Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, February 8, 2008
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Las Vegas SUN
February 07, 2008
Editorial: Forging an energy path
Congress should dramatically revise President Bush’s backward-looking budget
Almost 90 percent of the nation’s electricity comes from plants powered by nuclear energy or by the burning of coal or natural gas.
This is unfortunate because emissions from burning coal and natural gas heavily contribute to global warming and lead to health problems for many people. Also, coal emissions are largely responsible for the buildup of acid in lakes and the world’s oceans.
Nuclear power, meanwhile, produces deadly waste for which no safe, permanent disposal solution has been discovered. A federal plan conceived in the 1980s to bury the waste northwest of Las Vegas at Yucca Mountain is so scientifically flawed it is now, quite properly, moribund.
The federal government should be setting timetables for reducing conventionally produced energy and increasing the amount of energy generated by renewable sources such as solar, wind and geothermal.
President Bush, however, has failed this leadership test during his more than seven years in the White House. He talks of the need for more renewable energy, but makes only token gestures in that direction.
His fiscal year 2009 budget, released this week, is a prime example. Las Vegas Sun reporter Phoebe Sweet noted in a Wednesday story that the budget does not extend soon-to-expire tax credits for emerging renewable energy industries.
Sweet also quoted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who said the budget improves funding for coal by 25 percent and for nuclear energy by 37 percent. In contrast, Reid said, the budget reduces spending by almost 30 percent for renewables and programs striving for greater energy efficiency, such as the home weatherization program for low-income families.
The budget stubbornly resists forward-looking energy trends that even major lenders are adopting. Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley, three of the nation’s largest investment banks, announced this week that they will be assiduously assessing the environmental impacts of coal-fired power plants before making any decisions to finance new ones.
Bush’s budget even includes $495 million for continued work at Yucca Mountain. As Congress sets about revising the budget, it should eliminate the Yucca Mountain money and dramatically change the funding priorities for energy to give the country the start it needs toward a cleaner, healthier future.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
February 07, 2008
Guinn 'disappointed' in Romney pullout
Anjeanette Damon
Former Gov. Kenny Guinn said today he is disappointed Republican Mitt Romney has suspended his presidential bid, adding that GOP frontrunner John McCain might have some troubles explaining his stances on Yucca Mountain and illegal immigration to Nevada voters.
Guinn, who became friends with Romney while the two were governors, endorsed Romney early in the campaign and chaired his Nevada effort.
“I know he’s making a decision based on what’s best overall for the Republican Party and for himself,” Guinn said. “We support him tremendously here in the state of Nevada. I’m sorry to see him go.”
Romney won Nevada caucuses handily last month, hoping the early victory would boost his campaign’s chances on Super Tuesday.
While he performed well in the rest of the Mountain West this week, he came in a distant second to Arizona Senator McCain.
In his concession speech, Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, said his candidacy would stand in the way of Republican unity necessary to beat the Democrats in November.
“And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror,” he told a convention of conservatives this morning in Washington D.C.
Guinn said Romney’s lack of name recognition hurt him, adding that he hoped it wasn’t his Mormon faith that got in the way of a successful bid. Romney badly lost in Southern states on Tuesday, which some observers owe to his religion.
Asked if he would campaign for McCain, Guinn said he doubts he would be selected as a surrogate after having supported Romney.
“I’ll leave that for others,” he said.
Guinn said Nevada voters will have to carefully weigh McCain’s positions in support of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and his past sponsorship of a bill that would ban college sports betting.
“And I think illegal immigration is certainly an issue for him. I know taxes would be also, if they don’t clarify why he didn’t vote for the Bush tax cuts to be permanent,” Guinn said.
“That would certainly have an effect on Nevada.”
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New American
February 07, 2008
Nuclear Waste: Not a Problem
By: Ed Hiserodt
Yes nuclear energy is clean, but the waste is a problem. The life of the waste is 100,000 years no matter what you hear. The canisters that will hold this waste will disintegrate in 1,000 years or less, or so they say.
— From TNA “Letters to the Editor”
How ironic that the nuclear wastes of concern to the letter-to-the-editor writer have become the most serious problem with nuclear power generation. Six decades ago the birth of nuclear power was praised for lowering the volume of waste products by a factor of 10,000,000. As Petr Beckmann pointed out in his classic The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear, the nuclear wastes for an individual for a year is about the size of an aspirin tablet — a minuscule price to pay for inexpensive, reliable, safe electrical power. Yet when nuclear power is mentioned as a clean alternative today, the problem of wastes invariably arises.
The “Problem” of Waste in Context
The low volume of nuclear waste as compared to wastes from coal-fired power production is what attracted the early conservationists who saw nuclear power as an ideal way to protect our ecosystem. A 1,000 Megawatt coal-fired power plant produces solid wastes at a rate of 1,800 pounds per minute, waste that includes 19 toxic metals such as arsenic, carcinogens such as benzopyrene, and mutagens from the respirable coal fly ash. A coal-fired plant also produces 50 times the radioactive emissions of an average nuclear power plant. For those concerned about such things, going nuclear even reduces CO2 emissions by 600 pounds per second.
The coal-fired plant also produces 30 pounds of sulfur dioxide per second (said to cause acid rain, amongst other problems) and as much nitrous oxide as 200,000 automobiles. Each year some 60,000 fellow citizens die early deaths from exposure to byproducts of coal combustion, according to studies by the Brookhaven National Laboratory, Divisions of Atmospheric Sciences and of Biomedical and Environmental Sciences. Note that unlike wastes from nuclear power plants, all products of coal combustion are either sent into the atmosphere or into landfills where they remain toxic forever.
Even with that extensive list of negatives, the danger from coal-fired power plants pales in comparison to a far more serious danger — a lack of access to electrical energy. If we opt for inconsistent sources of energy, such as wind power and solar generation instead of fossil or nuclear power, we have only to wait for the invariable brownouts and blackouts that will be the result. We see the toll from a lack of energy each time we have a natural disaster where people flee to the nearest place where the comfort, sanitation, and safety provided by electrical power is available. We also see this dramatically in countries where work is performed primarily by human labor and the combustion of wood is a primary source of energy — and the population lives in the squalor that we always see under such conditions. The surest way to a low standard of living is energy poverty.
What Are Nuclear Wastes?
There are many answers to this question, including smoke detectors in the landfill or gloves worn by a nuclear medicine physician. (A failed nuclear-waste disposal law proposed in the Colorado legislature would have made a trip to the restroom a criminal offense since urine is always radioactive with Potassium-40.) Here, however, we are addressing only the waste products from commercial nuclear power generating plants.
The fuel for a Light Water Reactor (LWR) as typically used in the United States is uranium — a relatively plentiful metal in the Earth’s crust averaging three grams per ton, which is three times that of mercury, 36 times the abundance of silver, and outstrips gold by a factor of 675. Once the ore is mined, the percentage of the fissionable U-235 isotope is “enriched” to some 3.5 percent compared to its natural occurrence of 0.7 percent within the predominant U-238 isotope. To fuel a reactor, finger-sized pellets of enriched uranium held in special tubing are inserted into the reactor core along with control rods of neutron-absorbing materials. Plain water is a critical component of any LWR as it serves as a coolant, a heat-transfer agent, and a moderator to slow down neutrons so they can be captured by the U-235 isotopes causing them to fission or split into a number of new elements.
The new elements created when the uranium atom “splits” are called the daughters* of the reaction and consist of a number of isotopes that run the gamut from being highly radioactive — hence spawning future radioactive disintegrations — to being stable and nonradioactive. The radioactive daughters and their progeny are considered high-level wastes. They consist of about 3 percent of the volume of spent fuel and amount to approximately 7.5 cubic feet (about a quarter of a cubic yard) from a year’s production from a 1,000 Megawatt power plant — considered to provide the electricity needs for 750,000 homes.
In rating the long-term dangers from these radioactive waste products, one must consider their half lives, i.e., the time required for an isotope to lose half its radioactivity. For example, radioactive iodine with an atomic weight of 131 (I-131) has a half life of about eight days, meaning a sample of I-131 will emit half of its initial radiation after eight days. In just over a month — 32 days — it will have lost 15/16th of its original intensity. After 30 half lives it is considered (by definition) to have completely disappeared.
The table below lists the half lives of significant radionuclides** found in spent nuclear fuel.
Gases
* Kypton-85 10.7 years
* Xenon-133 5.3 days
Solids
* Strontium-90 28.1 years
* Molybdenum-99 66.7 hours
* Iodine-131 8.1 days
* Cesium-137 30.2 years
* Cerium-144 285 days
What About the Other 97 Percent?
We have addressed the 3 percent of spent fuel that can be considered extremely dangerous high-level waste, because of the intensity at which it releases its radiation. But we have also seen from the preceding table that the rapid decay of its components lessens its danger to relatively short periods of time. About 97 percent of spent fuel is not waste at all, but valuable uranium and plutonium that can and should be recycled for use as fuel. It seems odd that we are enjoined by “environmentalists” to recycle paper — a truly renewable resource — but be forbidden by government decree to recycle radioactive fuel that is many times more expensive than gold. After chemically removing the high-level wastes, the recoverable isotopes in spent fuels and their half lives are:
* Uranium-235 710 million years
* Uranium-238 4.5 billion years
* Plutonium-239 24.4 thousand years†
* Plutonium-240 6.6 thousand years†
* Plutonium-241 13.2 years†
Note that except for plutonium-240 and -241, these recyclable isotopes have very long half-lives and they emit their radiation slowly — so slowly, in fact, that they can safely be handled with bare hands. But there is no need for the public to come into contact with any of these since they can be used immediately as nuclear fuel. Already in LWRs, plutonium transmuted from U-238 provides nearly a third of the generated electrical energy. Stockpiled weapons-grade plutonium is being mixed with uranium in a “mixed oxide fuel” or MOX and “burned up” as fuel in the reactor. How better to beat a sword into a plowshare?
