Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, September 20, 2007
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NY Journal News
September 20, 2007
Water, air, overall safety dominate Indian Point meeting
By Greg Clary
The Journal News
CORTLANDT - Even if the federal regulators of Indian Point don't consider evacuation plans or local population density, they will have plenty to examine before deciding whether to extend the nuclear plants' right to operate through 2035.
At two public meetings yesterday, nearly 400 people turned out to hear and voice environmental issues they want the government to evaluate as the relicensing process of Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3 proceeds.
"This is a great opportunity … to ask, 'Is this really the best thing to do?'" said Elizabeth Segal, a Tarrytown resident who opposes the recertification. "A lot of the concerns that people have just don't fit into this process."
Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials held the meetings to listen to residents - proponents and opponents - in order to refine their review of plant owner Entergy Nuclear's request to operate the two working reactors for an extra 20 years.
The company applied for extensions for both plants in a package deal that began in late April and will take the better part of two years to complete.
Yesterday's meetings - held at a catering hall next to the offices of the town of Cortlandt - were limited by federal regulation to environmental issues facing the site in Buchanan.
About 50 speakers broached everything from regulatory philosophy and radiation leaks to the number of fish killed because the plant uses Hudson River water to help cool its electricity-producing operation.
NRC officials reiterated to those people who attended either the afternoon or the evening meeting that the agency monitors all facets of Indian Point, but for the purposes of the extra 20 years will be reviewing primarily how well the plant will age by the time it hits 60 years old and the possible impacts on the local environment.
Opponent Gary Shaw questioned how well the NRC could evaluate that, given that large segments of the piping running under the site are hidden and can't be accessed easily.
Supporter Lloyd Douglas said if the electricity produced by Indian Point were taken out of the region's supply, it likely would be replaced by a fossil fuel plant that would increase respiratory illness and increase dependency on the resources of other countries.
John Kelly, a retired Entergy engineer, followed up Douglas' point, citing statistics about the amount of carbon-based pollutants coming from fossil-fuel plants.
"We already have a pollution problem in the atmosphere," he said.
Riverkeeper policy analyst Philip Musegaas said the plant is responsible for killing 1 billion fish a year, and he noted his environmental organization's concern about spent fuel.
"Nuclear waste is piling up at Indian Point because Yucca Mountain likely won't open for decades," Musegaas said. "How long will nuclear waste be stored (at Indian Point)? That's a question that has to be answered."
The evening's sessions proved to be more crowded and contentious than the afternoon's, with letters from congressional representatives read via proxy and more seasoned advocates taking stronger stands.
Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace and now a consultant to N.Y. Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance, said environmental activists have missed the difference between nuclear proliferation in the arms race and the need for nuclear technology to meet the world's increasing need for energy.
"Solar energy is simply too expensive," he said. "Wind and solar power are too intermittent. The wind doesn't blow all the time, and sun doesn't shine at night."
He added that if humans had outlawed everything that could be turned into a weapon, no one would have been able to harness fire.
Mannajo Greene, however, noted that the future of nuclear power and its potential dangers shouldn't be part of an open-air lab.
"We cannot afford to allow a 20-year extension to be a human experiment in how long an aging structure can go," said Greene, an environmental expert with Clearwater and an elected official from Dutchess County.
Charlie Donaldson, a representative of state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, asked that the NRC provide answers in its report to all the questions raised, to ensure "greater transparency," and include "rigorous validations of all the impacts."
Comments will be accepted via e-mail at IndianPointEIS@nrc.gov.
--Reach Greg Clary at 914-696-8566 or gclary@lohud.com.
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Times Herald-Record
September 20, 2007
Critics bash Indian Point: NRC opens hearings on nuke plant license
By John Doherty
Cortlandt Manor — Opponents of the Indian Point nuclear power plant think the feds aren't looking at all the right issues.
That was one of the strong sentiments at a public hearing yesterday about Indian Point's license renewal application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The NRC-sponsored hearings yesterday — one in the afternoon and one at night — are part of the agency's review of Indian Point and Entergy, the company that runs the two reactors in Buchanan.
But the hearings cover only the environmental concerns at the plant.
"There are a lot of other concerns about whether Indian Point should exist that just do not fall under the review," complained Elizabeth Seagel, a Tarrytown resident.
The highway network around the plant was built before the Lower Hudson Valley experienced the explosive growth of recent years. Could those same roads accommodate an evacuation if there was an emergency at Indian Point, residents wondered?
Gary Shaw of Croton, who lives six miles from Indian Point, recalled that on the day in 2003 when the federal government approved Entergy's updated evacuation plan, a car crash on the George Washington Bridge turned all of Westchester County's major roads into a parking lot.
"Whenever I'm in one of those jams, I picture those roads jammed as Indian Point's sirens wail," he said.
But the NRC review of Indian Point is limited to whether the aging equipment at the plant can "reasonably assure" safety for the next 40 years of licensing. And the NRC offered no answers yesterday — just a chance for citizens to be heard.
Residents also voiced concerns about the stored nuclear waste at Indian Point, which has built up for years while a permanent dump is constructed and approved at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The licenses for the plant's two reactors expire in 2013 and 2015.
The public comment heard yesterday will be part of the NRC's draft environmental impact study, which is due out next July.
Public hearings will again be held after that report is issued.
A final environmental report is to be issued in April 2009.
Residents unable to attend the public hearing who would like their concerns considered by the NRC can still submit comments. The NRC is taking comments until Oct. 12.
You can e-mail IndianPointEIS@nrc.gov, or write to: Chief, Rules and Directives Branch; Division of Administrative Services; Mailstop T-6D59; U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Washington, DC 20555
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WSTM-TV
September 20, 2007
Plan set for West Valley nuclear waste cleanup
Associated Press
WEST VALLEY, N.Y. (AP) - The next phase of cleanup at the former site of the nation's only commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing operation will focus on several short-term projects while federal and state officials work out long-term issues.
The last of about 20,000 drums of low-level radioactive waste are expected to be shipped to a Nevada disposal site in the next few weeks. Federal officials this week outlined a plan called the "Way Ahead" that will chart the cleanup's future.
Work over the next four years will concentrate on drying out underground tanks that once held high-level waste, capping a landfill and containing a contaminated groundwater plume that environmentalists fear could eventually seep into Lake Erie.
Plans also include transferring 275 canisters of solidified high-level waste out of what was the main processing plant so that the 41-year-old facility can be demolished. The canisters would be stored inside another structure on site until the proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada opens.
West Valley is 35 miles south of Buffalo.
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Seattle Post Intelligencer
September 19, 2007
Strange Bedfellows
Joel Connelly: Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
Peggy Maze Johnson, who directed the Neighbors in Need program during Seattle's "Boeing Recession" of the early 1970's, has taken a top political job in the Western state with the earliest voice in choosing the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee.
Johnson was named last weekend as Executive Director of the Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada, Democratic Party.
Johnson has been working on the campaign of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in preparation for Nevada's second-in-the-nation, January 19th precinct caucuses.
A Catholic laywoman from Capitol Hill, the then-Peggy Maze was the face and often-loud voice of the volunteer program that fed thousands of suddenly unemployed middle class Seattleites at a time when Boeing's employment fell from 101,000 to fewer than 35,000.
Success of the Seattle program injected her into one of the 20th Century's most bizarre kidnappings.
When newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped in 1974, her Symbionese Liberation Army captors demanded a feeding program for the Bay Area poor. Maze and Washington's then-Secretary of State A. Ludlow Kramer were called upon to organize it from scratch in a few days.
