Yucca Mountain News Clips - Friday, December 7, 2007

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, December 7, 2007
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Senator Harry Reid
December 06, 2007

Reid Statement on Yucca Mountain Hearing

Washington, DC—Senator Harry Reid of Nevada released the following statement today after a panel of administrative judges considered the Department of Energy’s (DOE) certification of the Licensing Support Network (LSN) for Yucca Mountain:

“There were many important concerns that were discussed at today’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing. Of chief concern is that the Department of Energy provide the State of Nevada with all the information it needs to consider and challenge the license application process in a meaningful way. This is a mandatory first step before DOE can file its license application by the arbitrary self-imposed June 30, 2008 deadline. I hope the NRC panel carefully considers the serious implications of the DOE’s premature LSN certification because of the major risks to public health and the environment that are at stake. I am hopeful that the panel will recognize that the DOE is trampling on the NRC’s regulations by trying to certify an incomplete LSN, and rejects DOE’s rush to submit a license application for this dead-end project. We simply cannot bring the most dangerous substance on the face of this earth to Nevada.”

The LSN is a database of documents that may be used as evidence during the license application process and must be made available to the public. This database must be certified as complete at least 6 months before the license application for construction of a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain can be submitted to the NRC.

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Senator Harry Reid
December 06, 2007

Nevada Congressional Delegation Urges Inspector General to Investigate Conflicts of Interest Regarding Yucca

Delegation urges a closer look into the law firm hired by the Energy Department for licensing procedure

Washington, DC –Nevada's congressional delegation sent a letter to Gregory Friedman, Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Energy, urging him to review possible conflicts of interest related to the law firm Morgan, Lewis, and Bockius’s contract with the Department of Energy to perform legal services related to licensing Yucca Mountain as the nation’s nuclear waste dump. The letter outlines, in detail, the fact that in the past the firm has represented clients against the Department of Energy and the fact that recently the firm was registered to lobby on behalf of the Nuclear Energy Institute. Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign, Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, and Congressmen Jon Porter and Dean Heller are united in their efforts to stop Yucca Mountain from ever holding the nations nuclear waste.

“The dump will never be built, plain and simple,” said Reid. “This is just one more attempt by the Energy Department to try to push this dying beast through the licensing process. The Energy Department should not be wasting tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on lawyers to defend a project that will never be completed. Instead, we need to work toward a much safer solution of securely storing nuclear waste at the facilities where it is produced.”

“The Department of Energy has no business hiring a law firm that has ties to those who want to store waste at Yucca Mountain for a supposedly impartial role in the licensing process,” said Ensign. “It’s time to start considering other options for nuclear waste, because pouring money into a repository that will never be built is a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

“Firms representing the nuclear industry in Yucca Mountain lawsuits should not be hired by taxpayers to also fight in favor of the proposed dump. The Energy Department recognized this potential conflict of interest in the past, but in the rush to open Yucca Mountain, it has now abandoned this position. Clearly, there are red flags here that point to a potential conflict of interest in DOE’s hiring of Morgan Lewis, a firm with a long and active history of working for the nuclear industry. This highly lucrative new contract -- which could cost taxpayers more than $100 million -- deserves immediate review by the Inspector General,” said Rep. Berkley.

“The Energy Departments’ use of taxpayer money to hire a law firm with ties to the nuclear industry is disgraceful. This is just one more blunder in DOE's long list of errors for this fatally flawed project," said Heller.

"The repository has been plagued by too many inconsistencies throughout its existence,” said Porter. “This additional conflict supports the delegation’s collective argument that the project must end now."

You can see a copy of the letter sent to the Inspector General here:
http://www.reid.senate.gov/pdfs/Signed_LetterDOEIG_12%205%2007.pdf

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 06, 2007

Nevada fights law firm's deal at Yucca site

Lawmakers allege conflicts of interest

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Nevada lawmakers on Wednesday challenged a lucrative contract the Department of Energy has awarded for a law firm to manage licensing for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site.

The state's five members of Congress called on the department's inspector general to investigate whether the firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, may have conflicts of interest that could disqualify it from the job.

The firm began work Sept. 26 on a four-year contract worth $47.7 million.

Officials have confirmed the contract also included five succeeding one-year options that could bring the total value to $109 million, potentially the most lucrative legal job offered on a nuclear project.

But Morgan, Lewis also has represented nuclear utilities in lawsuits against DOE, its new employer, the lawmakers said in a letter to Inspector General Gregory Friedman.

Also in 2001-2002 the firm was a registered lobbyist representing the Nuclear Energy Institute, a leading pro-repository group, they said.

"In our view these conflicts could independently warrant the recusal of Morgan from the September contract," the Nevadans said.

DOE spokeswoman Megan Barnett said the Morgan Lewis firm was hired after DOE evaluated potential conflicts. Other DOE officials have said the department was satisfied with safeguards the firm installed to avoid conflict problems.

"We look forward to a review by the DOE IG," Barnett said.

The call for a contract probe is the latest in a series of Nevada protests as state officials try to kill or at least slow down the bid to bury 70,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste at the mountain ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The Energy Department has declined to make public a copy of the Morgan Lewis contract. In a Nov. 6 letter, DOE officials also declined to expedite a formal request for the document filed under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

Nevada's bid for a new investigation came on the same day the Department of Energy held the final one of eight public hearings on the repository.

The session, which was held in Washington, D.C., likely was the final opportunity for the public to comment on the project before DOE files a construction license application expected by next summer.

Earlier hearings were held in Nevada and California. A hearing Monday in Las Vegas drew more than 200 people.

Wednesday's session drew 48 attendees and 14 speakers.

Five speakers, including representatives from the Nuclear Energy Institute and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, encouraged the nuclear waste effort.

Nine speakers, from groups including Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Alliance for Nuclear Accountabiity, complained there are still too many uncertainties to justify moving forward.

Four representatives attended from Nye County, which has adopted a more accommodating strategy on the repository than most Nevada elected leaders and state government officials.

As the county where Yucca Mountian is located, Nye officials say they hope to lure economic development and other benefits if Nevada fails to stop the government and if the repository becomes reality.

Gary Hollis, chairman of the Nye County Commission, said at the public hearing scientists hired by the county have produced about $30 million in repository studies.

"What we have observed is that this is not only a technically feasible project but that it can be done safely," Hollis told the Washington audience.

Hollis said Nye County residents face less risk from a Yucca repository than they would from radioactive residues migrating into their water from the Nevada Test Site, where nuclear bombs were detonated underground until the early 1990s.

Hollis said the project should be decided "on its merits."

"Regardless of one's decision, either for or against, we need to see an end to the stalling tactics and politicizing of science and bring this project to a conclusion," he said.

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

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 06, 2007

Yucca licensing documents missing

Opponents of nuclear waste repository tell licensing board computer access faulty

By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal

Out of 30 million pages from 3.7 million different documents that the Department of Energy has posted online to support a license for disposing nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, some of the key ones are missing.

That doesn't sit well with Nevada officials who are fighting what they call "the dump" and want to strike DOE's certification of the so-called Licensing Support Network.

Their arguments were heard Wednesday by a three-judge panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.

The panel also heard arguments from an attorney for the Department of Energy, who tried to persuade the panel that regulations allow for some flexibility on missing and incomplete documents.

Not so in this case, said Nevada's hired counsel, Charles Fitzpatrick.

Inside the NRC's $4 million hearing facility on Pepper Lane, with armed guards watching and security screening like that in an airport, Fitzpatrick argued that it's unfair to deem the network certified when it lacks so many "core basis documents" vital to DOE's license application.

Fitzpatrick said adding them to the collection in the 11th hour wouldn't give Nevada enough time to analyze them before DOE files its license application before its self-imposed deadline of June 30.

The Energy Department "has backed itself into a corner," Fitzpatrick said in his opening remarks to the panel chaired by Administrative Judge Thomas Moore.

"There are rampant inconsistencies" with the Licensing Support Network, Moore said.

If all goes as it did in 2004, the last time Nevada succeeded in striking the network's certification, the panel should reach a decision on Wednesday's hearing in about a week.

Jane Feldman, of the local Sierra Club, was one of about 40 members of the public who attended the hearing.

"I think it's incredibly frustrating that such a common sense issue is wrapped up in legal convolutions," Feldman said.

"The documents that Nevada needs to respond to are not available," Feldman said as she left before the end of the four-hour hearing.

Steve Frishman, a full-time consultant for the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, said the missing information included seismic safety analysis for surface handling facilities near the planned repository, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Yucca Mountain Project scientists were only wrapping up their bore hole drilling operations to collect data about earthquake faults in the site's Midway Valley a few weeks before DOE certified the Licensing Support Network on Oct. 19.

Within 10 days, Nevada had filed its motion to strike the certification.

"Our point is, we should be able to have those documents for a full six months if we're going to develop contentions," Frishman said during a break in the meeting.

Judy Treichel, representing the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, complained that the monstrous, online collection of documents isn't user friendly and many topics can't be found in a reasonable search.

Moore and panel Judge Alex Karlin concurred that some searches for documents by their titles fail because the titles are "jibberish" and "gobbledygook."

"You can't get anything out of those titles," Karlin said.

DOE's counsel, Michael Shebelskie, noted that a group of 800 documents have placeholder titles, some of which have been replaced with real titles.

"We have made available 1.3 million documents since 2004," he said. "On our own there are some groups of documents that we might improve the titles."

Shebelskie said the Licensing Support Network "generally speaking" can be 98 percent complete in 60 days and 100 percent complete in 90 days.

--Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0308.

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KLAS-TV
December 06, 2007

State Looks to Delay Yucca Project Further

Edward Lawrence

Nevada officials say the federal government is not playing fair when it comes to nuclear waste storage.