So why doesn’t the United States, like other countries possessing nuclear power, reprocess its fuel, removing the high-level radionuclides and reusing the uranium and plutonium isotopes? It is owing to the perceived — rather misperceived — dangers of the plutonium in the “spent fuel.” In 1977, the Carter administration canceled the Barnwell, South Carolina, reprocessing plant then nearing completion because of an exaggerated danger of terrorists stealing our nuclear fuel and chemically separating the plutonium from the uranium in order to build nuclear weapons with it.‡ France, Germany, Japan, and Russia continued with their reprocessing facilities and have assured themselves sources of readily available nuclear fuel for the foreseeable future. Our reprocessing efforts were limited to military purposes.
How Dangerous Are Nuclear Wastes?
Nuclear power plant wastes come in two distinct varieties: the dangerously radioactive daughters that are the remnants of the fission reaction, and the remaining recyclable isotopes that can be “burned” as fuel in the reactors to produce heat, steam, and electricity. Those opposed to nuclear power would have us confuse these two. A nuclear physics axiom is: “In general, the higher a radionuclide’s specific activity, the shorter its half life (decay rate), and the more ‘radioactive’ it is when compared to one with a lower specific activity.” If the “specific activity” stuff seems a bit confusing, you might think of short half-life isotopes to behave like gasoline thrown on the campfire, while the long half-life isotopes are analogous to the methane that seeps slowly up in the bayou and glows on those still, dark nights. High-level wastes give up their energy in a short period of time and then become stable and harmless, while the unused fuel (uranium and plutonium) are so weakly radioactive that their emanations are only dangerous in the minds of those who are dead set against nuclear power.
How long does it take for high-level wastes to become safe? For those interested in a definitive answer to this question, Bernard Cohen’s article “The Disposal of Radioactive Wastes From Fission Reactors” in the June 1977 issue of Scientific American is a classic that delves deeply in to the subject. However, there are ways to attack the question using logic. The daughters of fission reactions are not only radioactively hot but are also thermally hot, since the energy from the decay is converted into heat energy. These decay products begin very hot and cool as they lose radioactivity. The decrease in the heat produced can therefore be equated to the decrease in radioactivity. A canister of waste that produces 30,000 watts of heat energy when removed (after one year) from a power plant cooling pond would have dropped to about 3,000 watts in 10 years, to 300 watts in 100 years, and to a barely detectable 3 watts in 1,000 years. We can see then that the radioactivity of the waste canister has decreased to 1/10,000th its initial value and is not likely to require the services of armed guards 24/7 for 100,000 years, as the more vocal anti-nuclear activists would have one believe.
Where Do We Bury Virginia?
Another interesting way for us to assess the dangers of radiation is to compare the radiation levels found in nuclear plant wastes to those of material found in nature. Numerous studies dating from the 1970s show that ores from which the uranium for fuel was mined have the same amount of radioactivity that nuclear wastes will emit after being sequestered from 400 to 900 years, depending on the quality of the ores and the timing of a power plant’s refueling cycles. If we used the same philosophy about naturally occurring radioisotopes as we do nuclear power plant wastes, we would have to dig up, encase, and rebury the State of Virginia because of the large uranium deposits that have been found there. (And you can be certain Senator Harry Reid, whose fear-mongering about nuclear wastes knows no bounds, would not allow Virginia to be buried in Nevada!)
We don’t attempt to sequester naturally occurring radioactive pitchblende and similar ores to protect humans and animals from cancers and mutations, nor should we. They’ve always been there. Many states besides Virginia — e.g., New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Texas, Arizona, Florida, Washington, and South Dakota — have ore deposits that are sufficiently concentrated for commercial mining, without harm to the population or causing radioactive pollution of the groundwater. And, for the record, these naturally occurring ores aren’t vitrified, encased in stainless steel, or stored in a dry environment.
Yucca Mountain
In the late 1950s, the National Academy of Science looked into the then-upcoming nuclear-waste disposal situation. At the time reprocessing of the fuel elements was a “given”; thus, it was just the high-level, short half-life decay products that were being considered as nuclear waste. Scientists decided that vitrifying them (making them into glass), encasing them in stainless-steel containers, and burying the canisters in geological formations that hadn’t seen moisture in millions of years was the best way to keep them out of the biosphere and eliminate the possibilities of groundwater contamination. This also allowed for retrieval of the valuable radionuclides if that became desirable in the future.
In 1978, the Department of Energy began studying Yucca Mountain, a 4,950-foot ridge in the uninhabited desert 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as a site for the long-term storage of high-level nuclear wastes that by now were considered to include the recyclable fuel components. The facility, which has already been paid for by the nuclear power industry and its rate payers, was expected to begin accepting nuclear wastes in 1998. This did not happen due to a bitter fight over the issues of transportation dangers and the firm opposition by the anti-nuclear activists to even the most stringent safety measures to prevent migration of the waste products into the groundwater.
Yucca is now scheduled to begin receiving spent fuel in 2017, making it possible that some scientists and engineers will have spent their entire careers studying and constructing the repository. (In comparison, it took engineers and workers seven years to construct the 31-mile tunnel beneath the English Channel.) Yet even the 2017 start date is in jeopardy due to opposition from anti-nuclear activists and those who are swayed by their rhetoric.
Somehow we’re expected to believe that rains will suddenly come to the desert, with water rushing through 2,500 feet of solid rock, dissolving the stainless steel shells of the glassified waste, leaching radioactive materials from the glass, and then gushing through another 1,500 feet of rock to the water table. Fast forward 100,000 years where some civilization with the technology to drill wells through several thousands of feet of rock will drink that water — water that would be only a fraction as radioactive as well water in parts of Maine or in health spas all over Europe. As noted, in much less than 100,000 years — 400 to 900 years to be precise — the waste will be no more radioactive that the natural ores that were mined for nuclear fuel.
To even imagine that a stainless-steel canister encasing glassified wastes and stored in a dry environment that has been studied in every particular for over 30 years would deteriorate seems a foolish prediction when there are innumerable cases of unprotected iron fasteners and structural members dating from the Middle Ages that are still serviceable after hundreds of years of exposure to wear, tear, and the elements.
Statistical Deception
The underlying cause of the nuclear-waste “problem” is an exaggerated fear of radiation. We have been conditioned for many years to accept the premise that even the slightest bit of radiation is dangerous — a premise that is not borne out by any experimental evidence.
It is certainly true that high doses of radiation can sicken or kill, and lower but still very substantial exposures can increase one’s propensity for developing cancer. But contrary to “common knowledge,” examination of the data shows that low levels of ionizing radiation often have a beneficial effect on human health known as hormesis — a fact that many scientists are striving to make public with little help from an uninformed and generally anti-nuclear news media. There is a very close parallel between ultra-violet (non-ionizing) radiation from exposure to sunshine and nuclear (ionizing) radiation. While extreme exposure to sunlight can lead to sunstroke and death, and lesser amounts cause sunburn and increase chances of skin cancer, moderate sunshine stimulates our bodies to create vitamin D that is necessary for good health.
We see this same phenomenon with trace elements such as arsenic and many vitamins. It is not unexpected then to see the same human reaction to ionizing radiation.
We have been deceived into believing that all radiation is bad because of the United States’ policy reliance on the “linear no-threshold” theory, or LNT, which states that if large amounts of something cause death or sickness, fractional amounts of the same thing cause proportional amounts of death or sickness. If the LNT were applied to falling as it is to radiation, we might note that 100 percent of those falling onto concrete from 100 feet are killed, but only 50 percent of those falling from 50 feet die. With these data we would linearly extrapolate to say that 10 percent falling from 10 feet and one percent of those falling from one foot would die. Armed with this “linear no-threshold falling theory,” we could confidently assert that jumping rope should be banned on all school playgrounds since statistically anyone making 100 one-foot jumps would die.
Neither experience nor evidence supports LNT theory, yet this same statistical ploy is used to make very small exposures of radiation to large numbers of individuals appear deadly. In 2005, by unanimous vote, both the French Academy of Medicine and the French Academy of Science deplored the use of this dose-response methodology in predicting effects of low-dose radiation. It is high time that the radiation professionals in this country did likewise, and many are doing just that. Unfortunately, the fact that thousands of workers in nuclear industries are outliving their unexposed peers is not considered newsworthy, but a leak of three quarts of reactor coolant water with less radioactivity than salad dressing makes the front page as a catastrophe.
