Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, September 6, 2007
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 06, 2007

State notifies DOE

Officials follow up on Yucca water ruling

By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal

State Engineer Tracy Taylor put the Department of Energy on notice Wednesday to stop using Nevada's water to drill bore holes at the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site and let inspectors from his office visit the site to confirm compliance with his order.

His letter to Scott Wade, director of DOE's Environmental, Safety and Health Division of the Yucca Mountain site office in Las Vegas, follows U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt's denial Friday of an emergency motion by U.S. attorneys to block Taylor's June 1 cease-and-desist order.

The order, which had been temporarily lifted then reinstated on July 20, "is still in full force and effect," Taylor wrote in his letter to Wade late Wednesday.

"I ask that you immediately confirm that you have stopped using water ... and that you contact me to make arrangements to allow officials of the Office of the Nevada State Engineer to enter your facilities on Friday," Taylor's letter reads.

An Energy Department spokesman for the Yucca Mountain Project wouldn't comment on Taylor's letter or say whether the bore hole operations were in progress this week.

Hunt ruled that the Department of Energy had violated a court-approved agreement by using Nevada's water to drill bore holes to extract rock samples for data needed to build surface facilities near the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The water is used to cool and lubricate drill bits and to make mud for collecting the core samples.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires data about the potential for earthquakes and floods at the site to be included in a license application for the planned repository that DOE intends to submit by June 2008.

In a telephone interview Wednesday from his office in Carson City, Allen Biaggi, director of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which includes the State Engineer's office, said Hunt's decision "was pretty clear and convincing."

"We want them to confirm to us that they have stopped using the water, and we're going to send somebody down there on Friday to verify," Biaggi said. "I want to make it clear that we're very appreciative that the judge's order upholds Nevada's 103-year-old water law and the state's jurisdiction over the resource."

He said Gov. Jim Gibbons "has taken a strong stand on Nevada's water law in this case and a strong stand against Yucca Mountain."

"We had worked out a way they could use water for certain things. What they're doing with the water at the site was not in that agreement," Biaggi said.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 06, 2007

Editorial: A rare victory over Energy Department

But celebrating demise of Yucca Mountain would be premature

In a rare victory in its struggle to block construction of the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, the state of Nevada last week found a compelling issue and a sympathetic judge.

The federal Department of Energy and its subcontractors have demanded the use of 4 million gallons of groundwater to cool and lubricate drill bits and make mud for collecting rock samples as they proceed to drill 80 new bore holes at the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The drilling is to demonstrate that the facility will be safe from earthquakes and floods. But the water belongs to the state, and the state engineer has ordered the department to stop using it.

The Energy Department asked the federal court to instruct the state engineer to butt out. But last week, U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt instead ruled for the state in a strongly worded states-rights opinion.

The unauthorized use of the state's water is "a violation of state water law, a violation of an agreement it (the state) entered in good faith, and interference with its obligation to its citizens to enforce its laws and preserve its water," Judge Hunt wrote Friday.

"There has been no act by Congress which pre-empts Nevada's state water laws," the judge continued -- implying the dangerous and unconstitutional but hardly surprising doctrine that the federal Congress might do so if it wished. "The only public interest issue is whether ... a federal agency can run roughshod over a state's rights or interests without specific authority and mandate to do the precise activities it wishes to do."

A bill proposed by the Bush administration to grant the Energy Department just such power to grab water over Nevada's objections seems to be going nowhere this year. And Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, contends the state engineer also has power to forbid the federals from trucking in water from out of state or from elsewhere within the state.

Finally, Judge Hunt boldly tackled the question of why the Energy Department is digging bore holes at this late date, anyway. Either the current work is "unreasonable and without demonstrable, legitimate purpose," the judge wrote, "or, alternatively, it (the DOE) shows a complete lack of confidence in its ability to obtain a license from the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) because of weakness in its original scientific studies."

Hunt agreed with Nevada's contention that the Energy Department's site characterization work was supposed to have been completed by 2002, when then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended the site to President Bush.

"Either that is so and this is not site characterization, or it would appear that the DOE misled Congress and the president in its application for approval of the site," Judge Hunt ruled. "DOE attempts to deny that this is further site characterization. However, its own documents contradict that argument."

The ruling is solid, logical, principled and based on facts. It is also a ringing rebuke to the Energy Department -- though it does contain that dangerous assertion that Congress could eventually overrule Nevada water law, if it wished.

So, is it time for Yucca Mountain opponents to take up dancing in the streets?

No. In the real world, judges are political appointees, and remain subject to political pressures. Yucca Mountain is currently unpopular with Nevada officials, and sympathetic rulings by Nevada-based judges are not unprecedented.

Marta Adams, the senior deputy Nevada attorney general who represented Mr. Loux in this case, expresses the opinion that "This is going to be tricky for them to appeal, and they have some real public relations issues here."

Ms. Adams may overrate the reluctance of the Energy Department to suffer "bad publicity," as well as their reticence to reconvene this debate in a friendlier locale, whether before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court itself.

Generally speaking, the doctrine that the central government can do anything it damned well pleases is likely to find a far more sympathetic hearing in those venues. Celebrations of the demise of the Yucca Mountain Project may be premature.

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Las Vegas SUN

September 06, 2007
Editorial: Yucca Mountain low

Energy Department's bad behavior continues in its push to make Nevada a nuclear dump

In a rightfully harsh opinion, U.S. Chief District Judge Roger Hunt saw the Energy Department's latest duplicitous attempt to dump nuclear waste in Nevada for what it was.

"The issues here are credibility and good faith," Hunt wrote. The Energy Department once again has failed on both counts.

Hunt was asked to intervene to stop Nevada from enforcing a cease-and-desist order, which was issued after it was found the Energy Department was illegally taking water to drill bore holes at Yucca Mountain in violation of a court-sanctioned agreement.

Hunt denied the Energy Department's request, and although he did not rule on the merits of the case, the department and its attorneys should be ashamed for even bringing the action. For example:

The judge noted the department, in attempts to support its case, "misconstrued" one of his previous orders in the case and mischaracterized a ruling made by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals regarding Yucca Mountain.

Despite the government's claim that the drilling was necessary, Hunt said the drilling was "without any demonstrable, legitimate purpose other than to look busy and keep DOE's contractors busy."

The department, the judge said, argued that federal law governing Yucca Mountain was the " 'Supreme Law of the Land' and that gives the DOE the right to do anything it pleases, anything it wishes."

That sums up the Energy Department's view of things because it cannot support the project. Time and again it has been shown that the plan to dump 77,000 tons of deadly radioactive waste in Nevada is fraught with problems and is based on faulty science.

Hunt wrote that the Energy Department may have "misled Congress and the president in its application for approval of the site" in 2002. Hunt noted the department was, by law, to be done with its preliminary "site characterization" studies before then to prove its case. Department officials told Congress there was no more study needed.

Yet Energy Department documents call the bore-hole drilling site characterization work.

The department's lies and law-breaking have gone on too long. It is beyond time for Congress to shut down this disastrous plan once and for all.

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NPR
September 06, 2007

Plans for Nuclear Waste Dump Hit a Snag

audio: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14191377

All Things Considered, September 5, 2007 · The Department of Energy's controversial plan to build a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada hit a major snag this week.

A federal judge ruled that Nevada could withhold the water that the Department of Energy needs for drilling at the Yucca Mountain site — about 90 miles north of Las Vegas.

--Ralph Vartabedian of The Los Angeles Times talks with Michele Norris.

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UPI
September 06, 2007

Court sides with Nevada in nuclear case

PAHRUMP, Nev., Sept. 5 (UPI) -- A federal judge has ruled in favor of Nevada in its opposition to the use of the state's water in the construction of a planned nuclear waste site.

In his 24-page ruling last week, U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt rejected an emergency motion by attorneys for the U.S. Department of Energy that would have allowed the continued use of the state's water supply at the Yucca Mountain site, the Las Vegas Review-Journal said Wednesday.

DOE workers had been using the state's water supply in the drilling of boreholes at the mountain until a state engineer ordered the practice to stop.

The fact that DOE officials appeared to be dramatically behind their initial schedule at the Yucca Mountain site was especially troubling to Hunt, the newspaper said.

"Either that is so, and this is not site characterization, or it would appear that the DOE misled Congress and the president in its application for approval of the site," Hunt wrote in his decision.

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The Economist
September 06, 2007

Nuclear power

Atomic renaissance

America's nuclear industry is about to embark on its biggest expansion in more than a generation. This will influence energy policy in the rest of the world

OVER the next few months America's Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) expects to receive 12 applications to build new nuclear-power reactors at seven different sites. It is preparing to see plans for another 15 at 11 more locations next year. These will be the first full applications to build new nuclear plants in America for 30 years. If they are all successful, the number of reactors in the country will increase by roughly a third. The output of nuclear electricity would grow even more sharply—the new reactors would be more powerful than older ones. The new enthusiasm for building reactors means America's long-awaited “nuclear renaissance” is about to become reality.

Whether it is a leap forwards or a step backwards remains to be seen. Since the 1970s, far from being “too cheap to meter”—as it proponents once blithely claimed—nuclear power has proved too expensive to matter. The problem is finance: nuclear plants cost a lot to build but are relatively cheap to run, unlike gas-fired ones, for which the reverse is true. So to be profitable they must be built quickly, to minimise the period when no revenue is coming in and interest payments are piling up on construction loans. Yet America's previous generation of nuclear plants was plagued by safety scares, design revisions and time-consuming regulatory procedures, which resulted in ruinously protracted construction.

America's most recent nuclear plant, at Watts Bar in Tennessee, started operations in 1996. But it took 23 years to complete at a cost of $6.9 billion; a second reactor at the site has been under construction, on and off, since 1973. Another plant, at Shoreham in New York, was completed and tested, but never allowed to start commercial operations because of local opposition. By the time it was decommissioned, in 1994—21 years after construction had begun—the costs had exploded from $70m to $6 billion. The local utility was able to pass most of this bill on to its customers. Not all energy firms have been so lucky: in 1988 Public Service Company of New Hampshire became the first American utility to go bust since the Depression, thanks largely to the fallout from a much-delayed nuclear project.

Even when they were switched on, nuclear-power stations did not fulfil their promise. They were supposed to run almost constantly, but proved much less reliable. In the early 1970s, for example, the average nuclear plant produced power for under half the time. Since most utilities had planned to run them flat out to generate enough revenue to repay their debts, this poor performance led to further financial troubles. And, as anti-nuclear activists complain, all this happened despite the government's generous subsidies to help cover the costs of developing new designs and building prototypes.

As for safety...

What is worse, nuclear power has a spotty safety record. There have never been any catastrophic releases of radiation in Western countries. But one did occur in 1986 at Chernobyl, in what was then the Soviet Union and is now Ukraine. America came perilously close to such a disaster in 1979, when a reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania overheated and began to melt down. There have been lesser safety scares and scandals in many countries, including Britain, Germany and Sweden. In August an earthquake resulted in several small leaks of radioactive material from a nuclear reactor in Japan.

The next generation of nuclear plants is said to be very different. Firms which make them, such as America's General Electric and Westinghouse, and foreign manufacturers like France's AREVA, insist that such episodes will soon be a thing of the past. Their latest designs, they maintain, are simpler and safer than existing nuclear plants. That should make it easier to obtain operating permits, allow them to be built faster and be cheaper to run—and so much less risky financially. Meanwhile, contractors are said to be getting better at building them, the NRC better at regulating them and utilities better at running them. Although nuclear power's boosters welcome a smorgasbord of new subsidies that Congress has approved to nourish the industry, they say that in the long run even this will not be necessary because the industry will be able to move forward under its own nuclear-generated steam.

