Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, July 20, 2007
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In Business Las Vegas

Jon Ralston on Politics

Capitol power

By Jon Ralston
Staff Writer

The little delegation that could.

Sen. John Ensign's promotion to the Senate Finance Committee, a panel whose clout should not be underestimated, provides an opportunity to step back and put the Nevada quintet into perspective.

Ensign, with the usual gushing expected from a news release announcing such an honor, actually wasn't far off in his assessment:

"The Nevada congressional delegation is probably as strong as it has ever been with two seats on Ways and Means in the House and two members of leadership in the Senate," said Ensign, who is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "My appointment to the Finance Committee makes our delegation even stronger and better positioned to represent Nevada's interests, including gaming, mining and tourism to name a few."

In some ways, Ensign understated how far the delegation has come.

Nevada is a state that is usually disdained by pundits and other members of Congress. For many years, with the lowlight being the Screw Nevada Bill in 1987 that brought us Yucca Mountain, the state has been derided, dumped on and disregarded. No one took us seriously, and we were easy to ignore.

But with Sen. Harry Reid's ascension as the millennium turned, first to minority leader and now to majority leader, the dynamic began to shift. I remember chatting a few years ago with a true Washington insider, who told me bluntly, "People back there just don't understand what Harry's position means for the state."

And when Ensign joined Reid after the 2000 election, ironically only two years after coming within 400 votes of erasing the Democrat's seniority, it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. The Ensign-Reid partnership — dare I say friendship? — drives the partisans crazy. But it has been a boon to the state and with Ensign's position as the chairman of the NRSC and now the Finance seat, this is quite a combination for our little backwater in the West.

The NRSC position was a very shrewd move for Ensign. Many observers might have thought he was insane considering that the Republicans appear ready to be drowned by the dead eighth year of a lame duck president suffering from unprecedented low poll ratings. And Ensign now has to endure criticism because the Democrats are uncharacteristically destroying the Republicans in fundraising because of that dynamic.

But what Ensign surely saw is the game of low expectations: No one expects him to do anything but hemorrhage seats, so if he manages to pull off an upset or two, he will be hailed as almost Rovian.

Somehow — and yes, I know it is early — the delicate balance of taking a job designed to return his new best friend to minority leader status has not been problematic. Might we eventually see an NRSC campaign run against Harry Reid and some of his more controversial statements? And how would that affect the relationship?

But so far, that has not occurred, and the Reid-Ensign synergy is real. How many states have senators who are responsible for one party's policy agenda and the other party's political agenda?

Over on the other side, Rep. Shelley Berkley and Rep. Jon Porter, while not national figures, nevertheless have landed seats on the House Ways and Means Committee. Two congressmen from the same small state both on the money committee as important in the House as Finance is in the Senate? That, too, is unusual.

Berkley will never lose in her district, and Porter continues to solidify his position, although he will always be perceived as vulnerable because of the closely drawn partisan lines. But if they both continue to move up, assuming they can curry favor with their leaders (Berkley has had a frosty relationship with Speaker Nancy Pelosi at times), one of them will be a committee chairman before long.

It is still too early to tell where Rep. Dean Heller will go. But because the Democrats targeted his district last cycle, he will get a lot of attention next cycle from his fundraising troops.

Nevada will have six, maybe even seven electoral votes by the 2012 presidential election. My guess is the rookie or rookies will have a lot to live up to as the delegation continues to prove that size doesn't matter.

--In Business commentator Jon Ralston also hosts the news discussion program "Face to Face With Jon Ralston" on Las Vegas ONE, publishes the daily e-mail newsletter "RalstonFlash.com" and writes columns and a political notebook for the Las Vegas Sun. To subscribe to Flash, go to www.RalstonFlash.com, or call 990-2550. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or by e-mail at ralston@vegas.com.

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Las Vegas SUN
July 20, 2007

Editorial: Sleeping with the enemy

Gibbons administration helps the Energy Department further its Yucca Mountain plan

Gov. Jim Gibbons has made big claims about being an outspoken critic of the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain during his political career, including his 10 years in Congress, but his actions this week show his talk is nothing more than hot air.

Despite having caught the Energy Department violating a court order, Gibbons is allowing federal workers to continue to illegally take water for the next month so they can try to salvage their disintegrating case for Yucca Mountain.

Meanwhile, the governor appointed Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley, a Yucca supporter, to the state Nuclear Projects Commission, which has been a driving force against the dump. As first reported Wednesday by Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston, she resigned this week after her appointment was made public. Gibbons expressed surprise at her stance and told the Associated Press that he had been "assured" she was not a proponent of the dump. By whom? Nye County has long been aggressively lobbying for the dump, as everyone in Nevada politics knows - unless you believe the governor's office, which claims ignorance.

As Jeff German reported in Thursday's Las Vegas Sun, Gibbons and his aides met with Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and state Yucca watchdog Bob Loux this month. The unanimous opinion: Get tough and stop the Energy Department's illegal work. Gibbons, however, rejected the advice, reminding those at the meeting that he is, by training at least, a geologist and a lawyer.

With Gibbons' blessing, State Engineer Tracy Taylor, Nevada's water czar, this week gave the official approval for federal workers to carry on for 30 more days because stopping the program suddenly "may result in the waste of significant financial resources."

A waste of significant financial resources? What do Gibbons and his administration think Yucca Mountain is? The federal government has spent more than $8 billion over the past two decades and has only shoddy science and a 5-mile-long hole in the dirt to show for it.

No Nevada politician of any real stature thinks sending 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste hurtling across the nation's highways to Nevada is safe or a good idea - except Gibbons' confidant Bob List, a one-term Republican governor voted out of office in 1982 who has been a paid nuclear industry lackey.

Unlike in his time as a congressional backbencher, Gibbons is now in charge, and he is in jeopardy of breaking Nevada's once unified stance against Yucca Mountain. He should reverse course immediately. Otherwise his unconscionable and unacceptable actions will tell Washington that Nevadans think it is acceptable to turn our state into the nation's radioactive dumping ground.

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Las Vegas SUN
July 20, 2007

Gibbons drops airport from safety panel

By J. Patrick Coolican
<patrick.coolican@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas Sun

Gov. Jim Gibbons has removed the lone representative of McCarran International Airport from the state's Homeland Security Commission.

Gibbons, a Republican, hasn't selected a replacement yet for Rosemary Vassiliadis, who is currently deputy director of the Clark County Aviation Department and the wife of a prominent Democrat.

The governor is also replacing Robert Hadfield of the Lyon County manager's office.

The 14-member board advises the governor on homeland security needs and planning.

There were conflicting accounts Thursday about whether the airport would now be represented on the commission. The chairman, Dr. Dale Carrison, said the governor's office told him no McCarran representative was being considered.

But Melissa Subbotin, the Republican governor's spokeswoman, said, "We will be considering a number of applicants, and a candidate from the airport could possibly be one of those individuals."

Assembly Majority Leader John Oceguera, a Democrat and legislative representative on the commission, said he was unaware of the replacements. He praised Vassiliadis and her service and encouraged the governor to find someone with ties to the airport.

"Absolutely somebody from the airport ought to be on the commission. You only have to look to 9/11 , to see what weapons they used , to know that," he said.

Carrison said he would continue to consult airport officials, even if none is named to the commission.

Nevada political circles buzzed over whether the decision to replace Vassiliadis was politically motivated.

She's the wife of Billy Vassiliadis, a leading Democratic strategist who's the chief executive of R&R Partners, an advertising and public affairs firm.

R&R Partners battled the governor in the recent legislative session over transportation dollars because Gibbons sought to take money from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. R&R produces the LVCVA's "What happens here, stays here" advertising campaign.

Friends and colleagues of Rosemary Vassiliadis were furious about both the removal and how it was handled. Rather than making the telephone call himself, the governor had a junior aide to his chief-of-staff call her.

Subbotin said Vassiliadis hadn't been asked to step down. "Members of the board serve at the pleasure of the governor," she said, suggesting that Vassiliadis had been relieved of her duties instead of being given an opportunity to resign.

When asked about any political motivation behind the move, Subbotin said : "I am not going to speculate on motives but, you know, he has appreciated her service. But he's looking to bring some new members on to the board."

Rosemary Vassiliadis said in a statement: "I appreciate my time on the commission and am honored to have served with the board. I worked with committed people who dedicated themselves to the safety and security of Nevada. I have every confidence the board will fulfill its tremendous responsibility."

This is the second appointment-related eyebrow-raising episode this week for Gibbons.

He also replaced Michon Mackedon, one of the fiercest Yucca Mountain opponents on the Nevada Nuclear Projects Commission, with Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley, a well-known advocate of the proposed nuclear waste repository. Late Wednesday, after Eastley's pro-dump record began circulating, the appointment was rescinded.

Earlier this year, Larry Martines stepped down after a brief tenure as Gibbons' homeland security adviser. He had received low marks from law enforcement and ran afoul of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev ., for apparently misrepresenting the views of Nevada law enforcement officials on a homeland security matter.

--J. Patrick Coolican can be reached at 259-8814 or at patrick.coolican@lasvegassun.com.

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North County Times
July 20, 2007

The Japan syndrome

By: North County Times Opinion staff

Our view: Earthquake aftermath is worrisome, but nuclear power still a vital energy option

It wasn't the best week to have a nuclear plant in your backyard, not with an earthquake in Japan damaging a key nuclear plant there. But we can't afford to allow an old, unfounded fear to trump the historical record.

Nuclear power remains one of our best sources of clean, cheap energy, and it's a vital asset in the effort to minimize the buildup of carbon in our atmosphere that appears to be raising global temperatures.

The facts about what happened at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant are still emerging . Meanwhile, officials from Southern California Edison, which operates San Onofre, are predictably assuring us that whatever happened in Japan couldn't possibly happen here.

Edison spokesmen say the domes that protect the reactors at San Onofre are built to withstand a quake as strong or stronger than 7.0 on the Richter scale, or a large tsunami, as well as internal stresses that are actually more dangerous. But Japan, perhaps the world leader in earthquake engineering, experienced a rude awakening after hearing similar claims.

Besides, San Onofre's domes don't concern us as much as the pools beside them, in which rods of nuclear waste, also called spent fuel, are stored. Edison representatives say Kashiwazaki's cooling pools were probably the source of radioactive water that leaked into the Sea of Japan.

Our local nuclear plant wasn't meant to store so many spent fuel rods, but it doesn't look like the Yucca Mountain storage site in Nevada will be open for business anytime soon. That means that we're stuck with adding more waste to the pools for the forseeable future. And that, despite Edison officials' best efforts, isn't all that reassuring.

Given all those risks, how can nuclear power still be a good option for powering North County?

Nuclear energy is cheap and abundant. Even more important to a state that is trying to reduce greenhouse gases, nuclear energy is a source of zero-emission electricity.

And, despite all of the oft-repeated fears, the Nuclear Age, now in its 62nd year, has proven to be about as safe as any other. Even Chernobyl, the site of the worst nuclear accident in history, did not result in the long-predicted, worst-case scenario of a meltdown.

In fact, one of the things we do know about the incident in Japan is that, despite the potential for catastrophe, the plant's safety mechanisms worked and its operating reactors automatically shut down during the quake. That's been the rule, not the exception.

On the other hand, power plants that burn fossil fuels, which supply most of our power, may be even worse. They are not only filling our atmosphere with carbon but also filling our lungs with deadly pollution. A 2000 report by the Clean Air Task Force , a collection of environmental groups, pinned the blame for 30,000 premature deaths each year on plants that burn oil, natural gas and especially coal.

These plants have accidents, too: A gas leak from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India , killed 4,000 people while they slept in 1984 and is believed to be responsible for as many 14,410 deaths total. By comparison, the World Health Organization estimates that 9,335 people are likely to die of cancers caused by radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster .

Nuclear is an important option. However, it probably doesn't belong on or near earthquake fault lines. Unlike Japan, which has far fewer options, the United States has a whole continent on which to select more suitable locations for nuclear facilities. Of course, building them will mean overcoming the objections of Americans who don't want a nuclear facility in their backyards and who will offer any reason ---- legitimate or otherwise ---- not to build them. That's why Yucca Mountain is stalled .

Both unresolved problems ---- moving nuclear plants away from seismically active areas and improving waste storage ---- are more political than technical. As we learn the true cost of burning the fossils that fueled the last 200 years, nuclear power will only grow more attractive.

The quake in Japan gives both concerned citizens and regulators a good excuse to reexamine safety at nuclear power plants in this country. Let's not in the process eliminate the one alternative energy that actually works.

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People's Weekly World
July 20, 2007

Editorial: Sitting on a fault line

Author: PWW/NM Editorial Board

A major earthquake hit Japan’s Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant this week. That should give pause to those who advocate looking to nuclear power as concerns about global warming escalate.

On July 16, an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale struck near the facility, the world’s largest in terms of output capacity. What came next included a fire, leakage of water containing radioactive material into the sea, and a spill of low-level radioactive waste. The plant is now closed indefinitely.

The facility on Japan’s western coast was built to withstand a quake of magnitude 6.5. An official of the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which manages the plant, said designers did not anticipate a larger quake. “After looking at aftershock location data,” he added, “we have come to realize a fault lies right below the plant.”

Beyond the ongoing issues of safely operating individual nuclear power plants looms the elephant in the room — what to do with the huge amounts of nuclear waste generated even by today’s facilities, let alone tomorrow’s.

Three decades ago the U.S. government started studying Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a possible national nuclear waste dump. In 2002 President Bush signed a bill to make Yucca Mountain the country’s central repository for nuclear waste.

But both the Western Shoshone Nation, on whose land the mountain sits, and the people and government of Nevada, including its Republican governor and attorney general, have fought the proposal tooth and nail.

The Western Shoshone say waste already generated by nuclear power and nuclear weapons facilities would more than fill Yucca Mountain’s planned capacity, even without the future output of existing and prospective plants. They also point out that the waste is lethal for 10,000 years and dangerous for 250,000 years, and that the proposed dump is near several local fault lines and a volcano.

Real clean energy alternatives are out there, including solar, wind and geothermal power. Isn’t it time to turn away from nuclear power, as well as nuclear weapons, and seek a truly green future?

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KRNV
July 19, 2007

Former Governor Richard Bryan "Anxious" to Speak With Gibbons Appointee

Nevada's Nuclear Projects Commission chairman says he's "anxious" to talk with Governor Gibbons' new appointee to the panel... whose statements on a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain clash with the commission's strong opposition to the proposal.

Richard Bryan, a former Nevada governor and US senator, says he hopes the appointee, Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley, will join in the state's long-standing effort to block the federal Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain costly dump project.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 19, 2007

Gibbons backs off on nuclear panel pick

By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal

Under pressure for appointing a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project supporter to the anti-Yucca state Nuclear Projects Commission, Gov. Jim Gibbons on Wednesday rescinded his choice of Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley to replace vice chairwoman Michon Mackedon.

"This position on the Nuclear Project Commission requires a representative who shares the primary sentiment of Nevada's residents and my administration's views on the Yucca Mountain Project," Gibbons said in a statement, accepting Eastley's resignation before she even attended one of the commission's meetings.

The statement refers to Eastley's "decision to resign" but doesn't explain why she chose to do so. Gibbons has said if he found out Eastley was a Yucca Mountain supporter he would rescind her appointment.

"It is my intention to have representation from Nye County and to ensure that this person can work with commission on our ongoing efforts to defeat the Yucca Mountain Project," Gibbons' statement reads.

Attempts to reach Eastley in Tonopah were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, some of Nevada's leaders and the Democratic Party harshly criticized Gibbons' decision to let the state engineer give the Department of Energy water for another 30 days of drilling near the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

The federal agency's effort at the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been staunchly opposed by Nevada's elected officials. Many are saying the state is missing a chance to prevent DOE from gathering geologic information from the site that's needed for licensing the project's above-ground facilities.

"I don't understand the logic," said Richard Bryan, a former governor and U.S. senator who chairs the Nuclear Projects Commission.

Bryan said he was out of the loop in the governor's decisions on both the Yucca water issue and his choice of Eastley for the commission.

"Nye County has been a problem for the delegation almost from the beginning," Bryan said, prior to the governor's reversal of selecting Eastley to fill the seat of Mackedon, a long-time opponent of the Yucca Mountain Project. Mackedon's term ended June 30.

"I don't know where she stands, but Nye County and Lincoln County have been thorns in the side of the delegation's opposition to the dump," Bryan said.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he, too, was scratching his head about Gibbons' approval of cutting DOE some slack on water use at Yucca Mountain for another month, even though the use for drilling is not in the state's interest.

Ensign said he wasn't consulted by the governor after State Engineer Tracy Taylor first ordered DOE to stop using the state's water for bore-hole drilling on June 1. Taylor lifted the cease-and-desist order 12 days later while he mulled letting DOE continue its deliberate, unauthorized use of the water until mid-August.

"The lawyers I have on my staff say it doesn't make sense to them," Ensign said. "We are trying to figure it out. I don't understand it."

Ensign said he had not spoken with Gibbons, but would do so.

"We are trying to find out why they think this would be the right policy," Ensign said.

The state historically has taken the hardest lines against the Energy Department on Yucca Mountain matters. Ensign said a change of strategy was news to him.

He said Nevada's handling of Yucca matters "usually is done with more coordination" between Nevada officials and the congressional delegation.

In a statement Wednesday, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., urged Gibbons "to reverse his administration's recent decision."

"Denying the Department of Energy access to water for work at Yucca Mountain is one of the strongest weapons Nevada has in its fight to prevent our state from becoming a nuclear garbage dump," Berkley said.

"The Energy Department should not be able to use one single drop of Nevada water to further President Bush's goal of dumping toxic nuclear waste 90 minutes outside Las Vegas," she said.

Berkley noted that Bush "is pushing Congress to pass legislation that would override Nevada's control of its own water resources." She said Bush "realizes that without water, there will be no nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain."

Meanwhile, the State Democratic Party pointed to Eastley's stance on Yucca Mountain, describing her as one of the most vocal supporters of the project.

"Either Gibbons didn't check her position or isn't being straight with Nevadans to tell us he is stopping the dump. It's either one or the other," said Kirsten Searer, deputy executive director of the Nevada Democratic Party.

Gibbons said Tuesday he will insist that all appointments he makes to the Nuclear Projects Commission align with the state's long-standing anti-Yucca views.

Gibbons spokeswoman Melissa Subbotin said the governor wouldn't react to comments by Ensign and Berkley.

"We've already stated that we're going to support the decision," she said, referring to the state engineer's decision.

Gibbons confirmed Tuesday that he backs Taylor's letter this week to DOE, giving Yucca Mountain officials until Friday to accept the letter's conditions. If DOE agrees, then federal scientists must stop using Nevada's water for drilling bore holes by Aug. 15, giving DOE roughly enough time to finish 80 bore holes where water is needed to cool and lubricate bits and create mud for sample collection.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Gibbons' decision to back the state engineer's letter amounted to an act of surrender in the state's decades-long fight against the Yucca Mountain Project.

"I am terribly disappointed. This is a bad day for Nevada," Reid said Tuesday.

If DOE doesn't accept the letter's conditions, then after Friday "no water may be used for any bore hole drilling projects currently underway," Taylor's letter reads.

Not accepting the terms would make the issue ripe for legal action.

Marta Adams, Nevada's senior deputy attorney general, has been handling the Yucca water case. She oversees the court-approved agreement on water use that Taylor accused DOE of breaching and said she is ready to enforce the state engineer's decision.

"At this point, since the engineer has opined we will be enforcing the order, we stand ready to support it and enforce it."

Stephens Washington Bureau chief Steve Tetreault contributed to this report.

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Las Vegas SUN
July 19, 2007

Gibbons seen undermining a nuke-free Yucca

By Jeff German
<jeff.german@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas Sun

It was not one of Gov. Jim Gibbons' friendlier meetings.

Earlier this month in Gibbons' office, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Bob Loux, the state's Yucca Mountain watchdog, strongly pushed the governor and his key aides to stop the U.S. Energy Department from using the state's water for drilling at the high-level nuclear waste project.

The advice to Gibbons was unanimous: It's time to get tough with the feds. Don't give the Energy Department any chance to collect new data that could bolster its collapsing case to make Yucca Mountain the nation's nuclear waste dump.

But Gibbons, reminding those at the meeting that he's a geologist and a lawyer, rejected the concerns.

This week he continued down that path by encouraging and publicly supporting a move by State Engineer Tracy Taylor to allow the Energy Department to continue using the water for a month longer. Although Gibbons has said he was following Taylor's recommendation, sources said it was clear that Gibbons was calling the shots on the water decision.

That move was coupled with the Republican governor's replacement of Michon Mackedon, one of the most experienced and fiercest Yucca Mountain opponents on the Nevada Nuclear Projects Commission, with Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley, a well-known Yucca Mountain advocate. Late Wednesday, after Democrats and the media began pointing out her pro-dump position, the appointment was rescinded.

In a statement, Gibbons took political spin to a new level by trying to distance himself from the flap over the appointment - by conveniently neglecting to mention that he had made the appointment in the first place.

"This position on the Nuclear Project Commission requires a representative who shares the primary sentiment of Nevada's residents and my administration's views on the Yucca Mountain project," the governor's statement said.

That was as true when Gibbons appointed Eastley, Yucca critics noted, as when he retreated amid growing controversy.

Gibbons insists that he remains steadfastly against the dump. But his actions this week, seemingly contrary to Nevada's quarter-century battle to block the repository, shocked leading Yucca Mountain opponents, giving them reason to question the governor's resolve in the epic fight.

"This demonstrates to me that he either doesn't know what he's doing or he's reversed his position," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said Wednesday. "Either way it's unacceptable.

"What is this man thinking?" Berkley added. "The one thing that has saved Nevada all of these years is that we speak with one voice, no matter what party we belong to. For Jim Gibbons to break ranks at this very sensitive time is dangerous to the state of Nevada and its citizens."

Neither Gibbons nor his aides have offered public explanations for the governor's perplexing moves. In particular, they have not explained how giving federal authorities more time to build a case for Yucca Mountain or appointing a Yucca advocate to the nuclear projects board could possibly be interpreted as being in line with the state's opposition to the plan.

Mackedon, who lives in Fallon, said Gibbons' actions, including the abrupt way in which he replaced her with a Yucca Mountain proponent, caused her to worry about his loyalty to the fight.

"It's raising concerns in my mind about what his end game might be," she said. "He's sending out mixed signals."

Mackedon, who served through previous Democratic and Republican administrations, was the last original member of the Nuclear Projects Commission, created by then-Gov. Richard Bryan in 1985 to help the state challenge a Yucca Mountain repository.

Bryan, who now heads the commission, said he received calls Wednesday from people worried that Gibbons' actions have made it appear that the state was softening its stance against the dump.

"These two recent developments have not been helpful," Bryan said, adding that he did not understand the rationale for allowing the Energy Department continued access to the state's water.

On Tuesday, after Gibbons publicly endorsed the decision to let the water flow to the Energy Department, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., blasted the move, calling it a blow to the fight and the "biggest gift" the department has received since he's been in Washington.

Although Gibbons backtracked on the Eastley appointment, his aides Wednesday stood firm on the water issue.

On June 1 Taylor had issued a cease-and-desist order prohibiting the Energy Department from using the state's water to cool drill bits used to bore soil sample holes near Yucca Mountain. Eleven days later, Taylor lifted the order, and with this week's letter provided a 30-day extension for the water use.

"If the state engineer felt that he could legally turn off the water today, the governor would support that 100 percent," press secretary Melissa Subbotin said.