The Department of Energy wants to ship the nation's high-level waste to Yucca Mountain. However, the state says it's not safe.

Steve Frishman with the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects says the database used to support the project is incomplete.

"We think they are hiding the ball intentionally. We think it is because they don't want us to see this stuff until the very last minute -- because then it makes it difficult for us to make a strong technical case against their work," he said.

That's why Nevada asked for a hearing in front of a three-judge Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel. During the arguments, The DOE admitted 239 reports were not included when the database was certified Oct. 19.

The certification allows the project to move forward, yet 51 reports are still missing.

Frishman says one report in particular, showing how much radiation will leak out of the storage canisters, should be in the database.

"That is the safety issue for the repository. They are using that tool right now, they just won't make it available to us," he adds.

The DOE would not go on camera after the hearing but former Nevada Governor Bob List, who supports the project, did comment.

He said, "I think it's relatively complete. There are so many documents, millions of documents on there. There will continue to be more."

In 2004 Nevada won a similar argument which pushed the project timeline back three years. If the state wins this round, the Yucca Mountain Project could be delayed several years.

The DOE wants to open the nuke waste repository for storage by 2017.

No ruling was made at the hearing Wednesday, but a written ruling is expected by the end of December.

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Las Vegas SUN
December 06, 2007

Letter: Yucca's benefits outweigh hazards

As a chemical engineer experienced in hazard analysis, I find most of the rhetoric about the hazards of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project totally baseless. Spent nuclear fuel is nonreactive and nonvolatile. It will be contained in essentially bomb-proof capsules.

In the event of a train wreck or a terrorist attack, the most likely result would be a metal sarcophagus full of solid waste dumped on the tracks. It would have to be picked up by a specialized crew with a crane. In comparison, a railcar full of chlorine could kill thousands as the toxic cloud spreads across the city.

As far as water leaking into Yucca Mountain, there is no more likelihood of contaminating the groundwater than there is from the nuclear residue that already exists in the ground at the Nevada Test Site. The spent fuel is essentially insoluble in water.

The issue is all about the politics: If people understood the true nature of nuclear waste, the politicians might have to quit their pandering.

This project would accelerate the switch from coal and gas to nuclear power plants, the only major clean power alternative. And charging the utilities for storing the waste will provide an endless source of revenue for the state.

The baloney about insufficient paperwork needs to stop. The project needs to proceed based on its true risks and benefits.

Tom Keller
Henderson

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Common Dreams
December 06, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 5, 2007
5:50 PM

CONTACT:
* Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear: 240-462-3216 (mobile)
* Jill Parillo, Physicians for Social Responsibility: 202-302-7609 (mobile)
* Nickolas Roth, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation: 914-673-6666(mobile)
* Alfred Meyer, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability: 608-513-4354(mobile)

Groups Testify on Impact of Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Transportation and Storage

WASHINGTON - December 5 -At a Department of Energy (DOE) hearing today, a coalition of environmental and security groups detailed their concerns over the proposed plan to transport nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, Nevada for storage. Citing serious security, environmental, and public health threats associated with shipping nuclear waste through residential areas across the United States, the groups stated that the Yucca Mountain plan has fundamental flaws and should not go forward.

In 1987, Yucca Mountain, Nevada was selected by Congress as the only site to be studied as a permanent geologic repository for the United States’ now approximately 60,000 metric tons of commercial nuclear waste. Due to a protracted battle over security, environmental, scientific and health concerns, the Yucca Mountain Geologic Repository has never opened. After a twenty year battle, the DOE is still struggling against strong public and congressional opposition to the plan.

"Shipping tens of thousands of high-level radioactive waste trucks, trains, and barges through 45 states and the District of Columbia risks severe accidents and terrorist attacks releasing catastrophic amounts of deadly radioactivity in major population centers," said Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear. "These waste transports would represent potential Mobile Chernobyls and dirty bombs on wheels rolling past the homes of millions of Americans."

“Instead of the flawed Yucca Mountain plan, our member organizations support hardened on site storage of spent nuclear fuel as described in the Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors,” said Alfred Meyer, Program Director of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability representing 35 organizations around the U.S.

"From a scientific, national security and energy policy perspective, Yucca Mountain is a failure. Rather than continue to sink precious public resources into the failed nuclear waste dump, the Department of Energy should be focused on promoting the technologies proven to work: renewable energy like wind and solar and energy efficiency," said Tyson Slocum, Director of Public Citizen's Energy Program.

“Yucca Mountain is a volcano on an aquifer in an earthquake zone,” said Ben Schreiber, Energy Advocate for Environment America. “It is unsound for the permanent storage of nuclear waste.”

“Yucca Mountain is the worst single site that has been evaluated in the U.S. and should be abandoned,” said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.

“In addition to the environmental, security, and health threats, simple math says that Yucca is not a viable solution to the United States’ nuclear waste problem. The total amount of commercial nuclear waste in the US will exceed Yucca’s capacity for storage by 2010. Any way you look at it, a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain doesn’t add up,” said Nickolas Roth, Washington, DC Director for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

This hearing is the last of a series of public hearings across the country responding to the DOE’s Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on the Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain and the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on a Rail Alignment for the Construction and Operation of a Railroad in Nevada to a Geologic Repository at Yucca Mountain. Under the National Environmental Policy Act, the DOE is required to give the public the opportunity to express their concerns or questions through written or oral comments. The public comment period ends January 10, 2008.

--Written comments may be submitted to:

EIS OFFICE,
U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management,
1551 Hillshire Drive,
Las Vegas, NV 89134

or by facsimile to 1-800-967-0739, or by using the on-line form.

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NEI Nuclear Notes
December 06, 2007

John McCain on Nuclear Energy and Yucca Mountain

Senator John McCain is on the campaign trail in New Hampshire talking about energy and the environment:

A key way to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, he said, would be to increase the use of nuclear power.

When asked after the forum how he proposed to dispose of high level nuclear waste, McCain said, "My preference is that we store it. I always thought that Yucca Mountain was the right place to do it."

"It's not a problem of technology. It's a problem of political will. We have now the worst of all worlds, because we have nuclear waste sites around every nuclear power plant in America, which provides us with the greatest challenge to our security," he said. "So I would try and resolve it and I would try to go back and revisit the Yucca Mountain issue, but I would do everything in my power to resolve it."

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TMCnet
December 06, 2007

Cox Communications' Public Service to Nevada

By Shamila Janakiraman
TMCnet Contributing Editor

Cox (News - Alert) Communications broadcasted the oral arguments between Nevada and the Department of Energy (DOE) regarding the storage of nuclear waste in Yucca Mountains. A local access channel Cox Cable Channel 96 undertook this service.

The hearing, to take place before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Pre-Application Presiding Officer(PAPO) Board, is significant as DOE plans to apply for a NRC license to construct and operate a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, north of Las Vegas. DOE plans to submit the application in mid 2008.

Commenting on the social responsibility of Cox Communications, Leo Brennan, regional vice president and general manager said that his company creates, produces and broadcasts content especially for Southern Nevada customers on Cable Channel Cox 96.

“We're committed to providing our customers the widest array of content for the widest array of audiences, and we're offering this live feed of the NRC proceeding to broadcast partners as well as streaming video over the Internet so that the widest audience possible can have access to this important content,” he added.

Steve Schorr, vice president of public and government affairs for Cox Las Vegas, said, “The storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain is an issue that concerns not only the citizens of our state but our entire country, and as such the ability of our cable system to provide interested parties on both sides of this issue with access to this critical hearing is exceedingly important.”

Cox, Las Vegas has also planned for a rebroadcast on the Cox Cable Channel on December 16th from 2 p.m to 6 p.m PST.

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UPI
December 06, 2007

Yucca Mountain: Good spot for nuke waste?

MENLO PARK, Calif., Dec. 6 (UPI) -- A U.S. government study suggests the proposed Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository in Nevada is arguably the best location for such storage.

D.J. Andrews and colleagues at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., said they determined Yucca Mountain offers unique characteristics -- chiefly a water table so low that it is possible to store steel canisters of waste 1,000 feet below ground and 1,000 feet above the water table.

Although seismic hazard assessments usually involve a 500- to 1,000-year period, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency is requiring an evaluation that considers what would happen with odds as low as 1 in 10,000 during a 10,000-year period -- equivalent to something that occurs only once every 100 million years, the USGS said.

Andrews' team looked at the worst-case scenario and determined the ground can move a maximum of 11.8 feet per second -- near the most intense ground motion ever recorded, but within the range of feasible engineering mitigation.

The scientists suggest their findings support a long-term stable seismic environment for Yucca Mountain.

The research that included Thomas Hanks and John Whitney appears in The Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

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Brattleboro Reformer
December 06, 2007

Energy meet is discussion on VY future

By Bob Audette

BRATTLEBORO -- It was supposed to be a meeting to discuss the future of Vermont's energy supply. Instead, it turned into a pro and con discussion over the fate of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

More than 200 people packed the Robert H. Gibson River Garden for the hearing Wednesday night, which was arranged by members of Vermont's Senate. The meeting was in response to a public outcry over a decision by the state's Department of Public Service to hold similar meetings around the state, but not in Brattleboro.

During introductory remarks, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, said Vermont had an opportunity to bring new jobs and technology to the state while leading the nation in new energy technology.

"We can do it differently in Vermont," he said. "When Vermont leads, others follow."

Sens. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, William Carris, D-Rutland, Vincent Illuzzi, R-Essex-Orleans and Claire Ayer, D-Addison, were also in attendance to hear what Shumlin called "your vision on Vermont's energy future."