Radioactivity surrounds us. Human beings and all we come into contact with contain radioisotopes. Uranium in the soil will still be radioactive in 10 billion years when our sun runs out of hydrogen. It is a natural part in our universe. To fear it is like fearing the warmth of a fireplace just because fire can also burn down the house. Yet people are still paralyzed with fright because few in this country understand anything about the measurement of radiation or its effects. Until we do we are defenseless against the posturing of radical environmentalists and destined to eventually lose the most incredible source of clean, safe, and reliable energy that man has ever been fortunate enough to enjoy.
* These daughters, if gathered together and weighed, would total a little less than the original uranium atom — and it is that “little less” that has been converted into energy according to Einstein’s famous E=mc2.
** Even these high-level “wastes” are valuable products for industry and medical diagnostics and treatment. Molybdenum-99 is the “cow” or source for producing Technetium-99 used in 30,000 “imagings” in European hospitals everyday.
† Not found in original fuel assemblies, only in recycled fuel.
‡ For why reactor-grade plutonium is not suitable for nuclear weapons, see “Iran and ‘the Bomb,’” October 16, 2006. This article is available online at www.thenewamerican.com/node/1749.
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Transporting Wastes
Among the manufactured concerns of the anti-nuclear lobby is the hazard of used-fuel transportation. For those who haven’t driven on the interstate highway system lately, there are already (gasp) hazardous materials being shipped. Nuclear-fuel shipments would amount to less than one-thousandth of one percent of the 1.2 million daily shipments of hazardous materials.
Nuclear Energy Institute Executive Vice President Angie Howard points out that shipments of used nuclear fuel “have been completed safely since the mid-1960s and will continue to be conducted safely in the future. A proven record of 3,000 shipments covering 1.7 million miles with no impact on public safety or the environment demonstrates we can transfer this material safely.”
Used-fuel containers must pass rigorous tests by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission including:
* A 30-foot free fall onto an unyielding surface, which would be equivalent to a head-on crash at 120 miles per hour into a concrete bridge abutment;
* A puncture test allowing the container to fall 40 inches onto a steel rod six inches in diameter;
* A 30-minute exposure to fire at 1,475 degrees Fahrenheit that engulfs the entire container; and
* Submergence of the same container under three feet of water for eight hours.
If that’s not sufficiently comforting, there are also transportation tests to verify container integrity, consisting of:
* Running a flatbed tractor-trailer carrying a container into a concrete wall at 84 miles per hour;
* Placing a container on a rail car that was driven into a concrete wall at 81 miles per hour; and
* Placing a container on a tractor-trailer that was broadsided by a train locomotive traveling at 80 miles per hour.
* In all cases, post-crash assessments showed that the containers — although slightly dented and charred — would not have released their contents. One wonders how the thousands of tanker trucks transporting deadly chlorine and bromine gases would stand up to such conditions.
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BSU Arbiter
February 07, 2008
Nuclear Power? Why in Idaho?
William Quapp
Guest Opinion
NIMBY - the acronym for not in my backyard! Idahoans should embrace nuclear power to supply our clean energy needs and reject the arguments of those who would deny us those benefits based on emotion and distorted information.
I am an engineer who began his nuclear power career in 1968 working with General Electric's Nuclear Power Divisions. Over my long career, I have developed expertise in reactor design, reactor safety, and nuclear waste management. Nuclear power has a proven safety record. There are over 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S. and just over 500 around the world. In spite of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the industry's safety record over the last 40 years is outstanding. No lives have ever been lost to a nuclear accident in the U.S. nuclear power program. No other industry can match that safety record. New nuclear plant designs will offer even better reliability and greater safety. The nuclear waste disposal issue has scientifically sound and safe solutions; other countries have reprocessed their spent fuel into new fuel for decades. We reprocessed U.S. Navy fuel in Idaho for many years. Implementing our spent fuel management options - disposal at Yucca Mountain or fuel reprocessing - is impeded by political opposition not science.
Idaho needs reliable and clean electric power. Currently, Idaho relies on out-of-state imports for about 80 percent of its energy needs, all of it from fossil fuels. That includes half of its electric power and all of its natural gas. Water power supplies most of the rest of our electricity and wind and other renewables are less than 1 percent. Most of the renewable sources depend on the weather and its variability. We clearly do not want to dam any more rivers. For the future, only coal and nuclear power can economically fill the void for large scale, reliable power generation. Power from natural gas-fired turbines, the choice during the 1990's, has become extraordinarily expensive and the cost keeps increasing. Furthermore, natural gas for this power source is same fuel we use for heating our homes. I have seen my gas bills increase nearly three fold in the last 10 years largely caused by the demand from gas turbines. We don't need higher home heating bills - we need nuclear power.
More importantly, the benefits of nuclear power are many. It is environmentally clean and reliable. Nuclear plants emit no greenhouse gases or other air pollutants, emit less radioactive emissions than a coal plant, and have a physically small environmental footprint. Nuclear power plants operate reliability with most U.S. plants exceeding 90 percent on line time. Nuclear plants are not sensitive to extreme weather conditions. They operate when the Idaho weather dips below zero - when the wind is often very still and the coal piles freeze. Lastly, producing nuclear electric power contributes to our national security and energy independence. We can reduce the amount of natural gas burned in turbines and save it for home heating purposes. We can stop heating with oil.
The economic benefits are also large. In Idaho, nuclear power will provide for our needs and a portion of the power will be sold to other states; however, all of the economic benefits occur in Idaho. Construction jobs, operations jobs, and local property taxes are the largest and direct benefits. In addition, power plant service companies will bring other jobs to the area.
So, while the debate will intensify and the opposition will only drag out the tired and worn out arguments, Idahoans should embrace this greenhouse gas free, power source and enjoy the environmental, economic and energy benefits.
--William Quapp is a mechanical engineer and environmentalist who has lived in Idaho Falls for most of the last 35 years. He is currently involved in developing waste to energy solutions using gasification technologies.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
February 06, 2008
More managers in pipeline for Yucca project
Most of the 25 positions would be in LV office
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Although beset with funding shortfalls that are prompting layoffs, at least one pocket of the Yucca Mountain Project is preparing to add to its work force.
The Department of Energy plans to add 25 federal managers to the Nevada nuclear waste program this year, and has budgeted for another 50 in fiscal 2009, according to Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
The DOE budget sent to Congress on Monday contains $2 million for the new positions. All told, the department plans to spend $3 million to beef up the federal side of the project.
Most of the new hires would be assigned to the Yucca Mountain office in Las Vegas, Sproat said. Already, 186 federal employees are on the program in Las Vegas and in Washington.
While the government side is growing, other segments of the project are shrinking. Budget cuts prompted operations contractor Bechtel SAIC Co., to announce a layoff schedule for between 140 and 180 workers.
Last month 63 Bechtel SAIC employees were given job notices although about 20 accepted transfers out of state.
From a recent peak of about 2,700 employees on the Yucca project in October 2007, a net 900 jobs will be reduced by this summer, Sproat said.
Sproat said the Energy Department traditionally has relied heavily on contractors that work on Yucca Mountain. DOE will need to demonstrate stronger internal management when it seeks a repository license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, he said.
"We are going to be ramping up the federal staffing of the organization to really start to build the internal capability with additional people, so we are in a better position to manage the construction and operation of the repository," Sproat told reporters in a conference call.
Sproat said employees targeted for layoffs elsewhere in the program can apply for a new federal job. DOE will seek technicians, engineers, people with nuclear construction and operations experience, and those with business and training backgrounds.
A spokesman for program critic Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the job shifts will mean little in the long run.
DOE "has said they would be adding staff for the licensing process, but at the end of the day no matter how you look at it, the budget cuts are a loss for them," spokesman Jon Summers said.
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Las Vegas SUN
February 06, 2008
An honest Yucca answer, come Jan. 20
By Lisa Mascaro
WASHINGTON — The director of the Yucca Mountain project has an opinion on whether the nation’s nuclear waste repository dump will survive with a new president in the White House.
He’s just not saying — at least not today.
In a conference call with reporters on Super Tuesday, the Energy department’s Edward “Ward” Sproat put off the question until next year, when his presidential appointment comes to a likely end with a new president.
“You may want to ask me after January 20 next year, I may give you a more honest answer,” the former nuclear energy executive, hired to put Yucca Mountain back on track, told reporters.
Both the Democratic frontrunners, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have vowed to end the nuclear waste repository planned for 90 miles north of Las VegasYucca if elected. Republican candidate John McCain supports the waste dump, but Republicans Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney have not taken firm positions.
Sproat reminds that there is a law on the books that says Yucca Mountain will be built to hold the nation’s nuclear waste, and “the next administration will have a decision to make about what it will do about the law.”
But experts say the law has an escape clause – the president can deem the Nevada site unsuitable, essentially pulling Yucca Mountain off the table. The president could also issue an executive order halting the project.
In a wide-ranging talk, Sproat reiterated that he is not sure he will be able to hit the June 2008 deadline to submit a license application for the site, and that the site’s 2017 opening is “clearly out the window” thanks to budget cuts and other set backs.
When asked if he was getting much grief on the Hill for missing the upcoming June deadline, Sproat said: “We had a few people who just wanted to make sure they heard what I said correctly. I said, Yea, you heard it right. Nobody’s pressing me to give them a new fixed date.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid engineered a substantial budget cut for fiscal 2008, forcing the Energy department’s contractor to lay off as many as 500 positions this year. Sproat disclosed today that the project additionally lost 400 positions at the end of fiscal 2007 because it had exhausted extra funds that had been carried over from the previous year.
