Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, June 21, 2007
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Decatur Daily
June 22, 2007
Bush visits Browns Ferry
Power intersects at nuclear plant here
By Eric Fleischauer
eric@decaturdaily.com · 340-2435
The power was palpable at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant on Thursday.
Not only were three nuclear reactors humming along at 100-percent power, the most powerful man in the nation was speaking on the importance of nuclear energy.
Among the 250 crowded into a hot employee gymnasium to hear President Bush speak were 150 Tennessee Valley Authority employees, 100 of them chosen by lottery from Browns Ferry rank and file.
“Thanks for what you’re doing,” Bush said, to the employees. “Thanks for being skillful. Thanks for working hard. Thanks for helping the country.”
Jeffrey Kirsch, a fire protection system engineer at Browns Ferry since 1985, said the president’s visit was an important morale booster for employees.
“I think it was a shot in the arm for all of us,” Kirsch said. “People get tired after all that work (for the Unit 1 restart). It was a big plus for the employees.”
Bush emphasized the importance of last month’s Browns Ferry Unit 1 restart and said new nuclear plants need to be built.
“It’s one thing to restart one, and I congratulate you,” Bush said. “It’s another thing to build the new ones. And that’s what we ought to have happen if we’re interested in a comprehensive, sound, wise energy policy that is environmentally friendly.”
Unit 1 has had a troubled history, most dramatically when a worker using a candle to check ventilation in 1975 started a fire that closed it for a year and panicked a nation. The plant closed again in 1985 for safety reasons. Plans for the $1.8 billion restart began in 2002.
‘This is a safe plant’
“This is a safe plant,” Bush said after a quick tour, “and the people in the United States must understand that.”
A major reason for Bush’s visit was to push Congress to pass energy legislation that would expedite the construction of new plants.
“We want to start building plants, and we recognize that there have been some regulatory burdens that ... discourage the construction of new plants,” Bush said.
He said expediting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s inspection process is a necessary step in adding new plants.
“So, I’ve got the chairman of the NRC here,” Bush said to laughter. “I want him to hear what I just said.”
Bush said the fact that the NRC has 20 applications pending for up to 30 new reactors — largely as a result of incentives included in 2005 energy legislation — is a sign that “attitudes are changing.”
He proposed a partnership between government and industry to expedite construction.
Bush advocated the reprocessing of spent fuel as a method of alleviating the ongoing dilemma over what to do with nuclear waste.
U.S. nuclear plants are storing most spent fuel in on-site cooling pools, which many scientists see as vulnerable to terrorist attack.
Plants are storing spent fuel that won’t fit into the cooling pools in massive dry casks, stored on site at Browns Ferry and other plants, which most scientists believe present a lesser risk.
“Reprocessing spent uranium fuel for use in advanced reactors will allow us to extract more energy, and has the potential to reduce storage requirements for nuclear waste by up to 90 percent,” Bush said. “And when we (begin reprocessing), we will be able to answer a lot of the charges of our critics that say, ‘What are you going to do with the fuel?’ ”
He pushed a proposal for a global partnership — that would include France, Japan, China and Russia — to develop technologies for the safe recycling of spent fuel.
Bush touted his budget proposal, which includes $495 million to continue progress on licensing Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a national repository for spent fuel.
Bush said the solution to the nation’s energy needs must include nuclear plants, but should include other sources as well. He pushed for more ethanol-friendly cars, improved technology for wind and solar energy, increased extraction of U.S. petroleum reserves, more efficient coal technology and improved battery technology for vehicles.
“And your (battery-powered) automobile won’t look like a golf cart,” he said to an appreciative Alabama audience. “It will be a normal-size pickup truck.”
Bush said the energy legislation debated in the Senate “falls far short of the ambitious goal I laid out,” but would assist in his goal of decreasing dependence on foreign oil.
Environment friendly
The president gave several nods to environmental concerns, stressing that nuclear power is environment friendly.
“I remind those who share my concern about greenhouse gases that nuclear energy produces no greenhouse gases,” he said.
“If you are interested in cleaning up the air, then you ought to be an advocate for nuclear power. ... There is no single solution to climate change, but there can be no solution without nuclear power.”
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News Courier
June 22, 2007
Bush visits nuclear plant
By Karen Middleton
karen@athensnews-courier.com
President George W. Bush’s history-making visit to Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Thursday gave him an opportunity to stump for timely passage of his 2008 energy package.
Joining the celebration for the Browns Ferry’s Unit 1 successful restart after 22 years gave Bush the opportunity to talk about the importance of expanding nuclear power to decrease the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
Bush is only the fourth sitting president to visit a TVA installation, according to TVA Board Member Skila Harris.
“You know something very good or very bad is happening when a president is coming,” said Harris. “President Roosevelt was the first to come, then President Kennedy, then Jimmy Carter.”
Harris quoted from Kennedy’s address when he visited Muscle Shoals for the 30th anniversary of TVA: “The work of TVA will never be done until the work of our nation is done.”
Harris was part of the three-member TVA board that also included Bill Baxter and Glenn McCullough that made the decision to restart Unit 1, which was taken out of service in 1985.
“You’ve taken a good decision and made it into a great accomplishment,” Harris said in congratulating Browns Ferry employees and support contractors on the five-year, $1.8 billion restart effort.
TVA Board Chairman William Sansom introduced the president to a standing ovation of local and Washington press corps as well as about 200 employees and contractors.
“Unit 1 represents the first nuclear reactor to come online in the United States in more than a decade,” said Bush. “This is a demonstration that one agency can do a job on time and on budget. I believe it is essential that we have a comprehensive energy policy to deal with the challenges of the 21st century, and at the core of that policy must be the expansion of nuclear power.”
Bush said when TVA took the three Browns Ferry reactors out of service in 1985 because of management and operation concerns, 27 percent of the nation’s oil came from abroad.
Since that time, TVA restarted Unit 2 in 1991, Unit 3 in 1995 and Unit 1 in May. Now, 60 percent of the nation’s oil comes from abroad. Bush said such heavy dependence on foreign oil creates “national security, economic and environmental risks.”
“We are too dependent on oil from other countries, making us vulnerable to hostile regimes and terrorists,” said Bush. “It affects international politics. When the price of oil goes up overseas, it affects gas prices in North Alabama.”
The president has set a “Twenty in Ten” goal of cutting U.S. consumption of gasoline by 20 percent over the next 10 years.
To reach that goal, he proposes setting alternative-fuel standards that would require the equivalent of 35 billion gallons of renewable and other alternative fuels by 2017—a standard that is nearly five times the current 2012 target and more aggressive than that required by the Senate energy bill.
Bush would also like to strengthen and reform Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for passenger vehicles, in much the same way the administration has for light trucks. He also calls for doubling the strategic petroleum reserve capacity to make the nation less vulnerable to severe disruptions.
The president also called for drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He said the Senate bill does nothing to increase domestic supplies.
He advocates increasing to $114 million the budget of the Nuclear Power 2010 Initiative, which was launched in 2003, to reduce technical, regulatory and institutional barriers to building new nuclear plants.
His 2008 budget also calls for spending $495 million on licensing Yucca Mountain as a repository for spent fuel.
Partisan wrangling
U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala., was part of Bush’s entourage Thursday, which gave the congressman from Madison County a chance to discuss both the energy bill and North Alabama’s severe drought during the flight on Air Force One and on the limo ride from Huntsville International Airport.
Cramer is part of the so-called “Blue Dogs,” a group of Democratic legislators who downplay partisan politics to find workable solutions on both sides of the aisle.
“My concern is that if the two sides don’t get together, this will become a political hot potato,” said Cramer.
He said the new leadership in both the Senate and House sensed a “hostility” from the Bush administration, but Cramer said that in the last two weeks he feels much of the misunderstandings have been cleared up, especially after 10 of the more conservative Democrats paid a call on Bush at the White House for a “long overdue” session.
Cramer said Bush is showing the strain of a lame-duck presidency and the constant partisan wrangling.