And though they did get some good input on what Vermont should be doing to declare energy independence and reduce its impact on the planet's environment, what they mostly got was an earful from both sides of the nuclear power issue.

Without Vermont Yankee, said several speakers -- all of whom admitted to being employees of Entergy, which owns and operates the power plant in Vernon -- the state and the region wouldn't have a reliable source of constant power, what is called base load.

They also pointed to the more than 600 jobs at the plant, its operating history over the past 35 years and the fact it doesn't emit carbon dioxide or other pollutants during power production.

Without Vermont Yankee, said John Schaefer, electricity would cost more, putting a greater burden on households that already struggle to make ends meet. If the senators in attendance were truly advocating for poor people in Vermont, he said, "you would be thinking of ways to have low-cost energy for the folks who need it."

"There is no silver bullet," said Howard Shaffer, a nuclear power proponent. "There is silver buckshot though."

By combining nuclear power with new alternative energy sources, Vermont can meet its energy demands into the future.

"Not in my backyard applied to everybody everywhere results in nothing for anybody," he said. "It's in the state's best interests to extend the (Vermont Yankee) license for 20 years but begin to consider what will begin to happen at the end of those 20 years."

"The plant is a well-run piece of machinery," said Yankee employee Wayne Schultz. "We take very good care of it. Continued operation of Vermont Yankee is one of the best energy options for the people of Vermont."

He and other Yankee employees called electricity from the plant carbon emission free, reliable and economically priced.

As far as getting power from such sources as windmills, said Schultz, on windless days, power generation "won't amount to squat."

"Plants like Vermont Yankee need to be part of the mix," said Bernard Buteau, another Yankee employee, as Vermont devises ways to produce energy from alternative sources. "When Vermont Yankee does reach end of life in 2032 or even longer perhaps we ought to consider replacing it with another nuclear power plant. Put that into the mix when you are stirring the pot."

"As a ratepayer, I don't want to see my rates go up," said Yankee employee Normand Raymond. "Economically I can't afford it. One more bill going up is one more nail in the coffin."

Those opposed to nuclear power also had their chance to have their voices heard.

"Conservation or efficiency measures are always cheaper than generating electricity," said Michael Daley. "We could save 30 percent of the electricity we are using in Vermont at a cost of about half the price that Vermont Yankee is charging us right now."

One man brought his slide rule to the hearing to demonstrate what he called the technology that went into building the power plant. "I would hope we would go forward with technology, not backward," said George Harvey.

"This energy crisis is going to get worse," agreed Steve Darrow, a former legislator from Dummerston. As far as nuclear power is concerned, he said, "Yucca Mountain is probably never going to open. (We) don't have anyplace to put that waste."

He called the claims that nuclear energy doesn't produce greenhouse gases "fairy tales," referring to the whole process -- including resource extraction, refining the fuel, transporting it, constructing plants and decommissioning them -- as "so fossil fuel intensive that it really should be considered a fossil fuel derivative."

The choices that Vermont makes pertaining to its energy future also effect people in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, said Deb Katz, the executive director of the anti-nuclear Citizens Awareness Network. By pursuing green technologies, she said, "you will find we can do better than have a legacy of toxic waste for our children."

"Vermont Yankee has displaced more than 55 million metric tons of carbon dioxide since it came on line," said Ted Sullivan, Yankee's site vice president. Because of that, he said, Vermont has the lowest carbon footprint of any state in the nation. Vermont also has the lowest power costs in New England because of a state contract with Entergy that guarantees electricity at four cents a kilowatt hour.

As far as safety at the plant, he said, "employees at Vermont Yankee will never compromise safety."

"We all have important choices facing us," said David Mannai, Vermont Yankee's licensing manager. But the bottom line is, he said, that "Vermont Yankee has been producing clean safe power since 1972."

"I see Vermont as a leader in the future of energy," said Audrey Garfield, Brattleboro's Selectboard Chairwoman, who said she was speaking on behalf of herself and her family, and not the board. "This does not include nuclear energy."

The state needs to take the lead in promoting alternative energy technology, she said, which would bring jobs and economic benefits to the area.

This is not the first time people have been debating energy, said Tim Stevenson, of Athens. All of the alternative energies being discussed were discussed in the 1970s during that era's oil crisis, but nothing was done about it, he said.

But now, he said, "we have about seven years to get our act together as a world and nation to avoid catastrophic consequences."

At Omega Optical's new Delta Campus, energy demands were reduced by 78 percent and water use was reduced by 90 percent, said Robert Johnson, the president and technical director.

"It can be done without abnormal or excessive costs," he said, but it takes a state government willing to step in and support incentives and push tax relief to make it happen in a realistic way for everybody.

The state should support distributed generation, said Tad Montgomery.

"Instead of large power plants, it would focus more on numerous small generating systems," such as solar, wind and co-generation that could be hooked up to the grid he said.

By pushing that technology, the state could bring jobs and industry to the state, he said.

--Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 273.

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KOLO
December 05, 2007

NRC Panel Hears Nevada Challenge To Yucca Mountain Database

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel is considering whether to again reject an Energy Department database supporting plans for a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

The three-member judicial panel made no immediate decision after three-plus hours of oral arguments today in Las Vegas between lawyers for Nevada and the Energy Department.

The chairman of the panel pointed to an analyst's written account of trying to sift information from more than 30 million pages of documents posted on the so-called licensing support network -- or LSN.

The frustrated analyst compared the task to trying to put a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle together from a box containing several million pieces.

The Energy Department wants NRC approval for an Oct. 19 Energy Department declaration that the database was complete.

The NRC rejected a similar request in 2004.

The DOE is trying to stay on schedule to submit an application for an NRC operating license by next June 30th.

The state argues that while the digital library may contain lots of analyses, reports and technical documents, a lot of important information is missing or hard to find.

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KLAS-TV
December 05, 2007

Dirty Bomb Threat Could Find Las Vegas Without Antidote

Melissa Duran

The threat of a dirty bomb is a serious. Any community could fall victim at any time. The federal government says it's ready for a dirty bomb attack, but how ready are we on the state level?

The government has a stockpile of something called Prussian Blue. It's an antidote given to anyone exposed to a radioactive dirty bomb but right now, the state doesn't have a supply.

Nevada's Homeland Security Commission says it's something we must have to protect residents and the millions of visitors we get each year.

There's no telling when, where or even if a radioactive dirty bomb could hit the Las Vegas area. But if the threat were to turn into a reality, right now Nevada's response to its citizens, first responders and tourists would be limited.

Rick Eaton, Director of Homeland Security in Nevada said, "We are, a recent study, 9th in the country targeted for an attack in Las Vegas. We absolutely need to factor that in."

Many dirty bombs carry radioactive cesium 137, sometimes used as a weapon of terror. It can cause serious illness, even death to those contaminated. But while the federal government has a national stockpile of the antidote Prussian Blue, Nevada doesn't have its own supply.

"We should have our own stockpile until they can come to our aid. Many of the other states are looking at this and we need to look at," said Eaton.

Sheriff Jerry Keller said, "If the federal government responded as fast as they could, it would still be two to three days before they're here. So not only do we need to have the public take care of themselves, we as a state must take care of our public."

The possibility of radioactive waste being transported to Yucca Mountain is another reason why some say the antidote Prussian Blue is a must in Nevada. And while the Homeland Security Commission figures out ways to fund a state-wide stockpile, commission leaders agree there's no time to waste.

"If we wait for the federal government to come in, we are going to have a lot of casualties," said Bob Fisher of the Homeland Security Commission.

Sheriff Doug Gillespie said, "This level of urgency has to stay high. We can't become complacent because something hasn't happened."

And though there's no way of knowing if it will ever be a reality, state leaders all agree it's better to be prepared -- just in case.

The commission says they will start to look at different funding options including possible grants from the federal government. They also want to look at how the antidote would be distributed in the event of an attack.

How much it could cost the state depends on how many doses they want. Right now, each dose costs about $40. The state is only looking at getting enough doses for two to three days until the federal government came in to help.

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Las Vegas SUN
December 05, 2007

Yucca forum gets loud, rude, does little

Both sides of issue stick to their guns, use silly rhetoric

Phoebe Sweet
Las Vegas Sun

Picture this: A train carrying 60 tons of deadly nuclear waste through Las Vegas is the target of a terrorist attack. In store for the 100,000-plus Las Vegans who live within half a mile of the train's route are fire, explosions and nuclear holocaust - death within two minutes from radiation poisoning.

That was the doomsday scenario painted by opponents of plans for a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Depository during a hearing Monday in Las Vegas.

Clap, clap, clap. Cheer.

Then the nuclear energy industry got its turn to describe waste storage casks designed to withstand a 120 mph train crash, 400-degree fires, terrifying falls onto concrete or metal spikes, immersion in water.

Boo, hiss, boo.

The hearing at the Cashman Center gave more than 200 people a chance to comment on environmental reports filed by the Energy Department, including one on plans to transport spent fuel to Yucca by truck and train. And though many legitimate concerns about the safety of transporting nuclear waste by train and truck through 43 states were raised, at times the gravity of the situation was lost amid the bluster and booing.

Public meetings have too often become an opportunity for people to make statements that incite other people to shake their fists and stomp their feet.

It's the Jerry Springerization of public debate.

This meeting preceded a hearing by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission board today on a state challenge to the Energy Department's certification of document collection for its Yucca license application. And it follows years of political, environmental and health debates over the plan to dispose of the country's nuclear waste in our back yard.

So it is no wonder that people are worked up. But some of the behavior and rhetoric - the tales of death and destruction, accusations of environmental racism and Nazi tactics - potentially undermine otherwise sound arguments.

On the other side, the industry portrays nuclear waste as as safe and wholesome as apple pie.