Still, the engineer remains undeterred, saying he is posting openings for about 50 new Yucca Mountain jobs at Energy department offices in Las Vegas and Washington as the federal government takes on more responsibility for the project from the contractor. The department similarly added about 25 scientific and management jobs last year.
President Bush allocated $495 million for Yucca Mountain in the 2009 budget released this week, similar to last year’s request, but Nevada’s lawmakers have vowed to cut that again.
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Las Vegas SUN
February 06, 2008
Reid: Renewables shorted by Bush budget
By Phoebe Sweet
President Bush has again chosen to subsidize coal and nuclear power rather than renewable energy, environmental groups protested Tuesday following the release of his $25 billion federal Energy Department budget.
Bush’s last budget request as president includes $1.4 billion to promote new nuclear power plants, $9.1 billion to safeguard the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal and $1.1 billion to research technology that reduces greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired plants.
Bush also requested nearly half a billion dollars for the planned nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.
“Why would he consider doing this when he didn’t get what he wanted last year?” said the project’s leading opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., adding that the only consolation was that last year Bush asked for $1 billion for Yucca.
And although some environmentalists say they aren’t entirely opposed to funding research into ways to reprocess spent nuclear fuel or trap and store carbon dioxide emissions, they say they are opposed to that research coming at the expense of the renewable energy industry and energy efficiency programs.
“The way the president’s budget reads, it’s one or the other, when what should come first are renewables and efficiency,” said Ned Farquhar, Western energy and climate advocate of the National Resources Defense Council and former energy adviser to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. “That’s what the public wants, not just in Nevada but nationwide.”
Farquhar said the president’s budget appears to increase funding for advanced research on fossil fuels and nuclear technology by the same amount it cuts from an efficiency program that pays to weatherize poor people’s homes.
“The budget undermines assistance for low-income families hardest hit by the energy crisis,” he said. “The president’s priorities appear to be feeding money into large, academic, futuristic programs instead of efficiency that could benefit people today.”
Critics of the budget agreed that perhaps the most important thing it’s missing reauthorization of tax credits for renewable energy developers. The credits are set to expire at the end of the year.
“That’s what would really help the industry most. And unless it gets renewed soon it really brings investment to a standstill,” said Charles Benjamin, director of the Nevada office of Western Resources Advocates.
Reid said those tax credits would bring jobs and investment to Nevada. Reid opposes plans to build three new coal-fired plants in Nevada, two near Ely and one outside Mesquite.
Reid promised to fight Bush over the budget, which he said improves funding for coal by 25 percent and for nuclear energy by 37 percent while decreasing spending on renewables and efficiencies by almost 30 percent.
“We have a country that is smothering itself with smoke from coal and oil, and we need to move to more efficient uses of what we have and move to renewables,” Reid said Tuesday, adding that the Bush budget was cutting from an already small subsidy for the renewables industry.
Energy Department spokeswoman Megan Barnett defended the budget, saying it includes funding for a broad range of energy, fuel and transportation sources that would decrease the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“To meet the nation’s voracious demand for energy while addressing the challenge of global climate change, DOE is making robust investments in a diversity of energy sources,” she said. “In addition, DOE’s loan guarantee program has over $38 billion in authority to guarantee loans for clean energy technologies that avoid, reduce or sequester greenhouse gas emissions.”
Bush requested $1.25 billion, $1 million more than last year, for clean fuel, energy and vehicle research.
Some environmentalists and Democrats said they weren’t surprised by the budget.
“After seven years of failed energy policy, we are still hearing the same arguments from the Bush White House,” Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said in a statement Tuesday. “Given this record, it comes as no surprise that the president is proposing to increase funding for nuclear energy and coal when we should be charting a new course to energy independence based on solar, wind, geothermal and other forms of green power. As we have seen once again in this latest State of the Union address, the president says one thing, only to turn right around and do the opposite in his annual budget when it comes to renewable energy.”
Scot Rutledge, executive director of the Nevada Conservation League, said the coal and nuclear industries have been relying on government support to stay afloat for years.
“The lion’s share has gone to fossil fuel industries and the nuclear industry for decades,” Rutledge said. “If the coal industry is interested in staying in business you would think it would spend a little more of its own money” on research and development.
Joe Lucas, president of the energy lobby group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, which paid for recent ads supporting coal in Nevada, said the industry has partnered with the federal government on clean coal research since the 1980s.
But Lucas said he, too, was disappointed with the president’s budget, because it scraps funding of the experimental FutureGen project, a nearly $2 billion “clean coal” plant with carbon capture, in favor of funding smaller research projects.
“We should be finding ways to invest in all of these projects,” he said. “We need to be spending more money, not less money,” if the industry is to comply with carbon limits being discussed by Congress.
Lucas also said it makes sense that coal and nuclear power would receive more federal support, because they provide a combined 70 percent of the nation’s electricity.
The House and Senate will each create its own budget, and then they will hash out their differences so they can present one budget to the president for approval. Reid did not rule out waiting until January to pass a budget so that it would go to the next president.
--Sun reporter Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
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Nevada Appeal
February 06, 2008
Reid: Bush budget increases taxes on Nevadans, cuts funding for renewable energy
By Geoff Dornan
While President Bush's 2009 budget plan would renew tax breaks Democrats say go mostly to the wealthy, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said Tuesday it would actually increase taxes on Nevada's families.
In a telephone conference interview, Sen. Reid said Bush chose not to extend the sales tax deduction or the deduction on college tuition, both of which expired with the end of 2007.
"At a time when Nevada families are feeling the effects of a weakened economy, the president should not be trying to raise their taxes," he said.
Reid said Congressional Democrats will "do everything we can" to extend those tax credits.
The sales tax credit allowed residents in states that don't have income taxes but rely more heavily on sales taxes to take a deduction on their federal tax form for taxes paid. The college deduction allowed families making up to $130,000 a year to deduct $4,000 a year for tuition and families making more than that to deduct $2,000 a year.
But Reid said that is far from the only problem with the budget sent to Congress on Monday.
"The president's budget is so far out of line with any sense of realism, it's hard to believe he could be trying to do what he's doing," said Reid.
He said the budget would increase subsidies for coal and nuclear power by 25-30 percent while cutting back expenditures on renewable energy technologies by almost 50 percent.
He said energy tax credits so people can invest in wind, sun and geothermal power would also help Nevada significantly since the state is rich in potential for those renewables.
High on the Democrat's agenda, Reid said, is to let Medicare negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prices. He said managed care companies can and it's not fair that Medicare is prohibited from bargaining to get better prices for the nation's sickest patients.
Reid also objected to the nearly $600 billion in the $3 trillion budget for defense, pointing out that's not the entire cost since that doesn't include expenditures for the Iraq war.
"We have to do something to stop that war in Iraq," he said.
Reid said he has already served notice on the Senate floor this year will be different because, in his last year, "the president doesn't have us over a barrel."
"Last year he did," Reid said. "He could swagger and threaten to veto anything."
He said if the president will work with Congress this year, "we'll deal with him. If he wants to swagger and push us around, we won't."
"If necessary, fine, we'll finish it with the new president," he said.
Finally, Reid said there will be a renewed effort to cut Yucca Mountain funding from the Bush budget. Republican Sen. John Ensign agreed with Reid on that one point.
"Throwing more money at this project is not the answer because it's the wrong policy," Ensign said.
--Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.
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Pahrump Valley Times
February 06, 2008
DOE braces for new Yucca budget wrangle
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy proposed a $494.7 million budget for Yucca Mountain Monday and braced for another year of defending the project against newly energized critics in Congress.
The budget is almost exactly the same amount that DOE requested last year to continue work on the nuclear waste repository it wants to build in Nevada. It was less than half of the $1.2 billion that Yucca project managers once told lawmakers would be necessary at this point to keep the project on a preferred schedule.
But after a series of years in which Congress has slashed Yucca spending, officials Monday characterized their fiscal 2009 request as a realistic one.
"We intend to move ahead," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said at a briefing on the final DOE budget of the Bush administration. The budget "demonstrates, we believe, our commitment to this project."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was resharpening his axe for the repository, several months after engineering a deep cut that prompted several hundred job layoffs and schedule delays that are still being calculated.
"Despite the fact Congress cut his proposal by $108 million last year, President Bush requested $495 million again this year," Reid said. "Clearly, he will not get that funding."
"On Yucca Mountain, the president's budget request will not be met," added Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.
DOE has all but officially written off a planned June deadline to apply for a repository construction license. Bodman said Monday the license application now would be completed sometime in 2008.
Ward Sproat, project director as head of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said he would present Congress with new project schedules this spring.
"We put together a budget that is relatively flat," Sproat said. "What we are saying is that this is enough to move the program forward but not forward on the quickest plan."
Previously, DOE's "best-case" outlook had Yucca Mountain open and accepting nuclear waste by 2017. A new schedule could push that back by five years or more, and some experts say the opening date could be even further in the future.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said support in Congress will erode the longer the repository is delayed.
"The chance that Yucca Mountain will open before 2020 fades like a Nevada sunset," Berkley said. "President Bush is dreaming if he thinks Congress is going to waste another $495 million dollars on his plan to turn Nevada into a nuclear waste dump."