“Washington is a place that can drive you crazy,” said Cramer. “He’s showing signs of wear and tear.”
Drought declaration
Cramer said the visit also gave him a unique opportunity to stress the severity of the North Alabama drought to the president in hopes he would issue a disaster declaration.
“This is not a seasonal thing,” said Cramer. “These are extraordinary times. Not in 115 to 118 years have we had this kind of dryness…this is a front-row disaster.
He asked a lot of questions about our cotton production. We got as good of attention of the president as we could get and a lot better than if we were to go to the White House.”
Cramer said North Alabama is “in the bull’s eye of the drought” and he has never gotten so many calls from farmers since he has been in office.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 21, 2007
Attempt at Yucca budget cut fails
House defeats plan overwhelmingly
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Despite criticism over the past five years aimed at exposing perceived flaws at Yucca Mountain and shortcomings in its management, a vote on Wednesday showed Nevada lawmakers still have a way to go to persuade Congress to abandon nuclear waste burial in the state.
The House brushed aside an amendment that would have cut $202.45 million from the Energy Department's budget for the nuclear waste project next year. The vote was 80 in favor of the cut and 351 opposed, a surprisingly large margin with its three Nevada sponsors on the short end.
The budget cut drew fewer votes to the Nevada side than in 2002, when the House voted 306-117 to select Yucca Mountain for the repository. Last year, an amendment to restrict activity on the DOE's nuclear waste Web site lost, 271-147.
"The conventional wisdom has said in Nevada that Yucca Mountain is dead. This is proof that Yucca Mountain is alive and well," said Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev.
Meanwhile, Ward Sproat, director of the Energy Department's civilian nuclear waste office, said he was appreciative of the outcome.
"Yucca Mountain is critical to the nation's current and future energy and national security needs," Sproat said.
The vote cleared the way for the House to pass a 2008 spending bill containing $494.5 million for the Yucca program, the amount DOE requested.
The Yucca Mountain vote was the first one in Congress since Democrats gained control this year, but that did not make a difference. Fifteen Republicans and 65 Democrats voted for the Yucca budget cut, while 167 Democrats and 184 Republicans voted against it.
Berkley noted Democrats outnumbered Republicans in favor of the amendment, while Porter and Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., pointed to pro-Yucca sentiment from both parties.
"It is apparent that support for dumping nuclear waste in Nevada is shared by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress," Heller said.
Political science professor Eric Herzik said the House vote will put pressure on Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to deliver Yucca budget cuts when the energy bill reaches the Senate.
The lopsided vote "doesn't help Reid," said Herzik, who is department chairman at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Reid, the Senate majority leader, has reduced Yucca spending in the past, "and he will continue to do so," spokesman Jon Summers said.
During debate, Porter and Berkley replayed the criticisms that have been leveled at the Yucca program since the Nevada site was designated in 2002.
E-mails that suggested science documentation had been faked forced DOE to rework chunks of research at great cost, they said.
But Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, accused the Nevadans of "NIMBY: not in my back yard."
"At some point we all have to go beyond parochial politics and do the right thing for the entire nation," Hobson said.
Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., energy subcommittee chairman, said stopping Yucca Mountain will stall approval of new nuclear power plants and license extensions at existing plants.
"This amendment will constrain our ability to grow our economy without emitting any more greenhouse gases," Visclosky said.
As long as there are members of Congress who have nuclear waste in their districts and want it gone, Nevada will be a target, Berkley said. There is waste in 38 states.
"I can see it from the look in their eyes," she said. "As soon as you start talking about Yucca Mountain, their eyes glaze over."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 21, 2007
House pans Yucca Internet strategy
Amendment calls for youth-oriented character to disappear
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The House on Wednesday took a swipe at "Yucca Mountain Johnny" and other parts of a Department of Energy Web site aimed at teaching students about radioactive waste.
Johnny is a cartoon hard-hat miner on the Web portal. By voice vote, lawmakers directed the DOE to put him out of business and shut down the "Yucca Mountain Youth Zone," where the animated icon stands sentry.
The House accepted an amendment by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who charged that the youth-oriented site conveys a "pro-nuclear" viewpoint and presents an unbalanced view of the proposed Nevada nuclear repository.
Berkley argued that the site neglects to point out the dangers posed by nuclear waste and geological flaws such as threats from earthquakes and volcanoes that Nevada leaders believe should disqualify the Yucca site.
"The Department of Energy should not be in the business of propaganda and trying to persuade schoolchildren that storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain is OK," Berkley said.
"Yucca Mountain Johnny is like Joe Camel was to cigarettes," Berkley said, referring to the once-ubiquitous cartoon pitch-camel who was dropped by the RJ Reynolds tobacco company in 1997 under pressure from Congress and health groups.
Defending the site, Energy Department spokeswoman Megan Barnett said the Yucca Mountain Youth Zone drew 20,000 page views from January through May.
Barnett said the site has been valued by "students and adults around the globe on nuclear physics, geology, engineering and complex science." "We intend to keep this educational tool available," Barnett said, "and we look forward to working with Congress on this issue."
The Yucca site has games and activities, suggested curricula for teachers, and discussions about "the nuclear waste problem" and how science is used to find "solutions." Aimed at students of varying grade levels, the entry pages link to more detailed science discussions deeper within the site.
The Web site is among dwindling "public outreach" elements of the Yucca program, which has been squeezed by declining budgets. Public tours of the Yucca site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, have been curtailed, and the Energy Department this spring closed the Yucca Mountain Project Science Center on Meadows Lane in Las Vegas.
Berkley went after the Web site last year but lost a 271-147 vote after Republican committee leaders came to Yucca Mountain Johnny's defense.
This year, the chairman of the House energy and water subcommittee is a Democrat, Peter Visclosky of Indiana, who accepted Berkley's amendment without debate.
The amendment was added to a fiscal 2008 spending bill for the Energy Department. The Senate also will debate the bill, with final decisions expected later this year on the bill and the fate of Yucca Mountain Johnny.
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Twin Falls Times-News
June 21, 2007
DOE's rich tapestry of broken promises
Forget the Bureau of Land Management; the Forest Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and black helicopters. Idaho's biggest beef with the federal government begins and ends at 1000 Independence Ave. SW, in Washington, D.C.
That's the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Energy, which has told Idaho political leaders so many whoppers over the years that there should be a Burger King in the lobby.
DOE is now saying the best-case projection for the opening of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage repository in Nevada is 2017. Which means, of course, that the million or so gallons of high-level radioactive material stored at the Idaho National Laboratory isn't going anywhere soon.
If you're a newcomer to this part of country, you should know that radioactive sludge is stored about 600 feet - that's roughly two-thirds of the length of a city block - above the Snake River Plain Aquifer, where much of the Magic Valley gets its water.
In 1995, then-Gov. Phil Batt cut a deal with the feds to remove most of the radioactive waste from INL within 40 years. Since then, the agency has done just about everything it could to weasel out of the agreement, trying to reclassify what "high-level nuclear waste" means, threatening to withhold waste-management funds from Idaho, arguing over the fine print of the deal, proposing to dilute the waste and keep it at INL, and even attempting to get its allies in Congress to rewrite the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and thus cut the legs out from under Idaho's legal position.
DOE's current position is "we can't remove the waste because we have nowhere to put it."
At the moment, that seems to be the agency's most effective gambit yet. The Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate, Harry Reid of Nevada, has repeatedly declared the Yucca Mountain project dead.
All of this has taken on added significance because the nuclear power industry, moribund since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, is beginning to stir to life due to growing concerns about fossil-fuel emissions and global warming. Sometime in the foreseeable future, new nuclear power plants will be fired up, producing fresh toxic garbage.
If Yucca Mountain is still closed for business, that waste is going to DOE facilities in South Carolina, Washington or Idaho. Past experience tells us that we can bank on that, no matter what the energy department says now.
What's remarkable about the DOE's double-dealing with Idaho is that it's transcended both Republican and Democratic administrations. Is it just part of the agency's culture to dissemble, or has Idaho not made itself clear?