From 3,000 to 4,000 shipments of nuclear waste have gamboled safely through the countryside while citizens peacefully slumbered, Rodney McCullum of the Nuclear Energy Institute told the crowd. He touted the power of "robust" and "vaultlike" casks in which nuclear waste destined for Yucca will be encased. Then, urging the public to do its own research and not rely on his data, he offered this inadvertent gem: "I'm from the nuclear energy industry. You shouldn't believe me."

Indeed.

Also high on the unintentional comedy hit list was Gary Duarte, director of U.S. Nuclear Energy, who claimed Yucca would become a tourist destination for scientists and nuclear engineers.

Just like Chernobyl.

Audience: Yuk, yuk, yuk.

It would even increase gaming revenue, he claimed, which is all we Nevadans care about anyway.

Not so, Gary. We care about rhinestone bustiers, poker as a sport and the authenticity of celebrity look-alike lounge singers, too.

There were comedians on both sides of the aisle.

One former employee at the Yucca project offered a smaller, more personal view from the inside.

She said the public could not trust that officials would protect thousands of Las Vegans because they couldn't even protect her.

She wasn't talking about radiation poisoning or cancer from exposure.

She was talking about carpal tunnel syndrome.

STARTING TODAY

What's happening: A three-judge panel convenes in Vegas to determine whether the U.S. Energy Department has disclosed enough documents about the Yucca Mountain project to the public.

What it means: If ruled against, the department will not be able to proceed with its next major step: submitting an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license the dump.

--Phoebe Sweet can be reached at 259-4127 or at ps@lasvegassun.com.

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Las Vegas SUN
December 05, 2007

Editorial: Another Yucca failure

Energy officials continue to push a failed project that should have been shelved long ago

Energy Department officials once again are making false claims that they are ready to move ahead with plans to dump the nation's nuclear waste in Nevada.

Today the department will ask a panel of three administrative law judges for approval to apply for a license to build the dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas at Yucca Mountain.

To do that, the judges must find the department is ready. The law requires the department to submit all of its materials supporting the application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission six months before applying for a license.

This is familiar territory for the judges and the Energy Department. In 2004 the same three judges denied the department's request to move ahead because of the department's failure to comply with the law. The judges faulted the department for failing to provide all the documents it planned to use in arguing its case for Yucca Mountain, and they should find the same thing this time around.

As Lisa Mascaro reported in Saturday's Las Vegas Sun, the department has sent the commission roughly 30 ¯million pages of information but has failed to include some vitally important documents. Among the missing documents is the massive multivolume report that details how the dump is expected to work over time. The so-called Total System Performance Assessment is, in the words of one nuclear industry representative, "the mother of all codes."

The glaring omission of such a critical document is yet more evidence of the Energy Department's continued failure and more proof that the Yucca Mountain project should be stopped. Over the past two decades the department has shown itself to be irresponsible, duplicitous and incompetent. How can an agency that cannot even put its paperwork in order be entrusted to oversee the safe shipment of 77,000 tons of deadly nuclear waste cross-country?

It can't. For the good of the country, the judges should deny the department's request, and Congress should do the right thing and kill the project.

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Las Vegas SUN
December 05, 2007

Letter: NRC's objectivity on Yucca is questionable

Nevadans beware: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not a neutral party in the Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding, but rather a biased advocate of the dump.

Regarding today's hearing, an article in Saturday's Las Vegas Sun reported that "on one side will be lawyers from the Energy Department (DOE) and the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the industry's main lobbying arm. On the other will be Nevada and (Judy) Treichel (of the nonprofit Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force)."

But carefully watch NRC's technical staff and its Office of General Counsel and you will likely witness them walk in remarkable lockstep with DOE and NEI. This has been NRC's tradition for decades in literally hundreds of nuclear licensing proceedings. In fact, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California objected to this scandalous history at the contentious Yucca hearing she chaired Oct. 31 in Washington, D.C.

To be fair, the Pre-License Application Presiding Officer board should be commended for ruling in 2004 that DOE's license application documentation was absurdly half-baked. Let's hope the PAPO board is as clear-headed and courageous this time around, as DOE's document submission - despite its astronomical 30 million pages - is still substantially incomplete. It even lacks the computer projection on just how badly the dump will leak deadly radioactivity into Amargosa Valley's drinking and irrigation water supply over time!

But NRC's staff and lawyers have never met a nuclear application they didn't like. Rather then protecting public health and safety, they can - scandalously - be counted on to do DOE and NEI's bidding.

Kevin Kamps, Takoma Park, Md.

The writer is a radioactive waste expert with Beyond Nuclear, a group that opposes nuclear power and supports sustainable energy, including renewable energy and conservation.

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Las Vegas SUN
December 05, 2007

Jon Ralston on Nevada's rise to Division I in caucuses

Like Appalachian State stripping the Michigan Wolverines of their dignity on opening day, the Democratic National Committee last weekend executed the political equivalent, cementing the importance of The Little Caucus That Could.

When the DNC voted Saturday to bar Michigan's delegates from the national convention, it ensured the state's Jan. 15 caucus would have almost no significance and gave the Appalachian State of presidential caucuses renewed importance. After enduring months of uncertainty and being treated like a Division I-AA caucus by the major political powers in presidential politics and the Fourth Estate, it is now official: The place to be in January is Nevada.

The national media and candidates will cure their New Year's hangovers in Iowa and skip to New Hampshire for five days. Then, unless the Inevitability Express gets back on track and the nomination appears secure for Hillary Clinton, which now seems unlikely, the Democratic candidates will spend a third of the month campaigning in Nevada for its Jan. 19 caucus.

(The Republicans are a different story. With South Carolina's GOP holding a primary Jan. 19, the Republican caucus here is diminished. Hence the lack of campaigning here by the GOP hopefuls, with the exception of regular visits from Mitt Romney and the intermittent, languid stops of Fred Thompson.)

This state has never seen the likes of what is about to occur a month and a half hence. For 10 consecutive days, Nevadans will feel like Iowans and New Hampshirites have felt for too long - important.

The candidates and national media types will bivouac here for that week and a half, bloviating, pandering and gambling (literally and figuratively, I'd guess). For that short but intense period, it will feel like late October of campaign season, with mailboxes stuffed with propaganda and TV stations jammed with attack ads.

This is what all the advocates, from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to union folks to Democratic activists, envisioned when they lobbied the DNC to open the gateway to the West here. And, much to my surprise, it has worked.

Yes, I confess. I lost my faith in The Little Caucus That Could. I wanted to believe, so badly, and I thought I could, I thought I could.

I prayed for guidance but saw only Iowa and New Hampshire (even Oprah snubbed us but I bet she comes in January!). I looked for hope but heard only condescension from the national bigfoots, if they even remembered we were on the calendar, and Nevada received only sporadic dollops of attention from the candidates.

But now, as they finish off their genuflections in the snow to the folks in Council Bluffs and Manchester, they surely are thinking ahead to Las Vegas. They will need us, I think. And badly.

I am sorry, God (aka Lord Harry). I have blasphemed but now I repent. I believe.

I am sure that Iowans and New Hampshirites, as they have been patting us on the head all year, still believe in the preeminence of their little upcoming events. That's nice.

But people are about to - if they have not already - shut down for the holidays, tuning out the presidential race and focusing on the season. By the time people, even in the ubersophisticated states of Iowa and New Hampshire, awake from their holiday stupor, it will be time to focus on Nevada.

The candidates will be marking the New Year by tossing their "I love ethanol" briefing books in favor of their "I hate Yucca" manuals. They will forget trying to pronounce the words for obscure farm implements or the names of minuscule New England villages and practice saying "Nevada" correctly. And they will leave behind their snow boots to bask in the Silver State sun for 10 days.

Soon now, the Culinary Union will set the tone for the Nevada caucus by announcing its endorsement, an embrace that because of the state's elevated importance could be remembered as pivotal in the nominating path. And it will really mean something as the Appalachian State of caucuses goes Division I. (This metaphor pains me as a former grad student at Michigan. But it is part of my penance for nonbelieving.)

If nothing is clarified by Iowa and New Hampshire, as seems likely, Nevada will be the place where the eventual nominee will remember the momentum started. Not to worry, though, Iowa and New Hampshire. We are much more ecumenical and giving in Nevada and we will argue for you to retain some role in the quadrennial cycle.

You just aren't as important as you used to be.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program "Face to Face With Jon Ralston" on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the daily e-mail newsletter "RalstonFlash.com." His column for the Las Vegas Sun appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or at ralston@vegas.com.

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Nevada Appeal
December 05, 2007

Nevada delegation: Yucca conflicts need investigating

Lawmakers push for a closer look into the law firm hired by the DOE for licensing procedure

Nevada's congressional delegation sent a letter to Gregory Friedman, inspector general for the U.S. Department of Energy, urging him to review possible conflicts of interest related to the law firm Morgan, Lewis, and Bockius’s contract with the Department of Energy to perform legal services related to licensing Yucca Mountain as the nation’s nuclear waste dump.

Today's letter outlines, in detail, the fact that in the past the firm has represented clients against the Department of Energy and the fact that recently the firm was registered to lobby on behalf of the Nuclear Energy Institute. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign, Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, and Congressmen Jon Porter and Dean Heller are united in their efforts to stop Yucca Mountain from ever holding the nation's nuclear waste.

“The dump will never be built, plain and simple,” said Reid in a press release today. “This is just one more attempt by the Energy Department to try to push this dying beast through the licensing process. The Energy Department should not be wasting tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on lawyers to defend a project that will never be completed. Instead, we need to work toward a much safer solution of securely storing nuclear waste at the facilities where it is produced.”