Within the DOE's latest request, $262 million would be allocated to designing the industrial complex where waste canisters would be handled prior to being rolled into storage tunnels within the mountain.
Another $82.7 million would pay for technicians and lawyers to take part in the license application process at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
DOE designs for a nuclear waste railroad across rural Nevada to the repository would be budgeted for $10 million.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
February 06, 2008
Bush proposes to eliminate sales tax deduction for Nevadans
Diana Marrero
WASHINGTON - President Bush wants to eliminate a tax deduction popular in Nevada that allows residents in seven states without state income taxes to deduct sales taxes in their federal returns.
In his $3.1 trillion budget proposal released Monday, Bush also wants to cut funding for wildland fire management and eliminate a program that reimburses state and local governments for the cost of incarcerating criminal illegal immigrants.
At the same time, Bush wants to boost spending on defense and homeland security, aiming to spend an additional $500 million to hire 2,200 new Border Patrol agents and $35 million more on a program to detect bioterrorism.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Bush's priorities were "out of line with any sense of realism.''
During a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Reid questioned why Bush would want to end the sales tax deduction and another tax deduction that allows families earning less than $130,000 a year to deduct up to $4,000 in college tuition costs.
"The budget released by the president yesterday raises taxes on all Nevada families," Reid said.
About 346,000 Nevadans took the sales tax deduction in 2005, Reid said, vowing to restore the deduction.
Residents of six other states - Alaska, Florida, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming - also can take sales tax deductions because their states don't impose income taxes.
Both Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., questioned the $495 million in funding Bush requests for Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada. Both senators have fought against the administration's efforts to build a nuclear waste repository there.
"Throwing more money at this project is not the answer because it's the wrong policy," Ensign said in a statement. "The money for Yucca included in the president's budget should be spent on a new course of action for nuclear waste because Yucca Mountain will never be built."
Bush requested about $500 million for Yucca Mountain last year but received about $386 million, Reid said.
Asked why the federal budget included any funding at all for the project, Reid said he had worked hard to cut as much money as he could.
"I'm not doing too bad," he said. "We're getting there."
Rep. Dean Heller, R-Carson City, was less skeptical of Bush's budget proposal, saying his plan takes "positive steps toward balancing the budget."Bush's plan may have little impact when Congress begins work on appropriations bills. That's because Bush is in the final year of his presidency and Democrats control both the House and Senate.
Bush's plan would increase spending for defense nearly 8 percent to $515 billion in 2009, and funding for the Department of Homeland Security also would grow by about 8 percent.
Bush wants to cut discretionary Transportation Department spending by 26 percent, as well as trim $14.2 billion from the projected growth in Medicare and Medicaid.
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NEI Nuclear Notes
February 06, 2008
NEI Applauds DOE Budget Request
NEI said in a statment it was generally satisfied with the Energy Department's budget request for fiscal 2009 announced yesterday. The DOE request would increase funding by 79 percent next year for Nuclear Power 2010, a program aimed at helping companies build new nuclear power plants in the United States.
Nuclear Energy Institute President and Chief Executive Officer Frank L. (Skip) Bowman said the budget request properly recognizes the need for nuclear energy to remain a key element of the nation’s diverse electricity portfolio for generations to come.
“Nuclear energy enhances our energy independence, and new nuclear power plants are essential if the United States hopes to meet its energy and environmental challenges. The promise of nuclear energy technology extends beyond electricity production to include production of hydrogen and process heat for other applications,” Bowman said. “For these reasons, the administration’s investment in the Nuclear Power 2010 program, the used fuel management program and the loan guarantee program are welcome and warranted."
“The administration correctly anticipates a new era of nuclear plant construction as part of a diverse electricity production mix that meets the need for clean, affordable and reliable energy,” Bowman said.
However, the Nuclear Power 2010 funding was only a small part of DOE's $25 billion budget request.
Wired's online version said the request was "optimistic" but wondered whether it was "plausible."
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PolitickerNV
February 06, 2008
Reid Statement On President Bush's FY 2009 Budget
Washington, DC – Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement today in response to President Bush’s FY 2009 budget, which he released this morning: “The president’s budget represents more of the same policies that have gotten our country into the weakened economic position we’re experiencing today: a position that is hitting Nevada’s working families especially hard.
“A president’s budget is a statement of his priorities and, once again, we are seeing President Bush’s priorities are out of sync with Nevada’s. Take Yucca Mountain for example. Despite the fact Congress cut his proposal by $108 million last year, President Bush requested $495 million again this year. Clearly, he will not get that funding, which is half of what the Energy Department says it will need to proceed with the dump anyway. I will continue working with Nevada’s congressional delegation, while leveraging my leadership position in the Senate, to stop the dump from ever being built.
“Meanwhile, as the president is attempting to throw more money at Yucca Mountain, his budget cuts nearly $200 billion from health programs for seniors, people with disabilities, and poor children, which affects hundreds of thousands of Nevadans. On top of cutting funding for states to fight bioterrorism and improve rural health care, the budget continues to underfund No Child Left behind and would eliminate 48 other education programs. Further, while experts agree the foreclosure crisis that exploded under his watch will continue to grow this year, not shrink, the president cut funding for foreclosure prevention and counseling programs. This crisis has weakened our nation’s economy and is already having an impact on Nevada’s state budget.
“President Bush’s fiscal policies are the worst in our nation’s history -- he has turned record surpluses into record deficits – while ignoring the needs of working families across the country. I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress this year to ensure Nevada’s needs are met, while passing a responsible budget that is balanced and ends the Bush approach of spending money we don’t have.”
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PolitickerNV
February 06, 2008
Congresswoman Shelley Berkley today released the following response to President Bush’s $4
(February 4, 2008 – Washington, D.C.) Congresswoman Shelley Berkley today released the following response to President Bush’s $495 million budget request for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump:
“For the President to ask seniors, children and families to sacrifice in this budget while calling for ever more spending on Yucca Mountain is a slap in the face to all those who could be helped by using this funding to address urgent issues like the need for jobs, housing and medical insurance,” said Berkley. “President Bush has made no secret about his desire to bury the nation’s nuclear garbage 90 minutes outside Las Vegas and this year’s budget again reflects his mistaken priorities, whether it be Yucca Mountain or cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.”
“Support for this bloated $77 billion project continues to erode as the delays grow longer and the chance that Yucca Mountain will open before 2020 fades like a Nevada sunset. President Bush is dreaming if he thinks Congress is going to waste another $495 million on his plan to turn Nevada into a nuclear waste dump and I will continue to work with my colleagues to see that this radioactive pork is once again slashed,” said Berkley.
“We can save billions of dollars that could be used to pay for more health care, to boost renewable energy and to promote economic growth by pulling the plug on Yucca Mountain and storing nuclear waste at reactor sites where it can safely remain for the next 100 years,” said Berkley.
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KLAS-TV
February 05, 2008
President Seeks $495 Million for Yucca Mountain in 2009 Budget
President Bush is seeking $495 million for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in 2009.It's a figure that Congress is unlikely to give him with Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, who opposes the dump, running the Senate as majority leader.
Bush proposed the figure in the final budget blueprint of his presidency, released Monday orning. It covers the government's 2009 fiscal year beginning next October 1.
"A president's budget is a statement of his priorities and, once again, we are seeing President Bush's priorities are out of sync with Nevada's," said Sen. Harry Reid, (D) Nevada.
The $495 million is about the same amount Bush asked for in 2008, but Congress ended up giving him just $386.5 million that year, prompting layoffs and more delays for the country's first national nuclear waste dump.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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KOLO
February 05, 2008
Yucca Head Defends '09 Budget Request
Erica Werner
AP
WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump said Tuesday he will warn of growing delays and $11 billion in taxpayer liability when he goes before Congress to defend President Bush's 2009 budget request for the project.
Edward F. "Ward" Sproat also said that even as Yucca Mountain's managing contractor is laying off hundreds of workers, the Energy Department will seek to hire about 75 engineers and others as it prepares to submit and defend a construction license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Despite opposition from Nevada lawmakers including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sproat said Congress remains "more supportive than not" of plans for the nation's first nuclear waste dump, which would store at least 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste in the desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The more delays there are in building the dump, the longer nuclear waste sits at reactor sites in some three dozen other states. Meanwhile the Energy Department's financial liability is growing rapidly because it hasn't made good on contracts with nuclear utilities to begin accepting their spent nuclear fuel in 1998 - the date when Yucca Mountain was originally supposed to open.
If the dump were to open in 2017 - the most recent target date - taxpayers would be on the hook for $7 billion because of those unmet contracts, Sproat said. He's already acknowledged the 2017 date will slip by two or three years, and though he can't yet specify a new one, he said that if the dump opens in 2020 the taxpayer liability will be $11 billion.
Sproat, head of the Energy Department's office of civilian radioactive waste management, spoke on a media conference call the day after Bush requested $494.7 million for Yucca Mountain as part of his $3.1 trillion budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
Sproat acknowledged that in recent years Congress has slashed Bush's budget requests for Yucca, giving the project just $386.5 million for 2008, $108 million less than Bush requested. When Congress convenes budget hearings this spring Sproat said he plans to outline the delays, increased costs and growing liabilities that have resulted from those cuts.
