Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, December 14, 2007
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Senator Harry Reid
December 13, 2007
Reid: Nothing "Independent" About Yucca Quality Assurance and Engineering Assessments
Washington D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada made the following statement after learning of the release of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Quality Assurance and Engineering Assessments for the proposed nuclear waste dump:
“The ‘independent’ assessments released by the Department of Energy today are yet another example of how the DOE is rigging the process and doing everything it can to make Nevada the nation’s nuclear waste dump. There is nothing ‘independent’ about their assessments. The DOE commissioned a company, Longenecker and Associates, to perform the engineering assessment, but members of that company’s managing board are Energy Department insiders. For ten years, one of them was the Department’s chief operating officer for the Yucca Mountain project. Another managed the Yucca Mountain project for Bechtel. It is ridiculous to think that these individuals could objectively assess anything related to Yucca, having acted for years as senior officials in charge of trying to dump nuclear waste in Nevada. I will continue doing everything I can to prevent the DOE from moving forward.”
The DOE hired Longenecker and Associates in February to conduct an "independent" review of the engineering at Yucca Mountain. Ronald Milner, who served as the chief operating officer for the DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management from 1996 to 2006, is a member of the senior management team of Longenecker and Associates.
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Senator Harry Reid
December 12, 2007
Energy Department Inspector General Agrees to Investigate Yucca Contract Will examine conflicts by law firm hired to complete license application
Washington, DC – One week ago today, Nevada's congressional delegation sent a letter to Gregory Friedman, Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Energy, requesting an investigation into the $109 million contract awarded to the law firm Morgan, Lewis, and Bockius to represent the Energy Department. Today, the congressional delegation was notified that the Inspector General will officially investigate the contract.
“This is great news for Nevada and a huge blow to the dump,” said Reid. “Morgan, Lewis has a long history of working for the nuclear industry to force the dump on Nevadans, and it is laughable to think that this law firm can now provide DOE with objective advice required to serve the public interest. The Energy Department’s hiring of a firm with such major conflicts of interest shows the extremes to which it will go to turn our state into the nation’s nuclear dumping ground. The hiring of this firm could be a waste of up to $109 million taxpayer dollars. I look forward to a speedy decision by the Inspector General.”
“I'm pleased the IG is investigating this because it’s blatantly irresponsible for the Department of Energy to hire a law firm with ties to Yucca Mountain proponents for a supposed impartial role in the licensing process,” said Ensign. “DOE should stop trying to rush this through, and as a nation we need to start considering new options because Yucca Mountain will never be built.”
“Given the red flags raised by this contract there is no question that the IG’s office is absolutely right to examine whether or not there is a conflict of interest that should ultimately disqualify Morgan, Lewis,” said Congresswoman Berkley. “The Bush administration is working overtime to see that Nevada is turned into a toxic radioactive waste dump, but we will continue to fight every one of their attempts to bend the rules or ignore the law in hopes of finally achieving that goal. The Nevada delegation looks forward to the findings of the IG, which could very well turn out to be déjà vu all over again.”
"The contract with Morgan Lewis is a lucrative deal which could potentially cost taxpayers millions of additional dollars. I am encouraged that the IG will investigate the potential conflicts of interest before committing more money to this financial albatross," said Porter.
“The Energy Departments’ use of taxpayer money to hire a law firm with ties to the nuclear industry is clearly inappropriate. DOE has made one mistake after another over the course of their oversight of the Yucca Mountain project. Hopefully the IG’s willingness to investigate this contract will result in the correction of their most recent mistake,” said Heller.
--To see a copy of the original letter the Nevada Congressional Delegation sent to Inspector General Friedman, click here:
http://www.reid.senate.gov/pdfs/Signed_LetterDOEIG_12%205%2007.pdf
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KREN
December 13, 2007
Yucca Mountain chief says date license application could slip
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department official in charge of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump says that if Congress doesn't approve enough money for the 2008 fiscal year, he might not be able to submit a license application for the dump by June 30 of next year as he's repeatedly promised.
Ward Sproat told a panel of the National Academy of Sciences that he's found it very frustrating that the final 2008 number has not yet been set.
It's expected to be significantly lower than President Bush's request of around $495 million because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is trying to keep it low. Congress is rushing to finish up 2008 spending bills before leaving for its holiday recess.
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Las Vegas SUN
December 13, 2007
Opposition scrambles as Yucca dump clears a hurdle
By Lisa Mascaro
<lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas Sun
WASHINGTON - With the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project moving forward after clearing a major hurdle Wednesday, attention turns to whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can deliver the project a devastating blow.
Nevadans overwhelmingly oppose the planned nuclear waste dump 90 miles north of Las Vegas, and every Democratic presidential candidate has joined their opposition.
But a three-judge panel at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled Wednesday that the Yucca Mountain project's 3.5 million-document online library is complete - a necessary step that stalled the project three years ago when the panel ruled documents were missing. The ruling enables the Energy Department to proceed toward its June deadline to submit a license application for the project, which would be a milestone.
However, Reid, of Nevada, has been working behind the scenes to substantially reduce the project's budget in the final weeks of Congress. Already the Senate has chiseled $50 million off the Bush administration's $494.5 ¯million request, and Reid is trying to cut more before Congress adjourns.
A more serious blow could hamper the work of the Energy Department, which says it needs every penny requested at this crucial stage to get its work done by summer.
"Obviously there are other options we are working on; the most immediate one is the funding cuts," said Reid spokesman Jon Summers.
An energy trade publication reported this month that Reid is trying to eliminate another $50 ¯million from the project.
Even as support for a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain has cooled slightly in Washington and in the nuclear industry, the Energy Department is aggressively working to meet its June deadline. The project's director issued a statement saying Wednesday's ruling enables it "to move forward as planned."
Creating a document collection for the Yucca Mountain project was required by Congress to give those opposing the depository access to the millions of pages of scientific reports, studies, maps and other materials in mounting their legal challenges.
Although Nevada's attorneys claimed in last week's hearing that vital reports remain unavailable, the commission said in its two-page ruling they can be added later.
Bob Loux, the head of the state agency battling the federal government, acknowledged the loss, but said the state was reviewing its options for an appeal.
Opponents are now looking to other avenues to halt the dump:
State lawyers are considering legal challenges over documents in the collection whose contents remain sealed.
Nevada has vowed to again fight the Environmental Protection Agency if its decision on how much cancer-causing radiation will be allowed to be released from the site is too high. The courts upheld the state's previous challenge.
If the Energy Department files its application in June, as planned, Nevada is expected to raise hundreds of legal challenges in hearings that could stretch over more than three years.
Nevada's congressional delegation has vowed to continue using all tools available.
"The fight to stop Yucca Mountain is far from over," said a statement from Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley. Republican Rep. Jon Porter's spokesman said the ruling "is a setback, but it's not the end of the road."
But passing Wednesday's hurdle is as much a psychological accomplishment as a practical one for advancing the project from where it had last stalled.
John Kelley, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade group supporting the Nevada dump, said: "There's no question about it - it was a good day for Yucca Mountain."
--Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com.
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Las Vegas SUN
December 13, 2007
Letter: More nuclear plants mean bigger problems
Thirty-two new nuclear plants could be built in the next 20 years. What happens to the radioactive waste? Looks like the plans for the Yucca Mountain project will have to be expanded again. I guess that means we have been lied to again.
The original plan for the repository at Yucca Mountain was 77,000 tons of poison, but the U.S. Energy Department has wanted to increase that to 135,000 tons. I'm sure we can believe them that it's safe. All we have to do is look at the train wrecks for the past two years and we can tell there is nothing to fear from a nuclear waste spill in, say, Chicago.
Our newest ally, France, builds nuclear recycling plants and high-speed trains and we, with all our engineering prowess, build holes in the ground. If you want a ride on a train because the airports are so screwed up, go to a museum.
Between what we are spending on the oil grab in Iraq and the new nuclear power plants, our next three generations will be in hock and nothing will have been solved. We will still need solar and wind-generating plants if anyone is around after the nonexistent global warming.
The greed of this administration and the oil companies boggles the mind.
Richard A. Brown
Pahrump
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Las Vegas SUN
December 13, 2007
In Nevada, Paul sees his chance to strike
State's voters seen as sympathetic; field leaves him room to run
By Michael J. Mishak
Las Vegas Sun
Although the crowd of top Republican presidential aspirants has been courting voters in other states, Ron Paul sees an opportunity to strike and win in Nevada - and throw some confusion into the GOP mix.
Paul, a 10-term Texas congressman who ran for president and lost on the Libertarian ticket in 1988, is not only spending as much time here as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the only other Republican who has campaigned here in earnest, but he's drawing larger crowds.
Registering in the single digits in national and state polls, Paul hopes to strike a chord with Nevada's libertarian-leaning Republicans in the state's Jan. 19 caucus. Toward that end, he's running radio ads that emphasize his opposition to both the Yucca Mountain project and the taxation of tips.
Paul is set to campaign in Southern Nevada today.
He has the state to himself. Republicans have visited Las Vegas on occasion to raise money, but are largely focused on South Carolina, whose GOP primary is scheduled to coincide with the Nevada caucus. Unlike the Silver State's contest, the South Carolina primary has been a decisive contest for Republicans since 1980.
"We see Nevada as a real opportunity and there's a good chance we can even win," Paul said. "I don't think it's an accident Nevadans appreciate the views I hold. They're free-spirited, they don't like taxation and they like to be left alone. People in Nevada are more oriented toward self-reliance."
And Paul sees Nevada for something else: a chance to score headlines Jan. 19 while the national media are in town covering the state's Democratic caucus, should he pull out a surprise victory. A Paul win here would muddle the party's already chaotic nominee-selection process.
Paul describes himself as a strict constitutionalist, but his views can be traced to the late Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican nominee for president and the father of the modern conservative movement. Indeed, Paul sees the campaign less as a run for the White House than as an attempt to steer his party back to its Goldwater roots and away from neoconservatism and what some see as a big-government strain in President Bush's leadership.
One indicator of Paul's popularity came in October when he won the straw poll at a gathering of Western conservatives in Sparks - without ever showing up. Romney attended to fete the crowd.
Then last month a Paul speech at UNLV attracted more than 1,000 people - a crowd about five times the size of the one Romney attracted to a campaign appearance in Henderson that month and significantly larger than some of the audiences at events featuring the leading Democratic presidential candidates, who have been building organizations and campaigning in Nevada all year.
Paul's gospel - focused on limited government and opposition to the Iraq war - has attracted a band of passionate and Web-savvy supporters, who captured national headlines last month when their one-day online "money bomb" effort brought in $4.2 million, breaking political fundraising records. Another effort is planned for Sunday, set to coincide with the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.
In Las Vegas, supporters will march through the Fremont Street Experience and stage a mock tea party in front of the IRS building.
"Republicans, in many ways, have lost their way," Paul said. "People are disgusted, and a lot of them have dropped out. ... We've gotten ourselves into a mess, and unless we return to our roots we're going to be in a lot of trouble."
Paul has always been a thorn in the side of the Republican Party. He ran for Congress in 1974, as he puts it, "to get a few things off my chest," namely his outrage at President Nixon for abandoning the gold standard and imposing temporary wage and price controls. He won, but left Washington a decade later after losing in the Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas. There, Paul, an obstetrician, returned to his medical practice.
But the lure of 1994's so-called Republican revolution proved too strong to resist. He ran again for Congress and won, without the support of party leaders.
Now, as a presidential candidate, he is criticizing the Bush administration's fiscal irresponsibility and decrying the influence of neoconservatives on the country's foreign policy, particularly in the case of Iraq. He supports an immediate withdrawal, a position that has consistently drawn boos from Republican voters at debates.