She later worked in the 1978 campaign that put Mike Lowry in Congress, and conducted community organizing and political training for the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees.
A Las Vegas resident since 2001, Johnson has headed a group called Citizen Alert, which mobilized opposition to location of a nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
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Rutland Herald
September 19, 2007
Letter: Who pays for nuclear waste?
Several weeks ago I wrote Gov. James Douglas a letter asking who will pay to guard the nuclear waste stored at the nuclear plant in Vernon after the plant closes. To date I have no answer. I think it is obvious that the taxpayer will have to pay to guard that waste for probably at least 1,000 years. It probably will be the Vermont taxpayer. I want to leave my children assets not liabilities.
Our federal government has been talking about storing this waste in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for 40 years, and the completion date is still far in the future. Now I read that people are saying, I do not want that stuff transported through my town. So we are stuck with it. We have agreed to let the plant run until 2012. We surely do not need to extend the license after that date until we actually see this toxic waste removed from the site. From what I have read there are cracks in the steam dryer and recently the cooling tower problem. Where are the inspectors? Is the plant safe now?
Fred Thurlow
Wallingford
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Mail & Guardian
September 19, 2007
Where to put our nukes?
Yolandi Groenewald
South Africa’s decision to invest in a nuclear power future has raised concerns about what will happen to the nuke waste generated. Last week it emerged that nuclear power would account for about half of Eskom’s planned new generating capacity.
At present South Africa’s nuclear waste policy is vague and does not list a clear end-plan of what will happen to high-level nuclear waste.
Earthlife Africa nuclear activist Mashile Phalane is worried about how the government will deal with nuclear waste. He says South Africa’s nuclear waste management is weak.
“At the moment the government is only reinstating the shelved apartheid government nuclear strategy,” he says.
The Cabinet approved a radioactive waste management policy in 2005, but it did not identify a deep-level depository, the final resting place for high-level nuclear waste. The document has not been approved by Parliament yet.
Solly Phetla, spokesperson for the department of minerals and energy, says in terms of the strategy used nuclear fuel is not waste because it can be reprocessed and 95% of materials recycled, with only 5% high-level waste remaining to be disposed.
Phalane believes the government is focusing on a Namaqualand site as a possible solution for the high-level waste. For the moment the waste at Pelindaba and Koeberg is stored on site. Medium- to low-level waste is buried at the Vaalputs site in the Northern Cape.
In answer to a question about whether there are plans to expand Vaalputs, Phetla says only radioactive waste that meets the acceptance criteria of Vaalputs will be disposed of at Vaalputs.
Pelindaba has been storing nuclear waste from as far back as 1965. About 45 000 drums of low-level nuclear waste are stored at its Pelstore facility. There are questions about whether the Thabana trenches, the facility for storing high-level nuclear waste at Pelindaba, complies with international standards.
The department says Koeberg’s used fuel is stored in authorised used-fuel pools on site, as well as in casks designed and constructed for storage of used fuel. It believes there is enough storage capacity for the current operational lifetime of Koeberg.
Eskom announced last week that it would increase South Africa’s nuclear share of power generation from 6% to 30% by 2030. This would add 20 000MW of generating capacity to South Africa’s overloaded grid. The nuclear growth plan is estimated to cost between R255-billion and R400-billion.
By 2012 South Africa will have at least one other operational nuclear power station, apart from Koeberg. Sites the government is investigating are at Bantamsklip in the Western Cape, Thyspunt near Cape St Francis in the Eastern Cape and Port Nolloth in the Northern Cape.
The government hopes that after 2012 its hugely expensive pebble-bed modular reactor (PBMR) programme will have its ducks in a row and plans to build 24 small 165MW nuclear plants by 2030. Each PBMR plant is expected to produce up to 32 tons of high-level waste a year.
Without a final destination for the waste, the spent fuel will be stored in dry storage tanks for the power station’s first 40 years.
Phalane says Eskom’s announcement is premature as public consultation on the proposed sites was poor.
“The communities don’t want nuclear projects in their backyards,” he says.
But Eskom’s chief executive, Jacob Maroga, says it makes sense to invest in nuclear power in the face of climate change and the fact that South Africa is sitting on 10% of the world’s uranium reserves.
South Africa is not the only country that is moving towards nuclear power. Last week during a visit to South Africa, the United Kingdom’s chief scientific adviser, David King, said if emission gas that caused global warming was controlled, nuclear had a huge role to play.
Last year the World Nuclear Agency said there were a total of 442 operable commercial nuclear power plants in the world, with 28 still being built and 62 in the planning phase. A further 160 had been proposed by different governments, with India and China taking the lead.
Nuclear waste is an international problem, with most governments struggling to find an end-solution for their high-level nuclear waste.
The first deep final repository in the world is expected to be commissioned only some time after 2010. In the United States the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level waste storage facility remains unbuilt.
In Germany, prior to 1990, the Gorleben village close to the former German Democratic Republic was seen as the Germans’ final answer to their high-level waste problem, but after protests a final decision was also postponed.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 18, 2007
Kucinich touts his plans for change in visit to LV
Democrat opens local presidential campaign headquarters
By Molly Ball
Review-Journal
On Monday, while Hillary Clinton was unveiling her second-time-around health care plan to much fanfare in Iowa, Dennis Kucinich was in Las Vegas, not at all impressed.
"Same old same old," said Kucinich, a congressman from Ohio making his second long-shot run at the presidency, as he waved dismissively during an interview after a campaign appearance at his new local headquarters. "Look, with all due respect to Senator Clinton, she's talking about continuing the present system."
The plan from the U.S. senator from New York, he said, was not substantially different from those of her top rivals: combining public and private resources and helping people buy health insurance from for-profit business concerns.
"Who wins with that? The insurance companies," Kucinich said. "I don't know if it has any connection to the fact that she (Clinton) is the No. 2 recipient in the entire Congress of money from health insurance companies. But I imagine if they didn't like it, they wouldn't give her money."
Kucinich is the only candidate promoting what he calls a "not-for-profit," or wholly government run, health care system -- what is unkindly referred to as "socialized medicine." He has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to enact such a system.
Under his plan, he told a crowd of about 50 people sweating in the noonday sun, there would be no health insurance because nobody would need it. The government would take care of anyone who needed medical treatment, including visual and dental care.
"No more premiums, no more co-pays, no more deductibles," he promised, to cheers. "Health care is a right in America. It is our basic right."
In the interview, Kucinich said health care is one of many issues on which the Democratic candidates and Democratic Congress have been too timid. Others include funding the Iraq war, which Kucinich voted against, and impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
There is public support for these ideas, said Kucinich, who proposes creating a Cabinet-level Department of Peace that would teach children nonviolence from an early age.
"I'm the candidate of the mainstream," he said. "My policies are mainstream."
Kucinich said he is also the strongest and most consistent candidate opposed to storing nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. He claimed to "probably have more knowledge of this issue than not only anyone running for president, but anyone in the United States Congress, including your representatives here."
In 1995, as an Ohio state senator, his was the loudest voice in stopping a nuclear waste dump from being built in that state. "I said, 'I'm not for a Chernobyl on wheels. We have to stop producing nuclear waste, and don't make any particular state pay the price,'" he recalled.
Because of that experience, Kucinich said, he stood up for Nevada before he was a candidate and it was politically convenient to do so; his record in Congress bears out that claim.
Nevada, Kucinich said, is giving him a good reception -- the well-appointed office on Rancho Drive is an in-kind donation from a landlord who supports the campaign -- and could be the state that propels him to the Democratic nomination despite what he acknowledges are long odds.
