Yucca Mountain News Clips - Friday, October 5, 2007

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, October 5, 2007
---------------------------

Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 05, 2007

Yucca Mountain: DOE: Enlarge repository

Agency studies nearly doubling nuclear waste capacity

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Nevadans who fear the Yucca Mountain Project now might have twice as much to worry about.

The Department of Energy is almost doubling the size of the proposed repository as it completes new environmental studies and long-term cost estimates of burying nuclear waste in Nevada.

The department late Thursday issued a draft study that the project's director said analyzes the potential environmental effects of a repository built to hold up to 135,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive waste.

Further, DOE is finalizing long-range cost estimates for Yucca Mountain on the assumption it could be expanded at some point, project Director Ward Sproat said. The repository project's price tag could total in the range of $77 billion, a 35 percent increase from a 2001 estimate.

The department's actions laying groundwork for a possible expansion at Yucca Mountain opened a new flash point of opposition in Nevada. State leaders argue nuclear waste burial is unsafe, and they do not want a repository of any size, let alone one that could be almost twice as large as originally planned.

"Doubling the size of Yucca Mountain will only double the danger," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "This is not a bad dream; it's a nightmare."

A federal law passed in 1982 set the Yucca Mountain capacity at 70,000 metric tons.

But while the project has been delayed for years, commercial power plants have gotten life extensions and are generating waste at a rate of 2,000 metric tons per year.

With the waste already waiting for disposal at 121 locations, that means a Yucca repository effectively would be "full" long before it might open in the next decade or two.

Sproat said 135,000 metric tons is estimated as the entire waste output of nuclear plants through their operating lives.

The Energy Department has asked Congress to pass a bill that would remove the 70,000 metric ton cap at Yucca Mountain, but it has drawn little interest from lawmakers. DOE also is preparing a report on whether the government should consider building a second repository.

The Electric Power Research Institute, an arm of the utility industry, said in a study completed in June that the repository could be redesigned to hold at least 260,000 metric tons of waste and up to 570,000 metric tons with additional site characterization.

"Additional drifts can be successfully excavated, loaded and cooled during a 50-year retrievability period such as the capacity of Yucca Mountain can be increased by at least a factor of three," said the study, which was overseen by John Kessler, Electric Power Research Institute manager of high-level waste and spent fuel.

Sproat said Thursday he anticipates charges that the Energy Department is being presumptuous in examining issues related to an expanded Yucca repository.

"People will absolutely say that, but we don't have any other basis to do anything else," Sproat said.

If DOE limited itself to preparations for a 70,000 metric ton facility, policymakers "would ask me, what about everything else?"

"I am probably in a no-win situation, but I like the way we are going," Sproat said.

The project director said that DOE still plans by the end of June 2008 to seek a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 70,000 metric ton facility.

If Congress were to lift the cap, DOE would move forward at that point, he said.

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said DOE is setting the stage to push Congress to enlarge the Nevada site.

"Once they convince themselves the science is safe, they will use that as an argument to expand," he said.

At a congressional hearing Thursday, Porter argued that Congress should move in the opposite direction and end the project.

When it was conceived in 1982, Sony had just come up with the portable CD player, cell phones and the Internet did not exist, and the top-selling record was "Thriller" by Michael Jackson, he said.

"In 25 years, we have studied a hole in the ground to death," Porter said. "We have spent 10 billion to 11 billion dollars but have not moved one inch on the playing field."

Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the state will evaluate the legality of the department's actions.

"I think it certainly calls into question the validity of the environmental impact statement if they are doing an analysis for a scenario that is illegal under federal law," Loux said. "The only way they could be directed to do this is to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act," the 1982 law.

But another observer said room appears to exist in another law, the National Environmental Policy Act, for what the department is doing.

"I think in the world of NEPA, you are supposed to identify reasonably foreseeable increases in scope," said Brian O'Connell, nuclear waste adviser at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. "If you err on the side of a larger impact, you can always scale back."

--Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or (202) 783-1760.

---------------------------

Las Vegas SUN
October 04, 2007

Energy Department says Yucca Mountain faces funding shortfall

By Dan Caterinicchia
AP Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The proposed nuclear-waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada will need up to three times its current funding or the program's 2017 opening date will have to be delayed, a top Energy Department official said Thursday.

Edward F. Sproat III, director of the agency's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, told the House Budget Committee that beginning next year a doubling or tripling of annual project funding would be needed.

The cost of building and operating the nuclear waste site through 2119 was estimated in 2001 to be $57.5 billion, including costs incurred since the project began in 1983. A revised estimate expected by the end of this year will include the cost of accepting about 30 percent more spent nuclear fuel through the repository's closing in 2133, Sproat said.

Without the increased funding, Sproat said, it will not be possible to set a credible opening date for the nuclear waste repository and the government's financial liability will continue to grow.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., criticized the new Yucca Mountain price projections and said she will continue to fight a Bush administration push to increase the amount of waste dumped there.

"Yucca Mountain is nothing more than radioactive pork that benefits the nuclear power industry and now the price tag for this failed project is going to top the $80 billion mark," Berkley said in a statement, adding that on-site storage of nuclear waste is cheaper and safer.

Yucca Mountain was designated in the 1980s as the country's nuclear waste repository and the Energy Department was required to open the Nevada site by 1998. But the project has been bogged down by lawsuits and other controversy, and the earliest possible opening date is 2017.

The program has spent $11 billion in 2000 constant dollars since 1983, Sproat said. It is funded by a per-kilowatt-hour fee on all domestic nuclear generation and currently has a balance of about $20.7 billion invested in U.S. Treasury instruments. The government receives about $750 million per year in revenue and the fund averages roughly a 5.5 percent annual return.