Like Republicans nationally, GOP voters in the traditional early voting states overwhelmingly favor keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until the situation there is stabilized.
If Paul loses he will not support the eventual Republican nominee, he says, citing the leading candidates' support for continuing the Iraq war and what he considers their lack of fiscal restraint.
"The supporters I have wouldn't be able to understand" an endorsement, he said. "I would have difficulty supporting any of the candidates."
And it is Paul's supporters who have some prominent Republicans concerned.
Conservative strategists worry a Paul third-party candidacy could shave precious points off the Republican base. Ross Perot's third-party candidacy in 1992 and 1996 helped Bill Clinton win Nevada, which will again be a battleground state in November.
Paul did not rule out a third-party candidacy but said such a move was unlikely given the logistic hurdles in getting on state ballots.
For now, Paul is focused on Nevada.
"We're satisfied enough to be encouraged, but not enough to be a shoo-in," Paul said. "We still have some work to do in these last few weeks."
--Michael J. Mishak can be reached at 259-2347 or at michael.mishak@lasvegassun.com.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 13, 2007
Yucca database challenge rejected
Judges clear obstacle to nuclear waste dump's licensing effort
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Nevada suffered a setback in its fight to keep out nuclear waste when a panel of judges on Wednesday rejected a charge that a document database required for the Yucca Mountain project was incomplete.
A victory for the state would have thrown a big monkey wrench into Department of Energy's schedule for licensing a nuclear waste-handling complex and repository in Nevada.
But three administrative judges assembled by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission tossed out the state's case only a week after hearing oral arguments in Las Vegas.
"Nevada's legal position is incorrect," the judges said in a two-page ruling.
Federal regulations give DOE the ability to add finalized documents to the electronic library even after it is certified as being complete, they said.
The ruling removed one of the obstacles standing between the Energy Department and its goal to apply for a repository construction license by the end of June 2008.
By law, the department must wait at least six months after the database -- called the Licensing Support Network -- is certified before it can submit a repository license application to the NRC.
DOE certified a database containing 3.5 million documents on Oct. 19. It is on the Internet at www.lsnnet.gov.
The six-month waiting period exists to give the state and other parties time to study the documents and prepare for hearings on the license application.
NRC hearings and license reviews are expected to consume four years or more.
Nevada officials charged that many of the most important studies and safety reports that will form the backbone of the license application do not appear to be finished.
Those need to be completed, posted to the database and certified before DOE is allowed to move forward, the state argued.
The judges' ruling "renders the whole idea of a six-month review to be utterly meaningless," said Bob Loux, director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects.
Loux said the judges "did not want to be the ones to step in front of the freight train" and stall the Yucca Mountain project that is a Bush administration priority.
Ward Sproat, director of DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said the ruling "enables DOE to move forward as planned."
The NRC judges said they were preparing a detailed ruling.
Loux said the state will review that ruling before deciding whether to file an appeal.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he is working on other ways to derail the project.
"It is clear that the (Licensing Support Network) is not complete and that DOE is playing hide the ball with key documents in order to prevent the state of Nevada from having all the information it needs to oversee and challenge the license application process," said Reid, the Senate majority leader.
Reid and other congressional leaders are negotiating a giant year-end spending bill that is expected to contain Yucca Mountain budget cuts deep enough to force more delays.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 13, 2007
Yucca contract to get review by Energy Department
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy inspector general on Wednesday agreed to review a legal services contract for Yucca Mountain after Nevada lawmakers charged that the firm granted the work might have conflicts of interest.
The law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius was awarded a four-year, $47.7 million contract in September to handle licensing for the planned nuclear waste repository. The contract also carries options for five more years that could bring its total value to $108.89 million.
Nevada officials have challenged the contract. Attorneys with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius have represented nuclear utilities suing the government in Yucca-related nuclear waste cases. The firm in 2001-02 also registered representatives as lobbyists for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a leading pro-Yucca organization.
"Morgan, Lewis has a long history of working for the nuclear industry to force the dump on Nevadans, and it is laughable to think that this law firm can now provide DOE with objective advice required to serve the public interest," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in announcing the probe.
Representatives for inspector general Gregory Friedman met Tuesday with aides to Nevada lawmakers. Investigators said the review could take four or five months, according to officials in the meeting.
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DOE
December 13, 2007
Two Independent Assessments Find the Department of Energy’s Yucca Mountain Project is on Track
WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) today released two independent assessments addressing areas critical to the overall success of the Yucca Mountain repository program. These assessments, which include an independent review of the OCRWM Quality Assurance (QA) Program and an independent review of its engineering processes and procedures, have concluded that the Yucca Mountain Project’s current QA and engineering processes and procedures are consistent with standard nuclear industry practices.
“We are pleased with the findings of both reports, and we already have begun implementing some of the recommendations,” OCRWM Director Ward Sproat said. “The information and recommendations contained in the QA and engineering assessments will assist us as we move forward with our work on the repository design. This is particularly important as we prepare to submit a credible and defensible license application to the NRC next year.”
These independent reviews provide information and findings that will help ensure the Yucca Mountain Project has effective quality assurance and engineering programs that meet the highest standards of the nuclear industry. Independent assessments are a standard tool used by the nuclear industry to review processes and procedures to determine where improvements can be made. The Yucca Mountain site was approved by the Congress and the President in 2002 as the location for the nation’s first permanent spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste geologic repository. The Department plans to submit its license application for authorization to construct the repository to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission no later than June 30, 2008.
InfoZen Inc. conducted a comprehensive, independent review of three individual QA program plans written and implemented by OCRWM, its M&O contractor Bechtel SAIC (BSC) and its lead laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories. In the course of its review, the assessment team saw evidence of significant improvements and tangible successes in correcting historical quality related problems. InfoZen concludes that the three QA program plans are being “implemented consistent with standard nuclear industry practices and to the extent expected given the current status of the Yucca Mountain Project.”
Longenecker & Associates, Inc. conducted an independent assessment of the engineering processes and procedures for OCRWM and BSC. This assessment concludes that the policies and procedures are adequate, the implementing organizations are structured appropriately for the work, and there are no major barriers that will prevent successful completion of the engineering work. In addition, the assessment team found that personnel at all levels of the organization were knowledgeable of the procedures and committed to their effective use. Several strengths and good practices were noted by the assessment team, including proactive resolution of emergent issues, participation by construction and operations personnel during the design process, and consistency of the BSC training program with current industry best practices. This assessment also identifies opportunities for improvement, including configuration management, the streamlining of processes and procedures and other related areas.
For more information on the Yucca Mountain Project and a copy of the independent assessments visit the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
Media contact(s):
Allen Benson, (702) 794-1322
Angela Hill, (202) 586-4940
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Senator Harry Reid
December 12, 2007
Reid Statement on Ruling of DOE Document Certification for Yucca Mountain
Washington, DC — U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada released the following statement today after the presiding judges approved the Department of Energy’s (DOE) certification of the Licensing Support Network (LSN) for the Yucca Mountain. This ruling is the result of a hearing held in Las Vegas last week.
“I’m disappointed the judges for the National Regulatory Commission have decided in favor of the Department of Energy and allowed the LSN to be certified. It is clear that the LSN is not complete and that DOE is playing hide the ball with key documents in order to prevent the State of Nevada from having all the information it needs to oversee and challenge the license application process. DOE knows that they need to cheat and hide information because they know they will lose on substance in the end. It is time for the DOE to stop playing games with the most dangerous substance on the face of this earth and end its failed pursuit of Yucca Mountain so that we can move on to resolving the underlying problem of what to do with our country’s nuclear waste. I will continue working to ensure the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain never becomes a reality.”
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 at Yucca Mountain can be submitted to the NRC.
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KLAS-TV
December 12, 2007
NRC Rejects Nevada's Challenge to Yucca Mountain Database
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel has rejected Nevada's challenge to an Energy Department database required for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump to go forward.
Nevada had argued the department's public online document network was incomplete even though DOE certified it in October.
An NRC panel rejected that argument on Wednesday, a week after hearing arguments on the matter in Las Vegas.
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Las Vegas SUN
December 12, 2007
NRC rejects Nevada's challenge to Yucca Mountain database
By Erica Werner
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel Wednesday rejected Nevada's challenge to a government document database required for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump to go forward.
Separately, the Energy Department's inspector general said it would investigate conflict-of-interest allegations surrounding a contract that DOE gave to a law firm that has represented the nuclear industry.
The NRC decision allows the Energy Department to move ahead, as planned, with submission of a license application to build the controversial 77,000-ton Yucca Mountain dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Nevada had argued that the Energy Department's digital library of millions of documents supporting licensing of the dump was incomplete even though DOE certified it in October.
The so-called Licensing Support Network must be certified at least six months before the Energy Department can submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the dump. The DOE plans to submit its license application by June 30.
In one of many arguments it is marshaling against the long-delayed radioactive waste dump, Nevada had argued that the massive online network did not contain key documents still being prepared or not yet written.
The NRC's Pre-License Application Presiding Officer Board rejected that argument on Wednesday, a week after a three-judge panel heard arguments in Las Vegas.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission "regulations recognize that parties and potential parties, such as DOE, will continue to develop, prepare, and finalize additional documentary material, and to supplement their document production, after the date of initial certification," the board's ruling said.
Ward Sproat, head of the Yucca Mountain project for DOE, welcomed the decision.
"This enables DOE to move forward as planned and to submit a high-quality license application for the Yucca Mountain repository," he said in a statement.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., condemned the ruling and vowed to keep fighting the dump. Reid is expected to seek significant budget cuts from the Yucca Mountain project next year.
"It is clear that the LSN is not complete and that DOE is playing hide the ball with key documents in order to prevent the state of Nevada from having all the information it needs to oversee and challenge the license application process," Reid said.
The Licensing Support Network contains over 3.5 million documents estimated to exceed 30 million pages. A similar NRC board had upheld a state challenge to the Energy Department's database in June 2004, forcing its overhaul.
Also Wednesday, Nevada's congressional delegation announced the DOE inspector general would investigate their complaints about a four-year $47.7 million contract between the DOE and law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, which has represented nuclear utilities as well as the Nuclear Energy Institute. The contract, which DOE has refused to release, is for work related to getting a license for Yucca Mountain.
Nevada lawmakers say that Morgan Lewis' allegiances to both the Energy Department and the nuclear industry could prevent it from acting in the public interest. DOE said in a statement Wednesday that prior to hiring Morgan Lewis it had vetted potential conflicts. The department said it looked forward to the inspector general's investigation.
Morgan Lewis spokeswoman Frances Marine also defended the contract. "Before taking on this new matter, the firm made the necessary disclosures to DOE and to each of its affected clients, and obtained the appropriate waivers," she said in a statement.
The opening date for Yucca Mountain, planned as the first national nuclear waste dump, has been pushed back repeatedly amid lawsuits, money shortages and scientific controversies, and now it's not expected before 2020. Meanwhile nuclear waste is piling up at commercial reactor sites around the country even as some lawmakers in Congress push for expansion of the nuclear power industry.
--On the Net:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Licensing Support Network: http://www.lsnnet.gov
Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov
Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste
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Las Vegas SUN
December 12, 2007
DOE inspector to probe conflict allegations in Yucca law contract
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department's inspector general has agreed to investigate allegations of conflict of interest in a contract the department awarded to a law firm for Yucca Mountain work.
Nevada's congressional delegation, which requested the investigation last week, made the announcement Wednesday.
Law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP was awarded a nearly $50 million contract to help prepare a license application for the nuclear waste dump.
Nevada lawmakers believe the firm has a conflict of interest because it has also represented nuclear utilities and a pro-dump industry group.
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Nevada Appeal
December 12, 2007
Child welfare, Yucca funding approved
Geoff Dornan
Appeal Capitol Bureau
The Board of Examiners on Tuesday approved the contracts that fund child and family services in Clark and Washoe counties.