The decision to allow the Energy Department to continue using the water, Subbotin said, was a "collaborative" effort made with the help of legal advice.

--Sun reporter Mary Manning contributed to this story. Jeff German is the Sun's senior investigative reporter. He can be reached at 259-4067 or at german@lasvegassun.com.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
July 19, 2007

State officials not content with Yucca plan

Anjeanette Damon
Reno Gazette-Journal

Gov. Jim Gibbons' decision to allow the federal government to temporarily continue using state water for ground studies at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump site is at odds with the state's past strategy for fighting the project, a top state official said Wednesday.

Also Wednesday, Gibbons rescinded an appointment he made to the Nuclear Projects Commission, which has a clear mission of opposing the nuclear waste dump, after the appointee's past statements in favor of the project came to light.

The decision by the state engineer to allow the Department of Energy to continue using state water for a drilling project at the Yucca Mountain site for the next 30 days was made independently of both the state's Nuclear Project Agency and the attorney general's staff, agency director Bob Loux said.

It's also at odds with the state's attempt to use its water rights as leverage against the project.

"Yes, this is different from where things have been in the past," said Loux, who has helped coordinate the state's fight against Yucca Mountain with six governors.

"Our concern all along has been with their ability to collect this data," he said.

Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams also said the decision was made without her office.

"I've handled this case all along and this most recent decision of the state engineer was made independently," she said. "I can't stress that enough. It was their decision and their's alone."

The Department of Energy has been using water from two state wells for drilling operations at the site in violation of a court agreement that outlines how the DOE can use state water. State Engineer Tracy Taylor recently lifted her cease-and-desist order to gather further information on DOE activities.

On Tuesday, in a decision backed by Gibbons, Taylor sent a letter to the DOE giving them 30 days to finish using the water for its drilling project or he will reinstate the cease-and-desist order.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., castigated the decision, calling it the "biggest gift the DOE has received since I've been in Washington."

Loux and other opponents of the project fear the DOE is using the drilling to collect evidence to support its application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which must approve the project.

Gibbons declined Wednesday to elaborate on his reasons for backing the state engineer, saying if the state could legally halt the DOE's water usage today, it would.

"I don't think this is a departure (from past strategy)," he said. "We've granted the DOE nothing. We've objected to their actions and we continue to be opposed to what they are doing."

Gibbons spokeswoman Melissa Subbotin said the decision was made after extensive consultation with legal counsel.

"An issue this sensitive must have been given so much attention and analysis," she said.

Gibbons said his decision does nothing to undermine the state's future use of water rights to prevent the project from moving forward. The decision by the state engineer does not involve long-term use of state water for operation of a waste facility.

Gibbons also came under fire Wednesday for appointing Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley to the Nuclear Projects Commission, after an extensive history of her comments in favor of the dump was revealed.

Nevada Democrats sent a news release criticizing the appointment.

"This position requires a representative who shares the primary sentiment of Nevada's residents and my administration's views on the Yucca Mountain Project," Gibbons said in a statement on Eastley's resignation.

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Deseret News
July 19, 2007

Utah is stepping closer to nuclear plant

By Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News

A legislative interim committee voted unanimously Wednesday to proceed with legislation that could facilitate construction of nuclear power plants in Utah.

The Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee hopes to have such a bill drafted for the 2008 session of the Legislature.

Christopher R. Parker, staff member working with the committee, outlined a Florida law designed to help build nuclear power plants. It allows a utility to recoup its costs in constructing a nuclear power plant even if it never produces a megawatt of electricity. Florida and eight other states have such laws.

Vanessa Pierce, director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, told the group that nuclear power would not be as inexpensive as some think. When construction of a nuclear reactor is figured, the cost of power jumps to close to 6 cents a kilowatt-hour, she said.

That's more expensive than electricity generated by coal or natural gas, Pierce added. Under the Florida law, if a plant isn't completed, the project could "leave taxpayers holding the bag," she said.

"This is a very complex issue. The impacts are quite profound for a state that has had such an embittered fight against nuclear waste," said Pierce.

Rep. Michael E. Noel, R-Kanab, asked her whether Utahns are opposed to storing high-level nuclear waste generated in this state.

"Just as we have opposed other states sending their waste to Utah and using Utah as a dumping ground for their waste..., we do not think it is responsible nor prudent for us to dump our waste on any other state," Pierce replied. Also, HEAL does not believe the proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada will be ready to receive high-level nuclear waste anytime soon. The Nevada site has been slowed by environmental opposition.

She said all members of the Utah congressional delegation have said the waste should be stored in hardened casks where it is generated, for the next 100 or 200 years, while waiting for long-term repositories to become available.

Noel said Utah may be in competition with other states concerning nuclear power; if so, the state should encourage its development.

"Many Western countries rely almost totally on nuclear power," and India and China are moving up in that category, he added. Noel quoted a Greenpeace official as supporting nuclear power.

"Utah has the potential to produce nuclear power," Noel said. "We have the uranium," with sources available not only in the Beehive state but also neighboring Arizona.

"The State Energy Policy does provide for the review of the development of nuclear energy, which I think is very prudent that we do," said Rep. Roger Barrus, R-Centerville. The policy, adopted by the Legislature, intends that Utah should explore that form of power generation, he said.

Rep. Janice M. Fisher, D-West Valley City, said legislators should hear from groups like HEAL so that any bill produced "basically has the blessing of everyone that's involved."

Rep. Steven Mascaro, R-West Jordan, moved that the committee proceed with legislation concerning generation of nuclear power in Utah. The committee approved the motion unanimously.

--E-mail: bau@desnews.com

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Atlanta Journal Constitution
July 19, 2007

'Nuclear option' raises questions

More aggressive approaches to energy efficiency beat risky plan

The machinations of the state Public Service Commission generally strike most Georgians as too bureaucratic and boring. But now that the regulatory agency has approved a strategic energy plan that includes the possibility of building a pair of nuclear reactors that could have a profound effect on our environment and economy, it's time to pay very close attention.

Georgia Power, the state's largest electrical utility, is eyeing the "nuclear option" to accommodate the state's projected growth and its ravenous appetite for energy. Company officials here claimed the best way to meet that growing demand is to add two new nuclear generating units at Plant Vogtle, one of its existing nuclear facilities, in Waynesboro near Augusta.

By a 5-0 vote, commissioners gave the utility a preliminary green light to proceed while attaching several important caveats. With that important step cleared, Georgia Power and its corporate parent, Southern Company, will likely intensify efforts to get required permits for the project from other state and federal agencies. The PSC is expected to take a final vote on the utility's plans in December 2008.

That timeline should provide ample opportunity for Georgia Power to fully explore other energy sources, as required by the PSC. It's also imperative for Georgians whose lives will be directly affected to understand what's at stake.

THE COST: Unofficial estimates for Georgia Power's proposed reactors range from $2.4 billion to $3.6 billion apiece. But calculating costs for nuclear power plants has always been more art than science — which means estimates are notoriously unreliable.

Plant Vogtle, for instance, was supposed to be a billion-dollar bargain when it was first proposed. But by the time it was completed, it wound up costing almost nine times that much for about half the generating capacity originally promised.

Much-improved plant designs and generous federal incentives may help moderate costs of building a new generation of nuclear plants. But since no nuclear plants have been built in this country in more than a decade and the demand for construction materials is driving up prices sharply, ratepayers who will eventually foot the bill should be prepared for a serious case of sticker shock.

THE CLEANUP: The disposal of spent nuclear fuel is perhaps the biggest unresolved question surrounding nuclear power. The U.S. Department of Energy has announced plans to open the Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada as the nation's permanent underground storage facility for radioactive nuclear waste by 2017, a deadline it will almost certainly miss. Strong political opposition in Congress and lingering security concerns about the relative safety of shipping deadly wastes cross-country also don't bode well. If the Yucca repository isn't open in time to begin accepting wastes from Georgia and elsewhere, nuclear power plants must continue storing their wastes in "temporary" facilities on-site, an expensive option that raises the risk of contaminating soil and groundwater. Another option — reprocessing spent fuel so that some of it can be reused as fuel — increases the possibility of bomb-making material falling into terrorists' hands.

THE CONSEQUENCES: Georgia Power officials contend that nuclear power is the best option available given the state's mounting energy needs, concerns about global warming and the price volatility of coal and natural gas.

It's true that once built, nuclear power plants are usually cheaper to operate and don't produce the same noxious, planet-warming pollutants as fossil fuels. But nuclear plants are far more expensive and environmentally unfriendly than options such as increased energy efficiency and programs to reduce or manage consumer demand. If such programs are aggressive enough, they could make large, new generating facilities unnecessary.

A recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute, an independent think tank, reports that the growth rate for energy consumption could be reduced dramatically in the next 15 years through widespread use of energy-efficient light fixtures, appliances, solar water heaters and improved insulation in new buildings. Those and other measures could reduce the projected growth in worldwide energy demand from a predicted 2.2 percent a year through 2020 to only six-tenths of a percent a year, according to the study.

As a condition of the PSC's tentative approval for its nuclear plants, Georgia Power has committed to five modest new programs aimed at promoting efficiency and demand-side reductions. The PSC can and should push Georgia Power to become an industry leader on those energy initiatives instead of lagging behind the pack.

The members of the PSC — and by extension the people of Georgia — face a critically important decision about the state's future. If they don't perform what lawyers call "due diligence," they will have only themselves to blame for the fallout.

--Lyle V. Harris, for the editorial board

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Columbus Free Press
July 19, 2007

The earthquake that screamed "NO NUKES!!!"

Harvey Wasserman

The massive earthquake that shook Japan this week nearly killed millions in a nuclear apocalypse.

It also produced one of the most terrifying sentences ever buried in a newspaper. As reported deep in the New York Times, the Tokyo Electric Company has admitted that "the force of the shaking caused by the earthquake had exceeded the design limits of the reactors, suggesting that the plant's builders had underestimated the strength of possible earthquakes in the region."

There are 55 reactors in Japan. Virtually all of them are on or near major earthquake faults. Kashiwazaki alone hosts seven, four of which were forced into the dangerous SCRAM mode to narrowly avoid meltdowns. At least 50 separate serious problems have been so far identified, including fire and the spillage of barrels filled with radioactive wastes.

There are four active reactors in California on or near major earthquake faults, as are the two at Indian Point north of New York City. On January 31, 1986, an earthquake struck the Perry reactor east of Cleveland, knocking out roads and bridges, as well as pipes within the plant, which (thankfully) was not operating at the time. The governor of Ohio, then Richard Celeste, sued to keep Perry shut, but lost in federal court.

The fault that hit Perry is an off-shoot of the powerful New Madrid line that runs through the Mississippi River Valley, threatening numerous reactors. The Beyond Nuclear Project reports that in August, 2004, a quake hit the Dresden reactor in Illinois, resulting in a leak of radioactive tritium. Nevada's Yucca Mountain, slated as the nation's high-level radioactive waste dump, has a visible fault line running through it.

More than 400 atomic reactors are on-line worldwide. How many are vulnerable to seismic shocks we can only shudder to guess. But one-eighth of them sit in one of the world's richest, most technologically advanced, most densely populated industrial nations, which has now admitted its reactor designs cannot match the power of an earthquake that has just happened.

In whatever language it's said, that translates into the unmistakable warning that the world's atomic reactors constitute a multiple, ticking seismic time bomb. Talk of building more can only be classified as suicidal irresponsibility.

Tokyo Electric's behavior since the quake defines the industry's credibility. For three consecutive days (with more undoubtedly to come) the utility has been forced to issue public apologies for erroneous statements about the severity of the damage done to the reactors, the size and lethality of radioactive spills into the air and water, the on-going danger to the public, and much more.

Once again, the only thing reactor owners can be trusted to do is to lie.