Consolidating reactors

America's utilities have certainly warmed to their existing nuclear-power plants now that they are running them more efficiently. In the 1970s, says Colette Lewiner, of Capgemini, a consultancy, even small municipally owned firms ordered nuclear reactors, imagining they would be no more complicated to operate than their existing power stations, except in so far as workers would need uranium to shovel into the furnace instead of coal. But they found that they had neither the expertise to maintain their new investments, nor the scale to absorb all the extra regulatory costs, nor the clout to secure fuel and parts at competitive prices. Many ended up putting their nuclear plants up for sale.

That allowed bigger firms to acquire reactors on the cheap, and thus to achieve economies of scale and to capitalise on their experience. These nuclear specialists have been able to speed up the refuelling process, keep shutdowns for maintenance to a minimum and so keep the reactors going more of the time. Last year the average nuclear reactor in America was in use 90% of the time. Better still, utilities have found ways to improve the non-nuclear parts of the power station, such as the steam turbines. These so-called “uprates” have increased America's nuclear capacity by almost 5,000MW since 1977, the equivalent of about five new nuclear reactors, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group. At the same time, the NRC has agreed to extend the working life of about half of America's nuclear plants for an extra 20 years.

All this has turned nuclear-power plants into virtual mints—as long as the bill for construction has been paid down or written off. In most of America, the wholesale power price is closely linked to the price of natural gas, since gas-fired plants tend to provide the extra power required at times of peak demand. So the price of power has risen along with that of gas over the past few years, whereas the operating costs of nuclear plants have remained relatively stable. According to the Energy Information Administration, a government agency, the average wholesale power price in 2005 was 5 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh); the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, reckons that the average operating cost of America's nuclear plants was 1.7 cents per kWh that year. So their margins were almost 200%.

No wonder that utilities are rushing to the NRC with their plans for new reactors. But to get any of them off the ground they must not only persuade the NRC of the safety of their designs, but also convince potential creditors that there will be no repeat of the financial meltdowns of the 1970s and 1980s. They point to three reasons for optimism: changing conditions in the energy business, a streamlining of the NRC's process for obtaining permits and an overhaul of construction techniques.

Until recently coal-fired plants seemed to be safer investments. But nowadays most utilities expect—and in some cases are calling for—Congress to limit emissions of greenhouse gases in the near future to temper climate change. Coal-fired plants, which have a working life of 40 years or more, spew out globe-warming pollution, whereas nuclear ones produce almost no greenhouse gases at all. So coal is now subject to a massive “regulatory risk” of its own. Utilities are piling into green-generation technologies, such as wind turbines and solar panels. But for a constant source of clean power, they have few choices other than nuclear.

Meanwhile, to avoid the fiascos of the past the NRC has simplified its procedures. It used to require utilities to obtain two different licences, the first to build a nuclear plant and after that a second licence to start it up. Both applications involved lengthy reviews, which culminated in interminable public hearings. New reactors, like the one at Shoreham, could be finished at great expense and yet never secure an operating licence. So the NRC is combining the two stages: utilities can now apply for a single “combined construction and operating licence”. Construction need not start—and for most bits of the plant is not allowed to—until the licence is issued.

To speed things up even more, the NRC is allowing firms selling nuclear reactors to get designs cleared in advance. That way, when a utility applies to build a reactor of an approved design, the NRC will only need to review the modifications that are unique to its site. Westinghouse has already got its AP-1000 model cleared; the NRC is in the process of certifying GE's latest design, called the ESBWR, and AREVA is about to submit an application for its new offering, the EPR.

By the same token, utilities can now ask the NRC to approve a location as suitable for a nuclear-power station before they go to the trouble and expense of applying for a combined licence. Four firms have asked for these “early site permits” and two have already received them. Another short cut involves submitting the environmental part of a combined licence before the part that deals with the design. UniStar, a joint venture between America's Constellation and Électricité de France (EDF), filed that sort of paperwork in July for a new reactor in Maryland.

The NRC has also made a point of asking utilities about their nuclear plans before any applications arrive. This is so it can be sure it will have enough staff to handle them—which is how it knows how many new plants are in the works. It is hiring about 200 new staff every year, and since most of the utilities contemplating nuclear plants are in the South, has set up a field office in Georgia to co-ordinate with them directly. It is even planning to suggest to Congress possible amendments to the relevant laws to reduce the hassle and uncertainty of licensing even more.

The process will still be time-consuming: the NRC reckons it will need two and a half years to review each application and a further year to conduct hearings on its conclusions. Certification of new reactor designs might take as long as four years: AREVA says its application for the EPR runs to 17,000 pages and fills a small bookcase. Nonetheless, the NRC aims to issue its first new licences at some point in 2011.

Obstreperous local authorities could still put a spanner in the works. It was opposition from county and state officials, for example, that finally did in the Shoreham plant. Although they have no explicit authority to block a new reactor, local officials can withhold permits to use the water from a river for cooling, for example, or refuse to co-operate on emergency planning. But utilities are hoping to avoid such pitfalls by locating their new reactors only in welcoming jurisdictions—preferably next door to existing ones. Locals in such places know that expanding existing nuclear facilities will bring more jobs and produce more tax revenue. Moreover, they have grown accustomed to having nuclear reactors nearby and do not find the idea particularly frightening. As Dale Klein, chairman of the NRC, puts it, the staff and management of nuclear plants, and local residents, all go to church together.

Fast builders

Utilities are also confident that they can build new reactors more quickly than before. Many have already placed orders for the parts that take a long time to build. They have also brought in partners that have completed nuclear projects on time and on budget in other countries. Westinghouse, for example, points to the exemplary record of its parent company, Toshiba, in Japan. Similarly, GE has teamed up with Hitachi, another respected Japanese nuclear contractor. AREVA, meanwhile, looks to the series of successful plants it has built in conjunction with EDF in France. All three vendors say they plan to save time and money by using as many identical parts as possible for the different nuclear plants they build in America—unlike the bespoke designs of the past. All this should reduce the time required for construction to four years, they say, which would allow the first new reactors to enter service in 2015 or 2016.

But bankers are still sceptical. They are worried that when the new designs and the NRC's new procedures are put to the test, hidden flaws will emerge. After all, the first of AREVA's EPR designs is under construction in Finland and is two years behind schedule and dramatically over budget. To avoid such nasty surprises, NRG Energy, a power-generation company that is applying to build two new reactors in Texas, has opted for one of GE's older and already-proven designs, even though GE insists that its ESBWR will be cheaper to build and to run. Other utilities are planning to build nuclear plants in the regulated markets of the South, in the hope that the regulators will allow them to pass any cost over-runs on to their customers.

Even so, says David Crane, NRG's boss, banks are simply not prepared to lend money to build nuclear plants in America without some extra surety. The Energy Policy Act, which Congress approved in 2005, is supposed to provide that. It offers four different types of subsidies for new reactors. First, it grants up to $2 billion in insurance against regulatory delays and lawsuits to the first six reactors to receive licences and start construction. Second, it extends an older law limiting a utility's liability to $10 billion in the event of a nuclear accident. Third, it provides a tax credit of 1.8 cents per kWh for the first 6,000MW generated by new plants. Fourth, and most importantly, it offers guarantees for an indeterminate amount of loans to fund new nuclear reactors and other types of power plant using “innovative” technology.

The scope of these loan guarantees is the subject of great controversy. Some politicians fear that the costs of the programme might balloon; others complain that the Department of Energy, which will administer it, is too stingy. Meanwhile, some financial experts argue that the rules, as drafted, would not allow issuing banks to repackage and sell on the loans in question, making them less attractive. There is also some debate about what proportion of a nuclear plant's debt should be covered: the act says up to 80% of the costs of construction, but that might be sufficient to cover the full amount borrowed, leaving banks with no risk at all. Until all this is settled, utility bosses insist, new nuclear plants will not get built.

Clearing up afterwards

The fate of America's nuclear waste, which the government has vowed to sequester for a million years, is another unresolved issue. In theory, the Department of Energy is in charge of looking after it all. It requires utilities to set aside a tenth of a cent for each kilowatt-hour of nuclear power they generate to help defray the costs of transporting nuclear waste to a safe repository and storing it there permanently. The only hitch is that no such repository yet exists.

Most countries with nuclear power have determined that the safest way to store their waste is underground, deep in the bedrock in air- and watertight containers. But no one has actually built such a facility. America has got as far as selecting a site for one, at Yucca Mountain, a ridge in the middle of a former nuclear-testing ground in Nevada. The Department of Energy is planning to submit an application to the NRC next year to build a repository there. The NRC, in turn, thinks the application will take about three years to review. Officials say the facility will be open for business in 2017.

But Harry Reid, a senator from Nevada, has vowed to derail the scheme. As it is, Congress has been cutting funding for the Yucca Mountain project, which was first proposed in 1978 and has since been the subject of several lawsuits. Now that Mr Reid has become Senate majority leader the odds of the repository ever getting built have diminished.

Meanwhile, nuclear waste continues to pile up in ponds and containers at nuclear plants around the country. The NRC monitors these and claims that they are safe for the foreseeable future. But Mr Klein, its chairman, tactfully hints that it would be prudent for the government to find a more permanent solution, especially since it is encouraging a dramatic expansion of nuclear power.

Nonetheless, Mr Klein believes that the expansion of nuclear energy is now in motion and is unlikely to be slowed down by concerns about what to do with the waste. The only thing that could stop a nuclear renaissance now, he suggests, is a serious accident at an existing plant. Unfortunately, it would not be the first.

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Tri-City Herald
September 06, 2007

DOE to ship plutonium off Hanford

Annette Cary
Herald Staff Writer

The Department of Energy could begin shipping weapons-grade plutonium and unused nuclear fuel off the Hanford nuclear reservation in 30 days.

Sending the material to Savannah River, S.C., will clear the way for the demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant and save more than $100 million in security costs. The plutonium is stored in a vault at the Plutonium Finishing Plant in central Hanford.

"This is a key part of the Department of Energy's efforts to dispose of plutonium," James Rispoli, DOE assistant secretary of environmental management, said in a media conference call Wednesday.

In addition to 2,300 canisters of plutonium from Hanford, DOE also plans to ship 700 canisters of plutonium from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Each canister, the size of a large coffee can, can hold almost 10 pounds of plutonium, but their weights vary.

DOE notified Congress of its decision to consolidate plutonium at Savannah River on Wednesday and now must wait 30 days before shipments may begin.

"Once the 30-day notification runs, we plan to begin with the campaign at Hanford," Rispoli said.

DOE had planned an accelerated cleanup schedule at the Plutonium Finishing Plant where plutonium produced in Hanford reactors was made into metal buttons the size of hockey pucks for eventual conversion for weapons use.

But because of delays in shipping the plutonium from the plant, demolition work slowed in the last two years and some of the funds intended for cleanup of the plant were shifted to radioactive sludge vacuuming and removal at the K Basins.

DOE expects the nationwide consolidation of plutonium not yet made into nuclear weapons triggers to take about three years.

Once the weapons-grade plutonium and unused fuel left over from the Fast Flux Test Facility are removed from the Plutonium Finishing Plant, heavy security at the plant will be reduced, making cleanup there more efficient. DOE is required to have all the buildings in the complex, many of them heavily contaminated with radioactive material, torn down by 2016.

Under new security standards set after 9/11, the Plutonium Finishing Plant needs more than $100 million in security upgrades. However, those have been waived on the condition that the plutonium is shipped off site.