The two counties took over those programs several years ago on the condition the state continue to fund the cost. Under the program, Clark and Washoe provide child welfare, foster care and related services for their areas.
Gov. Jim Gibbons last month agreed to put child welfare funding on the list of programs that will be spared any budget cuts, so the contract amounts are for the full budgets in each county.
The Washoe contract totals $48.5 million over the coming two years. The Clark County contract totals $124.7 million.
Gibbons questioned why the state general fund was covering 59 percent of the totals while the federal share was just 32 percent. The Division of Child and Family Services was directed to provide an analysis and possibly ways to increase the federal share of the budgets.
The board, consisting of the governor, secretary of state and attorney general, also approved $1.5 million to keep Nevada's fight to block the opening of Yucca Mountain going.
Nuclear Projects Office Director Bob Loux said the money is needed to continue paying scientists and lawyers preparing Nevada's opposition to the Department of Energy's attempt to license and open the nuclear dump located just 75 miles north of Las Vegas.
He said the funding is necessary because the federal budget - which includes $5 million for Nevada to prepare its side of the case - is stalled in Congress.
He and Director of Administration Andrew Clinger said they don't anticipate receiving the federal money until April or May. Loux said the energy department is planning to file its application to license Yucca Mountain in June.
Loux said Nevada has to continue work on the issues raised by the Department of Energy so it is prepared to respond to the application.
Unfortunately, he said, Nevada can't reclaim the $1.5 million from the federal funding when it arrives. But he said there will be $1.5 million in federal money left in his budget at year's end that can carry over to next year.
The expenditure from the contingency fund must still be approved by the Interim Finance Committee.
In addition, the board approved a contract with the Pacific World History Institute for $1.2 million to monitor impacts in the Yucca Mountain Impact Report. Most of the money comes from the highway fund.
--Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.
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NucNews
December 12, 2007
Connecting the Morgan Lewis Dots
By: Kristi Hodges
The Nevada congressional delegation is throwing a hissy fit over the recent US Department of Energy (DOE) contract award to Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. They are beating the fraud, waste and abuse drum. They are accusing the Yucca project of another conflict of interest. This is because the law firm has represented utilities (against the DOE) and-in late 2001-registered as lobbyists for the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI).
They are missing something, though. Do they remember Jim Mattimoe and Bob Clark?
Mattimoe and Clark were the Yucca Quality Assurance (QA) leaders who were railroaded by this same law firm-also in late 2001. There were a gazillion news articles at the time. And the story even made the Drudge Report. But if the delegation still can't remember, this is what happened:
The DOE paid Morgan Lewis about a half-million dollars to conduct an internal investigation of allegations made against the former QA leaders. The investigation led to Mattimoe's firing and Bob Clark's removal from his federal director position.
But Mattimoe fought back. He sued the DOE and his former employer (Navarro) for wrongful termination. The US Department of Labor (DOL) investigated and agreed that Mattimoe had been impermissibly fired. But the DOL went a step further. They found that the DOE had directed the actions against Mattimoe. And that direction was illegal. The DOE, shielded by immunity, was technically off the hook. But that didn't stop the DOL from declaring the DOE's actions as "extraordinarily egregious."
About the Morgan Lewis work product, the Labor Department wrote:
Though the Respondent [Navarro] has submitted a voluminous report, the Morgan Lewis audit, it is determined that there is insufficient verifiable and credible evidence in it to conclude that it is not more than a sophisticated recitation of anonymous charges designed to provide pretextual reasons to support an already-decided upon course of action to terminate Mr. Mattimoe.
When the news about the DOL decision broke, the Nevada senators didn't miss a beat to beat on DOE. With accusatory statements like, "They set this guy up!" (Reid) and "It doesn't pass the smell test" (Ensign)," the senators demanded an investigation. But that investigation never happened. And no one went to jail.
One might ask: "Why would a respected law firm like Morgan Lewis risk its reputation on a railroad?" The answer is, as it usually is: Just follow the money.
Again in late 2001 the DOE Inspector General was investigating another law firm: Winston & Strawn. The firm held the lucrative Yucca legal services contract, but its contract had been challenged by a competitor. Winston & Strawn attorneys had done legal work, including lobbying, for the NEI. And there were potential organizational conflicts of interest. When the IG issued a critical report, Winston & Strawn had to go.
Déjà vu?
The Winston & Strawn contract was on the rocks when Morgan Lewis performed its investigation of the QA leaders. The Las Vegas Review-Journal would later identify Morgan Lewis as a top contender for replacing Winston & Strawn. Therefore, one could easily reason that Morgan Lewis had given its client, the DOE, the investigation report that it wanted.
And what the DOE had really, really wanted was for its QA organization to stop pursuing quality problems. These were problems that the project would not (or could not) fix. The Site Recommendation was on the line. Therefore, Morgan Lewis was hired under the guise of addressing alleged whistleblower issues. But its actual mission was to railroad the QA leaders. This would, in turn, cause the QA oversight function to crumble-as it did shortly thereafter.
But Mattimoe fought back again. He next sued Morgan Lewis for defamation. It took a lot of courage for a little guy like Jim Mattimoe to take on an international law firm. But he did. He eventually settled out of court. But that was after Morgan Lewis was presented with an interesting document. I had found it during a routine record search. And it appeared to be a smoking gun.
The Las Vegas Sun had reported that Morgan Lewis signed on as lobbyists for the NEI 18 days after delivering its investigation report. But the document that I found was evidence of NEI work well before delivering its report.
Morgan Lewis, although a different attorney, was acting as NEI's counsel on Yucca-related issues in June 2001. This coincided with the investigation of the QA leaders. So Morgan Lewis, too, had a potential organizational conflict of interest. And no evidence to the contrary was provided.
This appeared to be Winston & Strawn all over again. But it was much, much worse. Morgan Lewis attorneys had railroaded those charged with assuring that a potentially dangerous project would remain safe. And reasonable minds would conclude that they had done so for a potential 50 million dollar contract. Faced with spirited congressional objection, the DOE had to select another law firm.
But five years later, when no one was watching, the DOE awarded Morgan Lewis that same contract-at potentially twice the price (109 million dollars). Even more incredulous is that Yucca already has a 50 million dollar legal contract (Hunton & Williams, LLP). And that firm was also hired to complete and defend a license application.
The Nevada delegation has asked for a new investigation. And they might get it. But Jim Mattimoe, Bob Clark, and I are still waiting for the one we were promised five years ago. These things can take time, though. Just ask Morgan Lewis who waited five years for their big payday.
Kristi Hodges, a Senior Quality Engineer, worked 16 years on the Yucca Mountain Project. She is the author of "Yucca Mountain Railroaded: Casualties of Yucca's War on Quality," to be available in mid-2008. For information contact Kristi @ khodges850@aol.com
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POWERnews
December 12, 2007
Deep Yucca Mountain funding cuts expected
Industry and Energy Department officials are deeply concerned about talk that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is planning to orchestrate a $100 million funding cut for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository for fiscal 2008, a reduction that has even fellow Democrats worried that the project could be crippled, sources say.
Reid (D-Nev.) has made an annual ritual out of whacking funding for Yucca, a project that he deeply opposes as unsafe and unfairly foisted upon his state by political deal- making years ago. But Reid’s newest rumored plan would go far beyond what he has done in the past to slow progress on the repository, which has already been delayed years by funding and legal woes.
Sources say Reid is planning to cut Yucca funding from current levels of $444.5 million to about $340 million in fiscal 2008, the lowest annual appropriation ever for the project.
Top DOE and industry officials met last Friday to discuss Reid’s plans, with industry officials planning a major effort to mobilize home-state legislators in opposition to deep Yucca funding cuts, according to the sources.
A spokesman for Reid said he could not confirm the funding cut plan, but added: “If anyone is talking about cutting Yucca, he is all for it.”
Sources say Reid, who recently announced plans to run for reelection in 2008, may be particularly motivated now to cripple Yucca because it is deeply unpopular with most Nevadans, and his approval rating in the state is around 32%.
A $100 million cut would come at a crucial time for the program. Although Nevada officials and many environmentalists oppose the project at every turn, many observers feel Yucca has a level of new momentum under new DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management(OCRWM) Director Ward Sproat. Sproat says the DOE will, after years of delay, finally give the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a license application for the project in June.
DOE officials have said they need increased funding, not cuts, for the next several years to stay anywhere near a schedule for having Yucca open by 2017 or soon thereafter.
By contrast, one well-informed source says a funding level of $344 million would make it very difficult for the DOE to submit the license application as planned and would cause “irreparable damage” to the program.
In an interesting twist, several sources say that some Democrats may be uncomfortable with a cut of that magnitude, whereas Democrats have routinely fallen in line with Reid’s Yucca budget broadsides in the past.
Industry sources are focusing efforts on Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), chairman of the energy and water panel of the Senate Appropriations Committee, under the belief that Dorgan might tolerate efforts to slow Yucca but not to kill the nation’s only current option for an underground nuclear waste repository.
Another Democrat who might be swayed to oppose such deep Yucca funding cuts, sources say, is Sen. Mary Landrieu (La.), generally a nuclear industry supporter. Another is Sen. Thomas Carper (Del.), a nuclear supporter who is deeply involved in efforts to pass climate change legislation that may provide some boost to nuclear power.
Additionally, should Reid face significant Democratic opposition to a $100 million cut to the project, industry sources say they believe House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) might be persuaded to convince Reid that congressional Democrats have higher priorities than fighting internally about Yucca.
“We continue to encourage Congress to pass a budget that is in line with the administration’s priorities, and to address the nation’s current and future energy needs, and that includes moving forward with construction and operation of Yucca Mountain,” said DOE spokeswoman Megan Barnett. “This is one of the most studied pieces of real estate in the world, and we are moving forward” on it, she said.
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Exelon Corp.
December 11, 2007
Exelon Nuclear To Accelerate Decommissioning Of Zion Station
Contact:
Krista Lopykinski
630-657-3602
WARRENVILLE, Ill. (Dec. 11, 2007) - Exelon Nuclear will seek to accelerate the decommissioning of the company’s Zion Station in Illinois more than a decade sooner than originally planned, the company announced today.
The company has contracted with Utah-based EnergySolutions to dismantle the nuclear plant, which involves removing the two-reactors, all structures and support buildings and preparing the site for other uses. The station sits on 257 acres on the shore of Lake Michigan about 40 miles north of Chicago. It has not produced power since 1998.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission must approve the arrangement. The company expects to learn of the NRCs decision during the second half of 2008. The parties also are seeking a favorable ruling from the Internal Revenue Service about the transfer of tax-qualified decommissioning funds.
The agreement calls for the station’s license and decommissioning funds to be transferred to EnergySolutions, who would dismantle the plant, remove all structures, components and debris and return the site to close to its original state. When the project is complete, expected by 2018, EnergySolutions would return the property to Exelon for other uses.
Exelon has not yet determined what it will do with the land when decommissioning is complete, according to the company.
At the height of the project, EnergySolutions expects to employ up to 450 workers.
Used nuclear fuel stored in the station’s fuel pool would be moved to a dry cask storage facility to be built on the property at least 400 feet farther from the lakeshore. Such independent fuel storage facilities are licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and exist at 39 plants nationwide, including five of Exelon’s nuclear stations. The Zion used fuel storage facility would be mostly hidden from view by earth berms and natural landscaping.
“The question on the table is, will we decommission the plant now or later?” said Tom O’Neill, Exelon Nuclear’s vice president of New Plant Development and the executive leading the Zion project. “This is a unique opportunity to make hundreds of acres of lakefront property available for other uses a decade or more earlier than we thought possible.”