If he does better than expected in an early state such as Nevada, Kucinich said, he could pick up the momentum he needs. "I don't have to win a state, but I do have to show an ability to get votes."
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Conde Nast Portfolio
September 18, 2007
A Dicey Proposition
by Matthew Cooper
October 2007 Issue
Nevada gets an early presidential caucus, but for the good of the nation, what goes on in Vegas should probably stay in Vegas.
When you think early primary voting, you think of New Hampshire and of earnest living-room discussions as Iowans gather for their caucuses—an hours-long process that, unlike voting in a primary, involves sitting and arguing with your neighbors in a democratic act that’s as close to Norman Rockwell (and the Athenian demos) as you’re likely to find in the Western world. If you think of who lives in these early states, you think of ethanol-obsessed corn farmers, a handful of workers in ailing factories, maybe a few commuters from southern New Hampshire driving to their offices at Fidelity.
But this winter, Nevada is getting in on the action. Croupiers and cocktail waitresses, chefs and chambermaids, ranchers and miners will take shift breaks to vote in the new early Nevada caucuses, a potential fulcrum in determining who our next president will be.
As a political reporter, I can think of nothing more fun than ditching Manchester for the Mirage, but as an American, I have my doubts about whether this change is good for us as a country.
First, some background. For decades, Iowa and New Hampshire have dominated presidential nominations because of their sainted first-in-the-nation status. Iowa has always been the first caucus and New Hampshire the first primary. But this year, Nevada, a state built on the dreams of silver prospectors and Bugsy Siegel, has been given an early caucus, likely to take place between the votes in Iowa and New Hampshire—although many of the early states are threatening to change their primary dates, and the schedules remain in flux. At first, it was just a Democratic caucus, but then, earlier this year, Nevada’s Republicans got jealous and moved their caucuses to the same day. Now Mitt Romney is eyeing the voting power of the state’s large Mormon population.
Appropriately enough for Las Vegas’ home, Nevada got the caucuses through luck. For years, minorities in the Democratic Party have argued that Iowa and New Hampshire are too white to have such a crucial role. Because no potential presidential candidate wanted to raise the ire of New Hampshire or Iowa, minorities’ arguments generally went unheeded. But after the previous Democratic Senate leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, was defeated in 2004, the rise of Harry Reid, the senior senator from Nevada, to the position gave the state an inside straight. Reid argued that his state was perfect for joining the Iowa-New Hampshire duopoly. It’s small enough that minor candidates can compete, it’s a swing state, and it’s a signal of the Democrats’ commitment to winning the West.
Now the candidates have to pay attention to things that never come up in Des Moines—mining and gaming, concerns about water rights, and, most prominently, the debate over the transfer of nuclear waste from the nation’s power plants to Yucca Mountain. Are we ever going to see a revival of nuclear power in America? The biggest thing stopping it could be the Nevada caucuses, which have basically put the presidential candidates on record against the transfer. If there is no place to put spent fuel rods, you can’t very well increase the number of nuclear power plants. Nevadans are overwhelmingly opposed to their state’s being the nation’s nuclear waste dump, and the presidential candidates (except for John McCain) have quickly fallen in line. As the caucuses approach, John Edwards, who once favored dumping in Yucca, now declares it dangerous.
In ways both good and bad, the Nevada caucuses will give unions an even bigger role than they’ve had before. No group in Nevada’s Democratic caucuses is more pivotal than Local 226 of the Culinary Workers Union, which meets in a grim, one-story white building near an outfit called Carpets Galore at the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip. The union represents about half of Vegas’ hotel and casino employees, not just those toiling in kitchens—as its name would suggest—but also the 60,000 workers who make the beds and scrub the toilets.
The union’s head is D. Taylor. His actual name is Donald, but his father had that name already, so D. stuck. Taylor put himself through Georgetown University working in the kitchens of preppy bars. His calm voice and mellow mien belie the fact that the 50-year-old is, when I meet him in July, in the midst of heated negotiations with MGM Mirage, the owners of the Bellagio and other Vegas landmarks. It’s not going well. “We’ve met with them 32 times, and we’re going to keep meeting with them,” Taylor tells me in his office, which is adorned with a portrait of César Chávez.
I like that D. Taylor has a role in picking the next president. Local 226 is an exemplary union because it shows that organized labor and growth can be compatible. “You can’t pretend the smokestack industries are coming back, but you can organize the ones that are growing and help them grow,” Taylor says. A Vegas C.W.U. cook makes about 50 percent more than a nonunion one.
In late August, Taylor and his members got most of what they wanted—higher wages and, more important, the chance to organize nonunion workers in the combination condominium-hotels now under construction. Not surprisingly, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton quickly issued statements praising the deal. This all seems good. While most of the big casino operators are being relatively quiet in this election, Local 226 is fighting the good fight.
But here’s my problem: The downside of the Nevada caucuses is that we’re potentially handing our nation’s fate to a state that doesn’t exactly have Iowa’s or New Hampshire’s civic culture—something that’s reflected in those states’ traditionally high voter turnout and the old saw about the Iowan who couldn’t decide whether to vote for a candidate because he’d met him only twice. For the citizens of New Hampshire, civic engagement is in the blood. With 400 members, its state assembly is the largest of any in the country and the third-largest in the English-speaking world.
It’s not that Iowa and New Hampshire are without faults. Thanks to Iowa, we’re on a national binge to make corn-based ethanol, even though it’s not as wise as producing cellulose-based ethanol. (See “Big Green Machines.”) Nevada, though, is lacking in civic culture. Its voter turnout is among the lowest in the country; Iowa’s and New Hampshire’s are among the highest.
Even proud Nevadans can’t be sure what’s next. “We don’t know what Nevada is going to be like, because we’ve never had anything like this,” says politico Billy Vassiliadis, of R&R Partners, the Vegas ad firm that came up with the “What happens here, stays here” slogan. Still, he’s optimistic that the state will pull off a great caucus.
But as one Nevada operative puts it, “This is a place where the prevailing architectural style is literally to build concrete walls between your house and your neighbor’s. How do you overcome that?” You don’t, I think.
And a caucus demands a particularly high level of civic responsibility. When I visited the Nevada State Democratic Party headquarters on a 110-degree day in July, a roomful of volunteers was working the phones to find the 500 to 700 caucus sites that will be needed around the state. (The Republican Party, late to get on the caucus bandwagon, is just beginning to organize.) The major casinos are likely to agree to set up huge at-large stations in their hotels to allow shift workers to caucus without having to go back to their hometowns, marking the first time ever that the American arts of representative democracy and keno will be practiced under one roof.
Since the rules of a caucus can be confusing, the state is at pains to explain how it differs from a primary, even importing experts from Iowa to help run the operation. Instead of voters’ just showing up and casting ballots, Nevadans will gather in groups that support their candidates. There’s haggling, and eventually the delegates are proportioned accordingly. To educate voters, the Democratic Party has sponsored “mockuses,” where Nevadans choose pizza toppings instead of candidates.
I find all of this touching but troubling. There’s something warming about a state built more than any other on rugged individualism trying to build a civic culture like that of Iowa or New Hampshire. The question is whether the rest of us should gamble on Nevada’s developing one in time.
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Fresno Bee
September 17, 2007
Want a water study?
Dig deep for funds, that is.
Cache below Fresno Co. foothills can be probed with radar
By Marc Benjamin
The Fresno Bee
How much water is there below Fresno County's Sierra foothills? How much development can that water support?
Those questions have nagged Fresno County officials for years.
Now, scientists hope to find answers by creating a three-dimensional computer map of the water trapped in rock fissures and underground pools. All they need is money.
