency, December 1997.
30. Flannery, op. cit., p.
31. Bradbury, John, for Geoscience Australia, "Catalyst", ABC TV, 10.7.2006.
32. Vedantum, Shankar, "Uncertainties Slow Push for Plants, Cost of Building New Facilities, Concerns about Waste Disposal Are Cited", Washington Post, 24.7.2005. (Caldicott, op. cit., p.
33. Stern, Nicholas, (Chairperson, the "Stern Review") The Economics of Climate Change, SN, SI, 2006.
34. "Four Corners", ABC TV, 10.7.06. Professor Ian Lowe claims the "peak oil" stage may already have been reached. (National Press Club luncheon lecture, 30.8.06).
35. Fournier, Donald S., and Westervelt, Eileen T., Energy Trends and their Implications for US Army Installations, US Army Corps of Engineers: Engineers Research and Development Centre, September 2005, pp. 53-57. (Clark, William, Peak Oil Petrocurrencies and the Emerging Multi-Polar World publisher, place and date unknown)
36. ""Catalyst", ABC TV, 1.8.06; also "7.30 Report", ABC TV, 24.7.06.
37. Clark, op. cit.
38. Paine, Christopher, (Dir.) Who Killed the Electric Car? Warner Bros. (?), 2005.
39. The Power of Community (DVD), 2006.
40. Caldicott, op. cit., p.xxi.
41. Anonymous, "China Voices Fears Over Global Warming", Sydney Morning Herald, 28.1.06.
42. Ryabchikov, A., The Changing Face of the Earth, pp.139, 152, 164, 165
43. Ibid., 165. Ryabchikov noted that in the 1970s some US enterprises set aside funds to pay for pollution fines, because this was cheaper than paying for new equipment to deal with the problem.
From Australian Marxist Review
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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