Exelon’s previous plans called for decommissioning the plant in the mid 2020s to early 2030s, and possibly as late as 2058. The earlier decommissioning is possible because EnergySolutions has the unique capability to plan and manage the decommissioning and dispose of all material at a lower cost. EnergySolutions owns its own low-level waste disposal facility in Clive, Utah.
Throughout the process, Zion’s used fuel would remain under Exelon’s ownership and control. With or without early decommissioning, the fuel will remain stored on the Zion property until the U.S. Department of Energy takes possession of and removes it as required under federal law. The department says it hopes to open a national repository for used commercial nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, by 2017.
Exelon estimates that it would require more than $1.1 billion (in 2007 dollars) to decommission the plant today using traditional decommissioning methods. EnergySolutions is able to do the work for the amount in the Zion decommissioning trust funds, around $900 million (also in 2007 dollars).
EnergySolutions has secured additional financial assurance for the unlikely event that the cost exceeds that amount. Conversely, any funds remaining in the trust fund after decommissioning is completed would be returned to ComEd’s ratepayers in accordance with a 2000 agreement with the state.
Decommissioning trust funds are established for all licensed U.S. nuclear plants to cover the costs associated with decommissioning a plant.
Exelon and EnergySolutions will host a community information night in late February or early March of 2008 to share information with the public about the decommissioning process.
Zion’s Unit 1 began commercial operation in December 1973 and Unit 2 in September 1974. The plant was closed by then-owner ComEd in 1998 for economic reasons.
--EnergySolutions is based in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is considered an industry leader in the decommissioning of nuclear plants and permanent disposal of nuclear waste. The company was formed in 2006 by merging BNG America, Duratek, Environcare of Utah and the D&D division of Scientech.
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DOE
December 12, 2007
Statement from Ward Sproat on Yucca Mountain, Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management
“We are pleased with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Pre-license Application Presiding Officer Board's ruling today to uphold DOE's Licensing Support Network (LSN) certification. This enables DOE to move forward as planned and to submit a high quality license application for the Yucca Mountain repository to the NRC by no later than June 30, 2008. DOE has made electronically available on the NRC's LSN over 3.5 million documents, estimated to exceed 30 million pages. Through the LSN, the public can view scientific data, geologic and engineering studies, and other detailed analyses related to DOE's license application for the nation's spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste repository to be located at Yucca Mountain.”
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DOE
December 12, 2007
Department of Energy Yucca Mountain Program Director to Address National Academy of Sciences
WASHINGTON, DC – On Thursday, December 13, 2007, U.S Department of Energy (DOE) Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Ward Sproat will deliver remarks at the National Academies Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board. Director Sproat is expected to highlight major accomplishments in the Yucca Mountain Program over the last year, as well as the Department’s plan to submit a high quality License Application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission no later than June 30, 2008.
Yucca Mountain was approved by the Congress and President Bush as the site for the nation first permanent spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste geologic repository in 2002.
WHO:
DOE Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Ward Sproat
WHAT:
Remarks at the National Academies Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board
Media availability to immediately follow
WHEN:
Thursday, December 13, 2007
1:00PM EDT
WHERE:
The National Academies Keck Center
Room 100
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC
Media contact(s):
Angela Hill, (202) 586-4940
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NRC
December 12, 2007
Pre-Licensing Board Rejects Nevada’s Bid to Strike DOE Document Library in Yucca Mountain Proceeding
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Pre-License Application Presiding Officer (PAPO) Board today rejected the state of Nevada’s petition to strike the Department of Energy’s certification of its document collection on the Licensing Support Network for the Yucca Mountain proceeding.
The two-page ruling was issued one week after oral arguments were heard in Las Vegas. The PAPO board explained that it was issuing its order quickly to give other parties advance notice, because NRC regulations require them to certify their own document collections by Jan. 18. The PAPO Board will issue a full decision on Nevada’s motion at a later date.
The Licensing Support Network is an extensive online library of documents relating to DOE’s potential license application for a proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. It is intended to assist potential parties in preparing and arguing contentions challenging the application in hearings before the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. DOE is expected to submit its application by the end of June 2008.
Nevada had argued that DOE’s document collection, which the department certified Oct. 19, was incomplete because it did not include key documents that are currently in development or not yet prepared.
NRC “regulations recognize that parties and potential parties, such as DOE, will continue to develop, prepare, and finalize additional documentary material, and to supplement their document production, after the date of initial certification,” the PAPO Board wrote in its ruling. “The regulations do not specify that DOE, or any other potential party, must finalize all documentary material before it can certify.”
--The text of the Board’s ruling, which can be found online on the NRC’s electronic hearing docket at:
http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/adjudicatory/hlw-hearings.html
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Platts
December 11, 2007
Leonard Willougby named as senior resident inspector for Yucca Mt
Leonard Willougby is the new senior resident inspector for the proposed high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain, NRC said December 12. He joins Jack Parrott, the NRC's senior onsite licensing representative in the Las Vegas office, and will be responsible for implementing the agency's inspection program for the Yucca project. Willoughby started with NRC in 1999 as a reactor engineer and since 2001 has been a resident inspector at Fort Calhoun, NRC said.
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SolancoNews
December 11, 2007
NRC Names New Resident Inspector for the Proposed Yucca Mountain Project
ARLINGTON, TX -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has assigned Leonard Willoughby as senior resident inspector for the proposed high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain, located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada.
Willoughby will report to the Region IV office in Arlington, Texas which is responsible for implementing the NRC’s inspection program for the project. He joins Jack Parrott, the NRC’s senior onsite licensing representative in the Las Vegas office.
"Willoughby's extensive technical and regulatory experience will help enable the NRC protect public health and the environment through rigorous oversight if the Energy Department submits a license application for a high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain,” said NRC Region IV Administrator Elmo E. Collins.
Willoughby graduated from Colorado State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering science in 1978. Following graduation, he worked for the U.S. Navy at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for 19 years. Willoughby joined the NRC in 1999 as a reactor engineer. Since 2001, he has served as resident inspector at the Fort Calhoun Station nuclear power plant in Nebraska.
As the senior resident inspector assigned to Yucca Mountain, he will lead the agency’s on-site inspection related activities during the license application review for the proposed high-level waste repository. He can be reached at (702) 794-5048.
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North County Times
December 11, 2007
Opposing views power nuclear debate
Paul Sisson
Staff Writer
State committee holds hearing in San Diego
SAN DIEGO -- What was billed as a "status report on nuclear power" quickly turned into a passionate debate Monday as experts painted vastly different pictures of the controversial technology's ability to safely and economically fight global warming.
More than 100 people filled an auditorium at the new CalTrans headquarters building in San Diego to attend an informal hearing convened by the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee.
Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, who chairs the committee, said that, with new nuclear plants regularly the subject of debate in California and the nation as a whole, it made sense to do some homework on the subject.
"It has been 20 years since this body has heard about this issue," Kehoe said.
Since 1976 California has upheld a ban on new plants like the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station about 18 miles north of Oceanside, until the federal government solves the problem of nuclear waste disposal. Plans to store the nation's growing nuclear waste stockpile under Yucca Mountain in Nevada face stiff political opposition.
A series of invited experts, including nuclear operators and industry consultants, economists, anti-nuclear watchdogs and the investment community, testified at Monday's hearing.
Nuclear power plants, which split uranium atoms to heat water, generate steam and spin turbines that make electricity, do not spew greenhouse gases, and that was the message that pro-nuclear power experts drove home.
Dick Rosenblum, chief nuclear officer for Southern California Edison, which operates San Onofre, said the plant's two operating nuclear reactors avoid putting tons of carbon into the atmosphere.
"San Onofre displaces the equivalent of about 900,000 cars in California every year," Rosenblum said.
But the anti-nuclear participants pointed to the highly radioactive waste that such plants do generate. That waste must be stored in deep pools for years before being moved into thick steel canisters and plunged into thick concrete vaults, where the radiation decays slowly over thousands of years.
Carl Zichella, regional staff director for the Sierra Club, noted that any new nuclear plants built in California will take a decade to construct at an estimated cost of $4 billion to $6 billion. He said that thermal solar plants, which use mirrors to focus solar energy, are a better solution because they can be built today.
"By the time enough (nuclear plants) were deployed to replace coal plants, it would be too late to make a difference," Zichella said.
Economic concerns also played a large role in Monday's four-hour hearing. Consultants and industry experts disagreed on whether escalating construction costs will make new nuclear plants, which require massive investment in raw materials like steel and concrete, infeasible.
Jim Harding, an economist and consultant, noted that few companies can produce the large components necessary to build a modern nuclear plant.
"You've got a serious risk of monopoly pricing all the way along," Harding said.
But Joe Turnage, senior vice president for Constellation Energy, which is building several new nuclear plants in other nations, said he has run the numbers for California and found that, with government-backed loans, a nuclear plant in the Golden State could be a sound investment.
"We would seriously consider investing in a project like that," he said.
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Voice of San Diego
December 11, 2007
After Two Decades, OK to Say 'Nuclear'
By Rob Davis
If new nuclear power plants play any role in helping California address global climate change, it won't happen any time soon.
At a state Senate hearing Monday, a disparate group of speakers agreed on just that point: Nuclear energy has a long way to go before it helps California reduce its statewide carbon footprint.
The hearing had few surprises. An industry group touted results of its own polling showing overwhelming support for new nuclear plants. An opposition group warned that a grapefruit-sized ball of plutonium would be powerful enough to level San Diego.
In between the poles, the most telling insight into the status of nuclear power in California rests in the simple fact that the hearing took place at all. The Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications hadn't scheduled a hearing on nuclear power in at least 20 years, said state Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, the committee's chairwoman.
So the five-hour hearing's most noteworthy accomplishment may have simply been its symbolism. After two decades of silence in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident and Chernobyl disaster, politicians can say the word "nuclear" again.
While Kehoe wanted to gather information about nuclear power, she said afterward that the industry still faces serious questions. The state's 1976 ban on building new nuclear power plants should not be repealed "at this point," she said. "It's way too early."
Elsewhere across the country, utilities are turning to nuclear power for the first time in decades, hoping to capitalize on federal subsidies and loan guarantees Congress offered in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission this year received its first permit application in 31 years.
Nuclear power has begun to emerge as a potential tool in the fight against global climate change. While refining uranium releases carbon dioxide, the actual production of nuclear energy is carbon-free. Choosing between a warmer world and more nuclear power plants, some environmentalists have signaled a willingness to consider nuclear.
But in California, no new nuclear plants can be built until the federal government opens a repository capable of storing radioactive nuclear waste in perpetuity -- or until the legislation outlining that requirement is repealed. And federal plans to open a repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain have moved haltingly since first being considered in 1978.
That ban is clearly keeping California utilities from joining the application frenzy that has occurred elsewhere. Dick Rosenblum, chief nuclear officer at Southern California Edison, owner of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, testified that his company would "certainly proceed" to build a new nuclear plant if the state's regulatory and political environment supported it.
Although the state aims to cut greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020, Californians should not expect new sources of nuclear energy to contribute, said James Boyd, vice chairman of the California Energy Commission.
"Nuclear power is not on the menu," Boyd testified. Nuclear power may be important in the state's long-term future, Boyd said, but targeting gains from energy efficiency -- compact fluorescent light bulbs, more efficient appliances -- would be easier in the near-term.
Boyd highlighted the many hurdles that the nuclear industry faces. Building a new plant can cost between $4 billion and $6 billion, he said, and constructing plants has historically taken much longer than anticipated.
Even without the ban, turning to nuclear to reduce carbon emissions would be a major task. Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, said the state would need to build four or five nuclear plants to achieve a 20 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions -- solely from the electricity sector. The state currently has two nuclear plants operating: San Onofre and Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo.