Sproat estimated that funding is currently insufficient by about $1 billion to $1.5 billion per year.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told reporters at a nuclear conference that "it's up to the Congress to make a determination."

Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., called Sproat's assessment "very serious," and a "political problem" similar to other underfunded budget liabilities like Medicare and Social Security.

The initial reason for the House hearing was to examine Yucca-related legal judgments against the government, which have added billions "to an already hugely expensive project," Spratt said.

Litigation settlements or damages related to Yucca Mountain are paid from a separate taxpayer-subsidized fund. The estimated current potential liability is about $7 billion if operations begin in 2017.

"Delaying the opening of the repository to 2020 could cost taxpayers as much as an additional $4 billion from the judgment fund to pay damages," Sproat said.

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims last week awarded Xcel Energy Inc. $116.5 million over the government's failure to open Yucca Mountain on time. Northern States Power Co., a predecessor to Xcel Energy, sued the Energy Department, claiming breach of contract.

---------------------------

Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 03, 2007

Richardson visits Boulder City

Candidate touts Iraq plan

By Molly Ball
Review-Journal

With about 100 people packed into the lobby of a historic hotel on a quaintly preserved street, in a town that prides itself on its resistance to growth and gambling, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson might have been on a more familiar part of the campaign trail such as Iowa.

But the New Mexico governor was in Boulder City, the first 2008 candidate to visit the Hoover Dam settlement that is just half an hour from Las Vegas but does its best to stand a world apart.

As local Democratic activist Sara Denton put it, after she made a plea for a highway bypass but before ceding the candidate the stage: "We welcome you to our sweet little town." Cookies and crackers with cheese were served at the back as Richardson addressed a standing-room-only crowd at the Historic Boulder City Hotel on Arizona Street.

Richardson didn't commit to federal funding for the Boulder City bypass, but he did pledge to take a hard look at issues of land use, road funding and overall transportation infrastructure.

He touted his plan to bring all troops home from Iraq, which he said was "the clearest plan" of all the candidates, most of whom would leave residual forces after a redeployment. He also touched on education, health care and energy, making his pitch as a Westerner to the voters he hopes will give him a boost in the race for the nomination.

"I know there are candidates with more money. I know there are candidates that are better looking -- we're working on it," he said to laughter. "But nobody is coming more to Nevada than I am. Nevada is very important to me. I've got to do well here, and I need your help. Be part of an underdog effort to save our country."

Richardson took questions from the audience for about half an hour. One asked whether he would balance the budget. Richardson said he favors a constitutional amendment mandating a federal balanced budget, similar to the rules he lives under as a governor.

He said he would not support new government programs without funding mechanisms and would end corporate tax breaks. He also said, at risk of angering Congress, he would "get rid of" earmarks.

To a question about nuclear weapons, Richardson said he had a plan to phase out outdated weapons systems and would work to reduce the existing nuclear stockpile. But he said it is also important to negotiate reductions in countries' supplies of fissile material, which could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

He promised, if nominated, to announce his prospective Cabinet during the campaign, which he said would include Republicans and independents as well as Democrats.

Richardson said the answer to the undue influence of corporate lobbyists was to widen the public financing system for campaigns. He said it was wrong to condemn all lobbyists, since some represent teachers, unions or environmental groups: "Am I going to turn down their money? No."

Richardson has not sworn off lobbyist contributions or opted to take campaign matching funds, two moves his rival John Edwards has made in an effort to seem untainted by special interests.

Taking several questions about Yucca Mountain, Richardson said the project "didn't happen on my watch" when he was energy secretary in the Clinton administration. He said scientists should study the problem to find a long-term solution that doesn't involve transporting nuclear waste.

Boulder City residents Terry Conklin, 60, and Bonnie Blair, 55, live just a few blocks from the hotel. The couple had already decided to support Richardson before attending the event and said seeing him in person for the first time bolstered their decision.

"My husband has always voted Republican and I've voted Democratic, so we always canceled each other's votes," Blair said. "But we've found a candidate we both can support."

Conklin said he liked Richardson's opposition to gun control and felt the Republican candidates had drifted too far to the right. He said he'd never voted Democratic, but had recently changed his voter registration in order to participate in the Democratic presidential caucuses.

---------------------------

Las Vegas SUN
October 03, 2007

Richardson sticks to Western issues in Nevada stop

By Kathleen Hennessey
Associated Press Writer

BOULDER CITY, Nev. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson tried to ramp up his appeal to Western voters Tuesday, telling Democrats in this small town just outside Las Vegas that "the West is going to rise again."

The New Mexico governor outlined his proposals to cut greenhouse gases, create a national water policy and address the unpopular Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump planned in the state in a campaign speech before about 100 people.

"We are a nation today that is not thinking about land use and open space. We dump all this pork spending on highways, we don't think about commuter rail," Richardson told the group. "We need to find ways to preserve our quality of life, to preserve our environment."

Richardson's focus on the environment and land use was a shift from previous campaign stops in Nevada in which he regularly noted his Western roots, but largely stuck to discussing the Iraq war, education and health care.

The governor, who is considered a long-shot for the nomination, is the only Western Democrat in the field and is hoping for a strong showing in Nevada, scheduled to hold the second caucus in the nation on Jan. 19.

He's spent more time in campaigning before small groups in the state than any of his competitors. His stop Tuesday was the first in Boulder City for a2008 candidate.

While Richardson discussed several issues important in the West, he avoided taking hard positions.

On water, he said he would create a cabinet-level department of water and called for a national water summit. He did not mention the state's most contentious water issue, a plan to construction a multibillion-dollar pipeline to pump water from rural Nevada to Las Vegas.

"We ought to have a national dialogue on water ... we need to find ways to plan ahead and take leadership," Richardson said.