Prior to the March 28, 1979 disaster at Three Mile Island, the industry for years assured the public that the kind of accident that did happen was "impossible."

Then the utility repeatedly assured the public there had been no melt-down of fuel and no danger of further catastrophe. Nine years later a robotic camera showed that nearly all the fuel had melted, and that avoiding a full-blown catastrophe was little short of a miracle.

The industry continues to say no one was killed at TMI. But it does not know how much radiation was released, where it went or who it might have harmed. Since 1979 its allies in the courts have denied 2400 central Pennsylvania families the right to test their belief that they and their loved ones have been killed and maimed en masse.

Prior to its April 26, 1986, explosion, Soviet Life Magazine ran a major feature extolling the virtually "accident-proof design" of Chernobyl Unit Four.

Then the former Soviet Union of Mikhail Gorbachev kept secret the gargantuan radiation releases that have killed thousands and yielded a horrific plague of cancers, leukemia, birth defects and more throughout the region, and among the more than 800,000 drafted "jumpers" who were forced to run through the plant to clean it up.

Since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the industry has claimed its reactors can withstand the effects of a jet crash, and are immune to sabotage. The claims are as patently absurd as the lies about TMI and Chernobyl.

So, too, the endless, dogged assurances from Japan that no earthquake could do to Kashiwazaki what has just happened.

Yet today and into the future, expensive ads will flood the US and global airwaves, full of nonsense about the "need" for new nukes.

There is only one thing we know for certain about this advertising: it is a lie.

Atomic reactors contribute to global warming rather than abating it. In construction, in the mining, milling and enriching of the fuel, in on-going "normal" releases of heat and radioactivity, in dismantling and decommissioning, in managing radioactive wastes, in future terror attacks, in proliferation of nuke weapons, and much much more, atomic energy is an unmitigated eco-disaster.

To this list we must now add additional tangible evidence that reactors allegedly built to withstand "worst case" earthquakes in fact cannot. And when they go down, the investment is lost, and power shortages arise (as is now happening in Japan) that are filled by the burning of fossil fuels.

It costs up to ten times as much to produce energy from a nuke as to save it with efficiency. Advances in wind, solar and other green "Solartopian" technologies mean atomic energy simply cannot compete without massive subsidies, loan guarantees and government insurance to protect it from catastrophes to come.

This latest "impossible" earthquake has not merely shattered the alleged safeguards of Japan's reactor fleet. It has blown apart---yet again---any possible argument for building more reactors anywhere on this beleaguered Earth.

--Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030, is at http://www.solartopia.org/. He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and senior editor of http://www.freepress.org/, where this piece originally appeared. In 1975 he spoke near the Kashiwazaki complex, urging its shut down.

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Hartford Courant
July 19, 2007

Dry Days Loom In West

Robert M. Thorson

A gnawing sense of uncertainty. Perhaps that will motivate us to move faster on climate change than all the predictions in the world.

In their recent book, "Climate Change and Biodiversity," conservation biologists Thomas E. Lovejoy and Lee Hannah write "Much has been learned that is new, and yet our understanding is dwarfed by the vast and complex changes to come." There are two principal sources of uncertainty. First, "species respond to climate change individually and idiosyncratically, not as coherent communities." Second, natural systems more fundamental than ecology are simply too complex to predict at the level of detail we are comfortable with.

With respect to individual species, there are dozens of excellent case histories discussed in the volume from polar bears to avian malaria. My main concern is with the subspecies of Homo sapiens now sprawling across the sun-baked cities of the American West. What will their population look like when individual families give up this unsustainable existence and seek cooler moister climes? Consider Nevada, where the population increased an astonishing 66 percent from 1990 to 2000, based on the last U.S. census, much of it near Las Vegas. The remaining four of the top five high-growth states - Arizona (40 percent), Colorado (31percent), Utah (30 percent) and Idaho (29 percent) - also have cities sprawling into triple digit heat waves.

From Idaho to Texas the wildfires are spreading, the water budget is shrinking and the demand for electricity - especially for air conditioning - is growing. Much of this demand is being met by burning coal, the worst carbon emitter of all, despite great opportunities for solar, wind and geothermal power. (And what about nuclear power? Well, we haven't heard much about that since Nevada's Harry Reid became Senate Majority Leader. Before his election, the nation was actively developing its first permanent radioactive waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Things are now more or less on hold.) Can anyone predict where the Homo sapiens from western cities will go when they give up for lack of water, the elixir of life?

Uncertainty about the future also stems from the complexity of natural systems. Consider weather forecasters. Despite Doppler radar, geostationary satellites and automated computer models, they still frequently get it wrong, becoming the butt of many jokes. This July 4th for example, communities such as Newport, R.I. launched their fireworks in steady, heavy rain because they had to abide by a decision based on a morning weather forecast. Smaller adjacent communities looked at the sky at night and rescheduled. TV weather forecasters are what amounts to good-looking witch doctors, especially in places like New England. Their job is to put a human face on the mysteries of the atmosphere.

Yet these meteorologists have it easy compared to hydrologists. That's because the job of the hydrologist is to forecast soil moisture, snow pack thickness, groundwater budgets and river discharge based on the predictions of the meteorologist. And the hydrologists have it easy compared to the ecologists, whose job it is to forecast species migrations and food webs based on the predictions of the hydrologists.

To illustrate the complexity in the middle of this chain of logic, consider the headline from an article published by Richard Kerr in last month's Science: "River-level forecasting shows no detectable progress in 2 decades." The physics of river forecasting is straightforward, and hydrologists are doing a fairly decent job. But despite two decades of hard effort, they are not doing any better now than before, at least not for the 11 large Missouri River flow stations examined. There are just too many variables involved - slope, soil, direction, temperature, irrigation, snow, moisture, wind, permeability, etc.

Thinking about complexity gave me an idea. What if concerned scientists like me gave up trying to predict the future and parroted what the climate change naysayers have been saying all along: "We just don't know." Would this confession translate to the body politic as yet another reason to marvel at the mysteries of nature? Or would it translate as gnawing apprehension for the future? In either case, would that be enough to make us stop burning coal to cool our bodies in places where it's naturally hot?

I just don't know.

--Robert M. Thorson is a professor of geology at the University of Connecticut's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a member of The Courant's Place Board of Contributors. His column appears every Thursday. He can be reached at profthorson@hotmail.com

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ClimateChangeCorp
July 19, 2007

Nuclear power revisited – but is it really US energy supply’s white knight?

Lisa Roner
North America Editor

All Americans love a good comeback story, but there are serious concerns that “Nuclear Energy, Part II” will not effectively address energy supply problems in the US

As the US begins to take a serious look at how to tackle climate change and its ongoing dependence on foreign oil, nuclear energy is capturing widespread attention for the first time in more than a generation.

No new reactors have been ordered in the US since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 that turned the American public sour on the safety of nuclear power and no reactors have come online in the US since 1996.

But before 2009, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) expects to receive 28 applications to build and operate 19 new reactors.

The Bush push

The Bush administration is pushing development of new nuclear plants and the refurbishment of existing ones. Such is the strong rhetoric and financial incentives, it is clear the White House believes nuclear energy is a viable and critical component of America’s energy future.

The president says that while “there is no single solution to climate change” there “can be no solution without nuclear power”.

Bush’s Nuclear Power 2010 initiative to reduce regulatory and other barriers to nuclear development, launched in 2002, provides matching funds for the early stages of new plant development – with a goal of plant deployments beginning in 2010.

The administration’s proposed 2008 budget would expand the programme by doubling funding for the initiative to $114 million.

In addition, the 2005 Energy Policy Act offers $13 billion in loan guarantees and tax credits to companies pursuing the first new nuclear reactors placed in service before 2021. And the race is on to be one of the first at the finish line to qualify for the subsidies.

The NRC has already approved “early site” permits for new reactors at an Excelon site in Illinois and an Entergy site in Mississippi, giving the electricity providers the option of building there within the next 20 years. And early site permit applications by electric providers Dominion and Southern are pending.

In addition, the NRC says it expects applications to be filed in 2007 by NRG Energy, Duke Energy, Progress Energy, Dominion and South Carolina Electric & Gas and to actually build and operate new reactors.

International cooperation

Bush is also touting his Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a proposal that includes not only incentives for new reactor and fuel recycling technologies in the US, but also to develop a controlled network of “supplier” nations. These are countries with advanced civilian nuclear energy programmes, such as France, Japan and Russia, that could provide fuel fabrication and waste reprocessing services to developing “user” nations worldwide.

The plan, which Russia recently agreed to participate as a supplier in, would expand the availability of nuclear power worldwide by providing advanced nuclear technology, financing and development assistance to developing nations that abide by international rules.

User nations would agree to use nuclear power only for civilian purposes and forego uranium enrichment and reprocessing that can lead to the development and possible dissemination of nuclear weapons.

US negotiator Robert Joseph says there are more than a dozen countries interested in acquiring nuclear reactors and “now is the time to help shape their decisions in a way that advances our common interests”.

GNEP calls for “small scale reactors” to be developed that are better suited to the smaller electricity grids of developing nations than the light water reactors that dominate today’s nuclear power industry.

The aim is to develop reactors that would offer “long-life” fuel loads that might last the entire life of a reactor so that refuelling is not needed. Also incorporated would be monitoring protection against sabotage and other terrorist acts.

Keystone conclusions

With near-zero carbon emissions, nuclear power plants seem to offer a veritable “get out of jail free” card when it comes to global warming. But panellists participating in a recent report from the non-profit Keystone Center say a renewed focus on nuclear energy is not an easy answer to America’s difficult, carbon-filled energy woes.

The Keystone report acknowledges that current US subsidies and incentives and looming carbon tax schemes will render future nuclear development economically feasible in a carbon constrained world.

But to have a real impact on global climate change, development of nuclear power plants would have to expand at a rate equal to the industry’s peak development in the 1980s and maintain that rate for half a century, the group says.

Leading climate change scientists who ascribe to the Pacala/Socolow “stabilisation wedge” theory estimate that seven to eight (some say as many as ten) “wedges” or one billion tonne reductions in carbon emissions by 2050 will be required to curtail worldwide global warming.

For nuclear power to contribute one such wedge, according to the Keystone group, would require adding on average 14 new nuclear plants each year for the next 50 years and building 7.4 plants annually to replace those that will be retired.

The US currently has 104 nuclear plants that provide 20% of the country’s electricity. And according to the Bush administration, the nation will need three additional plants each year beginning in 2015 just to maintain that percentage with the soaring demand for electricity.

Safer than ever

The “fact-finding” group of 27 panellists, that included environmental groups, academics, state regulators, electricity providers and consumer advocates, spent nearly a year assessing the future role of nuclear power in the US.

In addition to its projections for capacity required to help reduce global warming, the Keystone group also concluded that nuclear power in the US is safer today than ever.

The group stresses that disposal of spent by products from nuclear fuel should ultimately take place in geological repositories like the stalled Yucca Mountain site, a volcanic ridge line in Nye County, Nevada. But, it concludes spent fuel can safely be managed on nuclear plant sites in spent fuel pools or steel and concrete waste containers for extended periods of time.

The group does caution, however, that storing the extra waste generated by the likely nuclear generation boom in the US will eventually require ten dumps the size of Yucca Mountain.

According to Keystone, the small reactor technology proposed under the GNEP may not be practical or cost competitive. And the economics of its proposed fuel reprocessing technologies are not competitive with current “once through” fuel use and disposal approaches currently used by the industry, the group says.

Dissenting opinions

There is fairly widespread agreement among the Keystone report participants on its key assessments. Despite this, the Union of Concerned Scientists, a respected advocacy group started by faculty and students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969, says the report understates the cost of expanding nuclear capacity and overstates the security and safety of nuclear plants. UCS’s board of directors vice chairman, Peter Bradford, participated on the panel.

UCS says it believes that there are faster, safer and cheaper ways of meeting the nation’s energy needs and that nuclear power is not a solution for global warming.