Other economic issues linger. Jim Harding, an energy consultant and former Seattle City Light official, warned that the threat of monopolies hovers over the nuclear supply chain. Only one steel forge in the world creates the large parts needed in nuclear plants, he said.
"You've got a serious risk of monopoly pricing all along the way," Harding said.
While nuclear may not be an option to help reach the state's 2020 goals, deeper cuts are planned beyond that. California aims to eliminate 80 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Scott Anders, director of the Energy Policy Initiatives Center at University of San Diego, said after the meeting that nuclear power may receive more attention as the state looks at those later targets.
"2020 is not a magic number," Anders said. "If you look beyond that, questions come up about how you get there."
--contact Rob Davis: rob.davis@voiceofsandiego.org
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Austin American-Statesman
December 11, 2007
Is nuclear power clean-green or radioactive-Simpsons-green?
By Asher Price
Nuclear power is looking like the big story over the next couple months, especially in Austin, where the city will be considering buying into an expansion of the South Texas Project, the nuclear facility in Matagorda County. (If you flip on your lights in Austin, chances are a portion of the energy already comes from the nuclear plant.)
Today the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., released a report that points to the pickle that a lot of environmentalists find themselves in on nuclear power. On the one hand, UCS and other groups have dedicated a lot of energy to educating the public about global warming. As it happens, nuclear power emits little by way of greenhouse gases. But being anti-nuke has historically been a bread-and-butter position for these groups: the government still hasn’t figured out what to do with radioactive waste (Yucca Mountain is a political hot potato, if you pardon the pun); Three Mile Island lurks in the minds of many Americans (1979 was the year of my birth, btw); and nuclear reactors are notoriously expensive to build and infamous for their cost overruns (the South Texas Project, for one, went from an estimated cost of $964 million to $5.9 billion by the time it was finished). On top of all this, Congress recently renewed the Price-Anderson Act, which severely limits liability for nuke owners for accidents at their power plants, raising the fair question: If nuclear plants are so safe, why does the government have to foot the insurance bill?
Anyway, the UCS report, argues that the threats posed by nuclear power are too great to justify building them as an energy source as the globe warms. Um, wait a minute: The report sort of argues that.
“The risks posed by climate change may turn out to be so grave that the United States and the world cannot afford to rule out nuclear power as a major contributor to addressing global warming,” says the report. “However, it may also turn out that nuclear power cannot be deployed worldwide on the scale needed to make a significant dent in emissions without resulting in unacceptably high safety and security risks.”
What do you think? Should Austin invest in the South Texas Project nuclear facility? What are your memories of the 1970s nuclear battles in Austin?
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MWC News
December 11, 2007
The Curse of Atomic Weapons and Power
Political Views
By Ace Hoffman
On average, every working American spends about two days a week building, using, or paying for America's weaponry, and the means to convey that weaponry to where it will be used. At least a quarter of all fuel -- including nuclear fuel -- used by this country goes to war-related activities.
It is impossible to be a productive nation when so many raw materials and so much talent and time is spent on destruction.
But the most insidious thing about modern warfare is that it kills civilians -- lots of civilians. People like you and me.
The United States military operates, day or night, war or peace, under dozens of special exemptions to environmental regulations. Regulations which everyone else on the planet MUST adhere to. The result is radioactive and chemical pollution on a global scale -- not just where the wars occur, but also at training areas and manufacturing facilities.
The tools of modern war include Uranium-238 munitions (aka "DU"), now infamous for causing "flaming pee" (a terrible burning sensation when you urinate) and other ailments in our own veterans, and for causing grossly deformed children in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo.
The tools also include U-235 / Pu-239 munitions (aka "nuclear weapons" or "atomic bombs"). Although these "tools" have only been used twice in war so far, in Hiroshima (primarily a U-235 weapon) and Nagasaki (primarily a Pu-239 weapon of slightly greater sophistication), those uses were demonstration projects for the world to see what was to come.
Total destruction. Not just your soldiers killed, but your records destroyed, your buildings burned, your history obliterated, your museums, schools, factories, sewage systems, water systems -- everything, blasted, burned, and worst of all -- irradiated.
Thousands, even millions of people in desperate need of medical care which is utterly unavailable. Suffering beyond words. A holocaust. A war crime.
Nuclear war has been threatened a thousand times since its invention and early use. Our current president has threatened it frequently, which constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in and of itself -- the threat is distressing to those threatened.
Which is all of us. Every nuclear threat has a counterthreat somewhere. Every escalation of a war has a counterinsurgency to match. Every time George Bush gets us into another war, America becomes more vulnerable to retaliation.
The military has long pushed the idea that our mighty armies are the only thing that keeps us free, safe, secure, and comfortable at home.
But I'll wager we were safe because we were the shining city on the hill for so long. The place everyone wanted to be. The place that people wanted to honor with tributes such as the Statue of Liberty -- that place was safe! People came here not to terrorize us, but to be us! But we've become greedy, cloistered, cold-hearted, and ignorant.
In addition to bombing two cities in Japan during World War II, the U.S. alone has conducted more than a thousand nuclear "tests." We've irradiated dozens of islands in the Pacific, and parts of Nevada, New Mexico, Alaska, Colorado, and Mississippi, with atomic bomb debris. And that's not counting the "downwind" effect on Utah, Wyoming, and every other state (and every nation).
Additionally, we've piled up nuclear reactor cores -- spent fuel -- at nuclear power plants in dozens of states -- all with an unkept promise that the waste would be quickly removed. For 60 years the nuclear weapons and power industries have looked for a solution, but they keep coming back to: "Drive it 50 miles into Indian territory and dump it" which is all Yucca Mountain really amounts to.
While in transit, the waste is vulnerable to bridge collapses, train derailments and tunnel fires, sabotage, and a thousand other things. The government claims their transport containers are "safe" but they define "safe" very narrowly -- for example, as being able to probably survive a 30 foot drop onto a 6 inch post. Such testing does not reflect the real-world hazards. In their carefully-contrived theoretical "worst case" scenarios, almost no fuel is ever actually released, which means they don't have to calculate what happens if just one hour's worth of one reactor's spent fuel -- about 10 pounds's worth -- ever got out into the environment. The size of the catastrophe from that 10 pounds would depend on the precise location and weather conditions at the time. But one hour's worth of spent fuel could kill millions if released to the environment. And yet, we keep making more.
We're waiting for a solution to the physically unsolvable -- that is to say, impossible -- problem of storing something that destroys its container by irradiating it (and thus breaking down the molecular and atomic structure of the steel, concrete, glass, or what-have-you). In the meantime, the deformity-causing, cancer-causing, disease-causing, boiling-hot (thermally) concentrations of "hot" (radioactive) isotopes are each glowing, growing targets for retaliatory strikes against America, along with the operating reactors.
As little-known expert Bennett Ramberg put it in a UPI Op-Ed from May 2005: "Nuclear power plants are naked against a Sept. 11, 2001-like air attack." Twenty years earlier Ramberg wrote a whole book on the subject of nuclear terrorism, which was ignored by government and the nuclear industry, and was called: "Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy: An Unrecognized Military Peril." We still ignore him, at our own risk.
In the drive to create a nuclear-powered, nuclear-weaponized society, profits were made all along the way. Lying to ourselves about how corporations make profits on other people's misery does not stop evil from happening. Rather, it enables it.
Uranium-238 munitions, the shells and bombs used by the thousands every day in Iraq, leave a poisonous legacy. America, right now, is poisoning the area known as the cradle of civilization. We grew up calling it Mesopotamia. The name Iraq doesn't convey its 10,000+ year history of human settlement.
An interesting side-effect of our use of Depleted Uranium weapons is that, because of their extraordinarily-long half-life of four and a half billion years, the evidence of our assault on civilians who have not even been born yet, will be detectable (with sophisticated equipment) for about 50 to 100 billion years. The earth is only about 5 billion years old, according to the geological record!
Two, or ten, or a hundred generations from now, or a thousand, anyone will be able to find clear evidence of our use of uranium weaponry. Uranium fragments. Deformities among the local population. All these things will be discernable. Future generations of Americans will probably have to pay reparations for today's use of radioactive tools of war.
Tools which are already illegal by numerous international conventions.
Tools which also sicken and endanger the lives of our own soldiers and their families.
Profitable? very! Depleted Uranium is free -- the nuclear fuel reprocessing centers are just DYING to give it away. And it cuts through buildings and enemy tanks (and bodies) like a hot knife through butter. And then it turns into position gas ! You can find radioactive fragments, and you can detect the uranium with a Geiger Counter, but the bombs and bullets will have mostly vaporized -- become poison gas -- and some of that will spread out globally before getting into crops, drinking water, babies, you and I.
Modern warfare is, more than anything else, an assault -- largely hidden -- on civilians, and on humanity at large. Just as with each breath, we each breath some part of Caesar's last breath, so too the deadly DU dust from each war will poison all seven billion+ people on the planet, including more than a billion children.
The deadly dust will poison the rich and the poor alike, but the poor will have no access to health care.
We, the American Couch Potato, allow this in our name. Our government is currently the world's greatest terrorist, JUST on the basis of its use of U-238, and threatened use of U-235 and Pu-239 weapons. The shining hill now glows with radioactivity, and its citizens suffer with cancer.
Our inability to admit that radioactive weapons must be banned, and that large radioactive targets (aka "nuclear power plants") must also be closed forever, makes us guilty of mass murder by complacency.
None of us are innocent anymore -- except the children of course, who are 10 to 100 times or more, more vulnerabale than adults to nuclear radiation dangers, and who trust us to protect them from all the horrors of the real world, even the invisible and insidious ones.
Stop the radiation assault, and you go a long way towards stopping cancer, leukemia, birth defects and other ailments. Those who promote nuclear power promote death, destruction, undemocratic principles, and global suffering. But those who say nothing and simply let it happen are their single biggest and most powerful group of supporters.
When the tsunami occurred in 2004, many people died because they ran out to where fish were flapping, where the water used to be. A tidal wave of ignorance and apathy is occurring on this planet. New technologies could replace all the nuclear power in use on earth in a matter of months -- maybe even weeks -- if society put its global industrial strength to work building alternative energy systems with currently-available designs.
But instead, we continue to upgrade old nukes, and even build new nukes. Each one creates about 250 pounds per day of radioactive "spent" fuel. Enormous amounts of fossil fuels and chemicals are used to process the nuclear materials, and to keep the nuclear power plants in "working" order -- producing more waste. Nuclear power is not the solution to global warming or anything else.
There is nothing good about nuclear power. Those who run the plants, build the weapons, and process the fuel staunchly defend their "right" to pollute your body with odorless, colorless, tasteless, and extremely carcinogenic radioactive isotopes, and few of us even know it is happening.
Those who do know can and must stop this madness. Cancer rates are soaring; every family suffers.
--The author, a computer animation programmer, has studied nuclear issues for more than 35 years, and writes frequently about nuclear weapons and nuclear power. He offers a large collection of free, informative nuclear animations at his web site. To receive his newsletters directly, please contact him at: rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com
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Union of Concerned Scientists
December 11, 2007
Serious Safety and Security Risks Undercut Nuclear Power's Role in Minimizing Global Warming, New Report Finds
Science Group Recommends Stronger Federal Oversight, Safer Designs, U.S. Ban on Reprocessing
WASHINGTON (December 11, 2007) – An expansion of nuclear power capacity in the United States could help reduce global warming pollution, but could also increase threats to public safety and national security, according to a report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Those risks include a massive radiation release from a power plant meltdown or terrorist attack, and the death of hundreds of thousands from the detonation of a nuclear weapon made with materials obtained from civilian nuclear facilities. (The report is available at www.ucsusa.org/nuclearandclimate.)