"The approach I'm taking is, they made their decision for whatever reasons they made it, and I need to show them what the impact of those decisions are," said Sproat, a former nuclear energy executive who took over management of Yucca Mountain in May 2006.
Reid and other members of Nevada's congressional delegation have already declared that Bush will not get the money he has requested for Yucca in 2009.
The 2008 budget cuts are leading to some 500 layoffs, mostly of Nevada employees of Bechtel SAIC, the managing contractor at the site. Sproat said that hundreds of layoffs already were in the pipeline because carry-over money from 2007 ran dry. Altogether, at its staffing peak in fall 2007 the project employed almost 2,700 people and there will be a net reduction of about 900 by this summer, Sproat said.
However he said the Energy Department is looking to hire about 75 engineers, scientists and others - which could include laid-off Bechtel workers - because he wants to consolidate staff under the department's direct control in preparation for the license application submittal and defense.
Sproat had planned to submit the license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by June 30. That date is now in jeopardy because of the 2008 budget cuts but Sproat still couldn't specify a new date Tuesday except to say he wants to do it this year.
Once the Nuclear Regulatory Commission accepts the license application it has four years to review it, a process that involves challenges from outside parties. Sproat said there could be more than 1,000 of those.
Sproat also gave a breakdown of the $494.7 million budget request:
* $372.8 million would go for license application defense, repository development planning and design, financial assistance to the state of Nevada and counties and, for the first time, $500,000 to the Timbisha Shoshone Indian tribe that has lands in the area and has been granted "affected tribal status" by the Interior Department.
* $20 million for transportation issues including designing the rail line in Nevada that would carry nuclear waste to the dump site.
* $101.9 million for staffing, management, training and supervising activities.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
February 05, 2008
DOE proposes $494.7 million for Yucca Mountain
By Steve Tetreault and Tony Batt
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy proposed a $494.7 million budget for Yucca Mountain on Monday, and braced for another year of defending the project against critics in Congress.
The budget is almost the same amount that DOE requested last year to continue work on the nuclear waste repository it wants to build in Nevada. It was less than half of the $1.2 billion that Yucca project managers once told lawmakers would be necessary to keep the project on a preferred schedule.
After a series of years in which Congress has slashed Yucca spending, officials on Monday characterized their fiscal 2009 request as a realistic one.
"We intend to move ahead," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said at a briefing on the final DOE budget of the Bush administration. The budget "demonstrates, we believe, our commitment to this project."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was resharpening his ax for the repository, several months after engineering a deep cut that prompted several hundred job layoffs and schedule delays that are still being calculated.
"Despite the fact Congress cut his proposal by $108 million last year, President Bush requested $495 million again this year," Reid said. "Clearly, he will not get that funding."
"On Yucca Mountain, the president's budget request will not be met," added Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.
DOE has all but officially written off a planned June deadline to apply for a repository construction license. Bodman said Monday the license application now would be completed sometime in 2008.
Previously DOE's "best-case" outlook had Yucca Mountain open and accepting nuclear waste by 2017. A new schedule could push that back by five years or more, and some experts say the opening date could be even further in the future, if ever.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said support in Congress will erode the longer the repository is delayed.
"The chance that Yucca Mountain will open before 2020 fades like a Nevada sunset," Berkley said. "President Bush is dreaming if he thinks Congress is going to waste another $495 million dollars on his plan to turn Nevada into a nuclear waste dump."
In addition, the 2009 budget for the Nevada Test Site would be cut by almost $27 million.
The Department of Energy is seeking $332.8 million for the test site, a 7.49 percent decrease from what Congress approved for this year.
At the same time, the 2009 budget for the department's site office in North Las Vegas would increase about 10.65 percent from this year.
The Nevada Site Office, which oversees a range of programs at the desert installation, would receive $190.5 million in 2009
Thomas D'Agostino, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration which oversees the test site, said he does not know if the budget request would affect jobs.
"We expect a lot more happening at Nevada at the Device Assembly Facility," D'Agostino said.
The Device Assembly Facility, or DAF, is a 100,000-square-foot bunker 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas on the test site.
The facility was originally designed in the mid-1980s to assemble nuclear test devices before they were moved underground for detonation.
DAF is currently used to assemble subcritical or non-nuclear experiments that comply with the U.S. moratorium on nuclear testing, which began in 1992.
For security reasons, nuclear criticality machines as well as plutonium and highly enriched uranium have been transferred from Los Alamos National Laboratory to DAF, which is considered one of the most secure facilities in the world.
As for environmental cleanup of the test site, the Energy Department wants to slash last year's funding by 18.3 percent, to $65.7 million from $80.4 million.
The savings would be used to continue disposing of transuranic waste fat the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, about 20 miles east of Carlsbad, N.M. Transuranic waste is radioactive material that results from the research and production of nuclear weapons.
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SolancoNews
February 05, 2008
NRC Releases Budget To Congress; Provides Increased Oversight of Nuclear Plants, Materials and New Reactors
HARRISBURG -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission released its proposed Fiscal Year 2009 budget to Congress today, requesting $1.02 billion to effectively regulate nuclear power plants and other users of nuclear materials to protect people and the environment.
The budget includes $786.6 million for nuclear reactor safety, $221.3 million for nuclear materials and waste safety --including $37.3 million for the high-level waste repository-- and $9 million for the Inspector General.
The budget includes a $90.9 million increase over the FY 2008 budget for enhanced regulatory activities driven primarily by continued industry interest in constructing new nuclear facilities and increased oversight of existing reactors, materials and waste licensing. The budget supports initiating the review of seven Combined Operating License (COL) applications for new reactors and continued review of 14 other COL applications expected in FY 2008. In addition to oversight of the existing 104 power reactors, 33 test and research reactors, 20 fuel facilities, and nuclear materials, the agency expects to review 21 uranium recovery applications. Resources are also provided for review of an expected application from the Department of Energy to construct a geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, Nev. By law, the NRC recovers approximately 90 percent of its budget from user fees less an appropriation from the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF) and other activities which are not fee recoverable. As a result, the NRC’s FY 2009 budget request will be financed with $855.5 million from user fees, $37.3 million from the NWF, and $124.2 million from the General Fund.
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redOrbit
February 05, 2008
Abraham Says Action Needed On Host Of Issues To Resolve Energy Shortage
By Share, Jeff
Spencer Abraham knew it would always be a tough sell, but at least the end result provided one of those great rarities in Washington, DC- the makings of an energy bill that would benefit the industry as well as take substantive steps leading toward a promising future. It's a nice legacy to leave behind, providing it doesn 't become undone by the political pressures of an election year.
Abraham, a native of Michigan, was named by President Bush as secretary of Energy in 2001, shortly after he lost a reelection bid to the U.S. Senate. He resigned after Bush's re-election in 2004 and has since established The Abraham Group, a consulting firm in Washington that specializes in energy issues. Abraham is board chairman of the North American division ofAREVA, a French company focused on nuclear power development. He has also been involved as an adviser to GOP presidential hopeful Fred Thompson.
After a presentation at Houston s Petroleum Club in which he cogently laid out energy challenges facing the U.S., Abraham spoke with P&GJ. Keep in mind that oil prices had yet to reach toady's stratospheric level.
The affable 55-year-old Abraham has a sturdy handle on energy issues and provides a long-term perspective of the challenges facing America. They are challenges that are not easily solved, but they also offer unprecedented opportunities.
P&GJ: What are the key factors that have brought us to where we are in terms of today's energy market?
Abrahams The dominating factor in the energy world today is the global increase in demand which we're seeing for virtually all forms of energy production, and as a result, energy feedstocks. The growth curve in the supply/demand curve seems almost unlimited and very sharply on the rise. It is very hard for the production and supply side to keep up with all of that growth.
First, you have the normal time lag that accompanies development of new energy whether it's building a power plant, exploration and development of fossil fuels, financing or licensing projects. second, the best sources have already been tapped, so we're looking at extraction from more difficult places which also slows the process and makes it more costly.
Third, you have a variety of self-imposed constraints, whether it's in the form of regulations and laws or the NIMBY resistance to new energy development or infrastructure. This makes the supply- side curve much slower compared to the demand side. What that's meant is tight markets, limited spare capacity for production, refining, etc. The results are the prices that we see today.
I see them extending well into the future, obviously with seasonal or other types of moderations. With limited spare production capacity, you have risks that single events - whether natural disasters or geopolitical events - can farther disrupt this tight balance.
P&GJ: Is it possible to wean Americans off petroleum as their No. 1 fuel source?
Abrahams I think you'll see the introduction of alternative ways of powering transportation, whether it's renewable fuels in a variety of forms such as corn-based ethanol, hydrogen, or better battery technology. That will all come into play, but you're not going to see Americans simply stop their current behavioral patterns overnight.
There's a better likelihood of new technologies emerging that help reduce the imports of foreign-sourced fuel. That may lead to changes in the types of vehicles we drive, but it'll be more technological than it's going to be behavioral.
P&GJ: Is it likely we'll be using petroleum products as a transition fuel for the next 50-75 years?
Abrahams That's difficult to predict. There are a lot of technologies that people believe are close to maturity such as hydrogen fuel cells, though they may be off a little ways in terms of direct application in motor vehicles. The question is will there be the infrastructure required to support hydrogen fael cell vehicles? That will take a lot of time. Obviously there is a lot of research being conducted on other forms of ethanol, but it's not clear when those other forms may mature.