On nuclear waste storage, the former congressman and energy secretary cited his longtime opposition to plans to build a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The site is opposed by most Democrats and Republicans in the state.

Richardson said he also opposes a commonly discussed alternative to Yucca Mountain, the creation of regional storage sites, "because of the transportation issue." Instead, he said, he would order national laboratories to research nuclear waste disposal.

"We went to the moon, why can't we have solution to this?" he asked.

Richardson said he wasn't a proponent of nuclear power, but believes it won't end. He called for increased subsidies for renewable energy sources and a 90 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

His environmental proposals appealed to Jody Tilman, a 61-year-old retired teacher who said she's undecided and "green."

The governor's casual delivery also was a plus, Tilman said, demonstrated in his handling of a few missteps.

He laughed off misstating the name of the town, blaming his staff for writing "Henderson" rather that "Boulder City" in his opening remarks. When he forgot the day of the week, he just asked the crowd, "Is it Monday or Tuesday?" As he searched for an answer to question he turned to an aide to ask, "What's the plan I just talked about?"

"He's down to Earth, I wouldn't be intimidated to go up and talk to him," Tilman said.

---------------------------

Lynchburg News and Advance
October 03, 2007

AREVA to advise on nuclear site design

By Ray Reed
rreed@newsadvance.com

AREVA is a leading company in a federal study to recommend designs for a nuclear fuel recycling center and a reactor that would renew spent fuel from power plants, goals that would ease the problems of storing radioactive waste.

BWX Technologies also will have a role in the study, which is being done for the U.S. Department of Energy over the next several months.

AREVA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan are the lead companies in the study, under a contract announced by the Energy Department this week. Also participating in the consortium are three other nuclear-industry companies.

Lynchburg employees of AREVA and BWXT will contribute to the study, but it doesn’t mean new jobs or any direct boost for the city’s economy, the two companies said.

A few BWXT employees in Lynchburg will recommend accountability and security measures for

handling nuclear material, said Regina Carter, BWXT spokeswoman in Lynchburg.

At AREVA, a small group of engineers in Lynchburg will support the study, said spokeswoman Denise Wornle in Lynchburg.

The project is based at AREVA’s Bethesda, Md., operation, where it will produce conceptual design studies and develop a technology plan for the recycling center and reactor.

“We will offer DOE comprehensive, credible industry information on cost, schedule and business planning,” said AREVA, Inc. President Michael McMurphy.

BWXT’s expertise with security will play a key role, Carter said.

“Our company is very experienced in such requirements, because our Lynchburg facility is licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and that experience is what we bring to the team that is performing this study,” she said.

Once the study is completed, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is expected to announce what happens next, Carter said.

“I believe he is scheduled in June 2008 or thereabouts to decide whether this recycling facility is going to be developed and, if it is, how to proceed and where it is going to be developed.

“Currently, 11 sites are under consideration, and Lynchburg is not one of them,” Carter said.

The Energy Department contract, announced on Monday, is an agreement with the International Nuclear Recycling Alliance, a consortium that includes AREVA, Mitsubishi, BWXT, Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited, Washington Group International, and Battelle.

Reactor fuel rods typically yield up to only 3 to 4 percent of the fuel they contain before they must be removed from the reactor and stored, often at a Yucca Mountain, Nev., storage site.

Spent fuel also is stored in Virginia at nuclear power plans in Surry and North Anna, and at the BWXT plant in Lynchburg.

The project envisions a recycling center that would separate spent fuel from its waste products.

The usable parts, which include plutonium, could be fabricated into fuel for a new, advanced reactor that would consume the parts while generating electricity, according to the DOE Web site.

If successful, the project’s results would help minimize nuclear proliferation risks and reduce the volume and toxicity of waste residues. Also, uranium resources would be conserved and security could be improved, the consortium said.

---------------------------

Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 01, 2007

Clinton call for Yucca hearing unfulfilled

By Molly Ball
Review-Journal

In last week's Democratic presidential debate, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., flattered Nevadans by mentioning her opposition to the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

She did not mention what might have served as strong evidence of her stance: that in July, she called for congressional hearings on the project, the sooner the better.

Perhaps that is because there's no evidence Clinton has made any progress in bringing those hearings about.

When she called for the hearings, she said she was doing so because the issue was urgent, and "I'm not going to be president for 18 months."

She also said she had the ability to get the hearings scheduled as a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

At the time, the committee's chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., was reported to have agreed to schedule the hearings soon after the Senate reconvened in September.

September has come and gone and there has been no word on the proposed hearings. Nothing on Yucca is on the committee's published agenda.

The agenda goes only through Wednesday. But preparations for hearings typically begin further in advance, and aides said there does not appear to be any Yucca hearings in the works.

"At this time, we are unaware of any plans for the committee to hold hearings on Yucca Mountain," Republican committee staffer Matt Dempsey said.

Clinton spokeswoman Hilarie Grey said Clinton put in a request for the hearings and is "hoping to get a date very soon."

"She requested the hearings, and she wants to have the hearings," Grey said.

Clinton's Senate office is "working with Senator Boxer's office to get the hearing scheduled."

Boxer's Senate office referred inquiries to the committee office. Over two days of repeated inquiries, a Democratic committee spokesman did not follow through on a promise to find out the status of the request for Yucca hearings.

Clinton clearly is following the issue. In Wednesday's debate, she picked up on a remark by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, that he was "one of the few up here who actually spoke against having a nuclear dump in Nevada."

When it was her turn to answer moderator Tim Russert's question about nuclear power, Clinton said she wouldn't rule out expanding it, "but it would not be one of the options that I favor unless, No. 1, the cost can get down for the construction and operation; No. 2, that we have a viable solution for the nuclear waste."