Savannah River has long been discussed as the site where plutonium would be consolidated. But before designating it as the consolidation site, DOE was required to prove it had a definite disposition path for the waste before adding more plutonium to the plutonium already stored there.

In August at Savannah River, DOE began building the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility which will be used to turn some of the surplus plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors.

DOE also plans to use another existing facility in Savannah River, the H Canyon, and possibly a proposed new, small-scale plutonium vitrification Facility there to recycle surplus materials, then prepare waste for disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

"I applaud the leadership shown by DOE officials in achieving this plan," Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said in a statement. "Consolidation will make our country and community more secure, will save taxpayers' millions and will simplify Hanford cleanup."

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Augusta Chronicle
September 06, 2007

Plutonium headed to SRS

Shipments could begin next month, last three years

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department plans to send plutonium in Washington state and at research laboratories in New Mexico and California to the Savannah River Site nuclear complex to improve security and reduce storage costs.

The department said Wednesday that the shipments, involving 3,000 coffee can-size canisters, could begin next month and last three years.

The consolidation "is a key part of the department's efforts to properly manage surplus plutonium," said James Rispoli, assistant energy secretary for environmental management.

He said it will allow for greater security at much less cost.

The consolidation involves plutonium - some mixed with highly enriched uranium - that was produced decades ago for use in nuclear weapons, but is no longer needed, along with a small amount of plutonium in fuel rods from a closed government reactor.

The transfer does not involve plutonium that is being taken out of dismantled nuclear warheads or plutonium that will continue to be needed for weapons-related research and production of warhead triggers called pits.

The department said the amount of plutonium that will be shipped is classified. Mr. Rispoli said each canister has a maximum capacity of 9.7 pounds, but that the amount is significantly less than that since the canisters are not full.

About 2,700 canisters are at the department's Hanford complex in Washington state, and 700 more are at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

The plutonium at Lawrence Livermore has been a focus of controversy for years as local activists have maintained that its presence poses a danger to residential communities and represents a potential terrorist target.

Aware that officials in South Carolina have expressed concerns that their state not become a permanent dump for the country's unneeded plutonium, Mr. Rispoli emphasized at a news conference that the DOE plans include getting the material out of the state.

"The intent is not only to bring the plutonium there, but dispose of it at the (Savannah) site and then have pathways for all of this material to leave the state," Mr. Rispoli said. He said a facility to store the plutonium is being prepared with increased security.

Department officials acknowledged that it will likely take more than a decade - and possibly much longer - before much of the plutonium will be processed and moved elsewhere.

The plan calls for the plutonium to be either converted into a mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, for use at commercial nuclear power plants or be encased in glass logs for eventual transfer to the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository being planned in Nevada.

The MOX production facility at Savannah River won't be completed before 2017 at the earliest. And the future of the proposed Yucca Mountain underground repository is in doubt. It is not expected to be completed before 2018, if it is built at all.

There already is some plutonium at Savannah River Site, and the MOX facility is being built primarily to process much of the 34 metric tons of plutonium that will come from dismantled warheads.

State officials have agreed to accept plutonium shipments, partly because the construction of the processing facilities - and the processing itself - means hundreds of jobs.

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Atlanta Journal Constitution
September 06, 2007

Plutonium shipments may roll through Georgia next month

Energy Department to send plutonium to S.C. complex

By H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press

WASHINGTON— The Energy Department plans to send plutonium in Washington state and at research laboratories in New Mexico and California to the Savannah River nuclear complex in South Carolina to improve security and reduce storage costs.

The department said Wednesday that the plutonium shipments, involving 3,000 coffee can-size canisters, could begin as early as next month and last three years.

The consolidation "is a key part of the department's efforts to properly manage surplus plutonium," said James Rispoli, assistant energy secretary for environmental management. He said it will allow for greater security at much less cost.

The consolidation involves plutonium — some mixed with highly enriched uranium — that was produced decades ago for use in nuclear weapons, but is no longer needed, as well as a small amount of plutonium in fuel rods from a closed government reactor.

The transfer does not involve plutonium that is being taken out of dismantled nuclear warheads or plutonium that will continue to be needed for weapons-related research and production of warhead triggers called pits.

The department said the amount of plutonium that will be shipped is classified. Rispoli said each canister has a maximum capacity of 9.7 pounds, but that the amount is significantly less than that since the canisters are not full.

About 2,700 canisters are kept at the department's Hanford complex in Washington state and another 700 canisters are at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Officials didn't provide a breakdown of amounts kept at each of the labs. But the plutonium at Lawrence Livermore has been a focus of controversy for years as local activists have maintained its presence poses a danger to nearby residential communities and represents a potential terrorist target.

Aware that officials in South Carolina have expressed concerns that their state not become a permanent dump for the country's unneeded plutonium, Rispoli emphasized at a news conference that the DOE plans include getting the material out of the state.

"The intent is not only to bring the plutonium there, but dispose of it at the (Savannah) site and then have pathways for all of this material to leave the state," Rispoli said. He said a facility to store the plutonium at Savannah River is being prepared with increased security.

Department officials acknowledged that it will likely take more than a decade — and possibly much longer — before much of the plutonium will be processed and moved elsewhere.

The plan calls for the plutonium to be either converted into a mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, for use at commercial nuclear power plants or be encased in glass logs for eventual transfer to the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository being planned in Nevada.

However, the MOX production facility at Savannah River won't be completed before 2017 at the earliest. And the future of the proposed Yucca Mountain underground repository is in doubt and is not expected to be completed before 2018 if it is built at all.

There already is some plutonium at Savannah River and the MOX facility is being built primarily to process much of the 34 metric tons of plutonium that will come from dismantled warheads.

State officials have agreed to accept plutonium shipments, partly because the construction of the processing facilities — and the processing itself — means hundreds of jobs.

Federal officials view the consolidation — and eventual disposal of much of the excess plutonium — as essential to meet increased security requirements since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a leading nuclear nonproliferation advocacy group, said the group supports consolidation "as long as it's done as safely and securely as possible."

Lyman said all of the plutonium should be vitrified into glass. The group has opposed using plutonium as a mixed oxide fuel in commercial power plants.

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ENS
September 06, 2007

Surplus Plutonium to Be Consolidated in South Carolina

WASHINGTON, DC, September 6, 2007 (ENS) - The U.S. Department of Energy, DOE, says it will consolidate surplus radioactive plutonium at its Savannah River Site, a 310-square-mile complex bordering the Savannah River between South Carolina and Georgia. The facility is one of several that manages the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and nuclear materials.

Starting in 30 days, the agency will move some 3,000 plutonium storage containers across the country to their new location, a process that will not be finished until 2010.

The plutonium will come from the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

"Consolidation is a key part of the department's efforts to properly manage surplus plutonium and follows our dedication to non-proliferation, environmental management and national security," said Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management James Rispoli announcing the move on Wednesday.

"Today's decision continues the momentum for the safe disposition of surplus materials," he said.

Some 2,300 plutonium storage containers from Hanford and close to 700 from Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos Labs will be transported to the Savannah River Site.

The agency said moving the plutonium to Savannah River would reduce the number of sites holding special nuclear material, "enhancing the security of these materials and reducing the costs associated with plutonium storage, surveillance and monitoring, and security at multiple sites."

Only non-pit plutonium will be shipped, that is plutonium which comes from sources other than nuclear weapons triggers, or pits.

Once the material is at the Savannah River Site, the department plans to make mixed oxide, MOX, fuel by mixing plutonium and uranium oxides to use in specially equipped nuclear power reactors.

The first U.S. MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility is currently under construction.

In another disposal plan, the agency says it will use the existing H-Canyon facility, so called because of the long, narrow shape of the building in which chemical separations of radioactive materials takes place.

H Canyon provides a path for recycling the uranium into commercial nuclear power plant fuel in lieu of planned disposal at a federal geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, which is stalled in budgetary and political conflict.

A third plan is to immobilize some of the surplus plutoniuim in a proposed new, small-scale plutonium vitrification plant that would encase it in glass.

"DOE will evaluate reducing and possibly eliminating the need for the vitrification capability, and instead disposing of all the surplus plutonium through the MOX facility and H-Canyon," the agency said today.

The citizens group Nuclear Watch South says it "acknowledges the urgent need to provide security for plutonium" but opposes MOX manufacturing.

Coordinator Glenn Carroll warns that "Transporting highly toxic plutonium - one-millionth of a gram can induce lung cancer in a human - risks the health of millions of citizens along transportation routes. No analysis of risk of terrorism for shipping plutonium has been done."

The MOX plutonium fuel program "is already nine years behind schedule" and the plutonium proposed to be shipped for storage to Savannah River Site is of similar quality to 12 tons of "orphan" plutonium already at the site that is unsuitable for conversion to MOX fuel, Carroll says, cautioning that the plutonium arriving at the site "is likely to add to the stockpile that has defied disposition to date."

"The plutonium 'disposition' program is in disarray," Carroll says, pointing out that MOX is dependent on 30 years of sustained Congressional support and Congress has displayed increasing discomfort with the MOX program, cancelling it completely for several months earlier this year.

Plutonium vitrification, also called immobilization, a process that encases the radioactive material in glass, is supported by Nuclear Watch South and other environmentalists, and the junk "orphan" plutonium is well suited to vitrification, says Carroll.

He notes that DOE's commitment to immobilization is weak.

"We recognize the unique infrastructure of Savannah River Site and abilities of its workforce to perform the mission of plutonium disposition via immobilization," said Carroll. "We oppose shipping the plutonium until DOE has reconciled the conflicts in its internal vision and created a solid plan for plutonium disposition."

The DOE says it has notified Congress and provided a plan for the disposal of the surplus plutonium once it gets to Savannah River, as required under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002.

Consolidation of surplus plutonium at Savannah River has been analyzed in a Supplement Analysis and DOE issued an Amended Record of Decision for the Storage and Disposition of Weapons-Usable Fissile Materials Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. To see these documents, click here.

Separately from this consolidation announcement, the Energy Department is preparing a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for Surplus Plutonium Disposition at the Savannah River Site to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of alternative methods of disposing of the surplus, non-pit plutonium materials.

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Savannah Business Report
September 06, 2007

Feds to Ship Surplus Plutonium to Savannah River Site

By Stephen Sacco
TBR Staff

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced Wednesday that will begin shipping what could be as much as 13.2 metric tons (29, 100 pounds) of plutonium for reprocessing from federal facilities in California, Washington and New Mexico to the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. - near Augusta and upriver from Savannah.

The shipments are slated to begin within 30 days, according to the DOE.

While federal officials contend the plutonium won't be in South Carolina permanently, it appears it will be there for at least several decades.

The transcontinental shipments of plutonium are part of a DOE plan to consolidate the reprocessing of excess plutonium at SRS, a federal nuclear facility. At the site, the plutonium -some of which is weapons-grade - will be reprocessed either for storage or as fuel usable in commercial nuclear reactors, according to the DOE.

"Consolidation is a key part of the department's efforts to properly manage surplus plutonium," James Rispoli, assistant secretary of energy for environmental management said in a conference call that accompanied the DOE announcement.

Close to 3,000 canisters, each with a capacity of roughly 9.7 lbs., will be shipped to SRS by 2010, according to a DOE announcement. Some of the canisters may not be filled to capacity. This will not include plutonium that is stored in nuclear "pits" or triggers, which are hockey-puck-sized components for nuclear weapons.