Idahoans don't sign agreements in disappearing ink, and we expect the same of DOE. Yucca Mountain or no Yucca Mountain.
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Las Vegas SUN
June 20, 2007
House kills 'Yucca Mountain Johnny'
By Erica Werner
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House killed "Yucca Mountain Johnny" on Wednesday.
A measure by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., to cut off funding for the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain Youth Zone Web site that's home to the hard-hat-wearing cartoon character was approved by lawmakers by a voice vote and without debate.
On the Web site, Yucca Mountain Johnny invites kids to learn about radioactive waste and the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project in Nevada.
The site also offers puzzles and quizzes seemingly designed to foster support for Yucca Mountain. Sample quiz question: "The nuclear wastes that would go into a repository could explode." Correct answer: "False."
In a letter to colleagues asking for support for her amendment, Berkley complained that the Web site "uses games and activities for children to promote a one-sided, unbalanced point of view regarding the disposal of nuclear waste."
"Regardless of how you feel about Yucca Mountain, we should all agree that the Department of Energy's use of a Joe Camel look-alike to influence children is an inappropriate use of taxpayer money," she wrote.
Her amendment would prohibit money in the Energy and Water spending bill that funds Yucca Mountain from being used to administer the Web site.
An Energy Department spokeswoman defended Yucca Mountain Johnny.
"Yucca Mountain Johnny has been an important part of educating students and adults about nuclear physics, hydrology and engineering as we face increasing energy demand," spokeswoman Megan Barnett said. "The department plans to continue this important teaching tool."
Berkley's amendment still needs to get through the Senate, and President Bush has threatened to veto the underlying spending bill because it's too expensive.
However Wednesday's vote was a victory for Berkley after the House shot down a similar measure she offered last year.
Yucca Mountain, being built 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is planned as the first national repository for nuclear waste and is supposed to hold 77,000 tons of the radioactive material. It's been delayed repeatedly over money shortages, scientific controversies and political opposition.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 20, 2007
Surface storage outlined
'Aging pads' planned for Yucca repository
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Nuclear waste would accumulate on the surface of Yucca Mountain at a rate of 800 to 1,200 tons annually, with more arriving at the site each year than can be moved right away into the mountainside repository, government models show.
Much of the arriving material would be stored in reinforced containers on above-ground "aging pads" where it would cool while waiting its turn for emplacement. The pads would be designed to hold up to 15,000 metric tons of waste, Energy Department officials said.
DOE officials say aging pads are an element of a "thermal loading" strategy to manage the intense heat generated by decaying nuclear fuel as it would be placed in Yucca Mountain.
But the above-ground activities at the site have drawn protests from Nevada officials who say the amount of nuclear waste the government plans to keep above ground constitutes illegal onsite storage.
In a presentation Tuesday, Christopher Kouts, waste management director for Yucca Mountain, told members of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission advisory board that DOE is computer-modeling the aging pads and operations of industrial waste-handling facilities at the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Kouts also announced the Energy Department has crossed a threshold in creating all-purpose waste canisters for the Yucca program.
DOE has finalized specifications for the canisters, which would be used to ship waste assemblies, store them at the site, and bury them underground, Kouts said. About 7,500 canisters would be needed to fill Yucca Mountain to its 77,000 ton capacity.
The containers are nicknamed "TAD" canisters, an acronym for "transport, aging, disposal." They would be constructed of borated stainless steel, would be between 15.5 feet and 17.5 feet long with a diameter of 66.5 inches. They would weigh 54.25 tons fully loaded.
"We did quite a bit of homework, and hopefully we've developed a specification that will meet our needs," Kouts said.
DOE officials plan to invite vendors to design canisters to the specifications and then proceed to fabrication. Kouts said the canisters may be available by 2012.
About 90 percent of nuclear waste would arrive at Yucca in TADs, Kouts said. Damaged waste and other special materials would be handled separately.
Once DOE ramps up Yucca operations, it expects to receive close to 350 canisters annually at the site, while emplacing 200 to 250 canisters in the repository, according to calculations Kouts presented to the NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste.
The difference, Kouts said, would be steered to aging pads or utilized in processing facilities onsite. Each canister would contain eight to nine tons of nuclear waste, according to DOE spokesman Allen Benson.
The state of Nevada in December filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission challenging the DOE "thermal loading" strategy and asking that the amount of waste allowed at the Yucca site be limited to no more than 5,000 tons.
State officials maintain the amount of waste DOE envisions onsite amounts to "interim storage" that Congress outlawed at the Yucca site.
Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said Tuesday the state awaits a response from NRC.
"Assuming they deny that, we would go to District Court and claim this is an illegal facility," Loux said.
--The Associated Press contributed to this story
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Radio World
June 20, 2007
Letter: Rod Moses and Radio Goldfield
by Rod Moses
Owner, Radio Goldfield, KGFM (LP) Goldfield, Nev.
Guy Wire wrote about me and Radio Goldfield in Radio World Engineering Extra ("New Options for Pirates and LPFM," April 4). I'd like to provide a different perspective on this case, which has generated so much attention.
Sen. Harry Reid is a statesman, not a politician. Big difference. A senator works for his constituents. So I placed a call to one of his aides in his Las Vegas office. She was unable to return my call. However, a Washington aide to the senator called me at midnight Eastern time, which is 9 p.m. our time. I was very impressed.
I guess it's about time people look over the candidates running for office before they elect them. You see, Sen. Reid is from a small town (Searchlight, Nev.) and he knows what it's like to be unable to broadcast local events like ball games, etc. Sen. Reid is just doing what the voters wanted. Is there something wrong with that?
We have one station 30 miles away in Tonopah, KHWK(FM), which broadcasts intermittently. When I went on the air there was not a station in Tonopah; for months it was silent. Then it came on with hard rock music, in an older population area. No IDs whatsoever, with 30 seconds of dead air between songs. I called it "knit-a-sweater-radio" between songs. And yes, parts of Tonopah can hear us and listen because we also ran, and now run, community announcements for that area.
As I stated in Radio Goldfield Broadcasting Inc.'s reply to the law firm of LS&L's attempt to shut us down, it wasn't my ego thinking I could do better then the local commercial FCC licensed stations. It's just that there aren't any!
Would I have done the same thing in San Francisco or Las Vegas? Of course not. For the most part they have stations serving the public. We had no local stations.
So for the most part I agree with Guy Wire's opinions.
Now for some geographical data: Nevada has more mountain ranges than any other state, including Alaska. High-power FM is senseless here, even AM, as the soil is very alkaline, providing poor grounding for AM. Our elevation is 5,860 feet. Summit to the south is 6,280; summit to the north is about the same.
Our antenna authorized by the FCC is 26 meters (85.3 feet), 1,700 meters below the average terrain. We are in a bowl at the top of a mountain. The signal is not getting out far, but farther then if you are in a city because there is not a first, second, third, fourth adjacency.
I did not start Radio Goldfield to set a precedent. My motive was to provide information for the health, safety and welfare of this small community, and motorists traveling on State Route 95, the only highway connecting Las Vegas to Carson City, Reno, etc.
In conclusion, let's examine some other factors facing our area. Nevada test site Area 51 misfired a missile a few years ago and came within 10 miles of hitting the town of Goldfield. I ask you: Do we need communications for the people here?
And now comes the Yucca Mountain Project to store depleted nuclear waste from all over the country. Yucca Mountain is about 68 miles from Goldfield. Trucks hauling all the nation's nuclear waste will be traveling through our neighborhood via State Route 95. Sen. Reid says it won't happen; however, billions of dollars have been spent on this project already. Should Goldfield have communications for the people here?
Come on, let's wake up and quit painting this country with a broad brush. The country wants to store its nuclear waste in our mountains but doesn't want us to have any communications. The Hon. Harry Reid thought differently, and the FCC obviously felt the same. The FCC is just doing the job Congress intended it to do.