The project could cost $5 million and take as long as five years to complete, because it will need to examine how water flows underground and account for rainfall fluctuations, said John Suen of California State University, Fresno's California Water Institute.
So far no money has been raised. Many people agree, however, the study is crucial. When the complex computerized modeling is complete, it should detail how much water is available to support existing homes -- and if enough water remains for growth.
The Fresno County Board of Supervisors, Millerton Area Watershed Coalition, the Sierra Foothill Conservancy and the Sierra and Foothill Citizens Alliance all have endorsed the effort. The water institute will work with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Merced on the study.
"There is not a lot of water up there in those hills," said Fresno County Supervisor Phil Larson, who is on a countywide water advisory committee. "I think we will have better knowledge of what the water supply really is when the study is done."
The project's findings will allow county officials to guide growth to areas that have sustainable water supplies, said Auberry resident Gary Temple, president of the Sierra and Foothill Citizens Alliance.
"This will allow us to map rock fractures, their direction, depths and sizes, and accurately know the holding capacity in any given area," he said. "If some areas have less storage capacity, it would not be a smart place to add growth. ... This would provide good, hard data to develop some prudent policies, and if it works here, it could be used other places."
Water has been a concern in the county's foothill communities for years.
A 2005 consultant's study for Fresno County concluded there was not enough information available to know if existing and projected water demands could be met with available foothill ground water.
Faced with development requests and no clear answers, Fresno County supervisors required developers to conduct longer pumping tests to confirm that enough water exists to serve new subdivisions.
A California Water Institute study completed last year provided some assurance that foothill residents weren't draining irreplaceable ground water. The study found the water being pumped from wells came from recent rainfall, not ancient glacial runoff.
The new study would apply technology more commonly used by oil companies searching for underground oil deposits. The same technology was employed at the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste storage project in Nevada. There, scientists from Lawrence Berkeley were trying to determine whether aquifers could be harmed by nuclear waste stored in underground vaults.
The technology never has been used to determine whether water is available for development, Suen said.
"It will be a wonderful project using technology that has been developed, tested and funded by the federal government," Suen said. "It's a great chance to make use of this technology that you and I have paid for with our tax dollars."
Since last year, scientists from Lawrence Berkeley have been in the Auberry area three or four times to evaluate potential project sites for the foothill water study, said Hu-Shu Wu, a Lawrence Berkeley staff scientist involved in the effort. Most recently, they were in the foothills this summer.
The project will require long-term monitoring of wells, laboratory studies, computer modeling, computer logging and pumping tests, he said.
"We hope we can do something to solve the local problem," Wu said.
A key tool in creating the map is ground-penetrating radar that will probe underground fissures, determining how much water they can hold and maybe even predicting how water travels through rock.
Armed with the radar and other data, scientists could then construct a three-dimensional computer model. Further analysis would include looking at how much water is used and how much is returned to the ground, Wu said.
The biggest challenge, though, is money. Wu said he does not know how the project will be financed.
"Everybody we talk to is really positive, but how we translate that into concrete funding still needs some work," Wu said.
He said that he hopes Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory can scrape together some funding to get the project started and prove its value. He said both the state and federal governments may be approached for money.
"We need to do some kind of work," Wu said. "We would like to start something."
In addition, he said, the results of the study could help address water supply issues in granite fractures all along the western slope of the Sierra.
John Kirk, a hydrogeologist with Provost & Pritchard, a Fresno engineering firm that studies fractured rock aquifers, agreed that the study could have broader benefits.
"We face the same questions whether we're in Fresno County, Sacramento County, Tulare County or Madera County," he said.
--The reporter can be reached at mbenjamin@fresnobee.com or(559) 441-6166.
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North Lake Tahoe Bonanza
September 16, 2007
The oil problem: Who is really responsible?
Sid Bekowich
Special to the Bonanza
The price of gas in our small community is at least as high, if not higher than in most metropolitan areas. And it is only a matter of time before the Lake Tahoe area will suffer, in a big way, from air pollution and the detrimental green house effect which is being brought about by the excessive use of oil. So I trust many Bonanza readers would be interested to know the genesis of the oil problem.
Mankind's need for energy was supplied for thousands of years with an abundant and renewable source of energy: wood. But man needed to build a hotter fire than possible from wood, to shape harder and sharper instruments of war and eventually to meet the emerging needs of developing societies. Hence the advent of coal, which is actually a derivative of wood. Thus, at the beginning of the industrial revolution, coal was practically the sole source of energy for power plants, ships, trains and various industrial facilities. Even today, coal, which is a major pollutant, provides about half of America's energy needs.
The dramatic shift to oil was not because it was environmentally friendly, rather due to the invention of the internal combustion engine and the discovery of huge oil reserves in the Middle East that offered, at the beginning, very cheap fuel because of concessions there by major American oil companies. To protect their interests and to promote the use of oil, these giant oil cartels wielded tremendous influence.
Coincident with the dominance of oil companies, automotive giants, particularly General Motors, did everything in their power to eliminate all existing and potential competitors with the internal combustion engine.
However, in spite of all these efforts, an objective observer would conclude that during the early phase of the oil era we would have continued to use oil; simply because it was cheaper and more abundant than other alternatives and the danger to the environment of carbon dioxide and the so called greenhouse effect was not sufficiently evident.
When the population of this planet was much smaller and basically agrarian, ecological balance was easily sustainable. Then, there came along "civilized man," Mother Nature's prodigal child with his insatiable appetite for progress. He is now challenging Mother Nature foolishly, but unwittingly in a battle of survival. Should such a battle be allowed to continue, Mother Nature would suffer almost mortal wounds, but eventually would annihilate its prodigal child and would say, "Good riddance." Then it would take a couple hundred years to heal its wounds and cleanse itself from the trappings of "civilized man;" before restarting the eternal cycle of life.
Obviously then, what we need to do now is to commit whatever it takes in financial resources and national resolve to wisely develop a fuel that is safe and does not violate nature.
Existing nuclear power plants do not produce carbon dioxide; but the public is concerned about thermonuclear accidents and the disposal of radioactive waste - we Nevadans have Yucca Mountain. Also, the cost effectiveness of nuclear power plants is arguable. Nevertheless, 20 percent of the energy supply in the U.S. is produced by nuclear power. That number is 80 percent in France.
Fusion is the ultimate and inexhaustible source of a much cleaner and safer energy. Fusion is the process that occurs continually in the sun; whereby two hydrogen atoms fuse together releasing in the process immense amounts of thermonuclear energy in the form of heat. It is that heat which makes life on planet earth possible. We have already replicated the fusion process - we made the hydrogen bomb. What is needed now is to tame fusion to produce energy for our everyday needs. However, it is unlikely this will be achieved in the foreseeable future.
In his book, "An Inconvenient Truth," former Vice President Al Gore presents a cogent argument. He proposes the use, along with energy conservation, of a number of "environmentally friendly" sources of energy to supplement our domestic resources of oil and natural gas whereby we would have energy independence and would meet the criteria for clean environment. These supplementary sources include: windmills, solar panels, geothermal wells, waves, hydroelectric projects, cellular ethanol, and coal converted to gas, even to electricity.
Most of these alternative fuels require a long-term commitment to research and development. Therefore we need to continually press our Nevada representatives in Congress to appropriate funds for this purpose and to enact more stringent laws to protect the environment. But should we adopt a posture of indolent acquiescence, we Incliners, along with the rest of America, would be the only ones responsible for perpetuating the energy morass, that we allowed ourselves to get into in the first place.