Thomas Cochran, director of the nuclear programme at the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the US’s most powerful environmental advocacy groups, and a participant on the Keystone panel, agrees.

He says nuclear power can at best contribute one-half of a “wedge” over the next 50 years and believes the “heavy lifting” of solving global warming will have to come from other industries, such as renewables.

Members of the power generating industry, however, believe the US has the capacity to meet the one wedge challenge if it has the will.

Ray Ganther, of the French-based energy conglomerate Areva that focuses heavily on nuclear power, says industrial capacity will rise to the occasion but it will require strong signals from eventual users of nuclear power to demonstrate that the market is real.

James Rogers, chief executive of Duke Energy, a large US gas and electric power provider believes the country’s climate objectives will “trump how we think about cost structure going forward”. Climate, he says, is more important than the drawbacks of nuclear. Is this really a climate debate or an energy security debate?

Anything but coal

Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, agrees and says anything is better than carbon-spewing coal plants.

Banking on less controversial solutions like renewable energy and conservation alone won’t be enough to curtail global warming and therefore spells “doom”, he predicts.

It is clear that “Nuclear Energy, Part II” is already sparking the same diametrically opposed views that its first push through the US produced. But the spectres of global warming and energy security certainly add to the suspense – and the stakes.

And now an influential group of moderate to conservative Democrats, including Lincoln Davis of Tennessee, is pushing for increased domestic nuclear energy production as part of its agenda for the House energy bill being debated this summer.

With a continuing interest by the Bush administration and key power providers nuclear power seems poised to gain ground as an integral part of the US energy equation.

Useful links:
www.keystone.org
www.gnep.energy.gov
www.cfr.org
www.uscusa.org
www.nwf.org

--Write to Lisa Roner, North America Editor at Lisa.Roner@ethicalcorp.com, or write to the Editor at zara.maung@ethicalcorp.com.

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Senator Harry Reid
July 17, 2007

Press Release of Senator Reid

Reid "Incredibly Disappointed" At State's Decision To Lift Cease And Desist Order On Yucca

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada released the following statement on the news that the State of Nevada placed a stay on the cease and desist order on the Department of Energy (DOE).  This decision allows the DOE to continue stealing water from Nevada’s limited supplies in order to develop the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.

“I’m incredibly disappointed. This is the biggest gift the DOE has received since I’ve been in Washington and I am shocked that it was delivered by the administration of a former Nevada Congressman.  The letter from the State’s Division of Water Resources to the DOE lays out every reason the DOE should cease and desist.  Yet, at the same time, the State gave the DOE the green light to move forward on this project, while the entire Nevada congressional delegation continues to fight to prevent Nevada from becoming the nation’s nuclear dumping ground.  I assure the people of Nevada that I will continue to leverage my position as the Senate Majority Leader to prevent this dump from ever becoming a reality.”

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 18, 2007

Gibbons lets Yucca Mountain project use state's water for another month

By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal

A decision by the state engineer, with the backing of Gov. Jim Gibbons, to let the U.S. Department of Energy use the state's water for another month to explore the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site amounts to surrendering in Nevada's decades-long fight against the project, Sen. Harry Reid said Tuesday.

"They have capitulated to the people who want to put nuclear waste in Nevada," Reid, D-Nev., said by telephone from Washington, D.C.

"This is capitulating to the Department of Energy and the proponents of nuclear waste in Nevada. I am terribly disappointed," Reid, the Senate majority leader, said. "This is a bad day for Nevada."

A letter from State Engineer Tracy Taylor dated Monday gives the Department of Energy another 30 days to use Nevada's water for drilling bore holes near the mountain.

That is enough time for DOE scientists to collect samples for data needed for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a repository and surface facilities for handling and cooling spent nuclear fuel assemblies before entombing them in the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Yucca Mountain Project officials intend to submit a license application to the commission by June 2008, triggering a review process that will last a few years.

Taylor had issued a cease-and-desist order to the Energy Department on June 1 and then lifted it June 12 while he reviewed information from the federal agency.

Since then, he has allowed DOE to use water from two wells near Yucca Mountain to cool and lubricate drill bits and collect core samples from mud. Such use of the water is not allowed under a court-approved agreement that stipulates DOE is only supposed to use the state's water for flushing toilets, fire suppression and dust control.

Taylor was on vacation Tuesday and unavailable for comment.

In a statement, Reid said Taylor's decision "is the biggest gift the DOE has received since I've been in Washington, and I am shocked that it was delivered by the administration of a former Nevada congressman," who is the state's Republican governor.

"The letter ... lays out every reason the DOE should cease and desist. Yet, at the same time, the state gave the DOE the green light to move forward on this project, while the entire Nevada congressional delegation continues to fight to prevent Nevada from becoming the nation's nuclear dumping ground," Reid said in the statement.

Gibbons was surprised by Reid's comments and told the Review-Journal, "No one has a stronger record of opposing Yucca Mountain than I do as a congressman and now as governor. We all have worked to stop this project."

Asked why he backs Taylor's decision to offer DOE a chance to continue using Nevada's water for 30 more days, Gibbons said, "If the state engineer felt he should legally turn it off today, I would support that 100 percent."

The sternly worded letter from Taylor to Scott Wade, acting director of the Yucca Mountain Site Operations Office, says, "DOE's actions in proceeding with its bore hole drilling project without a permit or agreement appear to have been deliberate. ... Because site characterization ended in 2002, the DOE has no authority to continue with site investigation.

"For these reasons .... I find that the DOE's use of water for the bore hole drilling project is not in the public interest," Taylor wrote.

Nevertheless, Taylor agreed to let DOE continue using the state's water for that purpose for 30 days, citing DOE's potential "waste of significant financial resources" for completing the first two phases of the drilling program.

He noted that Gibbons has signed into law a bill that in January 2009 will allow for a $10,000-per-day penalty for each violation of the state's water law.

The letter gives Wade until Friday to respond.

Allen Benson, a Department of Energy spokesman for the Yucca Mountain Project in Las Vegas, wouldn't comment on the state engineer's letter, citing potential litigation.

Late Tuesday, Gibbons released a statement saying DOE's "unauthorized use of water for drilling" is more evidence that the agency is rushing to complete the project.

"This is yet another red flag that raises concerns about the ongoing efforts at Yucca Mountain and the DOE's desire to expedite a project that has been deemed 'broken' by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman himself," Gibbons said.

Gibbons acknowledged that he is considering replacements for members of the Nuclear Projects Commission, whose terms are expiring.

He has replaced long-time Yucca Mountain opponent Michon Mackedon with Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley, who represents an area where there has been some support for the project.

"We've got a number of people we're reviewing," Gibbons said, declining to name his candidates.

"We plan to fill those positions with people who feel the way the state of Nevada feels, that Yucca Mountain is bad for the state and bad for the country," he said.

The state's water rights have been a key weapon in legal battles to prevent the federal effort to license and build a repository at Yucca Mountain.

In 2000, then-State Engineer Michael Turnipseed denied the department permanent rights to 140 million gallons per year of groundwater, saying it was not in the state's interest to allow the government to build and operate a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

In December 2002, the state and DOE entered into an agreement approved by U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt that allowed DOE to use a limited amount of water for showers, restroom facilities, dust suppression and emergencies such as fires.

In 2003, DOE again sought permits for 140 million gallons per year.

Turnipseed's successor, Hugh Ricci, denied that request on the same grounds.

In the meantime, DOE had stockpiled more than 1 million gallons of nonpotable water.

Hunt later put a stay on the permanent water use case pending resolution of the federal EPA radiation safety standard and other potential litigation and legislative matters.

In April 2005, Hunt wrote in court papers that "it is not necessarily a foregone conclusion" that the project would ultimately be approved and licensed.

"If it is not, the (basis) for the water permits would no longer exist."

That same year, with Hunt's approval, state and federal attorneys agreed the Department of Energy could continue using the state's water for safety and sanitary purposes but not for scientific investigations of the site or to build a repository.

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Las Vegas SUN
July 18, 2007

Questions surface over appointee to Nevada's nuclear dump panel

By Brendan Riley
Associated Press Writer

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Nevada's Nuclear Projects Commission chairman said Wednesday he's "anxious" to talk with Gov. Jim Gibbons' new appointee to the panel - whose statements on a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain clash with the commission's strong opposition to the proposal.

Richard Bryan, a former Nevada governor and U.S. senator, added that he hopes the appointee, Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley, will join in the state's long-standing effort to block the federal Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain costly dump project.

"I've been concerned for a number of years, dating back to my Senate years, about the position of Nye County, which at best can be characterized as ambivalent" toward the high-level radioactive waste dump, Bryan said.

Eastley said in a brief phone conversation Wednesday that she shares the county's position on the multi-billion-dollar project dump. That stance has been that the project likely will go forward and the county must plan accordingly. Eastley also rejected the term "dump," calling the project a "repository."

Gibbons on Tuesday confirmed that he is appointing Eastley to replace the commission's vice-chairwoman, Michon Mackedon, who has been a strong dump opponent for many years.

Gibbons also said he has been assured that Eastley isn't a Yucca Mountain supporter. He added that if he finds out otherwise "I will rescind the appointment - period."

Bryan said he hopes Eastley will join with other commission members "in strong opposition to this site. We've made enormous progress and I think we're on the threshold of success."

"I certainly reject the notion that this is inevitable, and events in recent years offer strong contradictory evidence to that position," he added.

Eastley's previous statements on the proposed dump include published remarks that the dump is "absolutely going to happen," that Nye County has successfully negotiated for millions of federal dollars as part of the project, and that residents of her county "are proud of the fact that they had something to do with developing the storage facility for this waste."

Eastley also reportedly suggested that radioactive waste be called "a potential resource" rather than waste.

Originally scheduled to open in 1998, the dump has been set back repeatedly by lawsuits, money shortfalls and scientific controversies. The DOE's current best-case opening date for the dump, which would hold 77,000 tons of waste, is 2017.

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Las Vegas SUN
July 18, 2007

FLASHPOINT for Jul 18, 2007

By Jon Ralston <ralston@vegas.com>
Las Vegas Sun

I'm sure Gov. Jim Gibbons thought it would be an easy, pos- itive headline for him. After all, hasn't that been what the Yucca Mountain issue has provided pandering Nevada pols for two decades? So he put out a news release Tuesday saying he would support the state engineer's decision to ask the DOE to stop using Nevada water to drill at the dump site. No-brainer, right? Enter Harry Reid. The Senate majority leader read the fine print of the engineer's letter and declared he was "incredibly disappointed." Why? Because the DOE can still move forward, with a "green light" no less. Huh? Depends on what the definition of "desist" is, I guess. Where have we seen this before - partisan politics on Yucca Mountain? Dog bites man. Again.

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Pahrump Valley Times
July 18, 2007

Those darned headlines

In 1980 the governors of California and Nevada, Jerry Brown and Robert List, met at Incline Village to discuss the future of Lake Tahoe.

During that conference, a journalists' organization held a meeting in the same hotel, and List's press secretary Bill Phillips was the speaker. One of Phillips' observations during that speech was that he seldom had objections to the stories written about the governor, but he often objected to their headlines. Those headlines often went beyond the information in the stories under them or just plain misrepresented the stories.

After that meeting we went to a joint news conference of Brown and List at which Gov. List said he would call a special session of the Nevada Legislature to amend the bi state Tahoe Regional Planning Compact but only if several conditions were met.

The next day the headline in a Reno newspaper was, "List to call special session."

Reporters don't often write the headlines over their stories but are usually held responsible for them by the newsmakers who are misrepresented in this fashion. Sometimes it works in favor of the newsmakers, who seldom make complaints then.

On June 20 U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley's office issued a press release about an amendment she filed to an energy and water measure to eliminate funding for the U.S. Department of Energy's children's website. That site features a cartoon of a character named "Yucca Mountain Johnny" that is used to market the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Berkley's news release featured a lot of extravagant and colorful language ("Berkley to Yucca Mountain Johnny: You're fired!") and it didn't make it easy to understand exactly what had happened in Congress, but the correct information was there if reporters read it carefully enough.