However, on the other side we have a monstrous huge law firm, LS&L representing the corporate Borgs trying to run the government to satisfy their big-money commercial clients, with absolutely no concern for the life, safety and welfare of this community, or motorist traveling SR 95.
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Water Online
June 20, 2007
Project Profile: Yucca Mountain Project, Nevada Arsenic Treatment System
Wells J-12 and J-13 are located in Area 25 of the Nevada Test Site near Mercury, Nevada. These wells supply potable water for the Yucca Mountain Project. Water-quality analyses revealed that arsenic concentrations exceeded the new maximum contaminant level (MCL). Before choosing a technology, the site manager, Bechtel SAIC, contracted with Dr. Dennis A. Clifford, University of Houston, and a team of consultants to review various treatment technologies to reduce the arsenic concentrations to acceptable levels. Dr. Clifford and Los Alamos Technical Associates (LATA) recommended using granular ferric oxide (GFO) technology for the treatment system. AdEdge was subsequently selected and awarded the project as the preferred technology provider in the Bechtel-SAIC solicitation. AdEdge assisted Bechtel-SAIC with obtaining Nevada DEP regulatory approvals for permitting and installation of the system. It is one of the first arsenic treatment installations permitted in the state of Nevada by DEP.
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Las Vegas SUN
June 19, 2007
DOE releases design requirements for nuclear transport canisters
By Erica Werner
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department announced design requirements Tuesday for canisters to transport radioactive waste to Nevada and store it in the planned Yucca Mountain national nuclear dump.
The agency envisions vendors competing to produce canisters dubbed "TAD"s - short for transportation, aging and disposal - between 15 1/2 feet and 17 1/2 feet long and weighing a maximum of 54.25 tons each.
Some 7,500 of the TAD canisters would be needed to fill the dump to its proposed 77,000-ton capacity. They would be shipped by rail from commercial reactor sites in some 39 states.
It's the latest announcement by the Energy Department in planning for the troubled Yucca Mountain repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The project has been delayed by scientific controversies, money shortages, and opposition from Nevada officials including Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., now the Senate majority leader.
Originally targeted to open in 1998, the best-case opening date for Yucca Mountain is now 2017. It would be the nation's first federal nuclear waste dump and would receive some 50,000 tons of radioactive waste already piled up at power plants around the country.
Earlier plans had called for transporting waste to handling facilities at the desert site, then putting it into different containers for underground storage. The TAD concept emerged in October 2005 and the Energy Department will now invite vendors to come up with designs.
"This was somewhat of a difficult birthing within the program," said Christopher A. Kouts, director of the waste management office at the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
"We did quite a bit of homework and hopefully we've developed a specification that will meet our needs," he told a meeting of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste.
Kouts declined to say how much a TAD might cost, saying that would be part of the procurement process with vendors. He anticipates having canisters available to utilities in four or five years.
Yucca Mountain can't open until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants the Energy Department a license. The department plans to submit its license application a year from now and incorporate the TAD approach even if individual designs from vendors aren't ready.
Many nuclear utilities are in litigation with the Energy Department because the department was contractually obligated to begin accepting their radioactive waste beginning in 1998. The federal agency will seek to modify some utility contracts to include their acquisition of the transport canisters, Kouts said.
The canisters could be used to store waste at reactor sites before transport to Yucca Mountain, or could be taken directly there.
The canisters would hold spent fuel rods from commercial nuclear reactors and could accommodate different types of fuel rod assemblies, either 21 pressurized water reactor assemblies or 44 boiling water reactor assemblies.
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NewsBlaze
June 19, 2007
U.S. Department of Energy Moves Forward with Final Requirements
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the release of final performance requirements for the Transportation, Aging and Disposal (TAD) canister for disposal of spent nuclear fuel at a repository to be located at Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nevada. This canister approach will minimize the need for repetitive handling of spent nuclear fuel by using the same canister from the time it leaves a nuclear power plant to its placement in a waste disposal package at Yucca Mountain.
"This is one more step in moving the Yucca Mountain Project forward to submit the License Application," said Edward Sproat, Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM). "We are strongly encouraged by what we have seen so far in the proof-of-concept design phase."
DOE will shortly initiate procurement for the development of final TAD canister and cask designs. DOE also plans to enter into discussions with nuclear utilities to amend their disposal contracts with DOE to facilitate the use of TAD canisters. DOE anticipates that TAD canisters will be available for commercial use as early as 2011 and expects that up to 90 percent of commercial spent nuclear fuel could be placed in TAD canisters, resulting in the need for about 7,500 TAD canisters for the proposed repository.
In November 2006, DOE released the preliminary TAD performance specification followed by a proof-of-concept phase that resulted in the development of designs by four cask vendors. The TAD-based approach, announced in October 2005, eliminates the need for the construction of several multi-million square foot, multi-billion dollar facilities for handling spent fuel at the Yucca Mountain repository.
Yucca Mountain was approved by the Congress and the President as the site for the nation's first permanent spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste geologic repository in 2002. In March 2007 DOE submitted legislation to Congress to enhance the nation's ability to manage and dispose of commercial spent nuclear fuel and Defense high-level radioactive waste. The Department's license application for authorization to construct the repository, which is scheduled to be submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on or before June 30, 2008, will incorporate the TAD approach. The final TAD requirements are available on the OCRWM website under "WHAT'S NEW' at www.ocrwm.doe.gov.
Source: U.S. Department of Energy
judythpiazza@gmail.com
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KRNV
June 19, 2007
Standards Released For Yucca Mountain Waste Canisters
Washington, D.C. - The federal Energy Department is issuing standards today for companies to build canisters to contain radioactive waste during shipment and storage at the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear dump in Nevada.
The agency is dubbing the containers "TAD"s, short for transportation, aging and disposal.
They'd be under 18 feet long and weigh a maximum of 54 and a quarter tons each.
Project planners say they will need about 7,500 TAD canisters to fill the dump to its proposed 77,000 ton capacity.
They would be shipped by rail from commercial reactor sites in some 39 states.
The Energy Department is decades behind in planning for the Yucca Mountain repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The project has been delayed by scientific controversies, money shortages, and opposition from Nevada officials including Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader.
Officials say the best-case opening date for Yucca Mountain is now 2017.
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American Institute of Physics
June 14, 2007
President Would Veto House Version of FY 2008 DOE Funding Bill
The language in yesterday's Statement of Administration Policy issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regarding H.R. 2641, the Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill could not be clearer: "if H.R. 2641 were presented to the President, he would veto the bill."
Congress and the Bush Administration are headed toward a fiscal train wreck because of a fundamental disagreement about the level of discretionary spending in the upcoming fiscal year. While there was a fair amount of grumbling and some creative bookkeeping in previous years, the Republican leadership was able to keep total spending within the parameter set by President Bush. As fully expected, the new House and Senate Democratic leaders disagree with the Administration about the level of FY 2008 discretionary spending. (This spending is in contrast to mandatory spending for entitlement programs and interest on the national debt.)
Earlier this year, OMB statements indicated that appropriations bills would be vetoed if total discretionary spending exceeded the Administration's limit. The statements were somewhat hazy about timing, e.g., would only the bill which exceeded the overall spending limit be vetoed? Since the congressional leadership intends to send the Defense bill to the president as the last of the twelve appropriations bills, it would have presented a considerable dilemma to the White House. OMB removed any uncertainty by announcing this week that the president would veto the first three bills that the House Appropriations Committee has sent to the House floor in their current form (Homeland Security; Energy and Water; and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs). In almost identical language in three Statement[s] of Administration Policy issued this week, OMB raised objections about overall spending and earmarking. The following is the language regarding the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill:
"The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 2641 because, in combination with the other FY 2008 appropriations bills, it includes an irresponsible and excessive level of spending and includes other objectionable provisions.