Sid Bekowich is an Incline Village resident who is a former Fulbright lecturer at the American Jesuit University in Baghdad.
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Chicago Daily Southtown
September 16, 2007
Protecting the back yard
Marlene Lang
The quintessential NIMBY (not in my back yard) story is unfolding even as we speak, in a drama pitting state's rights against federal powers, with water as the weapon of choice.
The state of Nevada and a federal judge stood up to Department of Energy bullies whose mission is to make Nevada's Yucca Mountain the nation's radioactive waste dump. Well, not just the nation's dump; government documents discuss the mucho-bucks to be made by bringing in the radioactive spent fuel of nations willing to pay any price to get the poison out of their own back yards.
As "Nuclear Illinois," runs its air conditioners on that "clean, reliable and safe" nuclear power, the fray waxes hot in Nevada about where Southlanders -and everyone else - will dump their dirty leftovers.
U.S. District Judge David Hunt recently denied a federal request to tie the hands of the state; Nevada stridently refused to provide the millions of gallons of water needed to lubricate and cool drill bits as workers collected rock samples. Testing of the site's geology continues, five years after deadline, in efforts to show the site is safe for long-term nuclear waste disposal.
Pause and think: Is any place on Earth safe for radioactive waste that will take 10,000 years to detox to safe levels?
We are witnessing an epic battle between state's and federal government's rights. Work crews tarried, awaiting the OK to drill, after a judicially backed cease-and-desist order came down from the state engineer. They were given the nod, while the U.S. Justice Department accused Nevada of using water as a weapon. Damn straight.
State officials, in turn, accused the DOE of having gained initial approval for the dump site by presenting fudged facts, which they say it is now trying to fudge afresh.
Here's the skinny, for readers who have not followed my previous reports: The desperate DOE faces a growing heap of breach-of-contract lawsuits - some 60 to date - from nuclear power providers. The fed failed to provide a permanent nuke dump by 1998, as required in 1982 legislation. Billions are at stake, even as radioactive spent fuel piles up in about 100 temporary tanks around the country. And as Nevada fights for Yucca Mountain, half a billion was allotted in the most recent federal budget to continue the project.
Could it be desperation driving the bullish DOE claim that certain drilling was exempt from the orders of the engineer and judge? The DOE filed a motion to block Hunt's order, and one official stated flatly in court that the state had no power to shut down a federal government project. It's a familiar form of audacity.
Nevada is calling it contempt of court and bad faith.
And to be fair, the state's refusal to accept a dump at Yucca Mountain is based on science that says it's not a good bet, with an underground fault line and all.
Whatever we call it, the matter demands our attention, and now. Judge Hunt will revisit the case Sept. 20.
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Nevada is waiting until Bush is out of office to completely defeat the project. If Nevada succeeds in getting the dump out of its back yard, the waste will have to find another home. Maybe a cornfield outside of Springfield.
--Daily Southtown columnist Marlene Lang can be reached at blackbirdlang@yahoo.com
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Boston Globe
September 16, 2007
Just say 'oui' to nuclear power
By John Dyson and Matt Bennett
While global warming is positioned to be a hot issue in the 2008 presidential election, the candidates must face directly the one large-scale means of providing carbon-free electric power: nuclear energy. Candidates in both parties should swallow hard and confess that the United States must take steps that they find difficult. For Democrats, that means acknowledging that we need more nuclear power and that we must do something with the waste. For Republicans, it's even tougher - they must admit that we should become more like France.
Whether or not Democrats like it, the nuclear industry, which was once in decline, is on the brink of substantial growth for the first time in 30 years. Demand is one reason - our growing population, combined with the rise in thirsty electric products, will mean an estimated 45 percent increase in demand for power by 2030. That new iPhone, the always-on lights on the television, the computer monitor displaying a screen-saver - all that takes power, and more such products are on the way. And it's not just consumer demand - one IBM data center in Boulder, Colo., accounts for about half of the electricity use in the entire city.
We'll need massive new generating capacity to meet that demand. And while we must do better at conservation and invest in renewable energies, nuclear power is the only mature, large scale source of power that is essentially carbon-free. In 2005, nuclear power produced 19 percent of all US electricity; solar made up one-30th of 1 percent. If we don't build substantial new nuclear capacity, the alternative isn't going to be wind farms and solar arrays - it's going to be fossil-fueled, carbon-spewing plants.
Those are the truths facing Democrats, however inconvenient.
The real question facing our leaders is how to shape the future of nuclear power to make it as sustainable as possible, both environmentally and economically. And even if it makes Republicans choke on their freedom fries, the answers are there in France, which generates 78 percent of its electricity from nuclear power and makes enough even to export it to other countries.
First, we should follow the French model of picking one or two plant designs and sticking with them. One reason that American nuclear construction stalled was inefficiency: Every new plant had its own unique design, leading to a patchwork of reactors across the country. This drove up costs and made operations more difficult, because parts were not interchangeable and personnel had to be retrained for each new plant.
By contrast, France used two reactor designs everywhere. Thankfully, the United States has learned that lesson, and it now seems that standardized reactor design will be the way of the future.
But on the issue of nuclear waste, the United States is stuck in the past. The Department of Energy has spent 25 years working on a repository at Yucca Mountain, but it is bogged down in a political morass. Senator Hillary Clinton recently confirmed her opposition to Yucca, noting that "it's past time to start exploring alternatives." The other Democratic candidates all agree, while Republicans are largely silent.
So what would an alternative look like? Here again, we should follow France. Instead of storing its waste at each nuclear plant (as in the United States) or burying it in containers underground (as we would do if Yucca opens), the French take their waste to a massive plant in Normandy, where spent fuel is recycled. They can reuse 80 percent of the material; the remaining 20 percent is "vitrified" - combined with molten glass and solidified - to immobilize the radioactive material. It can then go into long-term storage with much less risk of leaching into the groundwater.
Recycling does create separated plutonium, which theoretically could be used in a nuclear weapon. But the likelihood of it falling into the wrong hands is infinitesimal - the United States has well-proven systems to safeguard nuclear material. Moreover, the plutonium that comes out of this reprocessing system would be difficult for terrorists to handle without advanced training and laboratory equipment.
Recycling waste is expensive - a plant would cost $15 billion. But not recycling is even more costly. By law, the US government was supposed to begin taking spent fuel from commercial reactors in 1998, but it has defaulted and is now running up a tab that could total $56 billion. What's more, even if Yucca Mountain were to open its doors tomorrow, it would soon be at capacity with the waste that already has accumulated.
Many who remember the Three Mile Island incident in 1979 still object to nuclear power on fears about safety. They are unfounded. Dozens of studies on the impact of TMI have found that the worst nuclear accident in American history resulted in no injuries or deaths. Moreover, plant design and operations have improved radically in the decades since TMI, and the nuclear industry is now one of the safest in our country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Full disclosure: Our organization, Third Way, receives some donations - less than 1 percent of our budget - from the nuclear industry.)
Indeed, much greater danger is looming. Humanity faces an existential threat from global warming, and America faces an array of economic and security threats relating to energy. Are Democrats ready to put aside outmoded fears and embrace a proven, carbon-free technology to help us meet those threats? Are Republicans ready to ask the French, who have 40 years of experience, for their help and expertise? As the United States enters its nuclear renaissance, real leadership is required from both sides.
--John Dyson, a board member of the group Third Way, is a former chairman of the New York State Power Authority. Matt Bennett is vice president for public affairs of Third Way.
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Green Left Weekly
September 16, 2007
APEC fails on climate change, pushes nukes
Zoe Kenny
Sydney
Despite the media fanfare, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, held in Sydney on September 8 and 9, achieved next to nothing in combating global warming.