"Unless the industry, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the federal government adopt the common-sense recommendations in our report, building a new fleet of nuclear power plants will create serious safety and security risks," said Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund, co-director of UCS's Global Security Program and a report co-author.
There are 104 nuclear power reactors operating in the United States, generating approximately 20 percent of U.S. electricity. Most of these reactors have 40-year operating licenses, but several recently have received extensions for another 20 years. Even with extensions, the first plants will retire in 2029 and nearly all will retire by 2050. Currently 17 utility companies have plans to build 31 new reactors.
The 74-page report assesses nuclear power's key problems and offers recommendations to strengthen nuclear plant safety, better protect facilities against sabotage and attack, ensure the safe disposal of nuclear waste, and minimize the risk that nuclear power will help more nations and terrorists acquire nuclear weapons. It also evaluates new reactor designs. The report does not address the economics of nuclear power or the relative benefits of other energy options under consideration to reduce global warming emissions.
According to the report, the United States has strong safety regulations, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) -- the federal agency charged with overseeing the industry -- does not consistently enforce them.
"Nuclear power is less safe and more costly than it should -- and could -- be," said David Lochbaum, director of UCS's Nuclear Safety Project and a report co-author. "Congress must protect its investment in nuclear power by transforming the NRC into an aggressive safety enforcement agency."
Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer, cited a 2002 incident at the Davis-Besse reactor near Toledo, Ohio, as a prime example of lax NRC enforcement. Plant operators discovered a football-size hole in the reactor vessel, which, had it gone undetected, could have caused a worse accident than the 1979 core meltdown at Three Mile Island. Knowing the plant was vulnerable, the NRC drafted an order requiring the plant owner to shut down the reactor for safety inspections in 2001, but then allowed the plant to continue operating into 2002 so the owner could avoid the high costs of shutting down while it was finalizing a corporate merger.
The report also found that federal security standards are inadequate to defend plants against real-world terrorist threats. For example, plant owners are not required to defend against terrorists using readily available shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenades. The report recommended that the Department of Homeland Security -- instead of the NRC -- identify threats to nuclear power facilities.
The report identified only one of 10 new reactor designs under consideration in the United States that is potentially safer and more secure than those operating today. The design, which has a double-walled containment structure, was designed to meet European safety criteria that are more stringent than NRC standards.
"By refusing to require new reactor designs to be safer than current generation reactors, the NRC is squandering an opportunity to greatly reduce the threat of nuclear accidents or terrorist attacks in the coming decades," said Dr. Edwin Lyman, senior staff scientist in the UCS Global Security Program and a report co-author. "Unless the agency raises the safety bar for new reactors across the board, those with costly additional safety features will have to compete with cheaper ones that are less safe."
The disposal of highly radioactive waste contained in nuclear reactors' used, or spent, fuel rods poses another serious problem. This waste must be isolated for at least tens of thousands of years, if not longer. It ultimately should be stored in a permanent, underground geologic repository, but the proposed site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada may never be licensed. The report recommends that the Department of Energy identify other potential sites. In the interim, the report concluded that the waste can be stored safely in dry casks for the next 50 years, but only if the casks are hardened against attack by surrounding them with earthen berms. Currently, casks are sited in the open on concrete slabs.
Finally, the report warned that a global expansion of nuclear power could increase the risk that more nations or terrorists will acquire nuclear weapons. According to the report, a significant risk factor is whether nations reprocess their spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium, which can be used to build nuclear weapons. Reprocessing, however, is not necessary to expand nuclear power. The report recommended that the United States reinstate a ban on reprocessing U.S. spent fuel and take the lead in promoting a global moratorium on reprocessing. In addition, all uranium enrichment facilities, the report said, should be placed under international control.
"The risks posed by global warming may turn out to be so grave that the United States and the world cannot afford to rule out a substantial expansion of nuclear power," said Dr. Gronlund. "However, it also may turn out that nuclear power cannot be deployed worldwide on the scale necessary to significantly cut emissions without resulting in unacceptably high safety and security risks."
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NRC
December 11, 2007
NRC Names New Senior Resident Inspector for The Proposed Yucca Mountain Project
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has assigned Leonard Willoughby as senior resident inspector for the proposed high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain, located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nev.
Willoughby will report to the Region IV office in Arlington, Texas which is responsible for implementing the NRC’s inspection program for the project. He joins Jack Parrott, the NRC’s senior onsite licensing representative in the Las Vegas office.
"Willoughby's extensive technical and regulatory experience will help enable the NRC protect public health and the environment through rigorous oversight if the Energy Department submits a license application for a high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain,” said NRC Region IV Administrator Elmo E. Collins.
Willoughby graduated from Colorado State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering science in 1978. Following graduation, he worked for the U.S. Navy at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for 19 years. Willoughby joined the NRC in 1999 as a reactor engineer. Since 2001, he has served as resident inspector at the Fort Calhoun Station nuclear power plant in Nebraska.
As the senior resident inspector assigned to Yucca Mountain, he will lead the agency’s on-site inspection related activities during the license application review for the proposed high-level waste repository. He can be reached at (702) 794-5048.
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Arms Control Today
December 10, 2007
Bush Nuclear Fuel-Cycle Program Suffers Blows
Miles A. Pomper
After a sharply critical report from a high-level independent panel and amid continued criticism from Congress, the Bush administration appears to be scaling back its ambitions for the domestic leg of its controversial Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). Meanwhile, other international nuclear fuel supply efforts seem to be attracting more attention.
Administration officials have claimed that the initiative, which seeks to develop new nuclear technologies and new international nuclear fuel arrangements, will reduce nuclear waste and decrease the risk that an anticipated growth in the use of nuclear energy worldwide could spur nuclear proliferation. Critics on Capitol Hill and elsewhere assert that the administration’s course would exacerbate the proliferation risks posed by the spread of reprocessing technology, be prohibitively expensive, and fail to significantly ease waste disposal challenges without any certainty that the claimed technologies will ever be developed.
An Oct. 29 report from a National Research Council (NRC) panel, commissioned by the Department of Energy, sided strongly with the critics, concluding that the department should “not move forward” with GNEP, particularly efforts to develop new commercial-scale facilities for reprocessing and for burning a new type of nuclear fuel. Citing a lack of urgency and appropriate technical knowledge, the NRC panel said the department should return to an earlier course in which it conducted a “less aggressive research program.”
The panel’s judgment echoes criticism from most lawmakers on relevant committees on Capitol Hill. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have approved legislation that would substantially cut funds for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, which underpins GNEP, and limit spending to research. (See ACT, October 2007.)
Indeed, Dennis Spurgeon, assistant secretary of energy for nuclear energy, told the Senate Energy and National Resources Committee Nov. 14 that rather than annually confront such budget battles, he would personally favor funding GNEP in the future with a portion of a fee on electricity generation that Congress has imposed on nuclear power plant operators to pay for disposing of spent fuel. He said that the U.S. government has accumulated close to $20 billion from this fee, which has yet to be spent because of continued political wrangling over a planned permanent repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The GNEP program calls for research on new reprocessing technologies that administration officials say will not yield pure separated plutonium but a mixture, including plutonium, that is less applicable to making bombs. GNEP further calls for construction of new advanced burner reactors to make use of the reprocessed fuel. The administration also claims that doing so will reduce the volume of spent nuclear fuel currently stored at nuclear reactors so that the United States will not have to build another permanent repository.
The proposal has drawn criticism, in part because facilities that reprocess spent fuel for plutonium-based fuels might also be used to harvest plutonium for nuclear bombs. By establishing such facilities, critics say, the United States might be encouraging other countries to do so as well, perhaps leading to nuclear weapons proliferation. Because of such concerns, the United States had shied away from spent fuel reprocessing for nearly three decades until GNEP was launched in 2006.
Department officials had indicated that, by the summer of 2008, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman would decide whether to build new commercial-scale fuel facilities and “fast” reactors that could produce and burn such new fuels. By that time, four industry groups are slated to provide studies examining financial, technical, and other issues.
The NRC panel said making such a decision next year would be unnecessarily hasty. “Domestic waste management, security, and fuel supply needs are not adequate to justify early deployment of commercial-scale reprocessing and fast-reactor facilities,” the panel wrote.
In particular, the panel said it was not clear if a second waste repository would be needed. It also argued that the knowledge of appropriate technologies was not sufficient to move to commercial-scale facilities. It said the cost of the program would be far more expensive than proceeding with the current once-through nuclear fuel cycle, a conclusion backed by the Congressional Budget Office in testimony before the Senate panel.
The NRC panel also said that “qualifying” the new fuel—ensuring it could be used appropriately in the reactor—would take many years. Instead the panel advocated returning to a lower-level research program to provide more basic information before choosing any particular path forward.
In his testimony before the Senate committee, Spurgeon acknowledged that the department would not be ready to move forward with commercial deployment of any new reprocessing technologies in the near future.
After the hearing, he told reporters that he did not expect Bodman next summer to call for any immediate construction of commercial-scale facilities using existing technologies employed by France and Japan that separate pure plutonium, an approach championed by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), the panel’s ranking member. Rather, Spurgeon said the department would be charting a “technology path” forward for research, though his remarks did not close out the possibility of using COEX, a process nearly ready for commercial deployment that extracts and precipitates uranium and plutonium (and possibly neptunium) together so that plutonium is never separated on its own.
Still, Spurgeon pointed to some progress in the program’s international dimension when Italy on Nov. 13 became the 17th country to join GNEP. Sixteen countries had signed GNEP’s statement of principles in September, although the list did not include such important nuclear energy consumers and producers as Germany and the United Kingdom. Also, it is not clear how much weight Rome’s participation carries. Italy at one time had five power reactors and two under construction; but it shut down all of its nuclear power plants after a 1987 referendum in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
GNEP received a bigger boost on Nov. 29 when Canada, the world’s largest uranium producer, joined the partnership.
Ottawa had held back from joining the partnership earlier amid political controversy over whether GNEP would require Canada to accept spent fuel from other country or limit its ability to enrich its own fuel.
Multilateral Fuel-Cycle Alternatives
Nevertheless, countries are putting more emphasis on efforts other than GNEP to control the nuclear fuel cycle, primarily aiming at its “front end.” Such efforts seek to limit the spread of technologies such as uranium enrichment, which can produce low-enriched uranium for fresh nuclear fuel, or highly enriched uranium, which can also be used as fissile material for nuclear weapons. Concerns over uranium enrichment have been at the center of the controversy over Iran’s nuclear program (see page xx). By contrast, GNEP primarily focuses on “back end” technologies that address how to deal with spent fuel from nuclear reactors.
In September, the U.S. administration had indicated that although the program was conceived in the wake of President George W. Bush’s February 2004 call to halt the spread of enrichment or reprocessing facilities to new countries, it would not require such forbearance as a condition of GNEP membership.
“We’re not asking countries to sign a statement that they will never enrich or never reprocess,” Spurgeon elaborated in an October interview with Arms Control Today.
The administration has taken other steps to encourage participation in the partnership. For example, it has said that a multinational steering committee, not the United States, will dictate GNEP’s direction and that the partnership will operate by consensus.
Nonetheless, multinational enrichment efforts seem to be moving more rapidly in the international arena than GNEP’s focus on reprocessing.
Nikolay Spasskiy, the deputy head of Russia’s atomic energy agency, told reporters after the September GNEP meeting that the U.S. initiative was one of only several such efforts and its importance should not be overemphasized.
Russia and Kazakhstan on Sept. 5 announced that they had inaugurated the use of an enrichment facility in Angarsk, Siberia, as an international center with joint ownership. The center is eventually envisaged as a multinational operation that will produce low-enriched uranium fuel under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring.