“Firms representing the nuclear industry in Yucca Mountain lawsuits should not be hired by taxpayers to also fight in favor of the proposed dump. The Energy Department recognized this potential conflict of interest in the past, but in the rush to open Yucca Mountain, it has now abandoned this position. Clearly, there are red flags here that point to a potential conflict of interest in DOE’s hiring of Morgan Lewis, a firm with a long and active history of working for the nuclear industry. This new contract — which could cost taxpayers more than $100 million — deserves immediate review by the Inspector General,” said Berkley.

“The Energy Department's use of taxpayer money to hire a law firm with ties to the nuclear industry is disgraceful. This is just one more blunder in DOE's long list of errors for this fatally flawed project," said Heller.

The letter the Congressional Delegation sent to Friedman is attached.

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AScribe Newswire
December 05, 2007

Yucca Mountain: Putting a Limit on Risk

EL CERRITO, Calif., Dec. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- Looking ahead 100 million years, new research puts a maximum limit of 3.6 meters per second on potential ground movement caused by earthquakes at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the site of the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository. Yucca Mountain has unique characteristics that make it arguably the best location to store hazardous waste, chiefly a water table so low that it is possible to store steel canisters of waste 1000 feet below ground and 1000 feet above the water table. Two questions form the current debate: how dry will the site remain, and what is the risk from earthquakes?

Seismic hazard assessments usually look at the risk over 500 to 1000 years. The Nuclear Regulatory Agency is requiring a much more cautious evaluation that exams what would happen with odds as low as 1 in 10,000 over 10,000 years, which would be equivalent to something that happens only once every 100 million years. Scientists study the past to help predict the future, but Yucca Mountain was formed only 10 million years ago, limiting the value of the historical record. While the relative stability of the area is clear, some seismic hazard evaluations assessed potential movement at rates larger than experienced anywhere on earth. Researchers turned their attention instead to quantifying the maximum possible movement from any earthquake at Yucca Mountain, given its unique geological composition. Was there a limit to ground motion?

D. J. Andrews and colleagues at USGS looked at the worst-case scenario to find that the ground can move a maximum of 3.6 meters per second, which is near the most intense ground motion ever recorded anywhere, but is within the range of feasible engineering mitigation. Andrews, et al., used a numerical method to calculate ground motion related to stress changes at the source of an earthquake and throughout the surrounding area to establish physical limits on extreme ground motion, as published in the December issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

The authors suggest this new finding adds significantly to the body of evidence that supports a long-term stable seismic environment for Yucca Mountain and provides an opportunity to shift discussion to the large question of the comparable merits of available options for hazardous waste storage.

--Note: Please cite the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America as the source of this information. The authors, D.J. Andrews, Thomas C. Hanks, and John W. Whitney, work at the U.S. Geological Survey - Menlo Park. For more information or a copy of the paper, please contact Nan Broadbent of the Seismological Society of America at press@seismosoc.org or 408-431-9885.

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Platts
December 04, 2007

NRC Commissioner Jaczko nominated for second term

Washington (Platts)--4Dec2007

NRC Commissioner Gregory Jaczko was nominated for a second term December 4 by President George W. Bush. Jaczko joined the NRC in January 2005, halfway through the term for the seat to which he was appointed. His term ends in June 2008.

If confirmed by the Senate, he will serve a full five-year term expiring in June 2013. His nomination is expected to be considered along with that of Kristine Svinicki, a staffer for the Republican members on the Senate Armed Services Committee who was nominated by Bush in April. California Senator Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said she would not move Svinicki's nomination unless it was paired with Jaczko's. Jaczko was formerly science policy adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who supports his reappointment. Their confirmations would bring the commission to four, with Chairman Dale Klein and Commissioner Peter Lyons, both Republicans.

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Science Daily
December 05, 2007

Yucca Mountain: Putting A Limit On Risk

Yucca Mountain has unique characteristics that make it arguably the best location to store hazardous waste, chiefly a water table so low that it is possible to store steel canisters of waste 1000 feet below ground and 1000 feet above the water table. Two questions form the current debate: how dry will the site remain, and what is the risk from earthquakes?

While the relative stability of the area is clear, some seismic hazard evaluations assessed potential movement at rates larger than experienced anywhere on earth. Researchers turned their attention instead to quantifying the maximum possible movement from any earthquake at Yucca Mountain, given its unique geological composition. Was there a limit to ground motion?

Andrews, et al., used a numerical method to calculate ground motion related to stress changes at the source of an earthquake and throughout the surrounding area to establish physical limits on extreme ground motion.

The full research article was recently published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. D. J. Andrews, Thomas C. Hanks, and John W. Whitney work at the U.S. Geological Survey -- Menlo Park.

--Adapted from materials provided by Seismological Society of America.

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Morris Sun Tribune
December 05, 2007

Minnesota's Energy Future: In age of renewables, nuclear energy a mainstay

By Mike Longaecker
Red Wing Republican Eagle

RED WING. Minn. – Even as Minnesota becomes more reliant on renewable energy sources, the state will continue leaning heavily on nuclear power.

Industry officials and lawmakers say the state's energy needs require a steady source of “baseload power” — constant output that doesn't fluctuate. Wind turbines popping up across the state won't take the place of that vital need.

"The industry as a whole in the U.S. does not feel threatened by emerging technologies," said Mike Wadley, Nuclear Management Co.’s site vice president at the Prairie Island nuclear generating plant.

Renewable sources like wind, water and biomass produce energy, but remain at the mercy of weather and climate changes, he said. Droughts, Wadley said, affect hydroelectric and biomass power, and “wind generation is wonderful — when the wind is blowing.”

“It's intermittent,” he said. “We can't control it.”

But nuclear can be counted on, many say, despite concerns over waste storage. That is why Xcel Energy, Minnesota's largest energy producer, is banking on nuclear well into the future.

Plans are in place to upgrade power output at both the Monticello and Prairie Island plants, said Charlie Bomberger, Xcel's general manager of nuclear asset management. By investing about $270 million at each facility, he expects to increase the life of the plants by 20 years.

Monticello's federal operating license was set to expire in 2010, but it received a new license this year that reaches to 2030. Prairie Island's licenses are set to expire in 2013 and 2014. Xcel officials say they will seek 20-year extensions for the two reactors near Red Wing.

While those dates approach, others say it is time to look even further ahead — perhaps by expanding the number of Minnesota's nuclear plants. Rep. Joyce Peppin, one of the Legislature's leading nuclear power proponents, said the state must begin investigating that possibility by lifting its moratorium on new nuclear plants.

Provisions of the ban, she said, prohibit the state's Public Utilities Commission from even discussing the matter. Peppin said she will continue pushing legislation in 2008 to lift the ban, so nuclear's future in Minnesota can be explored.

Without that mapped out, the Rogers Republican fears Minnesota could be on a course for energy blackouts like those in California.

Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFL-St. Paul, wants no part of a push for more nuclear plants in the state, saying the moratorium was instituted for a reason.

Anderson said she's willing to hear discussion on the topic, but said talks should be limited to lawmakers who create policy — not by the utility commission members who implement it.

"The Legislature needs to take the lead," she said, adding that the joint Legislative Electric Energy Task Force would be the appropriate venue for such a discussion.

Anderson, who authored legislation establishing Minnesota's renewable energy standard, said costs, security issues and questions of where to store nuclear waste stand in the way of new nuclear generation here.

“I don't think there's an appetite to do new nuclear power in Minnesota,” she said.

Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty agreed.

“The future will be about more wind, more solar, more biomass, more biogas, hydrogen fuels cells, hopefully clean coal, maybe next generation nuclear in some parts of the country,” Pawlenty said in an interview. “I don’t think (more nuclear) will happen in Minnesota because of our political culture here.”

Nuclear makes up 25 percent to 30 percent of Xcel Energy’s Upper Midwest power.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to nuclear expansion is the question of waste storage. Plans to haul spent nuclear fuel to Nevada's Yucca Mountain remain in limbo, with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., leading the charge against the project.

Opponents of the project claim the site — nestled about 90 miles north of Las Vegas, Nev. — and its geologic characteristics are unfit for a massive repository.

Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, scoffed at the notion, saying the repository could be open for business in less than a year.

“I think the risks are nominal at best,” the senator and Xcel employee said.

Wadley said he would like to see the repository used temporarily until a viable method of recycling spent fuel is rendered.

“But that's not a technical decision,” he said. “It's a political decision.”

While Peppin doesn't think an expansion of nuclear would necessarily mean phasing out coal plants, that's just what Murphy proposes.

Coal's fossil-fueled plants don't create a good energy mix as Minnesota heads toward a greener future, he said.

“If we're serious about flipping the switch to ‘off’ on some of these coal plants...” Murphy said. “Then that's where nuclear fits in.”

Eventually the state will need at least one other nuclear plant, said Murphy, who once worked at the Prairie Island facility.

Sen. Yvonne Prettner Solon is one of two lawmakers heading up the Legislative Electric Energy Task Force. The Duluth Democrat said legislators must continue evaluating the role of different energy sources, including nuclear. That doesn’t mean nixing any particular option, she said, but added that nuclear’s reputation has improved since the 1970s.

“There’s more willingness to re-look at it among people in Minnesota,” Prettner Solon said.

--Mike Longaecker reports for the Red Wing Republican-Eagle, which is owned by Forum Communications.

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Brattleboro Reformer
December 5, 2007

McCain raps U.S. intelligence skills

By Paul H. Heintz

KEENE, N.H. -- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., took aim at American intelligence capabilities Tuesday afternoon during a campaign stop at C&S Wholesale Grocers.

Speaking of a revised National Intelligence Estimate released Monday which suggested Iran halted its development of nuclear weapons in 2003, McCain said, "We have a history of not having the greatest intelligence abilities."