Rispoli said that the consolidation effort will save money and enhance security. But it also brings a larger concentration of radioactive material and waste, indefinitely, to an area where population is growing exponentially and to the banks of a river that serves as a drinking water source. In addition, SRS is a prime candidate for the Global Nuclear Partnership Program (see The Business Report & Journal, July 30) and, if chosen, would be receiving nuclear material from all of the world for reprocessing.

Sara Barczak, safe energy director with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Savannah, said she was not surprised by the announcement.

"This is something we have been concerned about for a long time, " she said. "I don't think there are too many states that are raising their hands in the hopes of (being the recipient) of large amounts of plutonium."

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is willing to work with the DOE but had a measured response, according to Joel Sawyer, his press secretary.

"The governor will be sending a letter to the DOE outlining our concerns," he said.

Rispoli held a press conference on Wednesday where he said, in response to a question, that the DOE was not required to get "permission" from South Carolina but that he was unaware of any opposition.

He also said that SRS was the largest federal project in South Carolina but did not have figures on the economic impact of the move for the region or on how much the federal government expects to save by consolidating its excess plutonium management.

Further, he stated that the exact amount of plutonium was classified information.

The plutonium is coming from the Hanford Site in Washington, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Rispoli said that the plutonium has a "pathway" out of the site through one of three forms of reprocessing - a chemical separation process which produces uranium for commercial use, a process where the plutonium is turned into MOX or mixed oxide fuel for commercial nuclear reactors and a process which will encase the plutonium in glass for storage at Yucca Mountain Repository.

"I want to stress that the plutonium is not staying in South Carolina," Rispoli said.

Critics of this program, however, say that the plutonium could be left at SRS for a long time.

Glynn Caroll of Nuclear Watch South has been opposed to the MOX from the beginning. She fears that much of the plutonium shipped will be unusable for MOX fuel and that there is little demand in the nuclear industry for the fuel.

"The only company that was interested in using the (MOX) fuel was (North Caroline's) Duke Energy," she said. "So, the plutonium is not going very far."

The MOX facility will not be completed until 2017 and is expected to be in operation for roughly 20 years.

The Yucca Mountain Repository has faced numerous setbacks on its way to opening and is now scheduled to open in 2017.

This is not the first time that plutonium has been shipped to SRS by the federal government.

In 2002, then-South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges lost his court battle to block the shipment of roughly 34 metric tons of plutonium from three federal facilities to SRS.

The SRS facility, owned by the federal government but operated under contract by private industry, was launched in the early 1950s near the beginning of the Cold War for production of components of nuclear weapons.

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CNews
September 06, 2007

Canada to decide within days whether to join new U.S.-led nuclear initiative

By BRUCE CHEADLE

SYDNEY, Australia (CP) - Canada will make a decision on joining a new U.S.-led nuclear initiative "within a matter of days," Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said Thursday at a summit of pan-Pacific leaders.

The Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is denying reports that it has been suppressing information about the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership after documents obtained by The Canadian Press showed negotiations between Canada and other governments have been ongoing for at least a year.

The issue took on new importance Thursday after Australia said it would join talks in Vienna later this month on the GNEP.

"Australia intends to participate in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and there will be great benefits in terms of access to nuclear technology and non-proliferation," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said at a news conference after meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush.

Australia's foreign minister also said that Canada and Australia - as the world's two biggest uranium exporters - needed to be at the table.

"Because we are in such an influential position, we could make sure the uranium is used wisely and under proper supervision," Alexander Downer said in Sydney.

The GNEP, initiated and funded by the U.S. government, is controversial because it proposes that uranium exporting countries bring back spent nuclear fuel for long-term storage.

Harper has made one public statement on the initiative, 15 months ago, in which he promised to defend Canadian interests.

Last week, the government issued a statement saying it had been invited to Sept. 16 talks in Vienna on the GNEP but still hadn't decided whether to attend.

Yet documents obtained under the Access to Information Act show that the Canadian government has been actively considering the initiative since at least March 2006. Negotiations with the United States began as early as May 3, 2006, and the government had internal talking points praising the GNEP proposal as worth pursuit.

Yet with 10 days to go before the Vienna meeting, Canada's bottom line became no clearer on Thursday despite repeated questions by Canadian media.

"We have been very clear that no decision has been taken in Canada (on whether to attend the Vienna meeting)," Bernier responded at an evening news conference, reading from notes.

He said Canada is still waiting to see what is on the agenda in Vienna.

A government briefing document prepared by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, dated March 31, 2006, states that dealing with spent U.S. nuclear fuel is "the main driver" of the proposal:

"With regard to the proposed GNEP fuel cycle, we understand the main U.S. driver is to avoid the difficult issues associated with finding waste disposal sites beyond Yucca Mountain," a former nuclear test site in Nevada that is home to America's nuclear waste repository.

The briefing note also says the GNEP has major implications for Canada's CANDU reactor technology.

The Harper government has yet to publicly state whether the disposal issue is negotiable for Canada or is a non-starter. The implications for Canada's nuclear technology industry have also not been publicly debated.

Australia, by contrast, has been forthright that nuclear waste repatriation is not on:

"We won't agree to do that, and we've always made that clear, we're not planning and we've never planned and we've never said we would," Downer said Thursday.

In an interview with the Globe and Mail on Tuesday after the GNEP controversy became public, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn declined to comment on whether the waste repatriation question was a make-or-break issue for Canada.

Harper, who arrived in Sydney on Thursday, begins his formal agenda Friday when he gives a speech on climate change and energy policy to a group of business leaders ahead of the APEC leaders' talks.

U.S. President George W. Bush will also address the business gathering.

Climate change is one of the key themes for this year's meeting of the 21-member APEC organization, which includes the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters in China, the United States and Russia.

Canadian officials have already indicated Canada is ready to join the AP-6, a climate change group that some environmental groups see as a rival to the UN-mandated Kyoto process for reducing greenhouse gases.

After the weekend summit, Harper travels to Canberra where he will become the first Canadian prime minister to address the Australian parliament. His speech falls on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

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Senator Harry Reid
September 4, 2007

Reid's Statement on Judge Hunt's Decision on Yucca Mountain

Washington, DC— U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada made the following statement following the ruling by U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt regarding the Yucca water bore hole drilling issue:

“Judge Hunt’s ruling confirms what many of us have known for a long time: the federal government will do anything it can to try to turn Nevada into the nation’s nuclear dumping ground, even if that means ignoring the law and the will of the people who would be most affected by the dump.  Stealing water, misleading Congress, and ignoring court orders are par for the course for the Energy Department.  I am pleased that Judge Hunt upheld Nevada’s right to enforce its water laws.  The Energy Department needs to come to grips with the fact that the dump will never be built and begin working on a way to store nuclear waste at the sites where it is produced, instead of an outdated plan to ship 77,000 tons of it across the country to Nevada.”

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 05, 2007

Nevada wins battle in war over Yucca

Federal judge denies DOE motion

By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal

Nevada has won a significant battle in its 20-year war with the federal government over the Department of Energy's plans to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

The victory came in a decision late Friday by U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt to deny Justice Department attorneys an emergency motion. The motion was aimed at blocking the state engineer's order that DOE stop using Nevada's water for drilling boreholes near the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Hunt's 24-page ruling criticized the attorneys representing DOE as being arrogant and unreasonable and, above all, for violating a court-approved agreement on use of the state's water at Yucca Mountain.

State officials were beaming Monday when they learned of Hunt's decision and said it will preclude DOE from collecting data that Yucca Mountain Project officials have said is crucial to submitting a complete license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for constructing a repository.

"We're obviously pleased with his decision, and he's very knowledgeable of what's going on with the state law and the federal law," said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects and a long-time opponent of what Nevada politicians refer to as "the dump.

Added Marta Adams, the senior deputy attorney general who represented Loux in the case: "These guys have no mandate to do borehole drilling. They're just arrogant."

"This is going to be tricky for them to appeal and they have some real public relations issues here," Adams said.

Allen Benson, an Energy Department spokesman in Las Vegas for the Yucca Mountain Project, wouldn't comment as to whether borehole drilling operations were in progress Tuesday.

"We have just received the court order and we're reading it now and we'll determine the path forward," Benson said.

Subcontractors for the Yucca Mountain Project have been using water from nearby wells to drill what project officials have said will be 80 boreholes if drilling continued through November.

That is up from DOE's original estimate that only 15 boreholes would be needed for "geotechnical" work to ensure that surface facilities where spent nuclear fuel assemblies would be handled and stored before entombing them in the mountain will be safe from earthquakes and floods.

The water is used to cool and lubricate drill bits and to make mud for collecting rock samples.

Adams said if she finds out that DOE continues to use the state's water for drilling boreholes "then we've certainly got to go in for a contempt order. I would expect they're going to comply," she said.

"What is very crystal clear is the court vindicates the state's position and upholds they (DOE) should cease and desist," Adams said.

Loux said he thinks the state engineer has authority to prohibit DOE from trucking water in from out of state or other sources in the state for work at Yucca Mountain.

"You simply can't use water in this state without his approval period, no matter how you acquire it," Loux said.

Hunt's order says that any perceived hardship that DOE encountered when State Engineer Tracy Taylor issued his cease-and-desist order June 1, then lifted it temporarily only to reinstate it on July 20, was "self-inflicted."

"The state, on the other hand, faced the unauthorized use of its water, a violation of state water law, a violation of an agreement it entered in good faith, a violation of this court's order authorizing that agreement, and interference with its obligation to its citizens to enforce its laws and preserve its water," Hunt wrote.

He further stated that "there has been no act by Congress which pre-empts Nevada's state water laws. ... The only public interest issue is whether state officials can be precluded from exercising their lawfully mandated duties, or whether a federal agency can run roughshod over a state's rights or interests without specific authority and mandate to do the precise activities it wishes to do."

Hunt was not impressed by the way the water flap unfolded with DOE ultimately demanding to use 4 million gallons of water for drilling 44 boreholes with intentions of doubling each for "continuing site characterization work it hid from the court and from the state."

Either the borehole work is "unreasonable and without demonstrable, legitimate purpose. ... Or, alternatively, it (the DOE) shows a complete lack of confidence in its ability to obtain a license from the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) because of weakness in its original scientific studies."

Hunt agreed with the state's attorneys that DOE's scientific, site characterization work was supposed to have been completed at Yucca Mountain when then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended the site to President Bush in 2002.

"Either that is so, and this is not site characterization, or it would appear that the DOE misled Congress and the president in its application for approval of the site," Hunt wrote. "DOE attempts to deny that this is further site characterization. However, its own documents contradict that argument."

Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto weighed in on the issue, saying in a statement, "In what Judge Hunt characterizes as 'arrogant,' DOE has not ... complied with Nevada water law or 'been forthcoming about its intentions for water use in the future.'"

In Washington, Nevada lawmakers applauded the opinion as a blow for states' rights, and at the same time shining a light on DOE clumsiness in pursuing water for the Yucca project.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the federal government got the outcome it deserved.

"Stealing water, misleading Congress, and ignoring court orders are par for the course for the Energy Department," he said in a statement.

Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., said the department's unauthorized water use "is one more blunder" in a history of Yucca Mountain missteps.

Rep. Jon Porter, D-Nev., said DOE "has consistently played fast and loose with procedures" to speed the repository.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the case "sends an unmistakable message to President Bush and his Republican allies that Nevada will fight any attempt in Congress to pass legislation that would authorize a full-blown water grab."

A bill the Bush administration has proposed seeks to broaden DOE powers to obtain water over Nevada objections. But it has found no support in Congress this year.

Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault contributed to this report.

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Nevada Appeal
September 05, 2007

Judge gives Nevada a boost in its efforts to avoid nuke dump

If the federal government won't listen to Nevadans about Yucca Mountain, maybe they'll listen to U.S. District Court Judge Roger Hunt.

The judge ruled the Department of Energy must comply with the state's water rules, which in effect shuts down the drilling operations the department has been conducting to gather evidence for the viability of the nuclear waste storage site.

Hunt accurately characterized the department's attitude toward Yucca as "arrogant" in its single-minded pursuit of the project against mounting scientific evidence. Not only does the agency want to put the storage facility in a state where the majority of residents do not want it, but they want to use our water to make it happen.

The judge's ruling sent a strong message, and one that may help wash away recent decisions by Gov. Jim Gibbons that seemed to offer support to the Energy Department. In one, he supported allowing DOE to use the states' water for an additional month, raising the ire of the state's Congressional delegation, and in another he appointed a Yucca supporter to the state's nuclear watchdog committee before quickly rescinding the decision after the subsequent outcry.

But that's water under the bridge now, and it's just a waiting game to see what DOE will do next in its bid to foist this project on Nevada.

In the meantime, there's good reason for outrage not only over the agency's, and the Bush Administration's, disrespect for state's rights, but over the continued waste of taxpayer dollars on the project.

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Los Angeles Times
September 05, 2007

No Nevada water for nuclear dump

A federal judge rules against Energy officials, who say they need 8 million gallons to continue work on the Yucca Mountain site.

By Ralph Vartabedian
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

The Energy Department's controversial plan to build a nuclear waste dump in Nevada was trumped by Western water law Tuesday, when a federal judge rejected the agency's demand for 8 million gallons of water that state officials have refused to release.

Energy officials said they needed the water to drill test holes at Yucca Mountain, the site about 90 miles north of Las Vegas where the government wants to store about 70,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste from across the nation.

President Bush and Congress approved the site in 2002, but a series of legal and political setbacks has stalled the project -- and raised questions about when and if the dump will open.

In a stinging rebuke Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Roger L. Hunt denied an injunction sought by the Energy Department against Nevada, saying the department had made contradictory arguments that had no merit and were not supported by federal law.

"The validity of Western states' groundwater rights and the right to regulate water in the public interest is not a right to be taken lightly, nor is it a right that can cavalierly be ignored or violated by a federal agency," Hunt said in his 24-page opinion.

Hunt said Energy officials had acted with "arrogance" and possibly misled Bush when they said Yucca Mountain was suitable to store radioactive waste.

Energy spokesman Allen Benson said the department had just received the ruling and would have no immediate comment.

"It was a very strongly worded opinion," said Joseph R. Egan, a nuclear energy attorney representing Nevada. "The judge has very strongly telegraphed that DOE has no case whatsoever."

Without access to millions of gallons of state-controlled water, the Energy Department's only option may be to truck in water over long distances, placing another burden on the project and starting another activity that state officials could block.

The water fight between federal and state officials has been raging since the project's outset, when the state engineer first denied water permits to build at Yucca Mountain. The engineer recently denied permits for significantly more water as the federal government increased the number of holes it said it needed from about 15 to more than 80.

Hunt said agency officials had waffled on why they needed to drill so many holes.

Nevada officials contend the government's increased drilling was part of the "site characterization" -- a step crucial to assessing whether radioactive waste can be stored safely there.

If so, the federal government is in trouble. All site characterization was supposed to have been completed in 2002, when Energy officials said Yucca had met its criteria as a suitable site.

If the drilling program is essential to understanding the site and eventually getting a license, then "it would appear that the DOE misled Congress and the president," Hunt said.

Energy officials deny that the drilling is part of site characterization, but Hunt wrote: "Its own documents contradict that argument."

Robert R. Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the ruling was important because it prevented federal officials from collecting data that would be crucial to any future license application to build the dump.

Loux said the Energy Department ultimately would need sweeping exemptions from federal environmental, health, water and transportation laws to move forward with the dump.

Energy officials said they would file an application to build the dump next year.

--ralph.vartabedian@ latimes.com

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Plenty Magazine
September 05, 2007

The Battle of Yucca Mountain

Ben Whitford

The perennial battle over Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, the rocky bluff 90 miles north of Las Vegas where federal officials plan to bury America’s nuclear waste, is heating up again. After failing to block the controversial plan through legislative channels, desperate state officials have cut off the site’s water supplies in a last-ditch attempt to parch the project out of existence.

The unconventional strategy - which denies federal workers access to Nevada groundwater for anything other than drinking and fire prevention - is designed to bring to a halt the water-lubricated drills being used by Energy Department researchers as they prepare to submit a key report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. With a judge expected to rule on the case this week, the ban is unlikely to stay in place for long, but the clash brings to a head the state’s 30-year campaign to nix the proposed nuclear dump.

Despite Nevadans’ protests, Congress gave the Yucca Mountain project a definitive green light in 2002, cutting short a scientific review of other potential locations. Since then, ignoring studies suggesting that Yucca’s geology may be less stable than initially thought (a worrisome problem, given that the buried waste will remain dangerous for many thousands of years), the Department of Energy has pushed ahead with plans to open the facility by 2020.

While the administration has sought to brush off Nevadans’ qualms as NIMBYism, there are grounds for concern for those who live outside the Sagebrush State. Stockpiling nuclear detritus in a single location requires radioactive waste to be hauled for thousands of miles, creating unsettling bottlenecks in transit hubs like Chicago. Regular train accidents are bad enough; a nuclear wreck doesn’t bear thinking about.

Thankfully, opponents of the plan have an important ally: Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid, a vocal critic of the project during his stint on the environment committee. So far, Reid has helped slash almost three quarters of a billion dollars from the Yucca Mountain budget. This year, under his guidance, the Senate shaved another $50 million from the project’s funding.

But Nevadans shouldn’t get too comfortable. The nuclear lobby is working overtime to keep cuts to a minimum. So far they’ve managed to persuade the House, where Nevada has only three representatives, to maintain funding at current levels. With Reid distracted by his role as Senate chief, it’s possible his hard-won cuts will be rolled back. Either way, it looks like it’ll take more than simply turning off the taps to derail Yucca Mountain.

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Manufacturers' Blog
September 05, 2007

Make Reality a Starting Point for Debating Energy

Included in a Washington Post article Tuesday on the difficulties being faced by the coal industry were these paragraphs about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV):

In late July, Reid (D-Nev.) sent a letter to the chief executives of four power companies in which he vowed to "use every means at my disposal" to stop their plans to build three coal-fired plants in Nevada. Last month, after a speech in Reno, Reid said he was opposed to new coal-fired plants anywhere.

"There's not a coal-fired plant in America that's clean. They're all dirty," Reid told reporters after speaking at a conference on renewable energy. He said that the United States should turn to wind, solar and geothermal power in an effort to slow climate change. "Unless we do something quickly about global warming, we're in trouble," he said.

Nuclear power is notably absent from the Majority Leader's energy prescription, as the Yucca Mountain repository is the bête noire of almost all Nevada politicians.

So the United States should turn to wind, solar and geothermal? Fine, except the odds of those energy sources being adequate to power a growing economy are....well, astronomical would be kind.

Despite the rapid growth projected for biofuels and other non-hydroelectric renewable energy sources and the expectation that orders will be placed for new nuclear power plants for the first time in more than 25 years, oil, coal, and natural gas still are projected to provide roughly the same 86-percent share of the to-tal U.S. primary energy supply in 2030 that they did in 2005 (assuming no changes in existing laws and regulations). The expected rapid growth in the use of biofuels and other nonhydropower renewable energy sources begins from a very low current share of total energy use; hydroelectric power production, which accounts for the bulk of current renewable electricity supply, is nearly stagnant; and the share of total electricity supplied from nuclear power falls despite the projected new plant builds, which more than offset retirements, because the overall market for electricity continues to expand rapidly in the projection.

That's from the federal Energy Information Administration's 2007 Energy Outlook. Given current technology, the only possible way to achieve Senator Reid's recommendations is for the economy to stop growing, or rather, to shrink dramatically. And save for some of the more purist environmental groups, anti-growth activists and organized misanthropes, few would welcome a Great Depression II.

The NAM welcomes policies to promote conservation, energy efficiency and the development of alternative fuels, renewable energy and advanced technologies. But the debate about energy policy needs to start on the basis of what’s realistically achievable.

Tagged: Energy Information Administration , Harry Reid , Yucca Mountain

Posted by Carter Wood

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CaliforniaRepublic
September 05, 2007

Global Warming Serious Enough To Lift Ban On Nukes?

by Chuck DeVore

Global warming has become a lot like the weather: Everyone talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.

In environmentally conscious California, a poll found that 54% of residents believe "global warming poses a very serious threat to the state's future economy and quality of life." But only 13% claim to carpool and 7% use mass transit.In other words: Do as I want you to do, not as I do.

Meanwhile the California legislature, reflecting the conventional wisdom, has passed a sweeping new greenhouse gas law that calls for a 25% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 - while the state's population is projected to grow 20% to 44 million people.

Passing the law was the easy part. Now we implement.

Perhaps this is where the majority of Californians were right - but not for the right reason - when they agreed that "global warming poses a very serious threat to the state's future economy.

"Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25% in 13 years while growing the economy to support 7 million more people will, to put it mildly, be a challenge. Thirteen years is not a long time to dramatically change the way California uses energy.

Electrical generation accounts for 20% of the state's greenhouse gas emissions. More than half of these emissions come from burning natural gas that powers 42% of the grid. Coal contributes 16% of California's power, yet accounts for about 36% of its greenhouse gas emissions. A separate California law passed last year will phase out the use of conventional coal power over 20 years. Most of this power will be replaced by far more expensive natural gas, assuming adequate supplies can be secured.

Wind and solar power are being increased, but grid reliability is a problem. The wind in California has this unfortunate habit of peaking when its power is not needed and vanishing when it is. The sun in sunny California has its off days too. This requires both technologies to be backed up by additional natural gas plants that have to remain on costly standby. Solar power also continues to be very expensive.

California is already the most electrically efficient state in the U.S., so large additional conservation savings will be hard to achieve. A little over half the state's man-made greenhouse gases come from the tailpipe. But there aren't a lot of ways to significantly reduce these emissions while the state is growing so rapidly, though small cars could be mandated or favored through the tax code.

Burning corn as ethanol instead of eating it may be an attractive solution for a politician angling to win the Iowa presidential caucuses. But in the real world, the balance sheet of carbon combustion is unmoved by massive federal subsidies. Further, switching to corn-based fuel is already causing unintended inflationary pressures, as corn shortages have increased feedstock prices that in turn have driven up the price of milk, poultry, beef and pork.A fleet of hydrogen-electric cars could make a major impact on the problem - but only if we doubled our electricity production using low greenhouse gas technology such as solar, wind or nuclear. Of these, nuclear is the only reliable way to make electricity that could be affordable for anyone other than a San Francisco hedge fund manager.

That leaves four possible outcomes with California's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006:

1. The regulations to reduce greenhouse emissions pose such a serious threat to the state's economy that politicians decide to delay the reduction mandate or simply rescind it, letting greenhouse gas emissions grow.

2. A carbon cap-and-trade scheme is implemented, enriching a few traders on the floor of the Chicago Climate Exchange and serving as a massive fossil-fuel tax, leading to economic harm and reversal of the law.

3. Politicians and regulators ignore the economic consequences and wring a 25% carbon emissions reduction out of the California economy that causes havoc and misery. Then they get thrown out of office by mobs of angry unemployed people, whereupon their successors reverse the law.