Armenia took a step toward that goal Nov. 29, announcing that it would participate in the center. Moerover, Spasskiy told Platts Nuclear Fuel in September that he expected Ukraine to join the venture before the end of the year and that Mongolia and South Korea are closely studying participation. Spasskiy’s boss, Sergey Kiriyenko, told Russian reporters in October that Australia and Japan also have indicated interest in participation, although Kiriyenko said that Japan has insisted that the facility first be placed under IAEA safeguards. Kiriyenko said an agreement with the agency could be in place by the middle of 2008.
South Africa is another potential candidate for an enrichment center. In September, South Africa declined to participate in GNEP, dealing a serious blow to U.S. ambitions for the program. Spurgeon claims that South Africa may still participate, saying its representatives “had a lot of questions” and a “misunderstanding” about GNEP’s requirements, particularly whether South Africa would have to forgo enrichment or reprocessing.
But Tseliso Maqubela, chief director for nuclear energy at the South African Department of Minerals and Energy, told Platts NuclearFuel in September that South Africa wished to set up a centrifuge enrichment facility on its territory in which it could utilize the shared technology of foreign partners and that if South Africa was unable to do so, it would develop the technology domestically. Major international enrichment companies have generally balked at providing foreign countries with access to the proliferation-sensitive technology.
In a Sept. 24 Platts NuclearFuel interview, French Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Alain Bugat said that France would open a new centrifuge enrichment plant under construction to “international partnerships” and would provide details within a few months. The French enrichment company Eurodif has involved Belgium, Italy, and Spain (and formerly Iran) as international partners in its gaseous diffusion plant at Tricastin.
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San Luis Obispo Tribune
December 10, 2007
Diablo nuke plant waste could travel through San Luis Obispo
The Associated Press
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. --Nuclear waste from the coastal Diablo Canyon power plant could be shipped by truck over San Luis Obispo County roads for loading onto trains heading for a proposed desert disposal site.
The federal Department of Energy says the exact method for transporting radioactive waste to Nevada's Yucca Mountain will be made on a case-by-case basis. Rail and barge methods are being considered.
The San Luis Obispo Tribune newspaper says that means there is still a possibility that Diablos waste could be taken by barge to Port Hueneme for loading onto Nevada-bound trains.
Federal officials hope to open Yucca Mountain in about nine years with shipping of spent fuel from Diablo Canyon coming seven years after it opens.
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Sarasota Herald-Tribune
December 10, 2007
Surprising support found for nuclear energy
Jim Brown
A couple of weeks ago, I ran a positive column about the use of nuclear energy as a way to combat global warming. I expected to be crucified but got only two letters, one challenging, one supporting. On the street, I had about a dozen different people stop me to agree. None were opposed.
Maybe that's reflective of the demographic makeup of Longboat Key, though I doubt it. By and large, Longboaters are a pretty freethinking batch, concerned with quality of life and a vibrant ecology. One quick example: Though we have only 25 kids in Sarasota schools, our voters are among the staunchest supporters of just about every school tax proposal.
I suspect Gov. Charlie Crist -- who started talking about nuclear but now seems to be backing off -- might be surprised at how a majority of Floridians actually feel.
But to get back to those two letters. They were serious, well-thought-out and the "anti" one included articles with a sweeping condemnation of the nuclear idea. I couldn't answer them, so I sent a list of the key questions raised to the "pro" letter writer, a nuclear engineer who is former assistant secretary for nuclear energy in the Department of Energy.
I'm going into the exchange here because, it seems to me, if global warming is the threat to the very existence of life on our planet that most scientists believe it to be, it has to be the most critical issue facing mankind today. And nuclear is the only proven way to substantially attack it. So why not?
Obviously, there are two big issues: safety and waste disposal. Are those problems so unsolvable that they outweigh nuclear's value? That's the answer I sought. Here is a distillation of what I learned:
On safety, the "anti" side points to Three Mile Island in the U.S. and Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union. Pros reply: Three Mile Island resulted in no deaths or extended damage. No one denies Chernobyl was a mess. It was badly constructed and poorly operated, and it resulted in 33 direct deaths, plus never-determined collateral health issues.
The biggest argument for nuclear safety is the 200 to 300 operating plants around the world in France, Japan and Germany, for starters, plus another 100 in the U.S. One note: 20 percent of today's electric power in the U.S. is from nuclear sources.
Waste disposal is far from clear-cut. In the U.S., it essentially doesn't exist right now; plants are storing their waste, waiting for completion of the Yucca Mountain repository in 2017.
Opponents argue that Yucca is merely a stopgap, that its 63,000 metric ton capacity will be exceeded by waste on hand even before it opens. Advocates say that 63,000 tons is arbitrary, a negotiated figure to get the entire project past a couple of powerful congressional opponents.
The real capacity is much greater, they say, plus 95 percent of spent fuel is inert uranium that doesn't need storage, and the remaining radioactive waste is being reprocessed to reduce its totals even further.
Here are a few other charges with the engineer's answers:
The nuclear fuel cycle requires tremendous amounts of energy, most of which is derived from fossil fuel.
Response: Yes, lots of energy is used, but it amounts to only a tiny percentage of the electric energy produced by the nuclear process.
Heat waves forced the shutdown of reactors in France, Spain and Germany in July 2006; in 2003, heat waves led French engineers to tell the government they could no longer guarantee the safety of the country's 58 nuclear power plants because of cooling problems.
Response: "Cooling problems" came from the environmental restrictions on the use of lakes, rivers and streams, not plant safety issues. Coal- and gas-fired steam power plants had the same problem, but this was not publicized.
Despite tens of billions of dollars in public subsidies, nuclear energy is not viable without government support.
Response: Commercial nuclear power stopped receiving government subsidies in the early 1960s. Almost all U.S. nuclear plants are owned by utilities or corporate entities, get no subsidies and generally produce the cheapest power on their systems. The new federal energy bill has loan guarantees for the first six new plants to cover construction delays forced by abuse of the licensing process.
The tremendously long lead times required for design, permitting and construction of nuclear reactors render it an ineffective option for addressing global warming.
Response: Compared to what, ask the pro-nuclear folk. They say nuclear is the only energy source that can make any dent in global warming, and that if you want successful action on that, you'd best consider nuclear energy.
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NRC
December 10, 2007
NRC NAMES NEW SENIOR RESIDENT INSPECTOR FOR THE PROPOSED YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has assigned Leonard Willoughby as senior resident inspector for the proposed high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain, located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nev.
Willoughby will report to the Region IV office in Arlington, Texas which is responsible for implementing the NRC’s inspection program for the project. He joins Jack Parrott, the NRC’s senior onsite licensing representative in the Las Vegas office.
"Willoughby's extensive technical and regulatory experience will help enable the NRC protect public health and the environment through rigorous oversight if the Energy Department submits a license application for a high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain,” said NRC Region IV Administrator Elmo E. Collins.
Willoughby graduated from Colorado State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering science in 1978. Following graduation, he worked for the U.S. Navy at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for 19 years. Willoughby joined the NRC in 1999 as a reactor engineer. Since 2001, he has served as resident inspector at the Fort Calhoun Station nuclear power plant in Nebraska.
As the senior resident inspector assigned to Yucca Mountain, he will lead the agency’s on-site inspection related activities during the license application review for the proposed high-level waste repository. He can be reached at (702) 794-5048.
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Las Vegas SUN
December 09, 2007
Letter: NRC not objective on Yucca Mountain
Stephen Burns, deputy general counsel for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, stated in a letter Friday that the staff of the NRC will not be an advocate for either side in a potential licensing proceeding for the Yucca Mountain repository. This is an incorrect statement.
By the NRC's own regulations, the NRC staff, once the licensing proceeding begins, becomes the actual advocate for the project alongside the Energy Department. The State of Nevada formally petitioned the NRC a few years ago to have this regulation changed but the NRC denied Nevada's petition.
It is more than disingenuous for Mr. Burns, who not only works for the NRC, but is also in the very office that was largely responsible for this denial, to attempt to assure Nevadans that we can rely on the NRC's neutrality and objectivity. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The NRC has been working hand in glove with the Energy Department over the past 20 years and is in its third licensing ruling change for Yucca Mountain, each time watering down critical health and safety regulations and eliminating all disqualifying conditions in an attempt to ensure the project becomes a reality.
The truth is that the NRC is as much an advocate for the project as the Energy Department. Mr. Burns should know better.
Bob Loux, Carson City
The writer is executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 09, 2007
Sherman Frederick: Can we trust feds on Yucca?
Arizona mess tells us 'no'
For those who trustingly place faith in the federal government safeguarding Las Vegans from a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, I offer one word of caution: Moencopi.
That's a tiny village in the Hopi Nation, in northern Arizona. It's so remote, if you Googled "out of sight, out of mind," Moencopi might come up first. Yet world-renowned Las Vegas and little-known Moencopi may one day share an unfortunate kinship.
Let me explain.
Moencopi, which means "running water," is an ancestral farming community of about 200 Hopi families. Unless something dramatic happens, the people there may not make it too many more growing seasons, because radioactivity from an old government dump is bearing down on the community.
Years ago, the unlined dump on the Navajo Nation, outside Tuba City, was used to dispose of radioactive byproducts from a uranium mill. Because the dump was located outside Hopi boundaries, the people in Moencopi didn't have much say about the dump, its use or its lack of safeguards. More's the pity because after the Bureau of Indian Affairs closed the dump in 1997 and covered it with dirt, the groundwater became radioactively contaminated and began moving toward the Hopi Nation.
According to the Flagstaff, Ariz., newspaper last week, the "plume of contaminated water has migrated to within one-third mile of a spring the Hopi village of Lower Moencopi uses for drinking water."
Hopi leaders blame the Navajo dump site. Awareness of the plight has so far resulted in little more than a governmental shoulder shrug. It will cost $23 million to clean up the dump. No one's willing to own up -- or pony up.
The Navajo Nation has been no help. And the federal government says it's not even sure from where the radioactive taint stems. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., recently held committee hearings that lamented the plight of Moencopi and the many problems with contamination on the Navajo Nation after decades of mining and milling.
But like all classic bureaucratic nightmares, everyone's long on lament and short on accountability and action.
Do I think America has the engineering skill to dig a big hole at Yucca Mountain? Sure. In fact, it's pretty much done. I've been in it. It's an E-ticket (if anyone still remembers what that was).
Do I think we, as a country, can safely transport high-level nuclear waste from nuclear plants around the United States to Yucca Mountain, assuming the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ever licenses the place? Sure, with just about the same degree of safety as the federal aviation system.
But do I think that the transportation and storage of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain will take place, mishap-free, forever? Not a snowball's chance on the Strip.
There will be problems. Maybe even disasters. And when they happen, will the federal government own up and correct them?
Some will try to knock my argument down by saying I'm a Yucca Mountain alarmist. Tell you what. Let's see Moencopi get fixed, then we'll talk.
For now, Moencopi gives me no comfort.
Car theft, car sale
Have you heard about this crime in Las Vegas?
Car thieves steal a marketable car (say, a Cadillac Escalade), strip out the seats, tires and just enough equipment to make sure the insurer will call it a total loss.
The insurance company then pays the claimant and sells the stripped Escalade on the salvage market for pennies on the dollar.
Now for the twist: The thieves buy the stripped-out Escalade (which comes with a new vehicle identification number), put back the seats, tires and the previously stolen equipment and then sell the car at top used value.
The right car can net the thieves $50,000 a pop, easy. Steal, strip and buy back 10 cars a month and, well, you can do the math. Makes you wonder how much of this scam stems from inside knowledge.