McCain's comments came hours after President Bush convened a press conference to explain why his administration has been asserting in recent months that Iran was on the brink of becoming a nuclear power.

"This means we should examine what brought us to previous conclusions that they were developing nuclear weapons," McCain told an audience of 80 C&S employees following a tour of the company's facilities.

McCain said the lapse was likely due to a lack of human intelligence gatherers on the ground in Iran, a situation he said was inexcusable.

"I just want to assure you that as president we will improve our human intelligence capabilities," he said.

Iran is still a threat, McCain said after the forum, but perhaps a different sort of threat.

"I think the Iranians are still sponsoring terrorist organizations, they're still dedicated to the extinction of the state of Israel, they're still exporting these most lethal devices into Iraq, which are killing young Americans," he said. "But there is some, I conclude, some lessening of the urgency of the issue concerning nuclear weapons."

As McCain toured southwestern New Hampshire Tuesday, the Associated Press released a poll of 446 likely Republican voters conducted by the Pew Research Center last month, which showed McCain battling for second place in New Hampshire.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney held a strong lead with 37 percent, while 19 percent of respondents supported former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani and 15 percent supported McCain. Giuliani's lead over McCain was within the poll's 5.5 percent margin of error.

McCain praised C&S' distribution technologies during his visit and said he would seek to enlist their help during times of national emergency.

"As president of the United States we've got to make use of the private sector," he said, arguing that the response to Hurricane Katrina could have been improved had the Federal Emergency Management Agency sought more assistance from the private sector.

In his opening remarks, McCain talked tough on terrorism -- "We gotta get him" -- and said it was critical for America to address growing concerns about climate change.

"I'm not for telling you to shiver in the dark," he said, but he argued that developing renewable energy technology would improve the economy and make the country less dependent on other counties' oil reserves.

McCain spoke bluntly about the Bush administration's contributions to halting global warming, saying they "would be judged harshly" by history.

"As far as what we've done, in two words: not enough, not enough, not enough," he said.

A key way to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, he said, would be to increase the use of nuclear power.

When asked after the forum how he proposed to dispose of high level nuclear waste, McCain said, "My preference is that we store it. I always thought that Yucca Mountain was the right place to do it."

McCain said multinational forces were making progress in Iraq thanks to a troop surge he said he had for years been advocating. He also took great pains to criticize Democratic leaders, saying al-Qaida would be bragging about its victory had the Democrats succeeded in withdrawing American forces from Iraq.

"They were wrong about it being lost militarily and they're wrong about this," he said.

McCain was asked several questions about his stance on immigration, which has drawn fire from some conservatives who disapproved of his efforts in the Senate to broker a deal that would have allowed illegal immigrants to apply for citizenship after a certain period of time.

Acknowledging he had heard the message loud and clear, McCain said he would first secure the nation's borders before attempting to resolve other issues.

"As president, I would have the border state governors certify that the borders are secured, because Americans don't trust the federal government," he said.

When pressed on how he would do so, McCain said he would use a combination of walls along the border and high-tech measures to keep illegal immigrants from entering the country from Mexico.

Asked which president best represented America, McCain said that aside from the founding fathers he most admired Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan -- but most of all he liked Harry Truman.

"Harry Truman was a gutsy old guy," he said. 'He did a lot of courageous things and he told people the truth."

--Paul Heintz can be reached at pheintz@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 275.

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UPI
December 4, 2007

Analysis: Reid's Yucca and nuke waste plan

By Ben Lando

UPI Energy Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Sen. Harry Reid becomes the most powerful person in the U.S. Senate next month and the Nevada Democrat says he'll oversee the killing of a decades-long, multibillion dollar plan to store nuclear waste inside a mountain in his state.

Fellow opponents of the Yucca Mountain Project say the site is unsafe to hold spent nuclear fuel and transporting it there is a security risk.

The nuclear industry calls it a business liability if nuclear waste isn't taken off its hands, warning it may hinder a resurgence of nuclear power in the country.

But after three decades of exploration at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and $10 billion (15 percent of the project's total expected cost for its first 100 years), the U.S. Energy Department is 20 years behind schedule to get federal regulator approval for the site, let alone open it.

"Yucca Mountain is dead. It'll never happen," Reid told United Press International in an exclusive interview in his Las Vegas office.

As a powerful Democratic Party member, Reid has been able to engineer regular funding cuts to the project, though scientific exploration of the mountain-as-repository continues.

Beginning January, he'll be in charge of the Senate, already pledging to block bills aimed at maneuvering the project via legislative mandates, like the failed Bush administration-prompted "Fix Yucca Bill," which would have bolstered the project's funding and allowed the Energy Department to receive permits easier, among other aspects, introduced earlier this year.

Reid also plans to further trim Yucca's annual budget, cut to just over $300 million in fiscal year 2006.

"That's a tremendous waste of money," Reid said. "Just forget about that. It's not going to happen. So why continue this game?"

Nuclear power is getting a fresh look as an alternative energy source to oil and gas, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects around 30 applications for new reactors soon.

"To realize fully the benefits that nuclear power offers, however, the country must resolve outstanding issues related to the ultimate disposal of used nuclear fuel," Tony Earley, chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade group, told a Senate hearing on the Fix Yucca Bill in September.

"If overall spending totals remain flat, even more significant delays could result, not because nuclear power consumers have not provided the funds necessary to support the program, but because of inappropriate federal budget accounting."

In 1987, Congress ended the search for a geologic repository to store the waste, and limited site studies to only Yucca. In 2002, it was officially declared the final resting place for highly radioactive nuclear waste.

Yucca is capped at holding 77,000 tons, which will either need to be amended or an additional repository built to store waste that remains radioactive for tens of thousands if not millions of years. Currently 54,000 tons are stockpiled at weapons sites and at operating and shuttered nuclear power plants around the country; about 2,000 tons of nuclear waste is produced annually, the byproduct of nuclear energy, nuclear weapons and nuclear technology exploration.

Yucca was to be the final solution.

But the project has been plagued by accusations of unsound science and claims the quality assurance program isn't given enough independence.

Outside the mountain, there is no final proposed route to get the waste there. A combination of mostly railway and some trucked shipments is the leading contender for the method of delivery.

It's also another tract for Reid's Kill Yucca agenda.

"There's no way in the world we're gong to have 77,000 tons of nuclear waste, the most poisonous substance known to man, hauled across our highways and railways in this country, past schools, homes, playgrounds and businesses," Reid said.

He said he favors using money from the Nuclear Waste Fund -- money ratepayers contribute to solving the nuclear waste storage issue ($27 billion since 1982) -- for keeping the waste at the nuclear plants. The federal government was supposed to take possession of the waste by 1998, the original opening date for Yucca.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has authority to approve the site, but the department's attempt to complete an application has been set back by lawsuits and regulatory challenges as well as controversy over science at the site.

Yucca Mountain was born from the decision mid-20th century that nuclear waste from the U.S. weapons program -- and then nuclear energy when it was developed -- should be buried deep underground.

But when the 110th Congress takes the reins, it may have to choose a new fate for the waste unless it finds some life support to curb Reid's prerogative to kill Yucca Mountain.

"It's dying on its own. It's just happening," Reid said. "You don't need just a sudden demise. It's breathing really hard. Just let it lay there a while and it'll be dead."

--(Comments to energy@upi.com)

---------------------------------
Tuesday, December 04, 2007: 10:30
---------------------------------

Senator Harry Reid
December 3, 2007

CONTACT: Jon Summers/Blair Hinderliter (202) 224-9521

REID STATEMENT ON HEARING ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF YUCCA PROJECT

Washington, DC— U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada expressed his concerns in a written statement about the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump as the Department of Energy (DOE) prepares to hold a hearing today about the environmental impacts of building a rail line to Yucca Mountain and constructing the proposed repository.

Calling the Department’s Environmental Impact Statements “premature, wholly inadequate, and based on flawed assumptions,” Reid urged DOE to fully review the public comments it receives regarding these reports, which are intended to consider alternatives to the project and why the project could harm the environment and public health.

Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery.

STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARRY REID

on the

Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statements for a Geologic Repository at Yucca Mountain and Nevada Transportation Corridor and Rail Alignment

December 3, 2007

I appreciate the opportunity to comment before my fellow Nevadans and the Department of Energy on the Draft Repository and Transportation Supplemental EISs. The DOE is in its third decade of trying to show that Yucca Mountain is a suitable site to permanently store nuclear waste. It is telling that they keep generating thousands of pages of data and documents, yet Nevadans and more and more Americans look at this project with skepticism and fear. I have spent my entire career in the U.S. Senate opposing a nuclear waste repository in Nevada – and like past environmental documents that DOE has published, I see nothing in these NEPA documents suggesting that DOE made the right decision by choosing Yucca as the nation’s nuclear waste dump.

The National Environmental Policy Act is designed to disclose the environmental impacts of major federal projects so that the public may have a chance to review and comment on them. The purpose of NEPA is to ensure that federal agencies actually take into account potential environmental consequences of projects like the proposed nuclear waste dump before making a decision to go forward. However, it is common knowledge that the Department of Energy has already decided that it wants to build a repository in Nevada, despite the fact that the NEPA process is not over. This is precisely the situation that NEPA and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act intended to avoid.

Both NEPA and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act envisioned that the Department would complete research and have sufficient information available before determining that a site is suitable for storing one of the most dangerous substances known to man. Because our federal government made the terrible mistake of ignoring a well-thought-out process of completing research and designs before choosing a repository site, we are all here today commenting on an EIS that is premature, wholly inadequate, and based on flawed assumptions.