She continued, "I voted against Yucca Mountain. I've spoken out against Yucca Mountain. I think that recently the discovery (that) there's an earthquake fault going under the proposed site at Yucca Mountain certainly validates my opposition."

Clinton's commitment to stopping Yucca has been questioned before. When she first called for Senate action, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., accused her of having been "missing in action" when two hearings on Yucca and nuclear waste were held in 2006.

Inhofe, who backs the Yucca repository, chaired the committee at that time. Since Republicans became the minority in the Senate this year, he has been the committee's top Republican.

Clinton's campaign responded that she had scheduling conflicts with the 2006 hearings, including a hearing on assistance for AIDS patients and a meeting on international women's rights.

Clinton also said that Democrats were in a better position than before to "ask the hard questions" now that they have the majority in both houses of Congress.

---------------------------

Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 01, 2007

Company awarded millions in nuclear storage lawsuit

Delays opening Yucca Mountain cited

The Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS -- A court has awarded Xcel Energy Inc. $116.5 million over the federal government's failure to open the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility on time.

Yucca Mountain was designated in the 1980s as the country's nuclear waste repository. Under the law, the Energy Department was required to open the Nevada site for nuclear waste storage by 1998, but the project has been bogged down in controversy, and the earliest possible opening date would be 2017.

Northern States Power Co., a predecessor company to Xcel Energy, sued the Department of Energy, claiming breach of contract. In a decision dated last Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims sided with the Minneapolis-based utility.

Charles Bomberger, general manager of Nuclear Asset Management for Xcel Energy, said his company was pleased with the court decision.

"The government, just like everybody else, is obligated under this high level waste policy act of 1982 to be the federal repository for the spent fuel," Bomberger said. "We know now that the courts have upheld that we did have a binding contract, and held them accountable."

A Department of Energy spokeswoman declined to comment.

The case involved Xcel Energy's three nuclear power plants in Minnesota.

Minnesota state Sen. Ellen Anderson, chairman of the State Senate's Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Budget Division, said the ruling won't make up for the millions of dollars Minnesota ratepayers already have spent on nuclear waste storage.

---------------------------

North County Times
October 01, 2007

Nuclear power deserves second chance

George Buzzelli

Commentary

Bravo to Assemblyman Chuck DeVore for his proposal ("Initiative seeks more nuclear plants in region," Sept. 24).

There are three good reasons to go forward with this initiative. First, each nuclear unit at San Onofre replaces the consumption of 1 million barrels of oil per month. That avoids the release of 1 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per month ---- thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Second is the economic persuasion. At the current cost of oil at $80 per barrel, oil as a fuel would cost $80 million per month. And, likely, because of current increased Asiatic demand for oil, the price will continue to increase. Compare this to nuclear fuel: The fuel core cost is $100 million and would provide power for four years, which equates to $2 million per month.

Third, it would provide byproduct heat that could be used for seawater desalination. Each unit could produce 100 million to 200 million gallons of fresh water per day, or perhaps more, all at a price far less than conventional desalination methods. The San Diego County fresh water consumptiion is currently around 625 million gallons per day. Considering that 90 percent of this water is imported, one has to be concerned about the price increase if the recent court judge's ruling regarding the Sacramento Bay smelt would cut water import from the north by 40 percent, and then there is the impending water rationing threat.

Let me offer some thoughts on the nuclear waste issue ---- this should not be an issue! DeVore is mistaken about reprocessing and long-term storage. The original nuclear power plant fuel plan was to operate the plant until half of the fuel was consumed. Remove that portion of the spent fuel for reprocessing. Replace the first half and shuffle fuel around to maximize consumption of the second half. The spent fuel would be processed to remove the plutonium generated for use as second-generation fuel. The removal of the plutonium removes the multi-thousand-year isotope, which is the major concern for long-term storage. The remaining hot waste would contain shorter-lived radioactive isotopes and should not concern the public about long-term storage.

In addition, the total amount of hot waste generated per plant per year would fill a pay-telephone booth, about 70 cubic feet. This material would be transformed into a porcelain material and then contained in triple-layered barrels for storage in an area like Yucca Mountain in Nevada. These units would be surrounded by many radiation monitors for surveillance in case of leakage. The burial caves are isolated and insulated so leakage threat is minimized.

As a footnote to the Yucca Mountain storage facility: The federal government has spent some $70 billion over the past 40 years developing the facility, so perhaps if the officials in Nevada don't want this in their backyard, perhaps they should return the money and a similar burial site could be developed in Idaho, where they already have closely related facilities and would welcome the program.

Escondido resident George Buzzelli is a retired nuclear scientist who worked at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station until 1995. He helped write the plant's emergency plan for off-site responders.

---------------------------

Facing South
October 01, 2007

Southern plutonium shipments could begin this week

Sue Sturgis

If you plan to drive along Interstate 40 through Tennessee over the next few years, you might want to be extra careful.

The U.S. Department of Energy plans to begin shipping plutonium to the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. as early as Friday -- but state and local authorities won't know any details about the shipments unless there's a serious accident, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports:

The routes that will be used to transport the strategic nuclear material across the country are hush-hush and won’t be shared in advance of the project.

"It's extremely classified," said Jonathan Shradar, assistant press secretary with the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington. "We definitely don't confirm."

Shipments could begin as early as Friday, according to the decision DOE announced Sept. 5.

The shipments are so secret that not even the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency -- which usually works with agencies transporting nuclear material -- has been given any information about them, according to the paper.

The shipments are part of the government's effort to consolidate the nation's surplus supply of weapons-grade plutonium in South Carolina. The material will be coming from the Hanford Site in Washington, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. In all, the government plans to transport some 2,300 plutonium storage containers from Hanford and almost 700 from Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos.