"The President has proposed a responsible plan for a balanced budget by 2012 through spending restraint and without raising taxes. To achieve this important goal, the Administration supports a responsible discretionary spending total of not more than $933 billion in FY 2008, which is a $60 billion increase over the FY 2007 enacted level. The Democratic Budget Resolution and subsequent spending allocations adopted by the House Appropriations Committee exceed the President’s discretionary spending topline by $22 billion, causing a 9 percent increase in FY 2008 discretionary spending and a nearly 10 percent increase in the projected deficit for FY 2008. In addition, the Administration opposes the House Appropriations Committee’s plan to shift $3.5 billion from the Defense appropriations bill to non-defense spending, which is inconsistent with the Democrats’ Budget Resolution and risks diminishing America’s war fighting capacity. In combination with other spending bills, H.R. 2641 would lead to spending and tax increases that put economic growth and a balanced budget at risk.
"H.R. 2641 exceeds the President’s requests for programs funded in this bill by $1.1 billion, part of the $22 billion increase above the President’s request for FY 2008 appropriations. The Administration asked that Congress demonstrate a path to live within the President’s topline and cover the excess spending in this bill through reductions elsewhere. Because Congress has failed to demonstrate such a path, if H.R. 2641 were presented to the President, he would veto the bill."
The Statement of Administration Policy on the Energy and Water Development bill offered the Administration's additional views on specific provisions of the legislation. Selections follow:
"AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS INITIATIVE: The Administration commends the Committee’s implementation of the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative with its strong support for the Office of Science."
"ADVANCED ENERGY INITIATIVE: The Administration appreciates the broad support for the President’s Advanced Energy Initiative, but the unrequested funding provided in the bill, particularly the significant increases provided for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, are not necessary to achieve performance goals."
"YUCCA MOUNTAIN: The Administration appreciates the Committee’s support for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository program and its recognition of the enormous costs of delay in fulfilling the Government’s responsibility for disposing of the Nation’s nuclear waste."
SEQUESTRATION (Fossil Energy Research and Development): "The Administration agrees with the bill’s focusing of efforts within Fossil Energy Research and Development on technology for carbon capture and sequestration, but the funding levels are excessive. In particular, savings could be realized by terminating the Innovations for Existing Plants program -- rather than creating a new mission for this program -- and the oil and gas technology programs, as well as by moderating the proposed increases in Sequestration and Advanced Research."
"NUCLEAR ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: The Administration is disappointed with the reduction to the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), a key part of the Administration’s strategy to promote the use of nuclear energy domestically and internationally, and for the funding reduction for Nuclear Power 2010, a program that will assist companies with the nuclear licensing process. GNEP can extend the useful life of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository by reducing the waste placed in the repository. GNEP is also gaining growing support from other nuclear supplier countries, which a cut in funding would put at risk. The Administration urges the House to restore funding for these critical programs."
"NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (NNSA): The Administration appreciates the Committee’s support for the important work of NNSA. Of particular note is the Committee’s support for the vital work of the Administration’s priority non-proliferation programs.
"The Administration notes the Committee’s continued interest in the effort to eliminate 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium through the creation of mixed oxide fuel. However, the reduction of $284 million would result in the termination of construction and procurement activities for the MOX facility and in lay-offs of approximately 500 contractor employees. In addition, the Administration disagrees with the Committee’s decision to change the structure of the fissile materials disposition program, which involves interdependent facilities that should be managed in one program.
"The Administration understands the need to work with the Committee on a plan for transforming the nuclear weapons stockpile and complex that is aimed at assuring bipartisan support. However, the Administration strongly opposes the Committee’s decision to eliminate funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). Congress has consistently supported this vital effort to modernize the nuclear weapons stockpile. Failure to continue the program will contribute to increasing concern about weapon performance/reliability and may in turn require the maintenance of a larger size stockpile than was contemplated with RRWs.
"The Administration strongly opposes the reduction for Weapons Activities of approximately $600 million from the President’s request. At the lower funding level, activities and programs critical to transform the nuclear weapons complex and allow it to become more cost-effective and responsive to rapidly changing requirements will be severely curtailed."
The House may consider H.R. 2641 as early as today or tomorrow. While passage is expected in the House, the final bill's parameters will not be settled until a way can be found to bridge the $22 billion gap between the White House and the Democratic congressional leadership on total spending for FY 2008.
Richard M. Jones
Media and Government Relations Division
American Institute of Physics
fyi@aip.org
301-209-3095
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Pahrump Valley Times
June 18, 2007
Letters to the Editor
It can only get worse
Mr. Saxman seemed a bit perturbed to find that radioactive waste was being transported through Pahrump in the dead of night. He should have attended some of the Department of Energy's Citizens Advisory Board meetings on radioactive waste.
They, the DOE appointees, will explain to you that the waste is relatively harmless and will continue being shipped to the test site forever. They have these big holes in the ground from the atomic tests that need to be filled and can never be de-contaminated, so it will continue forever.
Mayor Goodman of Las Vegas said that he would use his police to block the streets before he would allow radioactive shipments to go through his town. We have a town manager and the County Commissioners to look out for our welfare.
Commissioner Hollis hasn't made any attempt to hide the fact that he is in the DOE's pockets. As long as the county is relying on PETT funds to run things, life will go on as usual.
I'm sure that if we have a spill on Highway 160, in the heart of town they will be out there with a pickup truck and some shovels to clean it up, knowing that the stuff is harmless. As bad as this seems to be, if the DOE ever gets Yucca Mountain, up and running, it can only get worse.
Richard A. Brown
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Pahrump Valley Times
June 18, 2007
Letters to the Editor
Radioactive waste transport
This is in response to a June 6 letter to the editor regarding nuclear waste transportation activities in Pahrump. Having responsibility for waste disposal activities at the Nevada Test Site, I have personally worked with the public, local governments and elected officials for many years.
For those who are not intimately involved in this line of work, I realize that the word "radiation" can at times evoke fear and anxiety. I would like to take this opportunity to provide information on radioactive waste transportation to the Nevada Test Site that I hope will ease some of that fear.
Based upon the description in the letter, it is likely that the trucks observed were low-level radioactive waste shipments en route to the Nevada Test Site. This type of solid waste is generated by environmental cleanup activities at U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Department of Defense sites located across the United States. Low-level radioactive waste usually contains small amounts of radioactive material and includes items like construction debris, scrap metal and used personal protective equipment.
Low-level radioactive waste has been disposed at the Nevada Test Site in engineered pits and trenches for over 45 years. For the majority of the shipments received, workers have no need to wear any special protective clothing while handling the waste at the site due to relatively low levels of radiation. Many of the shipments have traveled through Pahrump. In fact, 738 shipments traveled along Highway 160 between Pahrump and U.S. 95 in 2006.
All shipments are made in full compliance with U.S. Department of Transportation regulations including waste packaging, labeling, marking, placarding and shipment documentation. While we have no authority over designating which routes these shipments take, we have worked extensively with local leaders, the state of Nevada and the shipping sites to designate preferred routes.
To help alleviate concerns about possible transportation accidents, the U.S. Department of Energy has provided nearly $7.5 million to Nye County and several other rural Nevada Counties since 2000 through an emergency preparedness grant. The grant, which is administered by the State of Nevada Division of Emergency Management, is intended to assist our neighbors, which includes Nye County, to achieve an operational level of emergency response should it ever be needed.
In order to inform the public and address potential concerns regarding low-level waste disposal and other Environmental Management activities at the Nevada Test Site, we have an established public outreach program. Regular communication to the public occurs through a variety of initiatives including a quarterly newsletter, an Internet Web site (www.nv.doe.gov/envmgt), informational displays (which have routinely been set up at the Pahrump and Amargosa libraries) and a Community Advisory Board (CAB). In fact, several of the current CAB members represent Pahrump and Amargosa Valley. For more information on their activities, please visit their Web site at www.ntscab.com.