The key outcome was the adoption of the “Sydney Declaration” — which amounts to little more than a vague statement of aspirational goals, labelled by Greenpeace as the “Sydney Distraction”. The declaration sets no overall target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which could have established a positive framework for the APEC countries to engage in the latest round of Kyoto Protocol negotiations scheduled for December in Bali.
Instead, the main goal of the declaration is to reduce “energy intensity” in APEC countries by 25% by 2030. According to a September 10 Greenpeace statement, most APEC countries are likely to achieve this level of energy efficiency anyway, and this will not stop emissions rising because energy demand is projected to massively increase.
Another key goal is to combat illegal logging in Third World countries and to increase forest coverage in the region by 20 million hectares by 2020. Australia has already pledged $10 million to Indonesia for this purpose, and during the summit another agreement was signed between Indonesia and Australia worth $100 million to preserve 70,000 hectares of forest and plant up to 100 million trees in the Indonesian-controlled areas of Borneo.
However the achievement of these goals will be undermined by the failure of Australia and other APEC countries to place a ban on the importation of illegal timber, of which about $400 million worth enters into the Australian market each year.
Furthermore, the summit agreed on furthering research into biofuels, one of the leading causes of deforestation in Indonesia and other poor APEC countries where forests and food crops are being replaced by large biofuel crop plantations such as palm oil.
The US in particular is aggressively pursuing a policy of encouraging poor nations to increase their production of biofuel crops in order to decrease its reliance upon fossil fuels, regardless of the impact on forests and food production.
The Sydney Declaration reaffirms that “Fossil fuels will continue to play a major role in our regional and global energy needs” and supports the ongoing use of nuclear power.
However PM John Howard’s ambitions of using the APEC summit and the Sydney Declaration to help scuttle the next round of Kyoto negotiations suffered a set-back after Chinese President Hu Jintao refused to accept the inclusion of an Australian-pushed clause referring to a “post-Kyoto framework”.
The September 10 Sydney Morning Herald reported that Jintao told Howard the UN Framework on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol were “the most authoritative, universal and comprehensive international framework” for combating climate change. “Developed countries should face their historical responsibility and their high per-capita emissions”, he said, and “strictly abide by their emission reduction targets set forth in the Kyoto Protocol”.
Yet US President George Bush is still pushing ahead with a “big polluters” meeting in Washington this month, in a bid to create a bloc of countries opposed to, or at least sceptical of, Kyoto’s mandatory emission reduction targets in the lead-up to the Bali talks.
On September 5, Washington welcomed Australia’s bid to sign up to the US-led Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. The same day, the Wilderness Society (TWS) warned that “By signing us up to GNEP John Howard is taking the first step towards the imposition of an international nuclear waste dump in Australia”.
The TWS statement noted that “The entire purpose of GNEP is for countries to take back nuclear waste … 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.”
As Howard and Bush continue to push for delayed and weak action on climate change, promoting false solutions such as nuclear power, “clean coal” and biofuels, the world is inching ever closer to climate catastrophe.
A new report by the International Institute of Strategic Studies predicts that the global security effects of catastrophic climate change could be akin to that of a nuclear war, as new and exacerbated problems such as freak weather events, large-scale crop failures and dwindling water resources increase conflicts both between and within countries, intensifying inequality and racism and potentially causing more “failed states”.
The report notes: “Fundamental environmental issues of food, water and energy security ultimately lie behind many present security concerns, and climate change will magnify all three.” The report predicts that by 2100, 65 countries could lose more than 15% of their agricultural output.
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Pahrump Valley Times
September 15 2007
Layoffs likely at Yucca, say Bechtel officials
LAS VEGAS -- Contractors on the Yucca Mountain Project are preparing to lay off 60 to 80 workers in anticipation of budget cuts from Congress, officials said.
Notices were expected to be distributed in the next few days to employees of Bechtel SAIC, the chief management company of the Energy Department nuclear waste program based in Las Vegas.
People working in accounting, finance, human resources and other business support departments were being considered for job cuts, company spokesman Jason Bohne said. Bechtel SAIC employs roughly 1,000 people.
Yucca officials confirmed the cutbacks a day after National Security Technologies, a contractor at the adjoining Nevada Test Site, disclosed that at least 200 workers could be laid off in the coming weeks.
In both cases, executives attributed the job threats to uncertainty when or whether Congress will pass a budget this year for the Energy Department.
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., applauded the cutbacks for Yucca Mountain program, which is politically unpopular in the state.
"The proposed layoffs at Yucca Mountain are a welcomed sign that the repository is losing momentum," Porter said.
With a new fiscal year starting Oct. 1, the House has passed an Energy Department spending bill, but the Senate is not likely to pass it by the end of the month. Without the certainty, Energy officials are telling contractors to tighten up.
In the case of Yucca Mountain, Energy officials expect cuts as large as $100 million below what the project is spending this year, spokesman Allen Benson said.
This would be the second round of layoffs at Bechtel SAIC this year, as three dozen people were terminated in March.
Bechtel SAIC laid off about 150 people two years ago.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 14, 2007
DOE vows battle over water use
State's resources for Yucca tests disputed
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy plans to go to the mat with Nevada over the disputed use of water at Yucca Mountain, the director of the federal nuclear waste project said Thursday.
The government probably will appeal an adverse ruling made late last month by U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt, said Ward Sproat, head of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
Meanwhile, Justice Department lawyers along with attorneys for the state are due back in Hunt's courtroom in Las Vegas on Sept. 20 for a fresh round of arguments over water.
The state is trying to enforce a cease-and-desist order to stop the Energy Department from using water to drill test holes at the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
In an Aug. 31 ruling, Hunt upheld the state's order but DOE maintained some drilling was exempt, and it has continued to work in certain sections of the site.
"There is a broader issue here," Sproat said. "The broader issue is not geotechnical data. The broader issue is quite frankly, does the federal government have the right to withdraw water on federal land and on a project that was mandated by law by Congress.
"That is the issue and that is not going to get resolved in federal district court in Nevada," Sproat said in a short interview outside a meeting at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Government attorneys raised the federal supremacy argument before Hunt this summer. He rejected it, saying "there has been no act by Congress which pre-empts Nevada state water laws."
Sproat said Nevada is using water as a tool against the Yucca project, which state leaders have fought for years.
"Obviously water is a big political issue out West and the state is doing what they think they need to do, to exercise their rights to try and impede the program," Sproat said. "I can understand that but there is a bigger issue here."
Marta Adams, Nevada senior deputy attorney general, said Hunt's ruling "is going to be a tough order to appeal." It involved a specific state cease-and-desist action, and not broader water rights issues, she said.
"It doesn't really go to the heart," Adams said.
Sproat declined to answer questions about the impact any drilling halt would have on the repository project, saying he was advised by Justice Department lawyers not to discuss it.
The Energy Department is collecting rock samples to analyze the earthquake and flood safety of large-scale industrial buildings it plans to construct to handle canisters of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel.
The analysis would be incorporated into a repository license application DOE has said it will file with the NRC in June. DOE officials have said crews have drilled 56 holes out of 80 that were planned.
Water from wells near the site is used to cool and lubricate drill bits and to create mud for extracting core samples from rock layers.
"I have a pretty good idea of what we got and what we didn't get" in the way of data from the holes already drilled, Sproat said.
"Some of them are nice to have and some of them are must-have," Sproat said. "It is what the engineers need to fully understand and describe what is underground there."
The issue of water rights at Yucca Mountain has been brewing since the late 1990s but largely on the back burner as Judge Hunt had declared the matter moot until the DOE could show significant progress.