4. California gets serious about greenhouse gases, lifts its ban on new nuclear power plants, constructs four new reactors and, as a result, enjoys a large reduction in carbon emissions from the electrical sector and a small reduction overall. Additional reactors would yield further greenhouse gas reductions.

Construction of nuclear plants, however, has been banned in California since 1976. But the four reactors under construction then were allowed to be finished. Today, those reactors furnish about 13% of state's electricity.The four reactors save $2.6 billion a year in natural gas (a nuclear reactor can run on about $30 million of fuel for almost two years) while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 22 million metric tons. Adding four modern reactors would let the electrical sector reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40%, returning the sector to 1990 levels.Nuclear power has the lowest total life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of any energy source, including solar and wind. In spite of this, the California legislature shows no interest in nuclear power.

Due to fears about global warming, public opinion about nuclear power has improved nationwide. California polls show likely voters closely divided on the question. Bypassing the legislature with a ballot initiative to overturn the state's obsolete 31-year ban on nuclear power might succeed following a serious public education campaign.

Unfortunately, California's risk-averse investor-owned utilities fear provoking the anger of environmentally liberal lawmakers by supporting such a ballot initiative. Instead, the utilities may try to build reliable and safe nuclear power plants out of state. But this means spending billions to build long-distance power transmission lines as well as billions more in fees to buy approval from the states over which the lines traverse.California ratepayers will pay for this in higher electrical bills. In addition, 15% of the power would be lost through long-distance line resistance. These added expenses mean that two reactors could be built in California for the cost of a single reactor built in New Mexico or Utah.

A total of 104 reactors now produce about 19% of America's electricity. By comparison, France's 59 reactors produce 78% of its electricity while environmentally conscious Sweden has 10 reactors that provide 48% of its power. Still, environmentalists fiercely oppose any new plants.

Their opposition is deeply rooted in our Cold War past and focuses on a single isotope created during the nuclear fission process: plutonium-239. With a half-life of 24,110 years, plutonium-239 would have to be stored for almost 200,000 years for its radioactivity to be rendered safe.

Each commercial nuclear power reactor makes about 500 pounds of plutonium a year. This plutonium is embedded in the fuel rods that in the U.S. are simply set aside and stored, with the plan being to store about a football field's volume of spent fuel rods at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Environmentalists oppose this, arguing that Yucca Mountain cannot keep nuclear material safe for 2,000 centuries.

The issue of storing plutonium-239 for 200,000 years can be solved by extracting the plutonium and using it to produce electricity. The French do this, reducing the volume of used nuclear material by about 96% by recycling usable fuel, including plutonium, back into their reactors. This slightly increases the cost of electricity, but it eliminates the need to safely store plutonium-239, saving money on the back end.Unfortunately, many environmentalists oppose reprocessing spent nuclear fuel because reprocessing extracts plutonium that could be diverted for nuclear-bomb making. It was this rationale that caused President Jimmy Carter to ban U.S. reprocessing in 1977 in the hopes of inspiring other nations to do the same. (It didn't work.)

Environmental opponents speak darkly of "plutonium-in-commerce," as if a U.S. utility would sell 100 pounds of extracted plutonium to al-Qaida to boost its profits. The net result is that it gives the American environmental left a perfect and unassailable circular argument: Reprocessing is bad because plutonium can be made into bombs, but storing unreprocessed spent fuel rods with plutonium in them for 200,000 years is problematic.Ironically, nuclear power plants can be operated with plutonium recovered from nuclear bombs, turning nuclear swords into electrical ploughshares and using up the plutonium in the process.

For better or for worse, California often leads the way in American trends. What if Californians considered the relative risks and rewards of nuclear power vs. global warming, increased use of imported fossil fuels and massive electricity rate hikes, and decided in favor of nuclear power?

The California Energy Independence and Zero Carbon Dioxide Emission Electrical Generation Act slated for the June 2008 ballot will give Californians that choice. The proposed initiative overturns California's nuclear ban, enacts seismic and environmental restrictions that place about 40% of the state off limits to nuclear power, and approves on-site dry-cask storage of spent fuel as an acceptable storage method for 100 years.

California can get serious about meeting its ambitious global warming goals while providing economic opportunity, or it can try to power its economy on good intentions. CRO

first appeared in Investors Business Daily

Chuck DeVore is a California State Assemblyman and a lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard.  His website is: www.ChuckDeVore.com

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Colorado Springs Gazette
September 05, 2007

Our View - Wednesday

The windmills in his mind

Americans have long wrestled with the question of whether Democrats can be trusted with national security. These doubts, dating back to the Cold War and Vietnam eras, have given Republicans an edge in electing presidents. But now we also have to wonder whether the Democrats are equipped to deal realistically and responsibly with the nation’s energy security.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is doing his party no favors on either count. Not only has “Crazy Harry” become the most shrill of Iraq war defeatists, but he’s completely lost perspective on alternative energy technologies, declaring recently that he would oppose the construction of any new coal-fired power plants in his home state of Nevada. Reid personifies a party that seems unable to recognize that the country needs every energy technology available, “old” and “new,” “dirty” as well as “clean,” if it’s going to keep pace with demand.

Reid recently declaring his opposition to three new, coalfired power plants in the state, saying his “conscience” wouldn’t allow it. And like all good Democrats, he threw in a little business-bashing for good measure. “All these power moguls want to do is to steal our air and water,” he said.

So how will his fast-growing state keep the lights on in glitter gulch? Renewables such as wind, solar and geothermal, of course. And through conservation. Reid wants more Nevadans to have solar panels on their roofs. But that’s a strange position to take, for someone who represents a state famous for its conspicuous consumption of electricity.

Nevada already leans heavily on hydro-power, which is a good, clean energy source. Geothermal also has a lot of potential. But whether Nevada — or the rest of us — can get along without conventional power plants, at least for the next century or so, is doubtful. Coal is one fossil fuel the nation has in abundance. As we develop cleaner ways to burn it, the environmental impacts will be reduced. Its use will help us maintain a modicum of energy independence. But coal is a dirty word to Reid. He calls clean coal an oxymoron.

Development of domestic oil and natural gas is hampered by an oppressive regulatory climate, by drilling moratoria offshore and in Alaska, which Democrats refuse to lift, and by the obstructionism of greens and NIMBYs. Reid opposes nuclear power, too, and is leading the effort to kill the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

Thankfully for Nevadans, a U.S. senator’s power doesn’t yet extend to dictating the energy choices for an entire state. But that doesn’t prevent Reid and similarly deluded colleagues from foisting such energy policy fantasies off on the rest of us.

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Tri-City Herald
September 05, 2007

Hanford plutonium going to South Carolina

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department plans to send some plutonium from Hanford to the Savannah River nuclear complex in South Carolina.

The department also is sending plutonium from research labs in New Mexico and California to Savanna River to improve security and reduce storage costs.

The shipments involve 3,000 canisters the size of coffee cans. About 2,300 of them are at Hanford and the rest are at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

The shipments could begin as soon as next month and last three years.

The consolidation involves plutonium that was produced decades ago for use in nuclear weapons, but is no longer needed.

The plutonium could be converted to fuel for nuclear power plants or encased in glass for storage at the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada.

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Hemscott
September 05, 2007

Gov't plans plutonium consolidation

(AP) - WASHINGTON (AP -- The Energy Department plans to send plutonium in Washington state and at research laboratories in New Mexico and California to the Savannah River nuclear complex in South Carolina to improve security and reduce storage costs.

The department said Wednesday that the plutonium shipments, involving 3,000 coffee can-size canisters, could begin as early as next month and last three years.

The consolidation 'is a key part of the department's efforts to properly manage surplus plutonium,' said James Rispoli, assistant energy secretary for environmental management. He said it will allow for greater security at much less cost.

The consolidation involves plutonium -- some mixed with highly enriched uranium -- that was produced decades ago for use in nuclear weapons, but is no longer needed, as well as a small amount of plutonium in fuel rods from a closed government reactor.

The transfer does not involve plutonium that is being taken out of dismantled nuclear warheads or plutonium that will continue to be needed for weapons-related research and production of warhead triggers called pits.

The department said the amount of plutonium that will be shipped is classified. Rispoli said each canister has a maximum capacity of 9.7 pounds, but that the amount is significantly less than that since the canisters are not full.

About 2,700 canisters are kept at the department's Hanford complex in Washington state and another 700 canisters are at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Officials didn't provide a breakdown of amounts kept at each of the labs. But the plutonium at Lawrence Livermore has been a focus of controversy for years as local activists have maintained its presence poses a danger to nearby residential communities and represents a potential terrorist target.

Aware that officials in South Carolina have expressed concerns that their state not become a permanent dump for the country's unneeded plutonium, Rispoli emphasized at a news conference that the DOE plans include getting the material out of the state.

'The intent is not only to bring the plutonium there, but dispose of it at the (Savannah) site and then have pathways for all of this material to leave the state,' Rispoli said. He said a facility to store the plutonium at Savannah River is being prepared with increased security.

Department officials acknowledged that it will likely take more than a decade -- and possibly much longer -- before much of the plutonium will be processed and moved elsewhere.

The plan calls for the plutonium to be either converted into a mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, for use at commercial nuclear power plants or be encased in glass logs for eventual transfer to the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository being planned in Nevada.

However, the MOX production facility at Savannah River won't be completed before 2017 at the earliest. And the future of the proposed Yucca Mountain underground repository is in doubt and is not expected to be completed before 2018 if it is built at all.

There already is some plutonium at Savannah River and the MOX facility is being built primarily to process much of the 34 metric tons of plutonium that will come from dismantled warheads.

State officials have agreed to accept plutonium shipments, partly because the construction of the processing facilities -- and the processing itself -- means hundreds of jobs.

Federal officials view the consolidation -- and eventual disposal of much of the excess plutonium -- as essential to meet increased security requirements since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a leading nuclear nonproliferation advocacy group, said the group supports consolidation 'as long as it's done as safely and securely as possible.'

Lyman said all of the plutonium should be vitrified into glass. The group has opposed using plutonium as a mixed oxide fuel in commercial power plants.

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The Age
September 05, 2007

Australia stakes its claim to uranium enrichment

Katharine Murphy

Australia is reserving its right to enrich uranium in the future despite signing up to a controversial global partnership of nuclear players that aims to limit the number of nations producing enriched fuel.

Australia has taken its first step towards joining the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) in a new bilateral nuclear collaboration agreement announced in Sydney by Prime Minister John Howard and US President George Bush.

Australia's participation will be formalised at a meeting of nuclear officials in Vienna in mid-September, but the Government has made it clear it will sign up only on the basis that Australia does not take the world's nuclear waste and that it reserves its right to enrich yellowcake in the future.

But green groups are warning that despite those poli- tical assurances, Australia is taking its first defining step towards becoming a nuclear waste dump for the rest of the world by joining the partnership.

The Wilderness Society said yesterday the Government had already passed legislation clearing the way for radioactive waste to be brought from overseas.

The Australian Conservation Foundation said joining the partnership would provoke suspicion in the region. Foundation spokesman Dave Sweeney said: "Australia's neighbours will be very concerned about Australia being a nuclear reactor developer and a nuclear weapons fuel exporter — it will inflame existing regional insecurities."

But in a sign of the Government's increasing political nervousness over its ambitions to develop nuclear energy, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer played down the idea that Australia would enrich uranium.

He also said Australia had made it clear in all the discussions over its participation in the partnership that it would not take radioactive waste. "We won't agree to do that and we have always made that clear," he said.