While it's impossible to inform each member of the public, the U.S. Department of Energy makes every effort to provide information on radioactive waste transportation and disposal activities. I invite all persons interested in learning more about these activities to sign up for our electronic newsletter by emailing envmgt@nv.doe.gov, see first-hand our waste disposal operations during one of the regularly scheduled Nevada Test Site tours, or call us directly at 702-295-3521.
E. Frank Di Sanza
Waste Management Federal Project Director for the U.S. Department of Energy Nevada Site Office
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Inside Bay Area
June 18, 2007
Nuclear power: Dark horse for alternative energy
By Sarah Jane Tribble
Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series.
DIABLO CANYON — The nuclear power plant nestled on the cliffs of Central California's scenic coast has for decades been a remnant of our energy past, rife with memories of protests and lingering security concerns.
That is changing.
As California grapples with global warming, energy-industry leaders, environmentalists and policymakers are subtly — but significantly — starting to shift their thinking about the controversial power source.
"Nuclear power has to be part of the solution," Stanford University President John Hennessy said at an alternative-energy gathering in Palo Alto this spring. "Can we really understand the notion of risk? Nuclear plants versus carbon emissions — which will kill and has killed more people?"
The audience applauded.
Unlike natural gas and coal, nuclear energy does not produce greenhouse gas and is becoming an alternative-energy dark horse.
In California, however, with its strong environmental stance and a 31-year-old ban on construction of new reactors, nuclear power faces immense political and practical hurdles.
Later this month the state's energy commission plans to tread carefully when for the first time it will review new ways to handle the radioactive waste produced by nuclear energy — the biggest legal obstacle to building new plants in California. One possible option could be to reprocess, or recycle, the waste.
"We want to understand how the issues have changed regarding reprocessing — if in fact it's a viable option or not or just another pipe dream," said John Geesman, a member of the California Energy Commission. "And this is a field filled with pipe dreams."
Moving ahead
Other states — where nuclear energy isn't as controversial — are moving more quickly. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects applications for as many as 28 new nuclear reactors during the next two years.
That construction boom is spurred by a growing demand forelectricity, volatile natural gas prices, concerns about global climate change — and federal subsidies.
There are 104 operating nuclear reactors in the United States, producing about 20 percent of the country's electricity. The last one opened in 1996.
Dennis Spurgeon, the Bush administration's senior nuclear technology official, said new plants could be running by 2015.
"It's not a pipe dream; it's happening," said Spurgeon, whose experience in energy dates back to the Ford administration. "The existing reactors are very safe. The new ones are even better."
And while many planned nuclear plants have never been built because of the high construction costs and lengthy review processes, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission believes there's enough momentum that some of the expected plant applications will result in construction.
"This time, we are taking it very seriously," said agency public affairs officer David McIntyre. "Our agency has been reorganized to prepare for these applications coming in. We're hiring people right and left. Congress has given us a budget increase."
Even some environmentalists are willing to consider nuclear energy.
"We think global warming is such a tremendous planetary problem that we're not going to refuse to look at it," said Karen Douglas, director of the California climate initiative of Environmental Defense. However, the group does not support an expansion of nuclear-power capacity until issues such as safety, security, waste and nuclear-weapons proliferation are resolved, she said.
Critics such as the Natural Resource Defense Council's Ralph Cavanagh, who has staunchly defended the California moratorium, said talk of a nuclear revival is "as predictable as the spring." He said there are still concerns about waste disposal, the lingering threat of nuclear proliferation and the high costs of building plants.
"The nuclear renaissance tends to be built around idle talk by people with vague ideas around economic development," Cavanagh said.
Other opponents, including Julie Enszer of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, also raise concerns about the safety of nuclear waste. Americans are still worried about the potential for accidental exposure to radioactive nuclear waste, she said.
"People in the U.S. are still opposed to nuclear power and that hasn't really abated since the partial meltdown of Three Mile Island" in Pennsylvania in 1979. Since then, California in particular has led the nation in the anti-nuclear movement, she said.
"People around the country look to Californians to carry that mantle," she said.
State's perspective
As the nation enters a new nuclear era, the California Environmental Protection Agency's Dan Skopec said climate change provides the perfect opportunity to revisit the controversial power source.
"We need to have a debate on nuclear," said Skopec, who was appointed undersecretary for the agency by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In California, one of nine states with laws that hinder nuclear-power-plant construction, about 13 percent of California's energy currently comes from two operating nuclear plants, PG&E's Diablo Canyon and Southern California Edison's San Onofre Generating Station.
There are two separate pushes for more.
A group of Fresno businessmen formed the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group, which plans to introduce a statewide ballot measure next year seeking to override California law and allow voters to decide if they want a $4 billion nuclear plant in that area.
"If your goals are going to be cheap energy to keep the economy rolling and to stop global warming and provide clean energy, the available options at this point in time are very few," John Hutson, president and chief executive of the group.
If approved, the plant could be built in four years, he said.
Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace who has infuriated many in the environmental community because of his stance for nuclear power, said he is "very supportive" of the Fresno strategy.
"If it isn't done, California will never meet its CO2 objective in a millions years," Moore said.
Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, proposed a bill this year that would lift California's statewide construction ban.
Not surprisingly, the bill died in committee. DeVore said he'll bring it back year after year.
"When rate payers have blackouts and brownouts and they see their residential energy costs spike through the roof, eventually they will call for a real solution," DeVore said.
Until now, California has been able to rely on low-cost coal to provide about 16 percent of its energy. But this year, state regulators effectively banned coal because they ordered utilities to buy power that is as clean as that produced by the latest generation of natural-gas-fired turbines. Coal is not.
The state needs to find replacement power, but faces tough choices. Natural gas is cheap but produces carbon dioxide. Renewable sources such as wind and solar produce no carbon but are expensive and unreliable.
That leaves nuclear energy.
Wind, now the cheapest of renewable energies, is expected to cost 6.8 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2020, according to the Federal Energy Information Institute. Natural gas, by comparison, would cost 5.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. Nuclear energy would cost 6.1 cents per kilowatt-hour. All these figures include the cost of plant construction.
Advocates argue that not including construction costs, nuclear power is the cheapest option of all. The California Energy Commission's most recent estimates put nuclear power's current cost at 1.4 cents to 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Industry view
From the outside looking in, the prospect of California trying to cut carbon without more nuclear power seems idyllic at best and impossible at worst, according to business and political leaders nationwide.
"We don't believe that conservation and renewables combined will be sufficient to meet demand in our market for an extended period of time," said Brad Peck, spokesman for the Columbia Generating Station, a nuclear plant in Washington state that feeds a small amount of power to Northern California. "You simply can't conserve yourself into prosperity."
The leader of PG&E Corp., the parent company of Northern California's largest utility, agrees. "We need all of the options to meet this huge challenge and, therefore, nuclear ought to be on the table," said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Peter Darbee.
The utility doesn't plan to push for a new nuclear-energy plant in California, he said, but will purchase power from out of state.
Tom King, chief executive of PG&E's utility unit, Pacific Gas & Electric, said the company doesn't want to force nuclear reactors on its customers until the public's perception of nuclear energy changes.
"We think it's important that we take the time to educate people... before we put a stake in the ground and say we need nuclear."
Diablo Canyon
At PG&E's Diablo Canyon, those efforts are in full swing.
During a recent tour for the San Jose Mercury News, an engineer and the communications director repeatedly noted safety and security measures. There are metal detectors and guards, like the ones at airports, searching bags before employees enter the plant. A military-style police force with automatic weapons makes rounds in the spent-fuel area. And the plant itself is a fortress, protected by rolling landscape on one side and a rock barrier on the other.
Public tours stopped after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"The industry initially for a long time wasn't interested in necessarily educating the public," said Pete Resler, Diablo Canyon's communications director. He wants to change that.
Resler's renewed interest in winning over the public also could be attributed to a looming deadline for his plant.
Diablo Canyon may have to shut down by 2010 if it doesn't win approval for more storage space. The plant provides 2,300 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 2 million homes.
Nuclear waste
Diablo Canyon illustrates nuclear power's biggest challenge: radioactive waste. Radiation exposure, such as the kind that can be caused by nuclear waste, increases the risk of health problems, including cancer.