In the days after the release was issued, we saw headlines like these:

"House Kills 'Yucca Mountain Johnny'" (Washington Post and USA Today)

"Yucca Mountain Johnny is saying goodbye" MetaFilter.com)

"House Kills 'Yucca Mountain Johnny'" (Newsvine.com)

"The Death of Johnny ... a moment of silence" (tote.wordpress.com)

"House Kills 'Yucca Mountain Johnny'" (KVBC, KLAS, and Fox News web sites)

"Bye, bye Johnny" (Las Vegas Sun editorial)

If you see a certain similarity among some of these sites, it's because they don't actually cover government. Rather, they posted the Associated Press story by Erica Werner that had the headline "House Kills 'Yucca Mountain Johnny'," so that headline appeared in dozens of publications and sites.

As it happened, the House had done no such thing. It had adopted Berkley's amendment to the bill. Or rather, it had adopted the amendment on a voice vote, which probably means that the House chamber was mostly empty at the time of the "vote."

But that didn't kill "Johnny." It merely attached one amendment to a bill that has never actually passed the House.

Granted, Berkley's news release could have been more candid (it didn't even give the bill number - HR 2641). It never mentioned that on June 13 the White House had issued a statement on the bill: "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. ... [I]f H.R. 2641 were presented to the President, he would veto the bill."

But it's not the job of politicians to do reporters' jobs for them. And there were some who got the story right.

National Public Radio reported, "Congress is weighing the fate of Yucca Mountain Johnny."

Here in the Valley Times, the headline was merely "House takes swipe at 'Yucca Johnny'."

The Las Vegas Review Journal said only, "House pans Yucca Internet strategy."

One last note: When there was a real vote of the House on Berkley's amendment last year, by roll call, it was defeated 271-147.

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YubaNet
July 18, 2007

"Bullying of career scientists and policy experts cannot be tolerated." Senator Boxer

Boxer Opening Statement from EPW's Nominations Hearing

By: Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

Statement of Chairman Barbara Boxer st the nominations hearing for Lyle Laverty Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife And Parks And Kristine Svinicki, Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Remarks as prepared for delivery.

Today, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works meets to consider the nominations of Lyle Laverty to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and Kristine Svinicki to be a Commissioner for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Mr. Laverty, the position to which you are nominated is very important. I understand that you are a California native, and I welcome you today.

As you know, California is a state rich in biodiversity and stunning natural beauty and I hope that if you are confirmed for this position, you will always remember what is at stake for California and all of America's natural treasures. Californians and all Americans live in a nation blessed with spectacular public lands and a rich array of wildlife.

Yet despite this richness, we have seen an unprecedented assault on our nation's wildlife laws, conservation system and the science that underpins them.

From silencing scientists, to gutting our successful conservation laws, to under funding our public lands, this Administration is breaching the public trust owed to America's natural heritage instead of honoring its duty to serve as effective stewards.

Indeed, in April of this year, the then-Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Julie MacDonald, resigned following a damning investigative report of the Inspector General of the Interior Department.

In that report, the Inspector General revealed, among other things, how that official leaked non-public information to special interests that had a financial stake in the outcome of the Fish and Wildlife Service's decisions.

The I.G. report also describes how this senior official "got into the face" of Fish and Wildlife Service personnel over their 5-year Endangered Species Act species reviews.

This kind of bullying of career scientists and policy experts cannot be tolerated.

Additionally, recent news reports have documented how the Vice President personally intervened in an important Endangered Species matter.

He reportedly rode roughshod over the process and the expert opinions of Department scientists, in order to influence the Department's decision on water flows to the Klamath River.

As a result of this political intervention, the Department reportedly reversed course, and thousands of salmon died on the Klamath. This ecological disaster greatly affected our fragile rural economies that depend upon those species for commercial and recreational fishing businesses and related industries in the State of California and the Pacific Northwest.

There are similar reports of White House officials editing EPA scientific documents about global warming. I feel very strongly that the government must honor the science and not let politics override the facts.

We must recognize, as hundreds of the world's leading scientists in the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently found, that up to 40 percent of the planet's species are at risk of possible extinction from global warming. This is a staggering thought, and one of the most important issues you will have to face if you are confirmed, Mr. Laverty.

In this position, you would be thrust into the middle of many crucial challenges and clashes between science and politics. If you are confirmed, I am counting on you to help us follow the science and to restore our commitment to America's natural heritage.

Indeed, the position to which you are nominated, has considerable oversight over very important issues including the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Wildlife Refuge System.

We must use the best science to protect our rich natural heritage. We owe our children and grandchildren a rich legacy of wildlife and great open spaces.

Ms. Svinicki, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has many important issues that will have to be considered during your tenure if you are confirmed. I want to mention two of immediate concern to me.

One key issue facing the NRC is nuclear waste disposal, and plans to transport nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. Protecting public health and safety should be the primary test in assessing nuclear waste disposal options. Yucca Mountain continues to fail that test.

My State of California is one of the most affected by the Yucca Mountain project, which is only 17 miles from the California border and Death Valley National Park.

Studies have shown that the groundwater under Yucca Mountain flows into Death Valley, one of the hottest and driest places on the earth. If radiation contaminates this groundwater, it could be the demise of the national park and the surrounding communities.

The threat posed by nuclear waste transport in California is also clear. Over 7.5 million people live within 1 mile of a possible nuclear transport route.

Yucca's geology also remains a concern. Two active faults run through Yucca Mountain, though they do not cross the repository.

A nuclear waste repository poses dangers that have no parallel in human history. We must not short-circuit the vital scientific and public processes needed to address these dangers. Strong science, good planning and public confidence must be part of any solution to the nuclear waste disposal problem. We have not achieved this at Yucca Mountain.

In addition, I am deeply concerned that GAO recently completed a sting operation in which the NRC issued a materials license to a fake corporation in West Virginia.

Once GAO received the license for their fake company, GAO altered it so that it appeared that the company was allowed to receive an unlimited quantity of radioactive sealed sources rather than the relatively small amount that had been approved by the NRC.

After altering the license, GAO was able to receive commitments from suppliers of Category 3 sealed radioactive sources (Category 1 is the most dangerous) to provide more than ten times the materials the original license would have allowed.

I have serious concerns about the NRC's ability to ensure materials licenses are not going to individuals who might try to amass quantities of radioactive materials and use them to inflict harm.

I understand that there is a delicate balance between ensuring the legitimate users, like hospitals and construction companies, of tools that contain radioactive materials are able to receive equipment they need without lengthy delay, but GAO's investigation raises serious concerns that the NRC needs to address.

In sum, both Mr. Laverty and Ms. Svinicki are nominated to be entrusted with protecting critical resources and the basic safety of the American public. The American public has a right to expect the best public servants in these positions. I look forward to hearing from both of you today.

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State of Nevada
July 17, 2007

Governor Jim Gibbons Announces His Decision to Support The State Water Engineer’s Efforts to Halt Drilling At Yucca Mountain

Carson City— An outspoken critic of the use of Yucca Mountain as a dump site for the nation's nuclear waste, Governor Jim Gibbons today announced his support of the State Water Engineer’s decision to ask the U.S. Department of Energy to suspend their unauthorized use of Nevada water for drilling at Yucca Mountain.

“The DOE’s continued mismanagement and lack of quality control measures at the high-risk Yucca Mountain project has earned a zero confidence grade in the minds of Nevadans.  The unauthorized use of water for drilling is further evidence that the DOE continues to rush it to completion regardless of Nevada's rights and concerns,” said Governor Gibbons.

Since 2003, the State Water Engineer has consistently refused to grant the DOE permission to use water for a drilling program at Yucca Mountain, and Governor Gibbons fully supports this action.  "Senate Bill 274, which I recently signed into law, gives injunctive relief and permits fines for violations of Nevada Water Law," Governor Gibbons added.  "I am fully supporting the right of the State Engineer to apply this law to prevent the further abuse of Nevada's rights."

The license application process for Yucca Mountain has been put on hold by the Federal District Court, and some view the DOE's actions as circumventing the restrictions imposed while the case progresses.

“This is yet another red flag that raises concerns about the ongoing efforts at Yucca Mountain and the DOE’s desire to expedite a project that has been deemed ‘broken’ by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman himself,” Governor Gibbons concluded.

During the ten years that Gibbons was a member of Congress, he spoke against the Yucca Mountain project and strongly questioned the science, which was found to contain serious inaccuracies and flaws.

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Salt Lake Tribune
July 16, 2007

Hot topic: Recycling spent nuclear fuel

Feds say weapons threat not a problem; don't go there, watchdogs say

By Greg Lavine
The Salt Lake Tribune

As the Bush administration continues to tout nuclear power, the government is pushing to revive a once-banned practice in the U.S. - reprocessing spent nuclear waste.

The Ford and Carter administrations prohibited the reprocessing of old nuclear-fuel rods, due in part to fears of weapons proliferation. While the Reagan administration lifted the ban, the U.S. has not yet engaged in reprocessing.

The process separates usable uranium that can go back into nuclear power plants, but it also creates byproducts, such as plutonium, which can be used for weapons.

John Grossenbacher, director of Idaho National Laboratory, said technology is under development that will help counter proliferation concerns.

"We're going to reprocess used nuclear fuel, but we're going to use advanced technologies," he said.

These new technologies would help support the proposed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program, which calls for the development of new ways to reprocess spent nuclear fuel.

Experts want to recover usable uranium while lumping the plutonium with other materials that would be too radioactive to steal. That waste would then be burned in special reactors, called fast reactors, which is another part of GNEP program.

The Department of Energy has called for the development of advanced fast reactors for burning the plutonium-laced nuclear waste from reprocessing plants.

England, France, Russia and Japan have active programs to recycle spent nuclear fuel, which produce new fuel rods for nuclear power plants. But none of them is known to be using fast reactors to burn reprocessed waste.

For now the U.S. follows the once-through cycle, which sends used fuel rods into storage. In recent years, rule changes have opened the door to recycling the nation's spent fuel rods.

Grossenbacher said recycling nuclear fuel would create waste products, some of which are less hazardous than normal spent fuel rods. The less-hazardous waste products would not have to be stored deep underground, but the process still produces some waste that would need a permanent repository.

Producing less of the highest-level waste through reprocessing could help eliminate the need for a second Yucca Mountain-type facility, the Nevada site targeted for permanent storage of nuclear waste.

A recent report from the Keystone Center, a nonprofit policy group, indicated that reprocessing would increase the amount of low- and intermediate-level waste that would need long-term storage. The Union of Concerned Scientists is also not yet sold on the idea of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.

"This is really dangerous and tends to produce more plutonium," said Jon Block, a nuclear expert with the nonprofit group.

Only a few fast reactors are now operating in the world; none in the U.S., which critics say indicates that these reactors are more difficult to operate than traditional nuclear power plants.

Vanessa Pierce, head of HEAL Utah, a watchdog group that monitors nuclear issues, said some experts believe there would have to be many fast reactors to make a difference. It is unclear how many times that waste would have to be burned before the plutonium is eliminated.

"Reprocessing will never eliminate high-level waste," she said.

There is also the question of economics, since reprocessing is far more expensive than mining new uranium. Pierce said prices of uranium would have to skyrocket even further to make reprocessing economically viable.

If the government is convinced that expanding the nation's nuclear power base is the right way to go to help curb global warming, watchdog groups are pushing to maintain the existing once-through fuel cycle practices.

--glavine@sltrib.com

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Las Vegas SUN
July 15, 2007

Making money, raising eyebrows

Many controversial companies, rogue nations in state's portfolio

By Steve Kanigher and Alex Richards
Las Vegas Sun

Gov. Jim Gibbons and top Nevada legislators may have failed last week to persuade the state public employees' pension fund to dump its investments in Sudan, but the complaint they lodged is just the beginning.