Some have speculated that Interstate 40 across Tennessee would be a likely route for the material. The shipments are scheduled to continue through 2010. Plans call for the plutonium to be either converted into a mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, for use at commercial nuclear power plants or be enclosed in glass logs for eventual transfer to the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository being planned in Nevada.

A radioactive metal that was manufactured in large amounts during the Cold War for weapons, plutonium is extremely toxic if handled incorrectly and particularly damaging to the bone marrow.

---------------------------

Las Vegas SUN
September 30, 2007

Xcel Energy wins lawsuit against government over nuclear storage

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A court has awarded Xcel Energy Inc. $116.5 million over the federal government's failure to open the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility on time.

Charles Bomberger, general manager of Nuclear Asset Management for Xcel Energy, said his company was pleased with the court decision.

A Department of Energy spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the agency is "reviewing the court's decision."

The case involved Xcel Energy's three nuclear power plants in Minnesota.

State Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFL-ST. Paul, who chairs the State Senate's Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Budget Division, said the court's decision won't make up for the millions of dollars Minnesota ratepayers have already spent on nuclear waste storage. She also said the amount of waste Yucca Mountain is authorized to store when it opens won't be enough.

"And so even if Yucca Mountain does open, which I'm very skeptical it will, there is no reason to believe it will take our waste away," Anderson said. "This problem is one that I don't expect to be solved in my lifetime."

--On the Net:

The court's decision: http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Wiese/07/WIESE.NORTHERN092607.pdf

Xcel Energy: http://www.xcelenergy.com

Department of Energy nuclear waste page: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/index.shtml

--Information from: Minnesota Public Radio News, http://www.mpr.org

---------------------------

Minnesota Public Radio
September 30, 2007

Xcel wins lawsuit over nuclear waste storage

by Jessica Mador
Minnesota Public Radio

Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy has won a court ruling against the U.S. Department of Energy over the government's failure to open the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility on time.

St. Paul, Minn. — The U.S. Court of Federal Claims awarded Xcel Energy $116.5 million for the Energy Department's breach of contract. Under the law, the department was required to open Nevada's Yucca Mountain to nuclear waste storage by 1998.

Xcel's lawsuit is one of 56 pending actions against the department.

Charles Bomberger, general manager of Nuclear Asset Management for Xcel Energy, says the company is pleased with the court's decision.

"The government, just like everybody else, is obligated under this high level waste policy act of 1982 to be the federal repository for the spent fuel," says Bomberger. "We know now that the courts have upheld that we did have a binding contract, and held them accountable. And they in fact breached that by not being able to accept the waste in 1998."

Yucca Mountain was designated in the 1980s as the nation's nuclear waste repository. Since then, the project has been bogged down in controversy and never opened.

The 1980s Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires ratepayers to pay a fee on power generated by nuclear power plants. Xcel Energy used those fees to build storage facilities at its Prairie Island and Monticello power plants to store the nuclear waste until Yucca Mountain is opened.

Xcel officials say the company brought the lawsuit as a way to pressure the federal government to move ahead with the Yucca Mountain project.

A Department of Energy spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the agency is "reviewing the court's decision."

DFL Sen. Ellen Anderson, who chairs the State Senate's Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Budget Division, says the court's decision is not enough to make up for the millions of dollars Minnesota ratepayers have already spent on the problem of nuclear waste storage.

"We've been led down the garden path for years and years and years," she says.

Anderson says the amount of waste Yucca Mountain is authorized to store when it opens won't be enough to hold the nation's projected amount of future waste.

"And so even if Yucca Mountain does open, which I'm very skeptical it will, there is no reason to believe it will take our waste away," says Anderson. "This problem is one that I don't expect to be solved in my lifetime."

It is unclear whether the Department of Energy plans to appeal the court's ruling, or how Xcel Energy could spend the settlement money.

The Department of Energy plans to submit a license application to open Yucca Mountain sometime in mid-2008. The earliest possible opening for the site would be 2017.

---------------------------

Rutland Herald
September 30, 2007

Carbon-eating trees are one key to easing warming

By Peter Hirschfeld
Staff Writer

TOPSHAM – It was an unusual setting for a convention – a dozer-tracked clearing in Topsham surrounded by 947 acres of forestland – but about 60 foresters from across New England made the manmade pasture a temporary headquarters for their annual meeting of the northeast chapter of the national Forest Guild.

Jeff Smith manages this wooded acreage for the family that owns Galusha Hill Forest, and he was host for the meeting. Standing in the back of his pickup truck, he cursed the low cloud cover on this recent Tuesday.

"On a clear day you've got pristine views of Mount Washington over there," he says, "and also Jay Peak over that way. … I guess you'll just have to take my word for it."

Galusha Hill Forest is part of Meadowsend Timberland, which is the third-largest private landholding in the state. Smith, a 30-year Vermont resident educated in forest management at the University of New Hampshire, says having a timber operation here is preferable to the landowners' other options for making money off the land.

"The value to not having a mega-house sitting here is really huge," he says. "It's a beautiful piece of land that fortunately gets to stay that way."

In a reversal of a 150-year trend, according to one study, Vermont has begun losing forestland, usually to residential and commercial development outside population centers. And as the forest goes, say many environmental experts, so too goes one of the state's most powerful carbon-reducing resources. Woodlands such as the Galusha Hill Forest help mitigate greenhouse emissions blamed for rising global temperatures.

"Carbon sequestration" is poised to enter the public lexicon as policymakers enact guidelines to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. The term is used to describe the long-term storage of carbon in natural repositories, like trees or soil. Trees, via photosynthesis, breathe in carbon and convert it to cellulose, making them a sort of Yucca Mountain for industry's carbon gas emissions.