It is clear that DOE is attempting to move forward with repository construction: the Department has given us a date – June 30, 2008 – that it will submit its license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. DOE has no intention of taking into account comments from the public that could prevent it from meeting this arbitrary self-imposed deadline. I am hopeful that DOE will make every effort to review each comment submitted regarding the Draft SEISs and provide an explanation of how they considered each suggestion or concern.

As the Department noted in its Repository SEIS summary, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act as amended directs the NRC to adopt the Department’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) “to the extent practicable,” with “no further consideration” required. This being the case, if the Department’s Final and Supplemental EISs are based on incomplete information and flawed assumptions, this means that the NRC could adopt this skewed analysis when deciding whether or not to authorize construction of a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

I have four major concerns with the Repository SEIS:

(1) The DOE has made numerous conclusions in its SEIS based on incomplete design information, despite the fact that Yucca Mountain is a one-of-a-kind project. DOE acknowledges that repository designs could be less than 40 percent complete when it submits its application to NRC. I am also deeply concerned that DOE is making assumptions that are convenient for securing a license, but are not actually feasible in constructing a repository. One such example is the reliance on titanium drip shields in the Department’s modeling data, despite the fact that DOE knows that it cannot install them for 100 to 300 years after beginning waste disposal.

(2) The assumption that DOE will place 90 percent of all spent nuclear fuel in Transportation Aging and Disposal (TAD) canisters lacks foundation, and DOE simply cannot show that nuclear utilities will have the will or resources to do so. The TAD canister system is only a concept on paper. It faces serious practical barriers, because it would require many utilities to remove spent fuel from secure dry casks in order to put the waste into the TAD canisters. The TAD concept is even more problematic, considering that 25 reactor sites lack rail access, requiring waste to be moved by barge or truck. Taking nuclear waste that is safely stored at reactor sites with extremely high security and putting it in unproven canisters to be shipped across our country in trucks, and on barges and trains is simply a backwards approach;

(3) There are significant discrepancies between estimated mean annual radiation dose exposure between the FEIS and the Draft SEIS – DOE admits that this is a result of modeling differences, and not necessarily a result of improved designs. Thus, the Department effectively admits that it can simply change its assumptions to make the repository look environmentally sound;

(4) Despite the fact that the Department can change its assumptions in order to manipulate radiation dose data, they continue to refuse to make the Total System Performance Assessment (TSPA) model accessible to stakeholders like the State of Nevada or NRC to verify DOE’s calculations. How can the DOE possibly expect the NRC to adopt the Yucca Mountain EISs if the model used to draft them is kept secret?

With regard to the Draft Transportation SEIS, it is troubling that DOE’s analysis fails to adequately consider the impacts that the Caliente Rail Corridor – the Department’s preferred route – would have on Nevadans. Specifically, DOE has not fully considered land use conflicts with ranching, mining, and recreation in Nevada, and I am concerned that the SEIS ignores the environmental impacts that the Caliente rail corridor would have on communities along existing rail lines through Las Vegas.

The Caliente route would not only send nuclear waste through downtown Las Vegas – the nation’s fastest growing city with a tourism-based economy; it would also severely impact rural communities, disrupt livestock operations and grazing lands, utilize scarce water resources, and cross private residential, industrial and commercial land with the rail line. While I am confident that nuclear waste will never be stored at Yucca Mountain, I am concerned that the Department will try to begin construction of a rail line before the site is even approved for construction. The economic impacts on the affected communities must be thoroughly considered before the Department decides to break ground on the Caliente corridor.

I appreciate the chance to voice these concerns, and plan to submit additional comments on each of the Draft SEISs in writing to the Department. Again, I urge DOE to fully review the public comments it receives regarding the Transportation and Rail SEISs, and provide the consideration that each comment is due considering the magnitude and long-term impacts of the Yucca Mountain Project.

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KLAS-TV
December 04, 2007

Yucca Mountain Nuke Waste Public Hearing

Aaron Drawhorn

A public hearing on the Yucca Mountain project drew more than 200 people last night, with most of the 50 who spoke saying they oppose the proposed national nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert.

It's a contentious issue. Some people say the repository will be nothing more than a toxic waste dump, others believe the government's proposal at Yucca Mountain will lead us to energy independence.

Both sides sounded off during a public hearing at Cashman Center. The hearing is one in a series being held by the Department of Energy as it collects comment on environmental impacts and transportation plans for the repository.

The debate's been going on for more than 20 years. The federal government believes the safest place to store the country's radioactive waste is underground.

The public can view the documents to be discussed online

As was evident Monday night, nuclear waste is definitely a hot topic. The Yucca Mountain repository, in the remote Nevada desert, is a network of tunnels 1,000 feet underground and planned to be the final resting place for our country's high level radioactive waste and spent or used nuclear fuel.

At the public hearing, the federal government's message was clear. Yucca Mountain is a vital asset.

The D.O.E. will accept online comments

Allen Benson, with the U.S. Department of Energy, said, "Congress has determined that the best and safest way to dispose of this material is in a permanent geological repository sitting under a thousand feet of solid rock here at Yucca Mountain."

Supporters suggest thinking of Yucca Mountain as an energy reserve, not a nuclear dump site.

Gary Hollis, Nye County Board of Commissioners, stated, "We have to realize the economic benefit we could have on this project if we just get our mind to it."

But there are plenty of echoes of "not in my backyard."

Zabarte, with the Western Shoshone National Council, said, "This is aggression. It is abusive. It violates the law, international law and international humanitarian law. We are a victim here."

A big concern is transporting the toxic waste to the mountain.

The feds say transportation would be safe and secure. The state of Nevada isn't so sure nuclear waste should ride the rails through Las Vegas.

Steve Frishman, Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said, "An accident involving nuclear waste would be broadcast around the world in five minutes, and then how many tourists do you suppose we'd hear from?"

Scientists say Yucca Mountain is the most studied site of its kind in the world. That's still not enough to change some minds.

Michael Kelly is a concerned citizen. "It seems to me they're just selling us a line of goods. What's the worst case scenario? Have you heard any worst case scenario of what could happen? No, they haven't told us that."

In June, the Department of Energy is scheduled to submit a license application, but ultimately it could be the year 2020 before the facility would even open.

Recently, Energy officials indicated the cost of the project is likely to increase beyond the initial projection of some $58 billion.

They have vowed to meet a self-imposed deadline of applying for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in June.

It's not too late to comment to the government. You have until Thursday, Jan. 10. You can send comments by fax to: 1-800-967-0739, or to an independent e-mail account: yuccaopinions@aol.com.

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KTNV
December 04, 2007

Hundreds Show Up For Yucca Mountain Hearing

The 25 year controversy over hauling nuclear waste through Clark County to Yucca Mountain is back on the front burner.

Hundreds showed up to voice their opinions at a public hearing Monday night.

The public responded to the two latest D.O.E. environmental studies regarding the storage and transportation of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain.

Clark County is worried about the negative impact on tourism, property values and public safety.

The D.O.E. will submit their license application in June, then it is up to the nuclear regulatory commission to decide.

The D.O.E. hopes Yucca Mountain will be functioning by 2017.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 04, 2007

Reid chases more cuts to Yucca Mountain

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- With Congress nearing decisions on federal spending for the coming year, Yucca Mountain critics are winding up for another swing at chopping the nuclear waste budget to crippling levels.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is seeking to cut beyond a $50 million decrease the Senate has written into its fiscal 2008 spending for energy programs, a spokesman said Monday.

The goal of the Senate majority leader is to disable the Department of Energy's drive to apply, by next summer, for a construction license to build a repository at the Nevada site for thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel from power plants and for other forms of highly radioactive waste.

"We are working with the House side to further cut Yucca Mountain, but I don't have a firm number just yet," Reid aide Jon Summers said Monday. "The goal always is to kill Yucca Mountain and to ensure the dump is never built."

Supporters of Yucca Mountain began scurrying last week upon learning of the latest reductions in the works. A sharp cutback would come at an inopportune time for the Energy Department, as the agency already is struggling with other money problems to finalize its license application.

Allen Benson, a DOE spokesman, confirmed that a deputy in the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management attended a meeting Friday in Washington at the request of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-repository lobby.

"We are asked by industry and by (Nevada counties) and by all kinds of people for updates on the program, and we sent a staffer to sit in and talk about the status of the program," Benson said. "This was NEI's meeting."

The Energy Daily newsletter reported Monday on the meeting. The newsletter said the nuclear industry planned a major push to resist the budget cuts through its allies on Capitol Hill, including pro-nuclear Democrats such as Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Tom Carper of Delaware.

Industry officials think that Reid is seeking a $100 million funding cut, the newsletter said.

Other sources said Monday DOE would be left in the range of $394 million to $400 million if the cut were enacted. President Bush requested $494.5 million, and DOE officials have said they need every penny to meet their goals.

"With respect to the budget, the administration has requested $494 and a half million for 2008, and we need $494 and a half million," Benson said.

"Four hundred million really puts the program on the bubble," said an industry consultant who asked not to be named. "They would be in a very precarious position."

Congress was unable to pass 11 out of 12 appropriations bills by an Oct. 1 deadline, and many federal agencies including the one that runs Yucca Mountain are operating with scaled-back temporary budgets.

With two or three weeks remaining in this year's session, Reid and other congressional leaders are working to roll the uncompleted bills into one giant resolution to keep the government operating through fiscal 2008. They also face threats from President Bush to veto spending bills that are more expensive than he wants.

"When this gets to be an insider situation, when you are going to get an omnibus bill, this is where Reid's position as Senate majority leader gives him his biggest 'ooomph,' or power, so to speak," the industry consultant said.

"What he wants to do here is he wants to stop or delay the license application into the next administration."