The heartening news in all of this is its similarity to the case of the information technology sector back in the 1990s. You now have a tremendous amount of incentive and hence a lot of research funding as in the form of long-term upside, causing more talent to be directed at these kinds of technological research projects. That encourages me to think that we'll see breakthroughs sooner rather than later.
P&GJ: Could that require a whole new set of infrastructure development?
Abrahams Possibly, although the bigger question is whether you can develop in addition to the corn-based fael other forms such as switch grass cellulosic types of feedstock. If you start to see that type of breakthrough, you should see a lot of incentive for an appropriate infrastructure support system. At the same time, there will also be great potential for manufacturing the fuels regionally so that they are closer to the end users.
P&GJ: What trends do you foresee for the next 25 years as far as oil, gas and electricity?
Abrahams There are projected to he huge increases across the board in terms of energy demand. The projections are that the global oil demand by 2025 could be as high as 118120 million barrels per day, a huge number in terms of gross increases because some of the existing sources will have been depleted over that period. We're at 85 million barrels today. To get to 120 million you'll probably have to add another 50-55 million in production to offset the loss you'll have from existing sources.
Natural gas demand over the next 25 years is expected to increase by 67% or more and electricity demand by 100% over the next 20 years. Every number I see is consistent with these and some recent numbers I've seen are even higher. We're witnessing a demand curve that is sharply increasing because of the incredible development in regions such as India and China. With the enormous transitions those countries are undergoing, they're seeing this kind of demand unabated.
As we electrify more of the planet, particularly these developing countries that are moving people into a middle-class lifestyle, this increase in demand will continue.
P&GJ: How would you recommend the federal government undertake creation of a realistic energy policy?
Abrahams I think President Bush developed a good energy policy. When it was announced it got caught up in large measure in the kind of partisan bickering that too often accompanies energy discussions. Some people wanted to portray it as all about oil drilling when it certainly wasn't. Critics wanted to argue that it didn't focus enough on the environment, which, in fact it did.
I thought his policy included a lot of the exact recommendations we needed. We need to have more nuclear energy as part of our mix in the U.S. Failing to do that makes us more dependent on imported fuels on the one hand and forces us to emit more greenhouse gases and pollutants on the other.
We need to improve the energy infrastructure whether it's in the power transmission grid or the ability to receive natural gas because our infrastructure is not ready for more gas imports. We're pretty much maxed out at the four LNG terminals we have. And if we don't build more electricity transmission capabilities, we're going to find ourselves overextending the system that's in place now. All of that was certainly part of the plan's recommendations.
We need a more aggressive international energy policy. We've been doing that in terms of developing more energy partnerships and trying to encourage more international collaboration on energy.
Finally, we need to do a lot in terms of technologies that relate to new fuels and energy efficiency.
P&GJ: How about improved efficiency standards for vehicles?
Abrahams The point I always make to people is that in my judgment, increasing fael-efficiency standards for motor vehicles is a greatly over-rated strategy for one reason: when you make cars more efficient by requiring more miles to the gallon, it means it's cheaper to drive. The one pattern in human behavior that is absolutely confirmed in almost every setting that I know of is that if something is less expensive people will use more of it. Therefore I don't think you're going to get a direct offset - if you increase the fael efficiency by 20% you will not get 20% conservation or 20% less usage.
At the end of the day, people should not hold their breath thinking this is going to be a major solution. The better solution is to diversify sources of fael. We need to diversify the types of propulsion systems so that we're moving in the direction of hydrogen technologies and renewable fael technologies.
It's hard to achieve real conservation gains unless you utilize a price signal to do so and I don't see Congress or anyone having the political courage to talk about raising gas taxes.
Realistically, fossil fuels are going to continue to play a big part in supplying energy to America and the rest of the world, so that's what we need to focus on. We need clean-coal technologies and carbon sequestration. That's why we need to also promote nuclear energy. One of my great fears is that some of the advances that were made in the Energy Bill of 2005 on the nuclear side are going to be derailed or thwarted. Today nuclear energy provides 21% of our power generation but if we don't build a new nuclear plant by 2020, that will slip to 14% and then it goes down from there as these existing plants become obsolete. If you somehow remove fossil fuels and nuclear energy from the picture, what's left? It's infeasible to say you're going to power the U.S. with renewable energy alone. Nor is it feasible to say that you're going to power the U.S. without the use of coal. We'll see growth in the use of renewable energy, but people have to be realistic about how large that growth is going to be.
Even if you take into account that people would be willing to pay more for their energy - as would be the case with renewables - it's very hard to deploy the amount of wind energy, biomass and other power generation to even remotely make up for the loss of nuclear that we're likely to see.
Even the most optimistic renewable energy proposals I've seen - such as the one they attempted to insert into the Energy Bill in 2005 - was only trying to get renewables up to 10-15%, which would still be a great accomplishment. But if you got to 10% and nuclear falls to 14%, then the combined percentage will be the same as it is today.
P&GJ: There has been tremendous consolidation over the last 15 years in the energy sector. Has this been a positive development?
Abrahams The jury is still out on how the competition is affecting the marketplace. We tend to ignore that some of these price increases in gasoline are fairly consistent if you go back over a long period of time with the rate of inflation. How Americans have derived their view about what the price of gasoline should be is hard to figure. It's certainly the one price about which people are the most sensitive because they can see that price change every week which is why there is greater unhappiness about it.
If you don't have sufficient refining or production capacity you're going to have high prices and you'd better be willing to do something about that if you want to try and bring down the long- term price. The only way we're going to have that is to either allow for more production, which we have tended to be very negative about, whether it's ANWR in Alaska, offshore, or licensing new infrastructure. We're very averse to these things and all of that has had an upward pressure on price. People should not be surprised.
On natural gas, we suffer from the fact that we've made it the fuel of choice for so long in terms of power generation. By doing so and making it virtually impossible to build nuclear power plants or new coal-power generation, we've put huge pressure on the natural gas market and now have essentially gotten to where we have to import.
If you don't fael power plants with anything but natural gas, at the end of the day you're going to create demand on the product that's going to exceed existing supply and if you've cut off domestic production with moratoria on offshore, you make the introduction of more product very difficult either from a production or transportation standpoint.
On one hand you're incentivizing the demand side by creating almost no other way for new power production to take place; then you constrain the supply side. The reality is people are producing gas and getting huge prices and they want to continue to make that price. But there are limited sources and we can't bring in more.
P&GJ: What challenges from an international perspective concern you?
Abrahams In a marketplace in which there is such limited spare production capacity, anyone can become a swing producer, and hence a much higher chance that oil and gas can be used as a political tool. We've seen the Russians demonstrate some leveraging against their neighbors with gas. In the '70s it took the entire OPEC group working in concert to bring about an embargo that mattered, but now one country has that kind of potential, if they're a major producer. That's the biggest international issue.
The second issue is the effort on the part of countries to secure more reserves for themselves as China is doing. If that becomes the pattern, it's going to create increased tension between the countries that have greater access to reserves and those that don't.
The worry I have is - whether it's terrorists or a country with substantial reserves deciding to act unilaterally for political reasons - you will have this kind of challenge as long as there is that significant gap between world supply and demand. The most important thing we can do is develop fael alternatives, for example, taking existing technologies such as nuclear and deploying it or by investing in research into fael cells, ethanols, etc.
Meanwhile, let's try to engage international discussion that encourage producers from countries that have vast potential to increase their production, so whether or not they sell the oil they are at least in a position to be able to produce more.
P&GJ: Can LNG lead to a gas cartel?
Abrahams wouldn't be surprised to see some form of organization of gas producers emerge. How they will operate versus the way OPEC has operated in terms of production targeting remains to be seen. It's obvious that the Russians, who are one of the leaders of this effort, are trying to bring about that type of organization.
P&GJ: What will it take for LNG to become a significant factor in our fuel mix?
Abrahams LNG is already a significant factor. The biggest impediment has been insufficient dialogue between producers and end- use consumers in terms of future demand to determine supply levels. In the U.S., it means we've got to move ahead and get terminals sited and not just in the Gulf. We need one at least on each of the coasts though I don't know if that's going to happen. We're going to eventually see the emergence of a single exchange that becomes the dominant exchange for LNG. We've got to better resolve for everyone's satisfaction the issues that relate to safety while all of this is happening. By the time the U.S. hosts the LNG Conference of 2013, we'll have a very mature LNG marketplace.
Transmission capability on the electric side is projected for the next few years to fall far short of demand and will require much more investment. On the pipelines, we need to bring gas from Alaska. We need to be able to more effectively distribute LNG because if all the new LNG is going to be in the Gulf area we may have some trouble fully distributing it across the country.
P&GJ: Will we see an Alaskan gas pipeline in our lifetime?
Abrahams It's hard to imagine we won't, given the price of gas and its projected price. Several years ago companies wanted a price floor because they were afraid prices would fall below that ($1.50 per Mcf) level. They don't have to worry about that anymore. A bigger issue is that the cost is probably going to continue to escalate because of the price of the materials. That will be a challenge.
P&GJ: In talks with private citizens and businesses, what are their concerns?
Abrahams People are primarily concerned with the price of energy, particularly at the pump. Americans view the price of gasoline as an economic indicator of relevance to their families. Executives are mostly concerned about the price of natural gas in their businesses and find it disruptive in terms of their bottom line. A high priority has to be placed on LNG.