"Forests are natural carbon sinks," says Bob Perschel, northeast regional director for the Forest Guild. "They take carbon out of the air and put it into a natural product – a tree … Some people dream about a machine that does that. We already have one."

In late 2006, nine northeastern states, including Vermont, agreed to gradually slow the amount of carbon dioxide pollution from power plants in the region. The pact, since joined by two more states, aims to achieve the goal through a system of transferable credits that electric generation companies can buy to increase carbon dioxide emissions from their plants.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, known as "Reggie," will create a new regional market based on carbon offsets. The offsets, to be purchased by power companies emitting carbon over their allowable limits, will trade like currency in an open market. Projects that can prove they're sequestering carbon will have a new stream of revenue.

Foresters and conservation advocates are now working to ensure that forest conservation qualifies for offsets. Such income, some foresters say, could tip the balance toward conservation for landowners who might otherwise sell land to developers.

"It's very important to have 'Reggie' recognize the value of compensating landowners for keeping forests intact and managed as forestland," says Jamey Fidel with the Vermont Natural Resources Council. "In order to improve our ability to conserve our forestland in Vermont there's a cost for doing it … We clearly need to come up with some funding options, and I think a lot of people are starting to look at the Reggie process to offer some funding assistance."

A University of Vermont study, cited in a May report issued by a plenary committee of the Governor's Commission on Climate Change, indicates a recent decline in Vermont forestland.

The state hardly wants for woods. Vermont, as a proportion of land area, is the fourth-most heavily forested state in the country. Covering more than 4.6 million acres, according to the Division of Forestry, Vermont is 78 percent forested. In the middle of the 19th century only a third of Vermont was forested.

But the 150-year growth of forestland began reversing at least as early as 1982, according to the report. Chittenden County has seen a 4.4 percent loss of forestland in the past 15 years. Statewide, the report said, Vermont forests shrank by a half percent annually from 1992 to 2002.

"We're seeing increasing financial pressure on landowners that makes it more and more difficult to keep land as forest," Smith says. "The escalating cost of land now … is really out of whack with the investment opportunities for growing and selling trees. It's a huge challenge when the numbers don't come out in favor of forests."

Robert Turner, whose Starksboro-based Robert Turner Co. manages forests for private landowners, says global market dynamics have stunted the profit-generating capacity in Vermont forests.

"On the income side, the most valuable product (lumber) is seeing a 10 (percent) to 30 percent decline in the last year and a half," Turner says. "For those people who can afford to wait, you hope the market will improve. For large landowners, with a much bigger investment in staff, equipment … they don't have a lot of options … The cost side is increasing, and the income side is decreasing."

Perschel says the economic pinch could be in part alleviated by the emergence of Reggie's carbon offset market. His Forest Guild, along with myriad other groups, many from forest-heavy Maine, are lobbying Reggie policymakers for forests' inclusion in the cap-and-trade market. If they're successful, many landowners could receive an entirely new revenue stream for simply continuing to manage the land as they have for decades.

But it's a long road, according to experts familiar with the often-uncertain science of carbon sequestration. The only forest-related carbon-offsets approved by Reggie thus far are for "aforestation" – planting a forest where there wasn't one.

"That's the only thing so far in the Reggie forestry component that's scheduled to receive credits," Perschel says. "But it's frankly not likely to mean much in places like Vermont … We always like to say the first thing we really need to do is make sure that what we have now in forest stays in forest ... We need to keep that carbon in the forests. There's a value to that, and we're trying to get Reggie to recognize that value."

Landowners and forest managers will have to prove "additionality" if they hope to win carbon offset approval, according to Perschel and others. That means quantifying the carbon-sequestering impact of certain forest-management techniques by proving their work stores more carbon than would otherwise have occurred naturally.

"Many of the other things that are in (Reggie) for offsets are quite frankly relatively straightforward and pretty easy. Landfill gas, for instance. When you patch your methane gas from a landfill and either flare it off or generate electricity with it … it's easy to come up with rule language to describe how that project would apply," says Jeff Wennberg, former commissioner at the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. "With silviculture, it's a lot, lot, lot more difficult."

Wennberg, who resigned his post in August, worked to negotiate the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Reggie's member states. Wennberg says he's optimistic generally about the impact Reggie will have on reducing regional greenhouse gas emissions, but he's less confident about the windfall Vermont's forests could potentially reap as a result of the pact.

"Everybody agrees that forestry plays a huge role in the state of Vermont in terms of carbon footprint," Wennberg says. But how to measure that role empirically, to assign it value on an open market, is a debate even among silviculturists.

"There is spirited debate, among folks who have the same goal, as to whether a managed forest, with regular harvesting, or an old growth, unmanaged forest" sequesters more carbon, Wennberg says.

Unless science resolves such disagreements, forest owners in Vermont likely may be shut out of the carbon offset market.

In its May report, the Governor's Commission on Climate Change recommends reducing the rate of forest loss in Vermont by 50 percent by 2028. Fidel says achieving that ambitious goal depends at least in part on policies like Reggie recognizing the value, financial and otherwise, of healthy, stable forests in Vermont.

"There's a benefit in terms of storing carbon if you're keeping the land intact," he says. "And it's a benefit that needs to be recognized from a policy perspective."

Robert Turner isn't so sure the carbon-offset industry will shake out in landowners' pockets.

"We're getting a sprinkling of opportunities," he says, "but anytime you try to grab on, it's hard to feel like there's anything tangible there."

The complexity of accounting for the carbon benefits of good forest management, he says, isn't likely to get simpler anytime soon.