An examination by the Sun shows that the pension fund's $23 billion portfolio contains investments in companies that do business with rogue nations or whose practices contribute to social or environmental ills in direct opposition to United States and Nevada policies.

Gibbons and other state officials asked the Public Employees' Retirement System to divest its investments in companies with interests in Sudan because of genocide in the Darfur region. One-third of state governments have done so.

Nevada's PERS declined.

The amount involved in Sudan-related companies is small, $1.3 million. That is far less than the amounts the Sun found invested in other companies that governments across the United States have found objectionable enough to warrant divestiture.

Some of those investments surprised state officials, who told the Sun that Nevada needs to review those holdings.

For example, PERS has hundreds of millions of dollars invested in companies that do business in Iran, which the United States accuses of sponsoring terrorists. The fund invests in firms accused by critics of war profiteering (Halliburton), using child labor (Nestle) and furthering toxic pollution (Newmont Mining Corp.).

Although Nevada has waged a lengthy battle to prevent a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, PERS invests in companies that want to ship nuclear waste to the state.

Some of those same investments also can be found in two smaller state pension funds for Nevada judges and state legislators, a Sun analysis of pension records as of June 8 shows.

As with private investments, public investments sometimes pose difficult decisions weighing economic returns against moral or social considerations. To frame the quandary: If a company offers the prospect of 20 percent annual returns, but does so by relying on environmentally questionable methods, should an investment in it be judged by pocketbook or by conscience?

PERS covers state and local government workers, teachers, professors and some hospital employees. By law, the system must follow financially prudent investment strategies for its 98,000-plus active members and more than 33,000 retirees and beneficiaries. It is overseen by a seven-member board appointed by the governor but operated as an independent agency.

The system has not blacklisted any stocks based on politics, social causes or other reasons - even if some investments run counter to Nevada's interests.

Dana Bilyeu, the pension fund's executive officer, said she is aware of competing objectives involved when sound investments are weighed against socially responsible ones. She and others say forcing state investments to pass through a prism of politics or social concerns is problematic, among other reasons because it can create a subjective and shifting standard.

Even if such judgments are to be made, many think they should be made by legislators, not pension-fund managers.

Divestment is financially risky, Bilyeu said, especially if it involves a profitable stock that is difficult to replace. California, for example, lost hundreds of millions of dollars after dumping tobacco stocks and other objectionable holdings, she said.

"There are a lot of worthy social causes, but we cannot substitute our judgment on social issues for the fiduciary duties we have to our members and beneficiaries," Bilyeu said.

Others, however, do not see the social and financial questions as separate.

Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman last year persuaded that state's employees' pension board to limit international investments to companies without ties to terrorist regimes.

"This is about the safety of our families and our country, and there is no effort that should be spared from those causes," Steelman said. "I fought my hardest for nine months and finally the strength of the argument won out.

"We should not fund terrorism with our tax dollars. It's that simple."

Among the investments dropped was one in the Arab Bank of Jordan, which had been "paying suicide bombers' life insurance policies," said Kelly Gunderson, a spokeswoman for Steelman.

"We wanted to make sure our state's money wasn't involved in that."

To date, Missouri's position has not had an economic downside. During its first eight months, Missouri's "terror-free" investment fund posted an enviable 27 percent return - more than three times the Nevada fund's fiscal 2006 performance.

Nevada Treasurer Kate Marshall is looking at the possibility of instituting a similar policy. Although the pension fund may not have taken action on the investments in Sudan, Marshall said she wants to pursue a terror-free investment policy. She has directed her staff to develop rules to ensure that state treasury funds are not invested in governments engaged in terrorist activities.

In the past, anti-smoking organizations and other advocacy groups have tried to persuade Nevada's pension board to divest from certain companies.

Those efforts included a proposal by former Sen. Joe Neal, a North Las Vegas Democrat. In the 1970s and 1980s Neal wanted the state to prohibit the pension fund from investing in businesses with ties to South Africa because of its apartheid policies.

The pension board voted in 1986 to restrict investments in South Africa. But the policy was nullified by then-Nevada Attorney General Brian McKay, whose office issued an opinion saying that divestment in South Africa would not be financially prudent and that, in any event, such sanctions were the purview of the Legislature.

Today, about 45 percent of Nevada's pension fund is invested in U.S. stocks, 10 percent invested in foreign stocks and the balance in domestic and foreign bonds and other investments. The pension board sets investment policy such as profit goals, but the individual stocks are selected by 19 fund managers.

In its report for fiscal 2006, the fund recorded an 8.8 percent return on its investments and boasted that its performance ranked among the top 10 percent of public pension funds.

The Sudan issue arose June 7. Gibbons, Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, and Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, asked the pension fund to divest itself of $1.3 million in French power-generation company Alstom and Swedish oil-and-gas company Lundin Petroleum. The companies do business in Sudan, where government troops and ethnic militia have killed at least 200,000 people and displaced at least 2 million others since 2003.

The request followed actions by other states. In September, California became the first of 18 states to divest from companies that do business in Sudan, according to the Sudan Divestment Task Force, a Washington-based Genocide Intervention Network project.

But Wednesday, Ken Lambert, PERS investment officer, said that although the group is "sensitive to the issue," it will not divest .

That decision, Gibbons said, could spawn legislation in 2009 requiring the pension system to shed investments in companies that do business in countries that support terrorism or commit human rights violations.

"We would like for them to do it voluntarily ... rather than have it dictated," the governor said. Raggio said , despite signing the Sudan divestment letter, he would prefer Congress handle the issue.

Raggio and Buckley said they would not try to change other PERS investments. "The priority needs to be the fiscal soundness of the investment," Raggio said.

Making value judgments, Buckley said, puts the state in the position of making "investment decisions based on whichever way political winds are blowing." In part because of the prevalence of that attitude, few questions have been raised - at least not through official channels - about other state investments that also raise flags.

Aside from Alstom and Lundin Petroleum, the Sun identified nearly $156 million that the pension fund has invested in foreign corporations or their subsidiaries with ties to Iran and other rogue regimes.

Florida this year became the first state to divest from publicly traded companies doing business in Iran. Six of those companies are part of Nevada's pension portfolio.

The Wall Street Journal reported that at least 14 states are considering similar actions. Such efforts are opposed by the Bush administration on the grounds that the states would be interfering with diplomatic efforts to isolate Iran.

The conservative-leaning Center for Security Policy in Washington, which specializes in national security issues, has been leading the effort to encourage divestment in companies that do business with Iran and other rogue nations.

The center has developed a "dirty dozen" list of foreign companies, and Nevada's pension plan includes nine of them.

Bilyeu's response is that none of the companies shows up on the U.S. Treasury Department's list of terrorist-related businesses. All American citizens and pension funds are barred from investing in any of the companies on the list, greatly expanded by an executive order signed by President Bush shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Because the pension fund's foreign investments are largely in Japan and Europe, and with most of the banned companies in emerging Third World markets, Bilyeu said the fund never invested in any of the firms since blacklisted by the federal government. The pension board should not make judgments about companies purportedly tied to terrorist regimes if the federal government has not blacklisted them , Bilyeu said.

"Those are foreign policy issues," she said. "Those are the kinds of things where we as a nation need to speak with one voice."

Nevada, however, has more than one voice on the controversial nuclear waste issue.

As of June 8 the pension fund held $259.45 million in 19 corporations that, either directly or through subsidiaries, operate nuclear power plants in the United States.

All 19 are members of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the leading industry advocate of the federal plan to ship high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Combined, the companies operate 83 of the nation's 104 commercial nuclear reactors.

The investments in those companies represent slightly more than 1 percent of the $22.8 billion in the pension fund's assets.

The fund's holdings include $41.2 million in Exelon Corp., $22.7 million in Dominion Resources Inc. and $19.5 million in TXU Corp., which control nuclear power plants from Texas to the Northeast. Closer to home are investments in PG&E Corp. and Edison International, which operate nuclear power plants in California , and Pinnacle West Capital Corp., which oversees plants near Phoenix.

In addition, the fund's single largest stock holding is $278.2 million in General Electric Co., which builds nuclear reactors and is a member of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Separately, the Judicial Retirement System had almost $400,000 invested in nuclear power companies and the Legislative Retirement System has slightly more than $60,000.

Because of Nevada's two-decade battle against efforts to turn Yucca Mountain into a nuclear waste dump, there is an unmistakable dissonance to those investments.

Gibbons, like most of the state's leaders, opposes the dump. Melissa Subbotin, Gibbons' press secretary, took questions from the Sun on the pension fund investments but did not call back with answers.

Bob Fulkerson, director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, a liberal political group, called the investments in Nuclear Energy Institute members disappointing.

"We should not be aiding and abetting our enemies," Fulkerson said.

Similarly, Yucca Mountain critic Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the holdings underline "a disconnect between the investment strategy of the PERS board and Nevada policy."

"I had no idea it was occurring," Loux said. "It does help the companies pay their dues to the Nuclear Energy Institute, and the NEI has lobbyists, although they have not been effective on Capitol Hill. If I didn't think Yucca Mountain was on its last legs, I'd be a little more concerned."

Buckley, while noting that Congress, not the utilities, designated Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste dump site, said the investments are "definitely worthy of review by the Legislature."

With mining being a prominent industry in Nevada, it is no surprise that mining companies are represented in the state's portfolio.

But three holdings - Newmont Mining ($9.7 million), Rio Tinto Group ($8.3 million) and Barrick Gold ($1.5 million) - own six of the nine top polluting mines in the nation in terms of pounds of toxic chemicals released, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's latest toxic release inventory in 2005. Combined, those mines released 424.8 million pounds of toxic chemicals that year, including arsenic and heavy metal compounds.

"It's disgusting that our state is investing in companies that are wrecking the world," Fulkerson said. "Ideally, investments should bring in a high rate of return but involve companies that are socially responsible."

Nevada Center for Public Ethics President Craig Walton said he thinks PERS should meet with its members to consider establishing a socially responsible fund.

When Walton taught at UNLV , he invested in a socially responsible fund with the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, a nationwide pension plan for professors.

"The whole practice of socially responsible investing has been around for decades," Walton said. "You invest in companies that aren't exploiting workers or companies that are environmentally responsible, such as those that have policies of reforestation so that when they cut down trees they replant."

Walton also has a ready answer for those who argue that introducing social concerns into investment strategies could put the state on a slippery slope.

"Nevada's public employees have consciences," Walton said. "They shouldn't be told by anyone that their consciences are irrelevant to the investment packages."

--Sun reporters Mary Manning and Cy Ryan contributed to this story.

--Steve Kanigher can be reached at 259-4075 or at steve@lasvegassun.com. Alex Richards can be reached at 259-4085 or at alex.richards@lasvegassun.com.

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Las Vegas SUN
July 15, 2007

Brian Greenspun on how Sherm is ill-equipped to take on the likes of Harry

Sherm Frederick must have loved Fantasyland as a child because he apparently loves living in it now.

Most people mature out of their childhood dreams and learn to live as adults in a world that, quite frankly, needs more adults. It is painfully obvious to me that either Sherm has failed to grow up or, far worse, he has grown up to be an unhappy fellow whose only shot at happiness must come at someone else's expense.

I know I almost promise every week not to even mention Sherm's name because people - and that includes me - are sick and tired of reading about the Sherm-Brian show. I know it but I just can't help it. That's because he insists on writing such drivel each week that it cries out for - no demands - a reaction.

The good news is that now that the Las Vegas Sun is delivered to the same people as the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the readers have the benefit of two separate newspapers and at least two points of view. Sherm's and mine. His effort to fill space last week in the newspaper that is delivered with the Las Vegas Sun is a case in point.