In the meantime, Nevada state engineers have denied DOE applications for water uses beyond sanitation, firefighting and other emergencies.
The Energy Department has asked Congress to pass legislation that would broaden its powers to claim water from Nevada for the Yucca project. That proposal raised alarm bells in other Western states and has not advanced.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 14, 2007
'Bait and switch' intentions denied for Yucca site
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy moved quickly Thursday to deny the suggestion that it is looking to "bait and switch" on getting a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository licensed.
Russ Dyer, chief scientist on the nuclear waste project, issued a rebuttal to a suggestion made earlier this week by Nevada officials. Dyer said they were "simply wrong."
Based on reviews of DOE documents, state technical experts said they suspected that the DOE was working on a "next generation" repository plan using "state of the art algorithms and computational software."
Bob Loux, director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, alerted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the situation on Monday, and the state made its letter public on Wednesday.
Loux said the state suspects a Yucca license application that the DOE plans to send the NRC in summer 2008 will be flawed, but then switched out improperly when an advanced version is ready. He called it a "bait and switch."
Dyer, in a letter to Loux on Thursday, said, "Your assertion that DOE will switch midstream to its 'real assessment' is simply wrong."
"The license application that DOE will submit and defend will be based on the (total system analysis) performed for the license application," Dyer said.
"And DOE believes that will be sufficient to support the grant of an authorization for construction," he said.
Dyer also scolded the state official, urging him to "refrain from speculation based on incomplete information."
Loux could not be reached for comment Thursday night.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 14, 2007
Judges refuse to rule on document access
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A panel of judges declined this week to weigh in on a dispute over the availability of government Yucca Mountain documents.
A three-judge panel formed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in an order issued Monday that to tackle a complaint that Nevada filed in July would be premature.
The state charged that the Department of Energy was likely to withhold disclosure of research and analysis for the proposed Nevada nuclear waste repository site.
Thirteen environmental groups also asked the NRC judges to weigh in on the matter.
Such documents are required to be posted to a public Web site.
The DOE has posted 3.4 million documents and has said it plans to add more before it certifies the database later this year.
The judges said that if a problem occurs, it would not become evident until the Energy Department certifies the document collection.
"The dispute is clearly not ripe for resolution," the judges said.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
September 14, 2007
Editorial
Water issue just the latest in DOE affronts
Controversy about federal and state rights regarding use of water in a federal drilling operation at the Nevada Test Site should be viewed as a predictable sign that the U.S Department of Energy has disregarded this state's system of water rights and water usage.
It is just the latest in a string of affronts and strategies the feds are using as they advance their plan to bury 77,000 tons of spent nuclear material in the Nevada desert.
Energy officials said they had no intention to undermine state water policy, but clearly they were trying to extract evidence they think will help their Nuclear Regulatory Commission application for the storage facility. And they used Nevada water to do it.
As long as the state opposes Yucca Mountain as a policy, believing the project to be unsafe, officials are right to put their collective foot down and resist DOE use of state water.
Fortunately, state officials have a U.S. District Court ruling behind them. An agreement already was in place designating allowable water uses. The judge's refusal last week to stop the state engineer's cease-and-desist order should be the last word on this subject. But the state shouldn't count on it.
Scientific and political improprieties have been used in efforts to keep the project on track. The closer the DOE gets to the NRC's licensing deadline, the more desperate it will be to push the project forward. Meanwhile federal officials have barred access to the site so state inspectors can confirm allowable water usage.
This use of water to cool and lubricate drill bits, and to make mud for collecting and analyzing core samples, is flagrant for its strategy to support DOE contentions that water and earthquake conditions will not undermine construction.
It is good to know the law has come down on Nevada's side in this water issue. Do not doubt that other issues will emerge.
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CNET News
September 14, 2007
Nuclear power looks for comeback in U.S.
By Michael Kanellos
A nuclear power plant hasn't been built in the U.S. in decades, but that appears to be changing, says the CEO of the nuclear industry's advocacy group.
Seventeen different organizations have expressed interest in building 31 new nuclear power plants in the U.S., Frank Bowman, CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and a retired admiral from the U.S. Navy, said in an interview with CNET News.com this week. Applications for four to seven nuclear plants will likely get filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this year, and eight more will probably follow next year, he said.
The planning and permit process for the first plants will take about three years, and construction should take four years or less, he said. Thus, the first of the new plants could start generating power by 2015 or 2016, he said.
As head of the NEI, Bowman is the spokesman for the nuclear industry, which went into a downturn after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. But in the past few years, global warming, rising gas prices and legislative ideas such as carbon taxation have forced governments to explore alternatives to coal, oil and gas. And mining tragedies, such as the recent accident in Utah, and news about coal-engendered pollution in China have further boosted interest in alternatives.
Although strong opposition to nuclear power remains, politically the subject has become less polarizing, Bowman said. Overall, the general reaction to the industry now is, "yes, but," he said. That is, people can see the benefits of it, but have strong reservations when it comes to safety, disposal, proliferation and other issues.
An MIT poll earlier this year reflects his comments. Thirty-five percent of those polled said they wanted to see nuclear technology increase, up from 28 percent in 2002. Nonetheless, 40 percent opposed storing nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain. Only 28 percent thought nuclear waste could be stored safely for long periods of time.
To this end, the nuclear industry has worked to improve its own practices and technology over the preceding decades, he said. In the past, nuclear plant builders were often vertically integrated. Each made its own components and systems. Now, many have agreed to build according to accepted standards, which should lower prices and speed up the time to build plants.
Some of the standardization ideas come from the Navy, which has used modular manufacturing techniques for years to speed up the construction of nuclear subs. (By the way, there are 104 commercial nuclear reactors in the U.S., and 103 nuclear reactors in the Navy.)
Uptime has also improved, which reduces the financial risks. Fifteen years ago, nuclear plants might have been producing electricity 75 percent of the time. Since then, that figure has risen to 95 percent.
Additionally, safety procedures and practices have changed. Nuclear operators share safety data on a quarterly basis, he noted. The industry has also tried to become more open with the public and tone down some of the insularity and intellectual arrogance that was often part of its reputation.
After Three Mile Island, the industry adopted a "Let's dive into the foxhole' mentality," he said. "An accident anywhere is an accident everywhere."
New technologies for long-term disposal are also being devised. In one scenario, nuclear waste would be reprocessed and used again as fuel. Ultimately, reuse could dramatically cut down the amount of fuel that needs to be sequestered. The U.S. government is also floating supply agreements with emerging nations. In these agreements, emerging nations would get lowly enriched uranium from the developed world, but also agree to let the developed nations and suppliers become the custodian for the waste.
To prepare for an industry expansion, the NEI, in association with utility owners and several state governments, two years ago began to put in programs to train people for the industry, such as recruiting more college students and junior college students. Ideas that have been installed or are being contemplated are ROTC-like scholarship agreements: a utility gives a student a full-ride scholarship, and the student agrees to work at a utility for a set period after graduation.
The industry is also looking at incentives to retain older workers. "Why let 55-year-olds retire?" he said.
Bowman, however, added that he doesn't hold out a lot of hope for fusion. In fusion technology, energy is released by fusing lighter molecules. Nuclear waste and accidents are ostensibly eliminated. Start-ups have gained money to pursue their fusion ideas recently. But so far, no one has gone beyond the experimental stage.
"When I was at MIT in 1971, it was 25 years away," he said. "It is still 25 years away."