"If it can't be encapsulated into an easily measured and monitored form, then it will be hard to integrate into policy," Turner says.

But he says the conversation itself spotlights forests' primacy in any antidote to the world's ecological ills. If a knowledgeable public shifts its economic habits to sustain Vermont forests – by paying more for furniture crafted from Vermont maple, say – then landowners may not need to trade carbon offsets to stay in the black.

"If there's any sliver of value in this whole carbon thing it's that it's raising awareness that forests provide a range of benefits to society," he says. "It has other uses that are ecological and social and spiritual.

"We revere the farmer and his ability to work land … I think people are a little less inclined to see forestry as such a beneficent use of the land," Turner says. "This carbon piece though begins to show that, in addition to forest products, oh yeah, by the way, here's this carbon thing forests do. It's one of these things that pops up and catches public interest for awhile. I have no idea if it's going to be anything more than that."

---------------------------

North County Times
September 29, 2007

New bill would open San Onofre for another reactor

Edward Sifuentes
Staff Writer

A bill introduced earlier this week by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, would allow the building of a new nuclear reactor at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Part of the power produced by a third reactor at the nuclear plant would be used to run a desalination plant to turn seawater into drinking water, DeVore said. The bill would lift a decades-old ban on nuclear facilities to build the reactor at San Onofre.

If history is an indicator, the bill is unlikely to pass. A similar measure failed to make it out of committee earlier this year. But DeVore said it's time to talk about giving nuclear power another chance.

"What I'm trying to do is offer a real solution, even if the leaders in the Legislature don't want to," he said. "Eventually, the people of California are going to take note."

DeVore, who has championed efforts to lift the statewide moratorium, said the bill would help fix the state's power and water crunch.

"A new reactor could produce about 1,200 megawatts of power," he said. "My bill would require that 240 megawatts of that power to be designated for seawater desalination. This could provide about two-thirds of San Diego County's fresh-water needs."

Anti-nuclear groups, including the San Luis Obispo-based Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, oppose DeVore's bill, saying it will increase nuclear waste.

"Until we find a solution to radioactive waste, it's at best premature," said Rochelle Becker, executive director for the alliance.

Becker said it would also be expensive and take years to build new nuclear reactors.

In 1976, the state banned building more nuclear plants pending a permanent place to store used nuclear waste. Only two plants are in operation in California: San Onofre near the San Diego County/Orange County line and Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo.

Opponents of nuclear power plants say they are not safe, in part because they store radioactive waste.

The federal government is making plans to store the nation's growing pile of highly radioactive waste in an underground vault deep beneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but that state's leadership and anti-nuclear groups have opposed the plan.

For now, spent nuclear fuel is stored in deep pools and heavy concrete bunkers at both of California's plant sites.

DeVore said waste can be reduced by recycling spent fuel. He said nuclear power is a way of generating more electricity without producing more carbon dioxide, which scientists link to global warming.

Earlier this year, he introduced another bill, Assembly Bill 719, to lift the statewide moratorium, but the bill was defeated in committee.

The new bill, Assembly Bill Second Extraordinary Session 5, or ABX2 5, was introduced during the Legislature's special session on water.

DeVore said he sees signs that the tide is turning on nuclear power.

Earlier this year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said in a House Science and Technology hearing that "technology has changed" and that she "has a different view on nuclear than (she) did 20 years ago."

A spokesman for Assemblyman Martin Garrick, R-Carlsbad, said the lawmaker supports lifting the moratorium.

"He understands the issue, and I believe he supports Mr. DeVore's efforts," said Mike Zimmerman, Garrick's chief of staff.

Zimmerman said Garrick has not read the new bill to build a reactor at San Onofre and has not decided whether to support it.

Officials at San Diego Gas & Electric Co., which is part owner of the nuclear plant at San Onofre, did not make someone available for comment.

--Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-3511 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.

---------------------------

Minneapolis Star Tribune
September 29, 2007

Xcel wins suit over spent-fuel storage

Its NSP subsidiary won a big judgment against the U.S. government on nuclear waste disposal that's still in limbo.

By Mike Meyers
Star Tribune

In a dispute over the cost of storing nuclear waste, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy has been awarded $116 million in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

The ruling of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington is subject to appeal. DOE officials were unavailable Friday for comment.

The suit, which has been in the courts for nine years, centered on Xcel's bearing the cost of storing spent fuel at the company's Prairie Island and Monticello plants.

The Xcel subsidiary, Northern States Power (NSP), like many other nuclear power plant owners, had a contract calling for the federal government to eventually ship and bury radioactive waste in a proposed underground site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

NSP originally sought $1.2 billion for past and future costs of storing and securing waste on the site of its Prairie Island and Monticello plants.

A federal court ruled that NSP could seek recovery only of expenses it already had assumed, and in a revised claim, NSP sought recovery of its waste storage expenses through the end of 2004.

In a separate suit, brought last month, Xcel demanded that the DOE pay waste storage costs for 2005 through June 2007. The company has not yet indicated how much money it will seek.

Xcel officials stopped short of predicting that such lawsuits would become a perpetual process.

"I would not say that Yucca Mountain is dead," said Charlie Bomberger, Xcel's general manager of nuclear asset management. "I think we are seeing progress in making that [permanent nuclear waste storage site] happen."

Nevertheless, Bomberger said that Yucca Mountain is unlikely to start accepting nuclear waste from utilities around the country until 2017. NSP is one of 39 utilities suing the federal government for recovery of waste storage expenses.

Meanwhile, Xcel is likely to remain in court fighting for reimbursement -- money that ultimately would be likely to benefit electric ratepayers, said Kerry Koep, the company's assistant general counsel.

"It seems prudent to try to keep things moving along and claim damages as they occur," he said.