While nuclear power produces a relatively small amount — Diablo Canyon's 22 years of waste would fill a pool about the size of a basketball court — dealing with it raises big concerns.
Most nuclear reactors store waste on site in cooling pools or storage cylinders that prevent radiation leakage. Eventually, the plants will run out of storage room.
The federal government approved Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a long-term storage site, but it has faced opposition from Nevadans and some environmental groups who contend that it could not safely store the waste for thousands of years. It is now unclear when or if the storage facility — the only spent-fuel storage space approved by Congress — will open.
As an additional option, a growing number of industry advocates are offering the idea of recycling the waste, arguing that reprocessing or recycling could cut the volume of waste by allowing about 94 percent of the spent fuel to be reused.
France, which gets 75 percent of its energy from nuclear power, has a successful recycling operation, and the United States is studying the option. Spurgeon said the United States could open a reprocessing facility sometime after 2020.
Opponents say reprocessing would encourage nuclear proliferation, but nuclear supporters like University of California-Berkeley nuclear engineering Professor Per Peterson said such concerns need to be re-evaluated.
"The whole logic of abstaining from a technology so that others would not pick it up no longer makes sense," Peterson said.
Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu, who is also the director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, echoes the desire to rethink nuclear. He reasons that despite the fears and concerns about the energy source, nuclear power must be considered because it does not produce greenhouse gas during generation. Anything, he said, would be better than carbon-spewing coal plants.
And what of the people who don't want to consider nuclear energy in the hope that less controversial solutions like renewable energy and conservation will be enough?
"If you start thinking like that, then you doom yourself," he said.
--Contact Sarah Jane Tribble at stribble@mercurynews.com or (408) 278-3499.
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Republican & Herald
June 18, 2007
Nuclear power revival needed
PPL's acknowledgement that it and potential partners are considering the construction of a third nuclear reactor at its existing two-reactor Susquehanna plant in Luzerne County reflects economic and environmental reality.
Inexorably rising energy demand, unreliability and security implications of foreign sources of fossil fuels, and recognition of the need to reduce and contain greenhouse gas emissions, all point to the revival of nuclear energy in the United States, where a new plant has not been constructed in more than a quarter century.
The chief drawback of nuclear power is the federal government's failure to establish a secure repository for radioactive nuclear waste, which most often is stored on-site at nuclear plants.
That is a serious issue on a plant-by-plant basis, but one that can be accommodated through rigorous regulation and security.
Opponents of nuclear power point to the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, a serious incident that came very close to being much worse.
But the industry has had a safe operating record since then, and new reactors are designed to mitigate the flaws that contributed to the Three Mile Island emergency.
Nuclear power generation's benefits are substantial. It produces no greenhouse gases while producing enormous amounts of electricity. The nation's 103 nuclear power plants produce about 20 percent of the nation's electricity and none of its air pollution. A single nuclear plant in Arizona, Palo Verde, produced as much energy in 2006 - more than 24 million megawatt hours - as all of the nation's solar and wind generation combined, according to industry statistics.
Solar and wind generation are important and growing clean resources that should continue to be encouraged through federal and state incentives. But they cannot match nuclear generation for efficiency and reliability.
Based on average pollution production, if the electricity produced in the United States by nuclear plants in 2006 instead had been produced by coal plants, another 681 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, 3.1 million tons of sulfur dioxide and 990,000 tons of nitrogen oxide would have been released into the atmosphere.
According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the amount of energy in a finger-tip-sized uranium fuel pellet is equivalent to the energy in 1,780 tons of coal, 149 gallons of oil or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas.
And fuel supplies are secure. The top two producers of uranium are close and stable American allies - Australia and Canada. The United States has the fourth most abundant reserves in the world.
According to federal statistics, the average electricity production cost in 2005 per kilowatt hour was 1.72 cents for nuclear, 2.21 cents for coal, 7.51 cents for natural gas and 8.09 cents for oil.
Local issues have to be considered in any licensing decision, and PPL is just in the preliminary phase of what would be a long process toward licensing construction.
Yet, the environmental and economic realities of the present and future generally argue for, rather than against, nuclear power production.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 16, 2007
Experts doubt new schedule for carving Yucca Mountain
Fuel can stay secured safely above ground in the meantime, group says
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Although nuclear waste ultimately should be stored deep underground, there is little confidence the Energy Department will meet its new schedules for carving a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, according to experts assembled by a science and environment think tank.
In the meantime, radioactive spent nuclear fuel can remain secured safely in pools and in aboveground dry casks at nuclear reactor sites, the fact-finding group said in a report issued on Thursday.
The Colorado-based Keystone Center devoted a chapter to nuclear waste in a 108-page report examining nuclear power. The report grew from deliberations among 27 experts representing environmental and consumer groups, utilities, the nuclear industry and academia.
Several participants said that as the Keystone Center strove for consensus, it largely skirted controversial elements surrounding the project at Yucca Mountain, whose suitability is debated as a final resting place for 70,000 metric tons of spent fuel and government-generated nuclear waste.
"Some of us thought certain ways and others thought other ways, and we didn't make a whole lot of progress. It is a pretty contentious issue," said Allison Macfarlane, an associate professor of environmental science at George Mason University who believes the Nevada site may not be fitting.
"We just recognized the facts, which were that the project has continued to miss its schedule," said Paul Genoa, policy development director for the Nuclear Energy Institute, which favors the site.
The group members agreed that a deep underground geologic repository was the best option for long-term nuclear waste disposal, and that Finland appears on track to build the first.
The Scandinavian nation, which has four operating reactors and is building two others, is excavating a repository on Olkiluoto, an island off its west coast.
As for Yucca Mountain, the group noted the project could end up 20 years behind schedule. Under the latest Energy Department "best achievable" timeline, the repository could begin receiving waste in 2017, although DOE officials concede that 2020 or 2021 is more likely.
Even at that, the report said, more legal challenges may be likely from the state of Nevada and environmental groups that oppose the site.
Experts confirmed that the legal capacity of a Yucca repository will be smaller than the amount of spent fuel expected to be produced from currently operating reactors. They did not opine whether the Nevada site capacity should be expanded.
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Chicago Tribune
June 16, 2007
Hal Dardick
Nuclear recycling plan fuels debate--Illinois sites eyed in U.S. energy idea
-(article not available)-
Abstract (Document Summary)
Spent nuclear fuel is about 93 percent uranium that no longer can fuel a reactor, 5 percent "fission products" that must be stored until they are safe and 2 percent plutonium and other similar radioactive materials called "transuranics," said Mark Peters, an Argonne geochemist who has long worked on nuclear-waste disposal.
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Nuclear Engineering
June 15, 2007
GNEP funding blow
US president George Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) has been dealt a financial blow by the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations.
GNEP has been allocated $120 million for the 2008 fiscal year, some $285 million below the president’s request and $47.5 million below the 2007 sum for the initiative to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and burn long-lived radioactive materials.
The allocation is not set in stone as it has still to be passed by the US Senate.
The committee stated: “It is unnecessary to rush into a plan that continues to raise concerns among scientists and has only weak support from industry, given that there are reasonable options available for short term storage of nuclear waste and that this project will cost tens of billions of dollars and last for decades.”
In contrast, the non-GNEP nuclear energy allocation was $639.2 million, some $232.5 million above the president’s request, which is $324.5 million above 2007 funding. The sum will go towards the NGNP plant at the Idaho National Lab which is to use safer, more efficient technology.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear fuel bank has been allocated $100 million to create a reliable source of nuclear fuel for countries whose traditional sources has been interrupted. This aims to eliminate the need for countries to develop their own nuclear fuel uranium enrichment programs.
Yucca Mountain was allocated $494.5 million, some $48.8 million above 2007, matching the request for nuclear waste disposal.