--Stephens Media Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault can be reached at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or (202) 783-1760

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 04, 2007

NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE PROJECT: Yucca plans draw public's ire

Criticisms voiced in packed hearing room at Cashman Center

By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal

Southern Nevadans showed up in force Monday to voice concerns about the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, saying the transportation risks are too great, the design has too many shortcomings and the government's nuclear weapons testing track record cast doubt on the project.

One speaker, Ian Zabarte of the Western Shoshone National Council, drew some of the loudest applause from the crowd of more than 200 that packed a hearing room at the Cashman Center when he accused the Energy Department of "environmental racism."

"A moral people with ethical scientists cannot condone the use of such practices to the benefit of the nuclear industry," Zabarte said. He suggested that tribes along all transportation corridors "and especially those with tourism-based economies and gaming facilities must be assessed for stigma-related impacts."

"Transportation of waste to Yucca Mountain would place a disproportionate burden upon the Western Shoshone nation and has not been addressed in the (supplemental impact statement). It is environmental racism," he said.

Only a handful of the 53 who signed up to speak at the hearing favored the Energy Department's plans. They said the draft supplemental impact statement for surface facilities to handle nuclear waste canisters, and another analysis of building a rail line from Caliente to reach the mountain, are improvements over the final impact document issued in 2002.

"The fact the SEIS (supplement) shows impacts to Nevada from transportation is small confirms what we found," said Paul Seidler, a senior director for the Nuclear Energy Institute in Las Vegas. The institute is a lobbying organization for the nuclear power industry.

In all, 212 people, most from Southern Nevada, attended the hearing in addition to the two dozen Energy Department employees and consultants on hand to answer questions and explain exhibits.

In comparison, Yucca Mountain hearings last month in Hawthorne, Caliente, Reno-Sparks, Amargosa Valley, Goldfield and Lone Pine, Calif., drew a combined 244 public attendees. Of those, a total of 71 spoke at the hearings, said Allen Benson, the senior Department of Energy official and spokesman at the Las Vegas hearing.

"It's a tremendous turnout," he said. "I think a lot of people take this seriously. It's important that they come out and talk to us about their views."

That they did, from the first speaker, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, to a former Yucca Mountain Project worker, Robin Drew, who bemoaned how project officials have opposed her in a legal battle over compensation for carpal tunnel syndrome.

Goodman weighed in on the federal agency's plans for transporting nuclear waste across the nation and especially through the Las Vegas Valley, saying privately before he took the podium, "It's a disaster waiting to happen."

In his public comments, Goodman said, "If the material is as safe as we're told it is, let it stay where it presently exists."

He said no one can guarantee that an accident won't happen "or, God forbid, the act of a terrorist."

Robert Halstead, transportation adviser for the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, emphasized in his remarks that spent fuel "is lethal" and that the 77,000 tons of it and highly radioactive defense waste destined for a maze of tunnels to be dug in Yucca Mountain contain far more fission products than were released by the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II.

Each truck cask of spent nuclear fuel would contain 350,000 curies of radioactive cesium and strontium, or about 20 to 30 times the amount of fission products released by the Hiroshima bomb, Halstead said.

"Every dedicated train hauling three or four rail casks would contain more cesium-137 than the total amount released during the Chernobyl nuclear power accident," he said.

Halstead noted that since the DOE's last impact statement five years ago, the residential population within a half-mile of the rail route through Las Vegas has doubled, from 45,000 to about 90,000.

Irene Navis, planning manager for the Clark County Nuclear Waste Program, said the Energy Department's plans lack details, especially regarding an increased inventory of waste to be disposed that one project official has said will increase the life-cycle cost from $58 billion to $78 billion.

"We don't know what's up with a second repository," Navis said.

In concept, she said, there could be "twice as much waste, which means twice as many shipments for twice as many years. ... So far it's not clear. We're looking for answers."

--Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0308.

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EurekAlert
December 04, 2007

Contact: Nan Broadbent
press@seismosoc.org
408-431-9885
Seismological Society of America

Featured articles in December issue of BSSA

Yucca Mountain: Putting a Limit on Risk

Looking ahead 100 million years, new research puts a maximum limit of 3.6 meters per second on potential ground movement caused by earthquakes at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the site of the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository. Yucca Mountain has unique characteristics that make it arguably the best location to store hazardous waste, chiefly a water table so low that it is possible to store steel canisters of waste 1000 feet below ground and 1000 feet above the water table. Two questions form the current debate: how dry will the site remain, and what is the risk from earthquakes"

D. J. Andrews, Thomas C. Hanks, and John W. Whitney work at the U.S. Geological Survey – Menlo Park.

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Media For Freedom
December 04, 2007

Groups Testify on Enviromental Impacts of Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Transportation and Storage

At a Department of Energy Public Hearing on Wednesday, Groups Will Address the National Public Health, Security, and Environmental Dangers of Transporting and Storing Nuclear Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

WASHINGTON, DC – Environmental and peace and security groups will detail their reasons for opposing the proposed plan to transport radioactive waste across the United States for storage at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Topics to be discussed include: low level radiation exposure; the newly proposed Transportation, Aging and Disposal (TAD) casks; barge, rail and road transportation routes; the technical flaws of the site, and the security risks inherent in these plans. The Department of Energy’s public comment period on the environmental impact of Yucca Mountain will close on January 10, 2008. This event will take place Wednesday, December 5, from 2pm to 5pm at the Marriott at Metro Center, 775 12th Street, N.W., Washington, DC.

WHAT: Department of Energy hearing on Yucca Mountain nuclear waste and storage

WHEN: Wednesday, December 5, 2007 2pm-5pm

WHERE: Marriott at Metro Center
775 12th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC

WHO:             Groups will include:
Ø      Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
Ø      Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Ø      Beyond Nuclear
Ø      Physicians for Social Responsibility
Ø      Nuclear Information and Resource Service

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San Diego Union Tribune
December 04, 2007

Nevada Indian dubs Yucca Mountain proposal 'environmental racism'

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS – An American Indian drew applause during a public hearing on a proposed national nuclear waste dump when he accused the Energy Department of “environmental racism.”

“Transportation of waste to Yucca Mountain would place a disproportionate burden upon the Western Shoshone nation and has not been addressed,” Western Shoshone National Council member Ian Zabarte told a Monday hearing on environmental impacts and transportation plans for the repository in the Nevada desert.

“It is environmental racism,” he said.

The open forum in Las Vegas was one in a series hosted by the federal Energy Department as it collects comment on plans to ship to Yucca Mountain and bury some 77,000 tons of spent nuclear reactor fuel and military waste.

More than 200 people, mostly from southern Nevada, attended the hearing with about two dozen Energy Department employees and consultants.

“It's a tremendous turnout,” said Allen Benson, the top Energy Department official at the Las Vegas hearing. “I think a lot of people take this seriously. It's important that they come out and talk to us about their views.”

Similar sessions in recent weeks drew a combined 244 public attendees and 71 speakers in Hawthorne, Caliente, the Reno area, Amargosa Valley, Goldfield and Lone Pine, Calif., Benson said. A final hearing was planned Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

Few of the 53 people who signed up to speak at Monday's hearing favored the Energy Department plan. They criticized a draft supplemental impact statement for surface facilities to handle nuclear waste canisters, and another analysis of building a rail line from Caliente to reach Yucca Mountain improvements over an environmental impact document issued in 2002.

Congress relied on the earlier environmental report when it approved entombing the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The revised documents and a 90-day public comment period come as the Energy Department ramps up efforts to meet a self-imposed June 30 deadline to submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission an application for a repository operating license.

Paul Seidler, an official with the Nuclear Energy Institute in Las Vegas, said the revised document showed small transportation impacts to Nevada. The institute is a lobbying organization for the nuclear power industry.

Before speaking publicly, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, a longtime project opponent, called the federal plans for transporting nuclear waste across the nation and through Las Vegas “a disaster waiting to happen.”

“If the material is as safe as we're told it is, let it stay where it presently exists,” Goodman told the crowd.

Robert Halstead, transportation adviser for the state Nuclear Projects Agency, said the spent reactor fuel and defense waste destined for Yucca Mountain contained more lethal elements than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II.

“Every dedicated train hauling three or four rail casks would contain more cesium-137 than the total amount released during the Chernobyl nuclear power accident,” he said. He referred to the April 1986 explosion at a reactor in Ukraine that spewed radiation over a large swath of the former Soviet Union and much of northern Europe. Hundreds of thousands of people were resettled.

Halstead noted that since the 2002 Energy Department impact statement, the residential population within a half-mile of the rail route through Las Vegas has doubled from 45,000 to about 90,000.

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SolancoNews
December 04, 2007

NRC's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials to Meet

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials (ACNWM) will meet Dec. 17-19 in Rockville, Md., to discuss, among other items, an update on the NRC’s rulemaking on groundwater protection at the in-situ leach uranium mining facilities, the status of operations at the Barnwell low-level radioactive waste facility that is scheduled to close to non-compact states in July 2008, and the Tritium Task Force actions to revise the significance determination process to address spills and leaks.

In addition, the committee will be briefed by the Electric Power Research Institute, which will summarize their 2007 report on drift degradation at Yucca Mountain.

The ACNWM reports to and advises the Commission on all aspects of nuclear waste and materials management.

The meeting is open to the public and will be held in Room T-2B3 of the agency's Two White Flint North building, at 11545 Rockville Pike. Monday and Tuesday’s sessions will run from 8:30aa.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday’s session will run from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Room T-2B1.

A complete agenda is available on the NRC's Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/acnw/agenda/2007/. Individuals interested in making a statement or those seeking more information should contact Antonio Dias at (301) 415-6805.

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KLAS-TV
December 03, 2007