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Nuclear Engineering
September 14, 2007
Evolving international pacts for tomorrow
The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership may be controversial but new, coordinated international agreements and policies are a must for future worldwide nuclear needs. By Steve Kidd
It is now 18 months since the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) was proposed by US president Bush and during this time, it has continued to attract a good deal of publicity and comment, both positive and negative (see GNEP: the right way forward?, link below). The opposition depicts it as a flagrant example of US arrogance, embracing dangerous proliferation-prone technologies whilst claiming to make the world a safer place. Supporters, on the other hand, regard it as a fine example of the USA assuming world leadership in encouraging the world to open up important questions which have been avoided during the ‘dark ages’ of nuclear power since Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, in order to encourage a new era of booming nuclear commerce and international cooperation. The truth, of course, lies somewhere between these two extremes.
It is important, however, to place GNEP within the wider context of a number of other complementary developments taking place simultaneously. Although there is a tendency to pronounce on each of these in isolation, they must be seen as part of a bigger picture.
Firstly, there are the nuclear cooperation agreements that the USA has been working on with India, Russia and other countries. The aim of these is to facilitate nuclear commerce and cooperation in order that restrictions can be removed and the full vision of GNEP realised. India is being brought back into the fold, having been isolated from nuclear commerce by its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and its subsequent testing of nuclear weapons.
This breakthrough doesn’t please everybody and leaves open the question of what to do with Israel and Pakistan, also non-NPT signatories and (assumed in the case of Israel) effectively nuclear weapons states. Yet something had to be done as the world’s largest democracy could not be left isolated from international non-proliferation arrangements. The solution is certainly imperfect, but the alternative of inaction is much more unpalatable. The bilateral agreement with Russia, which should eventually lead to a similar ‘123 agreement’ (a civilian cooperation pact, named after Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act 1954) as with India, outlines a framework for global sharing of nuclear expertise and technical assistance. It fits in well with GNEP as it aims to provide modern, proliferation-resistant reactors to third countries and help develop used fuel solutions, so they have incentives to develop nuclear energy safely and without attendant security risks.
Secondly, there are the initiatives stimulated by both the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Russia to develop arrangements and facilities that might guarantee the supply of nuclear fuel and services for bona fide uses, thereby removing the incentive for countries to develop indigenous fuel cycle capabilities. It is clear that GNEP must work within these other arrangements as there are already several approaches under discussion, including developing and implementing international supply guarantees with IAEA participation (for example with the IAEA as administrator of a fuel bank), promoting voluntary conversion of existing facilities into multinational control and creating new multinational, possibly regional, jointly-owned fuel cycle facilities for enrichment, reprocessing and used fuel management. The Russians have already opened a dedicated international enrichment centre at Angarsk but it is future used fuel facilities that are likely to be most attractive to other countries.
Thirdly, there are more specific arrangements in nuclear fuel trade, which are subject to reform. Some of these are included in further bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements, such as between Australia and China, allowing Australian suppliers to help satisfy rapidly-growing Chinese demand. The most important, however, is the future of the suspension agreement that originally imposed antidumping duties on Russian uranium imports to the USA in 1992. The main impact of this, today, is to prevent US utilities from contracting directly with the Russians on uranium enrichment services, something they would very much like to do, in the context of stimulating greater market competition. It is likely that an amendment will be introduced which will allow Russia at least some direct access to the US market, particularly after 2013, when the agreement on downblended highly enriched uranium (HEU) between Russia and the USA expires.
Finally there are other developments in the nuclear fuel cycle that are relevant to GNEP. In particular, there is clearly a move back towards the idea of supplying fabricated fuel as a package, rather than a utility buying uranium, conversion, enrichment and fabrication services separately. New commercial arrangements amongst the ranks of reactor vendors and fuel fabricators in the aftermath of Toshiba’s acquisition of Westinghouse (particularly the reshuffling of the relationships between western and Japanese companies) is leading to stronger partnerships. Big uranium suppliers, notably Kazatomprom with its acquisition of a 10% stake in Westinghouse, are seeking vertical integration to add value to their prime asset, whereas the fabricators are interested in offering a packaged fuel service. This has been generally avoided since Westinghouse burned its fingers very badly in the late 1970s, when it was caught out by rapid uranium price inflation. The Russians, however, have always offered a ‘cradle to grave’ fuel supply service, even taking back the used fuel for reprocessing and/or disposal. For countries acquiring nuclear reactors for the first time, such packaged fuel services are very attractive but they can also fit in with the non-proliferation objectives of GNEP and the other international initiatives, because they obviate the need to establish domestic facilities.
One question is whether GNEP and these other initiatives constitute sufficient underpinnings for a brave new world of nuclear power or whether something else is needed. It is clear that many changes need to be made if nuclear is to fulfil its potential as a vital element in a clean energy future. Many of the institutional and commercial arrangements in the industry have remained frozen in time throughout the long period when nuclear was seen to stagnate. New challenges have emerged, notably the increased focus on non-proliferation and plant security concerns, which have to be addressed.
Indeed, the continued delays at the Yucca Mountain waste repository project suggest that the closed fuel cycle provisions of GNEP are needed more than ever. This is the most controversial element and has been the point at which the US government has not granted all the requested funding. Yet some money has been provided to continue work on advanced reprocessing technologies, aiming to reduce volumes of high-level wastes and simplify their disposal, while the MOX fuel fabrication facility at Savannah River is now under construction. This does not, however, mean that waste repositories such as Yucca Mountain will never be needed – they must still be planned for and developed, but the quantities of material destined for them will be much reduced. In other countries too, there also seems to be a shift in attitudes about the value of used fuel, which could eventually have repercussions for many national waste management programmes. Some facilities currently envisaged as final disposal repositories may only be used for interim storage of spent fuel that will eventually be reprocessed and recycled, hence the trend to retrievability. But this is running some way ahead – the current plan in the USA remains to get Yucca Mountain licensed as a repository for the used fuel that currently exists, as without this final solution it may be hard to license new reactors in the USA.
Another important part of GNEP and the other initiatives is the link with the Generation IV programme and other advanced reactor initiatives. Progress here seems favourable as reactor systems with full actinide recycling as part of a closed fuel cycle will produce very small volumes of fission product wastes without the long-lived characteristics of today’s used fuel, and will have high proliferation resistance. There are already significant quantities of separated civil plutonium, reprocessed uranium and depleted uranium in the inventory and these may well be utilised when new reactor designs become reality. Low and relatively stable fuel prices are already a significant advantage of the current generation of evolutionary reactors compared to alternative fossil fuel generating modes, but the future looks even better.
Finally, GNEP and the other plans should make a contribution to the idea, implicit within the NPT, of the leading nuclear nations spreading the benefits of nuclear technology to other countries.
--Steve Kidd is Head of Strategy & Research at the World Nuclear Association, where he has worked since 1995 (when it was the Uranium Institute). Any views expressed are not necessarily those of the World Nuclear Association and/or its members
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Nuclear Engineering
September 14, 2007
Toilet trouble
A key supporter of the USA’s proposed Yucca Mountain waste repository, Senator Larry Craig, has pled guilty and been fined for disorderly conduct in a gents toilet in Minnesota Airport. A male police officer alleged that Craig had solicited sex from him – a charge that Craig has denied.
Following the embarrassing 11 June incident, Craig indicated his intention to resign from the Senate. However, on 10 September Craig filed court papers to retract his guilty plea. A spokesman indicated that Craig would still resign at the end of September, unless the conviction is overturned by then.
Craig is a member of the Senate Natural Resources subcommittee and has continually pushed for the Yucca Mountain waste development to go ahead. His resignation could mean a loss of impetus for the scheme.
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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