Mr Downer told reporters at Sydney's APEC summit that it would take considerable persuasion to convince countries such as the United States that Australia should develop a local nuclear fuel manufacturing industry.

Uranium enrichment "would have to be commercially viable and I am advised that quite apart from having to work pretty hard to persuade the United States that Australia should enrich uranium … it would take some persuading to convince other countries to feel comfortable with that", he said.

"I'm not sure that (enrichment) would be commercially viable either. Quite apart from the political obstacles, I think there are a lot of commercial obstacles as well."

But despite Mr Downer's efforts to play down the immediacy of enrichment, senior government officials confirmed that Australia reserved its right to develop an enrichment industry in the future.

Mr Howard's nuclear agenda also won praise from Mr Bush.

"If you believe that greenhouse gases are a priority, like a lot of us, if we take the issue seriously, if you take the issue seriously, like I do and John does, then you should be supportive of nuclear power," he said.

But Wilderness Society acting director Virginia Young said Mr Howard had taken the first step towards an international nuclear waste dump in Australia.

"The entire purpose of GNEP is for countries to take back nuclear waste," she said. "It is simply not believable for the Government to claim that we could join GNEP but rule out an international nuclear waste dump.

"The United States desperately needs somewhere to put their nuclear waste after public opposition stopped their proposed dump at Yucca Mountain.

"The Australian Government has already rushed through legislation that for the first time allows Australia to import radioactive waste."

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Scoop
September 05, 2007

Howard Signs Up To Take World's Nuclear Waste

Howard signs Australia up to take world's nuclear waste with Global Nuclear Partnership

Prime Minister John Howard has signed Australia up to take the world's nuclear waste with the announcement this morning that the US will support Australia's bid to join the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

GNEP involves a small number of countries enriching uranium, leasing the nuclear fuel to other countries eager to develop nuclear power and taking back the radioactive spent fuel for reprocessing and disposal.

Howard signs Australia up to take world's nuclear waste with Global Nuclear Partnership

Prime Minister John Howard has signed Australia up to take the world's nuclear waste with the announcement this morning that the US will support Australia's bid to join the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. will leave a toxic legacy for generations of Australians without solving dangerous climate change," said Greenpeace CEO Steve Shallhorn.

"Nuclear energy is not the solution to climate change.

"Nuclear energy still produces a significant greenhouse pollution and it will be at least ten years before new nuclear plants can be built when we need action on climate change now.

"Even in the extremely unlikely event that the world could double nuclear power output by 2050, it would only reduce greenhouse pollution by about 5%.

"It is more than 60 years since the first atom bomb was made but there is still no safe, long term solution to nuclear waste anywhere in the world.

"By signing us up to GNEP John Howard is taking the first step towards the imposition of an international nuclear waste dump in Australia," said Wilderness Society Acting Director Virginia Young.

"The entire purpose of GNEP is for countries to take back nuclear waste. It is simply not believable for the Government to claim that we could join GNEP but rule out an international nuclear waste dump.

"The United States desperately needs somewhere to put their nuclear waste after public opposition stopped their proposed dump at Yucca Mountain.

"The Australian Government has already rushed through legislation that for the first time allows Australia to import radioactive waste from overseas.

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KLAS-TV
September 04, 2007

Federal Judge Says Shuts Off Water for DOE Drilling at Yucca

The Department of Energy will no longer be allowed to use Nevada's water for bore hole drilling at the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt's says the Department of Energy can't ignore state limitations and just keep using water for drilling test holes near the site.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat who has led state opposition to the Yucca project, hailed the ruling as a victory for state rights.

Five years ago on Sept. 4, President George Bush gave the green light to the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas as the storage place for all of the nation's high-level nuclear waste. The state of Nevada has been fighting the Department of Energy over the project for decades.

The state engineer recently re-instated a cease and desist order on the use of the state's water to drill into the mountain for the repository. On Tuesday, the DOE filed an appeal to be able to keep drilling so the repository can open in 2017.

In a strongly worded 24-page order, U.S. District Court Judge Roger Hunt denied the Department of Energy's motion for a preliminary injunction.

In a statement Tuesday, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto stated, "Judge Hunt's order vindicates Nevada's long-standing position that DOE's sleight of hand in using Nevada's water for an unauthorized bore hole drilling program is neither mandated by federal law nor consistent with the public's interest."

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Las Vegas SUN
September 04, 2007

Federal judge says drilling must stop at nuke dump site in Nevada

By Ken Ritter
Associated Press Writer

LAS VEGAS (AP) - A federal judge has ruled that Nevada can shut off water needed for bore hole drilling at the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

In a strongly worded order focusing on federal "credibility and good faith," U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt in Las Vegas said the Department of Energy could not ignore state limitations and continue using water for drilling test holes near the repository site.

"This entire 'crisis' is self-imposed and self-created," Hunt said in his 24-page order, dated Friday but distributed among the parties on Tuesday.

"The only argument the DOE makes is that because the site has been approved ... it has the authority to do whatever it wishes," the judge said. "It has failed to demonstrate the necessity of its voracious water damands."

Nevada has long complained that the federal government kept increasing the scope of the drilling and its water needs - from about 15 bore holes to 80 and from 300,000 gallons of water to 3.5 million gallons.

Hunt did not decide the merits of the case, which was originally filed in August 2002.

He instead denied the federal request for a preliminary injunction that would have limited the state water engineer's ability to restrict water allocations to the arid site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson in Las Vegas declined immediate comment on the ruling, saying Tuesday that Yucca Mountain project officials were reviewing Hunt's order. Benson said he didn't know if drilling had stopped.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat who has led state opposition to the Yucca project, hailed the ruling as a victory for state rights.

"The federal government will do anything it can to try to turn Nevada into the nation's nuclear dumping ground, even if that means ignoring the law and the will of the people who would be most affected by the dump," Reid said in a statement. "I am pleased that Judge Hunt upheld Nevada's right to enforce its water laws."

Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said Hunt's order "vindicates Nevada's long-standing position that DOE's sleight of hand in using Nevada's water for an unauthorized bore hole drilling program is neither mandated by federal law nor consistent with the public's interest."

Marta Adams, a deputy state attorney general who argued the case, said she saw no wiggle room for the federal government and no grounds for appeal. She said bore hole drilling had to stop, or the state would seek a contempt of court order.

In a pointed criticism of the bore hole project, the judge rejected federal claims that scientists needed to test areas around the Yucca site to "meet congressional mandates" and demonstrate the suitability of the site for entombing 77,000 tons of radioactive waste now being stored at nuclear reactors in 39 states.

Site characterization tests were supposed to have been completed before the site was recommended to Congress in 2002, Hunt said.

"Either that is so," the judge wrote, "or it would appear the DOE misled Congress and the president in its application for approval of the site. DOE attempts to deny that this is further site characterization. However, its own documents contradict that argument."

Hunt also rejected arguments by Justice Department lawyer Stephen Bartell that state officials were using water as a weapon to delay the project, and that the Energy Department would suffer irreparable harm if data collection was delayed.

Bartell had argued that the government lost $350,000 by paying for idle drill crews after the state issued a cease-and-desist order on June 1.

That order was lifted temporarily June 12, but was reinstated eight days later, after the two sides failed to agree on conditions for using the water.

The Energy Department once hoped to open the repository by 2010. But the projected opening date has been pushed back at least to 2017 by legal challenges, budget issues, political opposition and scientific controversies.

Energy Department officials now hope by next June 30 to submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission an application for an operating license.

Hunt noted, however, that NRC approval was "not a foregone conclusion."

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 01, 2007

Craig battled for a Nevada nuclear waste storage site

Departure seen as boon to opponents of project

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Larry Craig's imminent departure from the U.S. Senate removes a major advocate for storing high level nuclear waste in Nevada, and a combative one at that.

Craig was considered among the biggest proponents of nuclear power in Congress. In that vein, he focused on steering federal dollars and missions to the Idaho National Laboratory, an Energy Department installation that performs nuclear waste research.

He also was one of the most vocal supporters of the Yucca Mountain repository, which if built could become the destination of more than 3,000 shipments of Navy nuclear waste now stored in Idaho.

"He along with Sen. Pete Domenici in our view have been the one-two punch for the nuclear industry. In that sense the industry is losing one of their key spokespeople," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, an anti-nuclear advocacy group.

In 2002 Craig was a lead senator promoting the official designation of the Nevada site for nuclear waste storage. He regularly roused the Energy Department forward on Yucca and debated repository critics with an ferocity that some said bordered on disdain.

On occasions he battled Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the project's most influential opponent.

"Senator Craig was an advocate for Yucca Mountain. His being gone is one more nail in the coffin for that dump," Reid said Friday night.

In a surprising confrontation, Craig at a August 2006 Senate hearing upbraided a representative of Gov. Kenny Guinn, saying he was not interested in the Nevadan's views.

"I don't know that you have credibility before this committee. Your purpose is to kill Yucca Mountain, period." Craig said to Bob Loux, director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects.

"Can you have any objectivity at all? I doubt it," Craig said.

"Certainly as much as anyone who is advocating (the repository)," Loux shot back.

"Every hearing that Nevada was ever at, he did nothing but attack," Loux recalled on Friday. "We all thought that was over the top."

"Having him gone improves Nevada's chances for gaining congressional support," Loux said.

Craig co-sponsored bills with Domenici, R-N.M., that envision nuclear waste being fast-tracked to Yucca Mountain by 2010, almost a decade faster than the Energy Department plans.

The Idahoan maintained he was uncowed by Reid, who has vowed to block bills that would help the Yucca Mountain project advance.

"Harry in his wildest dreams wishes it would go away, but it is not going away," Craig told reporters about Yucca last December. He believed a tide of pro-nuclear sentiment in Congress would force Reid to compromise.

But with Reid exercising influence, repository legislation so far has not moved forward in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Craig and Reid squared off again last September. Reid prepared amendments to shield Nevada from spent nuclear fuel that might result from a landmark U.S.-India nuclear cooperation agreement.

Charging that Reid was grandstanding for constituents, Craig prepared a counteramendment to begin moving nuclear materials to Nevada "as soon as practicable."

The two eventually backed away from each other, dropping their amendments.

With Republicans in the Senate minority, Craig's influence was diminished, said an industry official who asked not to be identified because she had not been cleared to speak to media.

"If he were still in the majority I would say this would leave a huge gap," the official said. "And it doesn't look like the Senate is going to act (on Yucca) anytime soon so I am not seeing any huge impact on the legislative agenda."

Idaho lawmakers monitor the Yucca issue closely in part because the state is party to a consent agreement with the Energy Department and the Navy calling for the removal of all spent nuclear fuel by Jan. 1, 2035.

Craig's eventual successor likely also will promote Yucca Mountain, said Michele Boyd, legislative director for Public Citizen, an advocacy group.

"I don't expect there to be dramatic changes," Boyd said.

Nevada officials said they doubted a new Idaho senator would match Craig.

"Clearly he has been one of the biggest pro-Yucca supporters all he way along," Loux said. "I don't think any of us are not happy to see him go."

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Pahrump Valley Times
September 01, 2007

Nuclear waste impact study set

The U.S. Department of Energy filed a notice of intent last week to conduct an environmental impact study to examine how and where to store a quantity of low-level radioactive waste.

Two of the eight sites being considered are Yucca Mountain and the Nevada Test Site.

The waste, which is stored at commercial nuclear power plants and other generator sites across the country, was created from the decommissioning of nuclear power plants, medical activities, and nuclear research.