State song agony
I love e-mail with a sense of humor. Reader Terry Miller-Newcomb found my past column helpful on what I called the "near unsingable" state song "Home Means Nevada." I thought you'd get a kick out of her letter. She writes in part:
"Like many a loyal Nevadan before me, as a fourth-grader, I chose to sing 'Home Means Nevada' as my 'talent' in the once-annual Ruby S. Thomas Elementary School Talent Contest. The horrified faces in the crowd before me still haunt my memories. Children, their parents and most of my teachers sat, mouths gaping, as I nervously squeaked out the chorus. The worst portion, musically speaking, is when a terrified 10-year-old must voice the already sing-songy words 'If you follow the old Kit Carson trail ...' Agony!
"Your column has probably saved me thousands of dollars and many hours in therapy as I recover from post-traumatic singing disorder. This is an entirely self-diagnosed malady, although my supportive teachers, which included Ric Watson, Mary Ellen Schwartz and Jean Rhodehammel, and served as witnesses to the event, must certainly be suffering as well!
"Having said all this, you must know how sad I would feel if our song was replaced and forgotten forever. I'm a Nevada traditionalist who still misses the old skyline: The Sands, The Dunes. Heck I even show my kids where The Hacienda once stood. Perhaps we could commission a native Nevadan to write the 'Modern' state song and call this one 'Traditional'?
"Anyway, thanks for the memories!
"P.S. For fifth grade, I did a baton-twirling routine to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass."
And with that, dear readers of Nevada's largest and best newspaper, happy holidays -- Hanukkah, Christmas and all.
--Sherman Frederick is publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and president of Stephens Media. Readers may write him at sfrederick@reviewjournal.com.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
December 09, 2007
Kucinich addresses many issues at Reno rally
James Ball
Touching on issues ranging from Yucca Mountain to the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq, presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich spoke to a crowd of several hundred people in Reno Saturday.
Despite a steady snowfall outside, a standing-room-only crowd packed into two meeting rooms at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center to hear what the Ohio Congressman and Democrat had to say about issues he's most closely associated with: the environment and opposition to the war and the Bush administration in general. Those expecting Kucinich to deliver harsh words about the president weren't disappointed, as the half-hour campaign speech soon turned to talk of impeachment.
"On the way over here, I was reading a 50-page document that relates to Articles of Impeachment for the President of the United States," Kucinich said to a standing ovation. "And I want you to know that I'm actually preparing this document for submission to the House."
Kucinich said under the current administration, citizen's rights to due process and fair trial are in jeopardy.
"This is a moment when we're called upon to reclaim our country," he said. "You give me your vote, I'll give you back your country."
Kucinich also discussed how his concern for the environment would shape his presidency if he were to be elected.
"Think about this. The government has an engine of sustainability so that the Department of Transportation focuses on developing mass transit solutions. The Department of Housing and Urban Development develops green housing with natural light and passive solar. The Department of Energy incentivizes the production of wind and solar and green energy," he told the crowd.
But most of those on hand weren't there to hear about global warming.
Bill Cantella of Reno made his way throughout the crowd, handing out Kucinich pamphlets and stickers simply reading "Impeach," while others wore shirts and held banners bearing the same sentiment.
Cantella said Kucinich's "everyman" appeal draws him to the candidate.
"The most appealing thing about him to me is that he's not connected with special interests, international corporations and he does not accept campaign contributions from corporations or PACs." Cantella said. "He's not connected to the military industrial complex, oil companies and health insurance companies that rule our lives."
He was quick, however, to point out that shunning such donations could, in fact, hurt Kucinich's chances in a race populated by high-profile candidates like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on the Democratic side.
"That's probably his biggest problem," Cantella said. "Because you have to have a lot of money to win the presidency of the United States. "
Kucinich's wife, Elizabeth, who was raised in England, spoke about the perception that her husband traditionally has been seen as a fringe, extremist candidate.
"There's a kind of thought police in Washington that tells the people of the United States that they're on the fringe but they're not," she said. "Dennis really stands with the people of America right squarely on the issues. It's the other candidates on the fringe that actually pose themselves as mainstream."
After the speech was presumably over, Kucinich jumped back on stage to get in one more thought; this one on Yucca Mountain.
"Under President Kucinich, Yucca Mountain is dead," he said.
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NewsBlaze
December 09, 2007
Berkley Votes to Expand Clean Energy
Package Will Increase Renewable Power, Up Gas Mileage Standards
On Thursday, I voted for The Energy Independence and Security Act. The landmark energy package, which passed on a vote of 235 to 181, will increase renewable energy development, strengthen gas mileage standards, address greenhouse gas emissions and decrease dependence on foreign oil. The legislation repeals billions of dollars in taxpayer giveaways to big oil and gas companies and is free of subsidies for the nuclear power industry.
"Creating more clean energy is good for families, good for our economy and good for our environment. Investing in solar and other renewable power resources will increase America's energy independence, while creating more jobs and new businesses. This legislation also repeals billions in taxpayer giveaways to big oil and gas and invests these dollars in the development of solar, geothermal and wind energy, which are free of greenhouse gas emissions," said Berkley.
"I am very pleased that we are not spending a single dime in this bill to subsidize new nuclear power plants. Unlike nuclear power, renewable energy does not create toxic high level waste with no safe means of disposal. Subsidizing the construction of new nuclear reactors will only increase the pressure to dump toxic radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain. These dollars are far better spent encouraging more renewable energy development," said Berkley, who successfully fought to block any nuclear subsidies from being added to the energy bill.
In addition, the Democratic package increases gas mileage standards for the first time in decades, a move that will mean more fuel efficient cars and trucks for Nevada drivers who stand to see a savings at the gas pump.
"Strengthening gas mileage standards will translate into savings at the gas pump for consumers who will be able to drive more fuel efficient cars. Using less oil will help break America's dependence on Saudi Arabia and on nations that are hostile toward the U.S. and our allies," said Berkley.
The Energy Independence and Security Act:
Increases the efficiency of vehicles to 35 miles per gallon by 2020;
Requires for the first time that 15% of our electricity come from renewable sources;
Improves energy efficiency of a wide range of products, appliances, lighting and buildings;
Makes an historic commitment to American-grown biofuels;
Invests in clean renewable and alternative energy tax incentives to build viable markets and create jobs.
While Nevada already has its own law requiring green energy use, Berkley noted that the legislation passed by the House today would create a national renewable electricity standard (RES) for the first time. A strong advocate for green energy development in Nevada and nationwide, Berkley has consistently supported legislation in Congress that utilizes the same concept as Nevada's renewable portfolio standard (RPS) law.
"Passage of a renewable electricity standard will encourage the production of more solar, wind and geothermal power and help move America toward real energy independence. As we have seen in Nevada, having such a requirement in place will promote the development of new clean energy sources for families, while also protecting our environment and addressing climate change," said Berkley, referring to the requirement in Nevada law that 20% of energy consumed in the Silver State be drawn from renewable sources by 2015.
Berkley pushed for inclusion of a nationwide RES as part of a comprehensive energy bill authored and passed by House Democrats earlier this year. President Bush has repeatedly threatened to veto legislation establishing such a mandatory renewable requirement. Berkley and fellow Democrats in Congress are preparing to stand their ground and challenge the President and his supporters on the clean energy issue.
"The State of Nevada has been a leader on this issue and we can look to the Silver State as an example of what should be done on a nationwide scale when it comes to a renewable energy requirement. The sun and wind are not owned by nations hostile to the U.S. and renewable energy does not create toxic radioactive waste or increase pressure for this nuclear garbage to be dumped in Nevada. The need for clean energy is not a partisan issue and I hope that those who support renewable power will join me in calling on the White House not to block passage of an RES in Congress," said Berkley.
--judythpiazza@newsblaze.com
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San Luis Obispo Tribune
December 09, 2007
Tribune Exclusive Report
Nuclear waste could travel through SLO
One plan would send Diablo’s loads by truck over local roads to a rail pickup in or near the city
By David Sneed
The latest plans for transporting highly radioactive waste from Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to a proposed underground disposal site in Nevada allow for the possibility that the waste could be shipped by truck over local roads to San Luis Obispo to be loaded onto trains.
However, officials with the federal Department of Energy say the exact method of transport will be made on a case-by-case basis for each nuclear power plant. This leaves open the possibility that Diablo’s waste could be taken by barge from the plant to Port Hueneme, where it could be loaded directly onto trains, thereby bypassing local roads.
“If a utility has the crane capacity and other infrastructure to load a rail cask but does not have access to a railhead, then a barge or heavy-haul truck will be used to move the cask to a railhead,” said Allen Benson, a spokesman for the Yucca Mountain Project. Crane capacity at Diablo Canyon should
not be an issue. Plant operators recently used heavy-duty cranes to unload replacement steam generators, each weighing 360 tons, from barges.
Barge and rail options are being considered, Benson said, because some areas of the country like the idea of shipping the waste by barge while other localities oppose it. The agency has promised to work closely with local agencies in preparing detailed transportation plans as the shipment dates get closer.
Moving the waste would take place at least 17 years from now, so many of the details of how the waste would be transported remain unanswered, Benson said.
Federal officials hope to open Yucca Mountain in 2017. It could begin taking spent fuel from Diablo Canyon seven years after it opens. Plants around the country are prioritized for their shipping based on how old they are. Diablo Canyon is among the newer plants.
Waste on local roads?
Charts included in the Yucca Mountain transportation plan state that spent nuclear fuel from Diablo Canyon would be trucked over 14 miles of rural roads, four miles of suburban roads and 1.5 miles of city roads to a rail loading spot in or near San Luis Obispo.
The Diablo Canyon waste would be moved in 41 shipments with a total of 122 casks, according to the Energy Department documents. Armed guards would accompany each shipment, but further security details remain classified.
Once the Department of Energy picks up the waste canisters, they become the agency’s property. Therefore, Diablo Canyon owners Pacific Gas and Electric Co. do not have a position on how the waste should be transported, PG&E spokeswoman Sharon Gavin said.
Details not disclosed
Unanswered questions about truck transport include the exact route the trucks would take, whether the train station in San Luis Obispo would be used for loading and whether area roads and bridges could handle the shipments. A fully loaded cask weighs as much as 180 tons.
Plans call for specially designed, multi-axle heavy haulers to be used that would distribute the loads over a large area, making it possible to meet highway loading limitations, Benson said.
“Roads and bridges will be studied,” he said, “so the exact configuration of the shipping equipment will be matched to their load-carry capacity.”
Mobile cranes and other equipment can be brought in to transfer the casks from the trucks to the railcars if the local rail station lacks the needed equipment.
It is also unclear how long it would take to ship Diablo Canyon’s waste to Yucca Mountain. According to the Department of Energy, it could take up to 50 years to transport all of the nation’s 77,000 metric tons of waste to the underground facility.
Local reaction
County emergency services planners say they are aware that trucking of the waste on local roads is a possibility, but are waiting for more details before they begin planning how to manage it.
“We are keeping an eye on it,” said Ron Alsop, the county’s emergency services manager. “But it’s so far out and it’s changed so often already that, until a deal is inked, we are not going to commit a whole lot of resources to it.”
The Department of Energy would have to get special permits from Caltrans to haul the waste because the shipments would exceed the state’s limit of 80,000 pounds for normal truck traffic, Alsop said. The Energy Department has also promised money for local governments to cover emergency services training and other costs.
David Wiseman, with the San Luis Obispo-based watchdog group Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, said local residents and officials have not had adequate opportunity to comment on the transportation plan.
A series of public meetings about the transportation plan was held in Nevada and Lone Pine, in eastern California, but none locally.
“Local elected officials have not been kept in the loop by Department of Energy officials,” he said.
Yucca’s uncertain future
While federal energy officials are proceeding with the Yucca Mountain facility, the fate of the underground repository is still uncertain. Nevada elected officials, including U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, remain adamantly opposed to it.
All of the leading Democratic presidential candidates say they will scrap Yucca Mountain if elected. Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, is also opposed.
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