--Mike Meyers - 612-673-1746, meyers@startribune.com

---------------------------

Sci Fi
September 28, 2007

Shift: Nuclear power is better than no power

Al Boline

Imagine life without electricity. The lights go out. Your fridge turns into a petri dish. The Internet becomes an abstraction, a memory. And of course, no TV — ah, maybe there is a bright side! But apart from that, having no electricity would suck.

As viable options dwindle, we'll need to get more of our power from nuclear plants. The last year a new one went online was 1997. However, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing license applications for more. Don't flinch. That's a good thing. Follow the link to find out why.

Five Minutes to Midnight on the Peak-Oil Clock

Our flatlining fossil-fuel supply cannot keep pace with rising world demand. U.S. oil production peaked in 1970. Worldwide oil production may be peaking right around now. And domestic natural-gas production has been declining for nearly as long as oil production. We need new energy sources.

Forget the whole genre of biofuels. They're a mirage, due to something called ERoEI: energy return on energy invested. It takes too much fuel to make these fuels. Ethanol is only the most notorious example of a bad bunch. Sure, it comes from corn, but corn production is impossible without massive inputs of chemical fertilizer made largely from natural gas — you know, one of those fossil fuels we're running out of. With other alternative fuels, such as oil shale and tar sands, the story varies but the ending is the same. These technological shell games are unlikely to run the power plants (or vehicles) of the future.

Despite the promise of renewables like solar, wind, and hydro power — which by the 22nd century will be all we've got left — their current forms can't sustain more than a fraction of our current energy usage. Yes, let's pursue them aggressively, but let's also keep the lights on in the meantime.

Coal: the Devil You Know Is Worse

That leaves two naturally occurring fuels that are plentiful enough to sustain us through the long decades we'll need to perfect renewables: coal and uranium. The distant possibility of harm under the highly regulated operation of nuclear power is trivial compared to the documented certainty of harm from coal. Counterintuitively, one aspect of harm from coal (yes, coal) is radiation.

Burning coal releases huge quantities of radioactive substances, uranium and thorium, according to the folks at the Oak Ridge Natural Laboratory. People living near coal-fired power plants receive 100 times more radiation than federal regulations would permit from a nuclear plant — along with tons of mercury, particulates, carcinogens, and global-warming gases.

Nuclear power has a uniquely negative way of firing the imagination, grabbing hold of our darkest fears. This blinds us to the real and provable deadliness of coal, oil and gasoline. Air pollution from fossil fuels kills two to three million people per year according to the World Health Organization. Nukes would give our lungs a break for sure. If you still think coal is a good idea, save me another thousand words of typing and just Google the words "climate change."

Our Old Friend, the Atom

After coal, the other natural resource we still have a lot of is uranium. Yet we get only 19% of our power from nukes. The French are way ahead of us at 78.1%. Even the Bulgarians, at 43.6%, are smirking at us. If oil suddenly gets more expensive, they'll make some sacrifices and squeeze by, while our cheap-oil-driven economy collapses like a house of cards.

What frightens us about nukes is, of course, radiation. But radiation is all around us, says the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation: We get it from outer space, the surface of the Sun, and the Earth's crust. We ingest it via air, water, and foods. Some radiation occurs naturally in the human body.

The only nuclear accident to release truly deadly amounts of radiation was the Chernobyl explosion. Incredibly, the Soviets built this Ukrainian plant (and several others) without a containment shell. All reactors operating in Western nations operate within four feet of steel and concrete, which means that if something goes wrong, there's a Plan B to prevent high levels of radiation from escaping into the air and ground water. Leakage even under extraordinary conditions (like the recent earthquake in northern Japan) has not been massively life-threatening.

Can't nuclear power plants explode? Only if, like Chernobyl, they process weapons-grade fuel. The nuclear fuel used in a civilian power plant is not enriched enough to produce uncontrolled fission — that is, an explosion. Western plants are designed to withstand earthquakes (though building one atop a fault line is undoubtedly a bad idea). A direct hit from an aircraft would damage the containment shell but would not penetrate it.

Really, Nevada Is the Ideal Place for Nuclear Waste

As for nuclear waste, do the numbers. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the past four decades' worth of spent nuclear fuel "would cover a football field about six yards deep." That is a drop in the ocean compared to the unfathomable volumes of other toxic waste produced by our energy, chemical, farming, and manufacturing industries. If we can't control such small amounts of radioactive waste — at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, under current plans — we aren't trying very hard.

Nuclear power can't run cars or trucks or planes, and that's troubling, since two-thirds of our energy usage is for transportation. But it can run electrified trains to carry both people and freight. When rising energy prices make our current modes of transport economically obsolete, we're going to need a passenger rail system for long domestic journeys and light rail to bridge shorter distances within communities. We'll also want to keep our home lives heated, air conditioned and well lit.

Would I take the same position if I lived near a nuclear plant? Actually, I do. My neighborhood is 42 miles south of Indian Point in New York. I own a radiation detector and potassium iodide tablets for emergencies (the chemical invades the thyroid and temporarily protects it from radiation-induced cancer). But like millions of other people, I'm willing to live with the risk. That's because I'm a grownup, and therefore capable of assessing different levels of risk and choosing the least of all possible evils.

Let's Do It with the Lights On

Given the choice between nuclear power and rolling brownouts for the rest of my life, I'll take nukes. Given the choice between nuclear power and the real possibility of death from pollution-related respiratory disease, if I had any say in the matter, I'd gladly take even more nukes. And given the choice between nuclear power and climate change, no contest. I'd get every watt I could possibly get from nukes. And I'd keep those nuclear plants running until there's a windmill on every lawn and renewables have truly come of age.

---------------------------
State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
---------------------------