The site would have to be approved by the state and receive licensing from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as there are currently no NRC-licensed facilities.

In addition, a portion of the waste includes transuranic material, created from non-defense-related sources.

Transuranic waste cannot, by law, be stored at the Waste Isolation Pilot Point (WIPP), located in southeastern New Mexico, although this is included in the list of sites that are being considered. However, Yucca Mountain may be used if licensed.

DOE is considering possibly storing the waste at a combination of the listed sites.

It estimates the current inventory of waste nationwide (existing and expected to be generated) to be approximately 2,600 cubic meters of "greater than Class C" waste and 3,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste.

This is a relatively small amount compared to the amount of low-level waste that has already been disposed of at the test site, which in the third quarter of 2007 was 7,952 cubic meters.

The activity of the waste is currently 15 million curies, and future activity is 129 million curies. The half-life of the constituents ranges from several years to over 10,000 years.

How the waste will be stored has yet to be decided, although shallow bore-holes, shallow burial, and burial in a containment vault are all being considered.

The other sites being considered for waste disposal include the Hanford Site in Washington, the Idaho National Laboratory, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, or "a generic commercial location."

A scoping meeting for the project will be held in Las Vegas on Sept. 4 at the Atomic Testing Museum.

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KLAS-TV
August 31, 2007

Las Vegas Officials React to Runaway Railcar

Edward Lawrence
Reporter

Reaction and the fallout from Wednesday's runaway railcar containing the deadly chemical chlorine has come from just about everywhere. From changes the city of Las Vegas will make, to how the Clark County HAZMAT team could respond to a chlorine leak.

The railcar coasted freely from south of Blue Diamond to North Las Vegas. The scariest thing for HAZMAT experts who looked at this incident is how close the railcar came to a lot of people.

The track took it right behind the Mirage, Treasure Island, Fashion Show Mall, and Circus Circus. The runaway car went as fast as 55 miles-per-hour past the Clark County Government Center and downtown Las Vegas.

That angered the mayor and left HAZMAT fire crews pondering what if. The runaway tanker looked harmless enough as it sat in North Las Vegas Wednesday. Union Pacific workers threw wood boards under the wheels to stop the car.

But this sight angered Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. "I think it's outrageous," he said. Mayor Goodman says the railroad never called his office about the incident. He first heard about it from new reports.

In response, the mayor never wants to be blindsided by a runaway car again. He says he will amend a city ordinance so the railroad must notify authorities before chlorine or any toxic chemical will be shipped through the city.

"Cities need to be notified to be prepared to meet these kinds of potential dangers with HAZMAT facilities," said Goodman.

The uncontrolled car sped past hundreds of thousands of people not only downtown, but also on the Las Vegas Strip. A leak or crash could have been disastrous in that stretch of track.

"What we try to do is prepare ourselves," said Richard Brenner, Clark County HAZMAT Coordinator.

Clark County HAZMAT crews say they would have been ready because of specialized training using replicas of the tank car's lid, which is where most of the leaks happen when transporting chlorine.

So the Clark County crews have valve caps. With any leak near the large hotels, HAZMAT coordinator Richard Brenner says he would have kept people inside and had the ventilation system shut off because chlorine dissipates in the wind.

"It's going to try to escape. It's going to try to go up in the environment. That is what we want it to do. We don't want to put people out in that environment," said Brenner.

Had there been a crash or leak in the side of the tank, HAZMAT crews have a giant bag to throw over the car and trap any chlorine gas.

Senator Harry Reid released the following statement:

"The incident involving a runaway railcar yesterday is just the latest example of the serious danger that Yucca Mountain poses to Nevada and the rest of the nation. Railways go directly through the heart of Las Vegas and many other cities and towns across America. They travel past our schools, our businesses and our homes. Fortunately, yesterday's railcar was stopped without incident and without the release of the dangerous chemicals it was carrying. However, this incident brought to light the very real threat we face if the DOE begins to transport nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. That is why I will continue to leverage my leadership position in the Senate to ensure the dump is never built."

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 31, 2007

EDITORIAL: Runaway train

Tanker full of chlorine takes unexpected trip through Las Vegas

Last year, UNLV's Institute for Security Studies completed a vulnerability analysis on various threats to the state. A number of natural and man-made disasters were assessed to help policymakers and emergency responders plan and prioritize training and funding requests.

The worst scenario the institute could come up with? Not a hijacked jetliner crashing into a Strip resort. And not a breach of a high-level nuclear waste shipment to the planned Yucca Mountain repository northwest of Las Vegas.

No, the biggest single threat to the population and economy of Southern Nevada is a chlorine gas accident. According to the report, if a railroad tanker carrying 34,500 gallons of chlorine crashed and spilled near the Union Pacific overpass at Charleston Boulevard in downtown Las Vegas, the toxic release could kill between 74,000 and 91,000 people under worst-case conditions.

Such a disaster would dwarf the American death toll of the Vietnam War.

So imagine the fear local authorities felt when they got word Wednesday morning that a tanker carrying chlorine gas had escaped the Arden train yard southwest of Las Vegas and was rolling toward the city, picking up speed.

Las Vegas police units sped to railroad crossings, and a department helicopter followed the tanker on its path through the valley.

The runaway tanker sped through the new neighborhoods around the southern Las Vegas Beltway, right past the Strip and over the Charleston bridge. After traveling about 20 miles at speeds up to 50 mph, the tanker finally slowed on an uphill grade, allowing Union Pacific maintenance workers to board it and pull the hand brake.

"Las Vegas dodged a bullet there," said Steve Calanog, chief of emergency response for the federal Environmental Protection Agency's Southwest region. "Had the train car released its contents in a residential area, the results could have been tragic."

Now come the urgent matters of finding out how the tanker got free and putting into place procedures to prevent such a high-risk situation from ever happening again.

In addition to Union Pacific's internal inquiry, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada have launched investigations of the incident.

Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis and other officials said Wednesday that it's too soon to say exactly how the tanker escaped the train yard, how much chlorine gas was in the tanker and whether Union Pacific could have done anything else besides let the car cruise all the way to North Las Vegas.

Whatever Union Pacific and these agencies learn, they must release their findings to the public. Las Vegas residents deserve to know what happened this week and whether anyone will be held accountable for the accident.

That said, it's worth noting here that rail shipments of chemicals such as chlorine gas are routine all across the country. For every accidental release of a hazardous material, tens of thousands of shipments are completed safely and without any notice from the population.

"Those kinds of things go through here from California up to Utah every day," Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski said.

Wednesday's incident also puts into proper perspective the doomsday shrieks of politicians and environmentalists opposed to the Yucca Mountain Project. Regardless of whether the high-level nuclear waste repository is good public policy, the threats presented by transporting high-level nuclear waste across rural Nevada pale in comparison to the level of risk associated with chemical deliveries made daily via road and railroad in urban Las Vegas.

Las Vegans can be thankful that no one was hurt by Wednesday's runaway tanker, and that so many private-sector and public-sector leaders are taking it so seriously.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 31, 2007

Tanker owner didn't call 911

Utility crew first to notify police

By Lisa Kim Bach
Review-Journal

A railway tanker containing toxic chlorine gas rolled unchecked out of the Arden train yard on Wednesday, and apparently no one there noticed.

Or if they did, they failed to notify police that a tanker with the potential to set off Nevada's worst-case disaster scenario was on a fast-moving and uncontrolled northbound tear through Clark County's urban center.

"Our first notification came from a utility company survey crew," Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Bill Cassell said Thursday.

That call to 911 was made at 8:49 a.m. Wednesday. Cassell said police then contacted Union Pacific officials on the railroad company's emergency line, which is answered in Nebraska.

"On our first call, they told us it wasn't their train," Cassell said.

Four minutes later, Cassell said, Union Pacific officials called back to say it was indeed their tanker that was on the loose. By then, Cassell said, police had already responded to the 911 call from the survey crew and dispatched units to train crossings.

It wasn't until eight minutes after the initial call that police were informed the runaway car was loaded with a lethal substance that could pose a community-wide hazard should the tanker spew its contents during a crash or derailment.

A 2006 study by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Institute for Security Studies identified a chlorine gas accident as the deadliest potential disaster foreseeable in Nevada.

"We were doing what we could," Cassell said. "But at one point, the train was running at 50 miles per hour. There wasn't a whole lot of time to put together a plan and implement it."

Cassell said the Police Department's emergency management staff was in the process of calling other emergency responders, ranging from local fire departments to the Clark County Health District, when Union Pacific officials informed them that the tanker had come to rest on the opposite end of the valley, 20 miles from its point of origin just south of state Route 160.

According to the police timeline, everything was over by 9:11 a.m.

Local government officials Thursday were outraged, demanding explanations for what went wrong at the train yard and why Union Pacific was not on point in informing local entities about the potential threat of the runaway chlorine gas tanker.

Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said workers at the Arden yard did send out a priority radio signal to alert Union Pacific dispatchers in Omaha, Neb.

A dispatcher then contacted Union Pacific railroad police, also in Nebraska.

However, Davis's recounting of events differs with that of police on a key point: Davis said Union Pacific did notify local authorities, including the police, of the runaway car.

"This all happened literally within seconds," said Davis, who was in Las Vegas on Wednesday and back in Nebraska on Thursday.

Clark County Manager Virginia Valentine acknowledged that a Union Pacific official notified her of the runaway tanker on Wednesday.

Valentine said she got the call mid-afternoon, hours after the incident took place.

"It was completely unacceptable," Valentine said Thursday. "You can't respond to an emergency you don't know about."

Valentine said Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid has asked her to write a demand letter to Union Pacific requesting a full investigation and its results, an explanation for how the incident occurred and a plan for preventing it from ever happening again.

"Chlorine gas is an extremely toxic substance," Valentine said of the substance used in waste water treatment and disinfection. "Our emphasis has to be on prevention."

An investigation into the runaway tanker is already under way. Investigators from the Federal Railroad Administration are conducting it, with support from the Public Utilities Commission Of Nevada.

A final report will not be available for at least 30 days.

During a Thursday news conference, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman went so far as to suggest that a city ordinance banning the transport of high-level radioactive waste through the city be expanded to include other hazardous materials, such as chlorine gas.

"I've been very critical of the government for not advising us when the shipments are taking place," Goodman said. "Without notifying the authorities. .. I don't think they should be allowed to come through."

Goodman's assertion touches on the growing national debate on rerouting trains carrying hazardous materials around urban centers instead of allowing them to pass through.

Larry Mann, an attorney who helped draft the Federal Railroad Safety Act of 1970 and is a national consultant on railroad issues, said the current Congress has authorized the U.S. Department of Transportation to conduct a study on the routing of hazardous materials.

One of the things that will be examined is whether it's reasonable to reroute trains around metropolitan areas.

Mann also said railways are urging Congress to either relieve them of the responsibility of transporting hazardous materials, which is their onus as a designated "common carrier," or free them of liability when accidents occur.

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev, plans to bring the discussion on railway transport of hazardous materials to Las Vegas in the next few weeks. Porter wants to hold a public hearing that includes officials from the Department of Transportation and the Transportation Security Administration. Both federal agencies are working on new regulations for transporting chemicals on railways and trucks.

"We need to look at the whole supply chain," Porter said. "How are these chemicals transported and routed? How are they handled? We want to make sure that first responders have proper training."

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., seized on the runaway tanker incident to highlight the danger of shipping nuclear waste to be stored at a government facility at Yucca Mountain.

The Department of Energy has not made decisions about routes to carry nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain but has not ruled out the pos