Most people probably couldn't understand why Sherm tried to diminish the state's senior U.S. senator, Harry Reid, by comparing Harry unfavorably with one of the giants of the 20th century, Winston Churchill. Here's a news flash: Most people on this planet, if not all but a handful, would not compare favorably to the man who talked England through World War II and led that small nation toward an Allied victory against all odds.

But that doesn't mean that most people are not valuable, have no worth and aren't significant contributors to the betterment of mankind. I don't know what it is that sticks in Sherm's craw when it comes to Sen. Reid, but it sure isn't healthy for Nevada. The idea that Sherm and his newspaper are constantly trying to soften Harry up with stories that aren't quite accurate and columns that are churlish and childish is inimical to the best interests of all Nevadans who need a man like Harry in the top spot in the U.S. Senate.

Sherm is either dreaming or trying to force a bad nightmare on Nevadans if he thinks the voters are going to turn away the one man who single-handedly can keep Yucca Mountain from happening and all other manner of ill-fortune from visiting the Silver State. As majority leader, Sen. Reid determines what gets on the Senate agenda and what doesn't. It is as simple as that.

But I digress. The meat - as rancid as it may have been - of Sherm's rant last week was that Harry Reid is no great statesman in the image of a Churchill. Well, duh. Great statesmen are the people we hope to elect to the White House. How did we do there? Great lawmakers are an entirely different breed. And Harry Reid is among the best of that breed.

We all know we live in a political world in which there is nothing a person can do that is going to be appreciated by all of the people. Polarization is not just for sunglasses. It has happened to American politics - unfortunately - and until we get over this snit we have been in for the past two decades we need the kind of people who are thick-skinned enough and clever enough to toil in the vineyards of overly partisan politics.

Harry Reid is one of those people. There is probably nobody in the political world on the national scene who has a better inside game for political battle than Sen. Reid. He was trained, practically from infancy, by his mentor, Mike O'Callaghan, and he has been in the trenches since.

Is Harry a master of the English language? Not really. Most times he is too blunt - not wrong, just blunt - to win any awards for statesmanship. But when it comes to the sausage-making that has always characterized the art of legislation, there are few better or more skilled than Nevada's favorite son.

If Sherm were being honest with his readers he would have compared Harry with other great leaders in the Senate - Lyndon Johnson of Texas, Everett Dirksen of Illinois and Mike Mansfield of Montana. Not one of them was a statesman like Churchill , but each of them was a leader in the world's greatest deliberative body.

The last thing Sen. Reid needs is a defense of his actions from me. Nevadans know Harry and they know - whether or not they agree with his politics - that he works hard. He works tirelessly, intelligently and continually on behalf of all Americans and Nevadans in particular.

Nevadans know that with Harry calling the shots, the odds are in our favor. At least to the point where we will get an even break rather than be played for a sucker as we have been every time Sherm's political idols were in charge.

Just once, Sherm, I would like to see you take off your green-colored - as in money - glasses and think about what is best for the people of the Silver State. Not everyone works for billionaire out-of-state owners who care not about us in Nevada but only about how much money they can take out of this state.

Not everyone works for people who hate the very idea of government and who would, if they could, make government go away so that hundreds of millions of people could be beholden to the monied few. And not everyone has such a feeling of entitlement - presumably because of whom they work for and the power that is conferred on them by the newspaper they control - that they can feel free to diminish good and decent people either for sport or some other malicious pursuit.

In fact, most people are just the opposite. They are humble and honorable folks who want to do the right thing for the right reasons. What is amazing is that the folks at the R-J think they can change that elemental fact of human nature. And it upsets them when they can't. And that, more than anything else, has to eat at Sherm's very core. He wants the whole world to think just like him.

How scary is that?

--Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

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PhysicsWeb
July 15, 2007

A new dawn for nuclear power

Features: July 2007

Despite its environmentally unfriendly image, nuclear power is firmly back on the world's energy agenda thanks to the need to cut carbon-dioxide emissions. Paul Norman, Andrew Worrall and Kevin Hesketh describe how the next generation of nuclear power stations will be cleaner and more efficient than ever

Global warming is rooted in one of the most fundamental ideas of Newtonian physics: there is no action without a reaction. Put simply, we cannot continue to pump carbon dioxide and other pollutants produced from the burning of fossil fuels into our environment without suffering the consequences. Environmental scientists have been highlighting this problem for some time, but only now are governments giving the issue the attention that it deserves. Man-made climate change is one of the greatest threats our planet faces, and is already estimated to be responsible for over 160,000 deaths worldwide each year resulting from heatwaves, flooding and crop damage.

Yet in tackling global warming we face a dilemma. Fossil fuels provide at least 85% of our total energy needs, from the electricity that powers our homes to the production of manufactured goods and our food supply. Renewable energy sources, such as those utilizing the Sun, the wind and the waves, can help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, but their unreliable nature and often low output means that they can only provide a small part of the energy solution. Indeed, most forms of renewable energy have a significant environmental impact of their own – for example by disfiguring the landscape or by endangering wildlife. They also require fossil-fuel power stations to be on standby for when output is low, for example when wind turbines are not generating in still conditions.

Fortunately, there is another option to tackle our looming energy crisis: nuclear power. At the atomic level, the thermal energy released in a fission event is 200 MeV, compared with only a few electron-volts produced each time a hydrocarbon molecule is broken by burning carbon-based fuels. As a result, a single nuclear reactor fuel pellet just 1 cm long can produce the same amount of electricity as 1.5 tonnes of coal. Furthermore, nuclear power produces tiny amounts of waste, as opposed to the vast volumes of pollutants pumped unchecked into the environment by the burning of fossil fuels. Although nuclear waste is much more toxic than these pollutants, it can at least be completely contained.

Nuclear power came to the fore in the late 1950s and 1960s, with the building of many nuclear power stations around the world. However, the environmental hazards associated with nuclear waste have always been an argument against nuclear power. Combined with the Chernobyl accident in 1986 and market forces in the energy sector, the nuclear industry went into decline in the 1980s and 1990s. But the tide now appears to be turning. In May, for example, the UK government signalled its intention to build a new fleet of nuclear power stations across the country, and several other countries, including China, Finland, France, India and Russia, have announced or even begun work on building new reactors.

It is not just the urgent need to combat climate change that is fuelling this nuclear revival. Economic arguments based on spiralling gas and oil prices, plus strategic interests in ensuring individual countries have a stable energy supply, are also major factors. In fact, so strong are these economic and strategic arguments that it now seems impossible to see a realistic solution to our energy needs without nuclear power playing a significant role once again. And where there is nuclear power, there are physicists.

A history of design

Nuclear reactors are powered by the energy released in nuclear fission. This process involves firing neutrons into uranium-235 nuclei, which convert into uranium- 236 nuclei with enough excess energy to become distorted and split into two heavy fission fragments plus two or three additional neutrons per fission event. The small mass difference between these final products and the initial neutron and uranium-235 nucleus is released as energy through Einstein's famous equation.

Most of this energy ends up as the kinetic energy of the fission products, which generate a lot of heat by colliding with surrounding atoms. This heat is carried away by a coolant such as carbon dioxide or water (which forms the primary coolant circuit) and is used to heat boilers in a secondary circuit that produces steam to drive a turbine and generator – just as in a power station based on fossil fuels. Of the neutrons released, some will escape from the reactor while others are absorbed, but about half will split further uranium nuclei, triggering a chain reaction. To keep this process under control most reactors require a moderator – usually made of graphite or water because their light atoms are good at absorbing the kinetic energy of the neutrons.

The generation game

The world's first commercial nuclear power station opened in the UK in 1956 at the Sellafield site on the Cumbrian coast, and it ran for almost half a century before closing in 2003. The four Calder Hall reactors were of the Magnox type, which means they used a magnesium "no-oxidation" alloy to encase the uranium fuel rods. As well as retaining volatile fission products, such as caesium and strontium, this Magnox cladding has a low neutron-absorption cross-section and therefore reduces "parasitic absorption" of neutrons. Made of graphite and containing holes both for the fuel rods and to allow the cooling gas to flow, the moderator slows the neutrons by elastic scattering such that their kineticenergy distribution becomes comparable to that of a gas in thermal equilibrium with the graphite. Since at these energies neutrons have a much higher probability of interacting with atoms, Magnox reactors can use fuel containing naturally occurring levels of uranium-235 (about 0.7%), avoiding the need – and expense – for the uranium to be further "enriched".

By the early 1970s the UK had 11 Magnox nuclear power stations (containing a total of 26 individual reactors) either fully operational or in various stages of construction or planning. It had also exported the Magnox design – since termed "Generation I" – to Japan and Italy, which each have one plant. In a bid to increase the ratio of electrical to thermal power output, however, the then Central Electricity Generating Board introduced the advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) concept – now referred to as a "Generation II" design. First opened in the mid-1970s, all seven AGR stations (14 reactors) in the UK are still operational.

The moderator (graphite) and coolant (carbon dioxide) are the same in both the Magnox and AGR designs. However, AGRs have much higher thermal efficiencies by operating at a temperature of 600 °C as opposed to about 370 °C in a Magnox unit. Since at high temperatures uranium undergoes a crystalline phase change that makes it expand, potentially weakening the cladding, AGRs use uranium oxide as their fuel. And as Magnox becomes soft and may even ignite in air at AGR temperatures, stainless steel is used as the cladding instead. Since stainless steel absorbs more neutrons than Magnox, AGRs require uranium with a uranium-235 content of a few per cent, the extra cost of which is recovered through increased energy output of the fuel.

The UK also carried out research into "fast reactor" designs until the early 1990s, for example at the Dounreay site in northern Scotland. These reactors have no moderator and the neutrons released in a fission event therefore retain their large kinetic energies. As a result, fast reactors can convert depleted uranium (i.e. uranium with almost all of its uranium-235 removed) into plutonium, which can also be used as a nuclear fuel. Since for every plutonium atom destroyed through fission at least one more is created in spent fuel, the fast reactor – or breeder reactor – creates more fissile material than it consumes, thereby potentially increasing nuclear fuel reserves enormously.

Since the energetic neutrons in a fast reactor have a lower probability of interacting with another nucleus, however, the reactors require more dense fissionable material and materials that can survive very large neutron fluxes. As a result, fast reactors are more complex and expensive than Magnox reactors or AGRs, partly because they require an additional cooling circuit, and the design was never used commercially.

Light-water reactors

Elsewhere in the world, France initially followed the UK's lead by building reactors similar to the Magnox design during the 1960s. Meanwhile, the US realized that the most economical reactors are those that are collectively referred to as light-water reactors (LWRs). These are simpler to build and to operate than Magnox reactors or AGRs, and they also benefit from economies of scale. The fuel, for instance, has been improved through the joint efforts of many countries so that now it can sustain higher useful energy outputs than AGR fuel, which was developed by the UK alone.

LWRs use ordinary water as a moderator and as a coolant, running on uranium-oxide fuel enriched with up to 5% uranium-235 and contained in a zirconium alloy cladding. LWRs come in two basic types: the pressurized water reactor (PWR) and the boiling water reactor (BWR). PWRs maintain the water in the primary coolant as a liquid and raise steam in a secondary circuit that operates at a lower pressure (see "Power from the nucleus" figure). In contrast, BWRs use a single, two-phase water–steam pressure circuit in which the steam from the core directly drives the turbine. The advantage of this design is that it does not require a secondary coolant circuit and the associated heat exchangers, pipes, valves and pumps. However, this advantage tends to be offset by increased complexity in other aspects, notably maintenance and decommissioning because the steam travelling to the turbines is radioactive and hence contaminates them.

Power from the nucleus

Many of the advantages of LWRs stem from their very compact reactor cores, which are possible because water is the most effective of all commonly used moderators at slowing down fission neutrons. This makes LWRs more economical and much easier to build and operate than Magnox and AGR plants (although the latter do not require such high levels of uranium enrichment). For example, the pressure vessel in which the reactor is contained plus all the surrounding structures are small enough to b