The Energy and Water Appropriations Committee also allocated environmental cleanup $6.671 billion, some $358.8 million above the president’s request ($30.9 million below the 2007 figure) to clean up contamination from 60 years of manufacturing nuclear weapons and various cancelled projects for handling spent nuclear fuel.
The US Department of Energy (DoE) has outstanding commitments to clean up 23 sites in 14 states. These funds would allow DoE to finish work at a number of the smaller sites while continuing work at many of the larger ones.
Nuclear non-proliferation was allocated $1.684 billion, $11 million above the president’s request ($.3 million above 2007) bringing total available funding for non-proliferation to $2.07 billion, due to $387 million available from prior years.
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In Business Las Vegas
June 15, 2007
Tourism and Gaming:
Gibbons' plan: Penny wise, pavement foolish
By Richard Velotta
Staff Writer
Gov. Jim Gibbons is declaring victory in his bid to secure transportation funding after the end-of-session flurry of activity that typifies the final hours of most legislative terms.
The bottom-line figures that ultimately were approved: The state transportation fund will receive enough money by diverting existing taxes on hotel rooms, car rentals and county property to bond for $1 billion in highway improvements over the next two years.
While the governor is happy with that - particularly because he argues that it didn't raise taxes to do it - others are dismayed that actions taken barely scratch the surface of the state's highway woes, unfairly diverted funds from significantly worthwhile programs and didn't include other groups that use the highways just as much or more.
Everybody has concurred that we haven't seen the last of the debate over funding transportation and the governor's shortcut could ultimately cost taxpayers even more than experts initially told us.
Among the unanswered questions from the end of the session: How much more will highway construction cost us since lawmakers took a Band-Aid approach to fixing the problems? Should tourists (and tourism-related enterprises) be gouged for the costs? Will other transportation system shareholders who were alleged to have walked away from the negotiations on paying for highways be held accountable with a greater share of the cost in the future?
And, finally, what big pot o' money has yet to be tapped to pay for highways?
In the closing days of testimony in committee hearings, Nevada Department of Transportation Director Susan Martinovich said materials costs alone are climbing at a clip of about 31 percent. Estimates of the cost to build 10 critical highway projects was pegged at $3.8 billion. By the time Gibbons got around to proposing his transportation plan, Martinovich said the cost had risen to $5 billion.
In a Senate hearing, she said the 31 percent inflation rate would push the cost up by $100 million in two years and by $1 billion in four. Clearly, the state didn't do itself any favors by piece-mealing the plan.
Who should pay for highway improvements is another issue.
The Review-Journal's poll that found that 72 percent of people surveyed believe that room-tax revenue be used to pay for roads was hardly a shock. It's always easier to let the other guy pay for something.
While it's true that the successful marketing programs of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and hotel properties across our landscape have increased the number of visitors who come to Southern Nevada, the reality is that most of our congested highways are filled with local residents.
Does it make sense for tourists to foot most of the bill by raiding the room-tax fund to the tune of $2.2 billion by 2015, as the governor initially proposed? And, should the funds that help generate the additional visitation to the city - the marketing dollars used by the LVCVA - be diverted to pay for roads?
Fortunately for tourists from everywhere and for the LVCVA, a compromise measure was reached and the room tax will only contribute $20 million to the pot next year instead of the almost $9 million Gibbons was hoping for initially with the amount going up by an even larger amount every two years.
But LVCVA leaders have to know that a governor who measures success by his ability to prevent new taxes will be back in 2009 to take another stab at raiding the room-tax coffers.
Frankly, I was stunned that it took so long for Gibbons to get to that. I had been asking tourism leaders since the day the legislative session started when we were likely to see the governor's proposal to divert money from room taxes. LVCVA officials said they would participate in a healthy philosophical debate about the topic, but even they weren't prepared for the magnitude of what the governor was seeking.
That's what irritated the elected officials on the LVCVA board of directors the most. They wanted to participate in the debate but weren't contacted ahead of time by the governor until he made his proposal. The governor's office maintains that they were in contact with the LVCVA early on, but there's nothing like getting a call directly from the man himself when the time comes. That's what Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, chairman of the LVCVA board, was expecting and never got.
The LVCVA will put off a few projects after finding that it would be short $20 million in revenue in the next fiscal year, but it won't have to cancel the $890 million convention center refurbishing plan the board had approved, something that was listed as a possibility if the governor's plan went through.
On the rental-car tax front, local companies took an even bigger hit. Bernie Kaufman of the Nevada Car Rental Association said that a 4 percent recovery surcharge tax that had been going to the rental companies to pay car registration fees will now be split with half going to the transportation fund.
Legislation signed by the governor doesn't replace any of that lost revenue and most rental companies are just eating it as an expense, not wanting to raise rates in a competitive environment.
Nobody has fully explained how that doesn't constitute a tax increase and why it was OK with the governor. The Legislative Counsel Bureau and the attorney general's office clearly thought it was: It required the two-thirds majority for passage reserved for new taxes.
While the LVCVA, the car-rental industry and county property owners ended up contributing to the highway fund in the end, others seemed to have dodged a bullet. But if Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, has his way, some of the dodgers will be contributing when highway funding comes up in the next session.
Coffin was the most vocal critic of the trucking industry when it walked away from the table because, presumably, its leaders knew that Gibbons wouldn't increase the amount of tax they pay for every gallon of fuel purchased. Coffin said he only wanted truckers to pay the same tax as citizens who fill the tanks of their cars. The tax on diesel fuel is 6 cents less a gallon. Coffin's motion to raise the tax 3 cents this year and 3 cents more next year died in a Senate Taxation Committee hearing.
But you can take it to the bank that the proposal will be back. Another industry that dodged higher taxes and fees that could have gone to transportation was the taxi industry. A proposal in a bill to increase the initial cost taxi drivers charge their customers died before ever reaching either house floor, as did proposals to index driver's license fees differently so that motorists paid more to license their cars and changing the licensing fee on vehicles hauling more than 55,000 pounds.
Are there any other pots of money that can be raided to pay for transportation? I've thought of three, two of which could someday see the light of day. But both of them would require a lot of legislative work and a green light from the gaming industry.
One potential pot of money that has no chance of developing is the federal investment in infrastructure that would occur if Yucca Mountain ever became a reality. The opposition appears to be too strong and united to allow a nuclear waste repository to be developed in Nevada. The tourism industry is a part of that coalition, not wanting to mortgage the state's future as a destination should a waste transportation accident occur.
Two funding sources that could have merit would require some strong backing from the gaming industry. One would be the development of a state lottery. While frequently discussed as an avenue to generate education funding, it's possible that transportation could become a critical need worthy of support from lottery proceeds.
Another proposal is even more complex, but it certainly could produce dividends for Nevada if our state took the initiative. I'm talking about regulating and taxing online gambling.
Members of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States, which met in Las Vegas last week, talked about the prospective tax windfall that would occur if Web gambling were legalized in the United States. There are four bills that address some aspect of Internet gambling pending before federal lawmakers.
If online gaming were legalized, state lawmakers would have to buy into regulating and taxing it in Nevada. Most industry experts concur that Nevada could be the best place in the country to take that step because of the state's track record for understanding the nuances of the business.
Taxing online casinos would require an affirmative nod from our no-new-taxes governor. Would the prospect of such a revenue source convince him to go for it? Or would the gaming industry shout it down, fearful of online casinos hurting their own brick-and-mortar properties?
Whatever direction Nevada goes, it's a long haul. Many things could change by 2009. But something has to happen to fix the state's highway problems.
Passport panic: The Travel Industry Association believes common sense has prevailed with the announcement last week that people no longer have to have a passport for their air travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
When the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security announced the requirement, applications for passports soared and passport processing centers nationwide were overwhelmed with requests.
Now, through Sept. 30, the passport requirement has been rescinded. But travelers aren't completely home free. Instead of showing a passport, people entering those countries now have to show proof that they have applied for a passport in addition to a government-issued photo identification.
--Richard N. Velotta covers tourism for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4061 or by e-mail at velotta@lasvegassun.com.
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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