P&GJ: What accomplishments are you most proud of from your tenure as Energy secretary?
Abrahams We did a lot of interesting things such as helping development of the energy plan, and moving forward and implementing it - because many of the recommendations didn't require legislation. Launching two major international initiatives, one on the international partnership for the hydrogen economy, and the other being the carbon sequestration leadership forum, bringing a lot of attention to two very important areas in terms of energy diversity and issues that relate to the environment.
The focus on clean-coal technology that we brought to the department was substantial and important. We did a lot to advance nuclear power 2010. Our decision to go forward with (depositing nuclear waste at) Yucca Mountain, all were things that were important to building momentum for the rebuild of nuclear power plants in the U.S.
We also did a lot to advance FutureGen (a revolutionary power plant that will be designed to emit practically no pollutants, turning coal into gas to power turbines to produce electricity while capturing and storing carbon dioxide underground).
Finally, we did a lot to advance good relationships with countries that might be energy trading partners while at the same time maintaining our focus on LNG. In December 2003 I convened the first ministerial-level meeting about LNG for the U.S. as we met with energy ministers to discuss what the U.S. could and should do to make it possible for more LNG deliveries.
My biggest disappointment was that we didn't quite finish the job in terms of passing the energy bill although we laid the groundwork for its passage in the work we did.
"It's hard to achieve real conservation gains unless you utilize a price signal to do so and I don't see Congress or anyone having the political courage to talk about raising gas taxes.9 9
Spencer Abraham, Board Chairman of the North American division of AREVA
By Jeff Share/Editor
Copyright Oildom Publishing Company of Texas, Inc. Jan 2008
(c) 2008 Pipeline & Gas Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
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N.C. State University Technician
February 05, 2008
Nuclear industry preparing to reboot
Increasing demand, global warming concerns prompt new growth in the nuclear power industry
Tyler Dukes
When it comes to public perception, David Lochbaum has a simple analogy for the nuclear power industry.
It's like a shark attack.
People are more likely to drown than get eaten by a shark. Or struck by lightning.
But Lochbaum, the director of the Nuclear Safety Project for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said people have read the statistics. They know how rare the possibility of a disaster actually is. But no matter how it's presented, it still scares people.
"Do all the math you want, but people have a fear of nuclear power," Lochbaum said. "Rational or not, it's there."
It's been almost 30 years since the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station and more than 10 years since the construction of the last nuclear power reactor in the U.S. During that time, according to nuclear engineering professor Paul Turinsky, the nuclear industry has picked up a thing or two.
"There was a hiatus for many, many years," Turinsky said. "What the nuclear industry learned how to do is run the existing reactors very well."
Now, fueled by increased demand for energy, concerns about global warming and a change in the regulatory structure, the nuclear industry is poised for a renaissance. And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is working to keep up with the upcoming expansion.
The commission needs employees, both to replace retirees and to fill new positions. That's one of the reasons NRC Chair Dale Klein visited campus late last week to speak with students and tour the one-megawatt nuclear research reactor housed in Burlington Labs.
"One of the challenges we're having at the moment is just looking at increasing the pool of students," Klein said in an interview Thursday. "When the perception was that they were not building new plants, the academic enrollment dropped off," Klein said. "Now we're in a catch-up mode for the new workforce."
"Industry in transition"
As much effort as it takes to run a nuclear power plant, it can take even more to build one.
Applicants have to go through multiple stages of design review and site approval, all regulated and monitored by the NRC.
According to Klein, the NRC is examining 32 "expressions of interest" that fall somewhere in the process -- which can sometimes take close to four years to complete. That means a lot of work for the same agency responsible for maintaining and ensuring the safety of the existing fleet.
So Klein said the NRC tried something new.
"The most important thing we can do is make sure that the existing fleet operates safely," Klein said. "So we created a division of new reactor operations, distinct from nuclear reactor regulations."
This Office of New Reactors, based in Atlanta, exclusively handles all new applications for reactor constructions.
According to Lochbaum, the formation of the office was a good move for a regulatory agency already responsible for 104 nuclear plants scattered around the country.
"That should help the agency from being distracted," Lochbaum said. "That was a very good thing they did."
But he pointed out that there has been a significant time period since the approval of some of the last nuclear construction sites. He said that could create a problem for even the old guard of the NRC, which most often trains new employees through on-the-job training.
"That's generally not the best way to do things," Lochbaum said. "It's going to be a new thing even for old people."
But as Klein pointed out, the real issue now is people.
In 2007, Klein said the NRC hired 451 new employees, which resulted in a new of 219 people after attrition.
"We're an industry in transition," Klein said. "A lot of people who got in the business in the 60s and 70s are retiring, so we have a double hit -- we have retirees, plus we have an increase in workload."
That hiring boom can mean good things for college graduates. Klein said the agency is looking to fill a net of about 600 people between now and 2009.
And it's not just nuclear engineers the NRC is looking for. Klein said there's a demand for just about every kind of engineer, from civil to electrical. It also needs people in other fields like writing, policymaking and even skilled craft, like welding.
"This is needed across the board," Klein said. "We will be in the hiring mode for the next decade at least."
Turinsky said the boom in the industry has already affected the students in the nuclear engineering program.
"Right now, it's great for our graduates," Turinsky said. "Our enrollment is basically where it was at our high."
Storing waste
With applications for new reactors still on the table, Klein said this rebirth of the nuclear industry may take a while.
"If you look at when the electrons start flowing, it should be 2014 to 2016," Klein said. "It's going to be interesting to see who builds one first."
But in the meantime, Klein said the country is still looking to make some policy decisions on what to do with nuclear waste. He said the U.S. is storing about 56,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and generating about 2,000 tons a year.
Some of that is kept on-site in dry cask storage, a system that keeps the fuel rods inside a large structure of steel and concrete.
Turinsky said this form of storage is not only safe and secure, but can be an advantage for nuclear plants.
"They have a lot of space if they can get a license," Turinsky said.
If the Union of Concerned Scientists had its say, according to Lochbaum, they would like to accelerate dry cask storage, which has advantages to the more vulnerable wet storage used at plants like Shearon Harris in the Triangle. He said the tough storage method would prevent tampering even if terrorists were to gain access to the casks themselves.
"I figure after they open the first few, you might wander outside and tell them to knock it off," Lochbaum said.
And both Lochbaum and Klein agreed that the final destination for nuclear waste is geological disposal -- essentially burying the spent fuel in designated locations.
In June 2008, the Department of Energy is expected to submit an application to the NRC for the use of Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a geological storage facility for waste. By legislative mandate, the repository at Yucca can only hold 70,000 tons -- all in dry cask storage.
According to Turinsky, that means that even if the repository is approved, it will be full by 2010.
That's why he's in favor of reprocessing the spent fuel to reuse it in the reactor. He said 96 percent of the mass that comes out of the nuclear process is uranium. By recycling the fuel, he said utilities could almost completely close the fuel cycle, reducing the mass to less than 1 percent of the original fuel.
"Yucca's an interim solution," Turinsky said of burying the spent fuel. "You really don't want to do that because it's a great fuel."
He said with the rising cost of uranium ore and improvements in the process, reprocessing is becoming a more economically viable option.
"It's a very valuable material," Turinsky said. "It's almost a misnomer to call it waste."
But Lochbaum disagrees. He said UCS is opposed to reprocessing spent fuel "for just about every reason." He said the process is still more costly. And since it requires that the spent solid rods are chopped up and dissolved into a liquid form with a high level of radioactivity, it also carries a higher risk of dispersal or sabotage.
"It's very difficult to contain in that form," Lochbaum said. "It's kind of like a technology of last resort, not the first off the list."
But Lochbaum pointed out that dealing with nuclear waste "doesn't seem to be a showstopper" for the growth of the nuclear industry.
And recycling or not, Klein said storing waste at Yucca Mountain or elsewhere will be the way to go.
"Whether we recycle or don't recycle, we still need a geological repository for the permanent solution," Klein said. "Our long-term path will be geological disposal and it will be a policy decision about whether we will recycle or not."
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Environment News Service
February 05, 2008
Nuclear Waste Neighbors Look to Candidates for Relief
Red Wing, Minnesota, February 4, 2008 (ENS) - Ron Johnson is tribal council president of the Prairie Island Indian Community, a tribe that lives just 600 yards from 24 large containment units of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel.
Johnson and his tribe are some of the 169 million Americans living within 75 miles of temporary nuclear waste storage sites in 39 states, and this tribe lives closer to the hot waste than most.
They are urging voters to consider the candidates' positions on solving the nation's nuclear waste disposal problem before they cast their ballots on Super Tuesday.
"Developing a safe, permanent storage facility for spent nuclear fuel is critical to the health and welfare of the millions of Americans who currently live near temporary storage sites," said Johnson. "The federal government must fulfill its obligation to the American people and solve this problem."
High-level, radioactive nuclear waste from the nation's nuclear power plants is currently accumulating at temporary storage sites in 18 of the 24 states holding primaries or caucuses on Tuesday.
A number of presidential candidates have voiced their opposition to the proposed national nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, but there is no alternate location prepared to solve the nation's nuclear waste problem.
The Prairie Island Mdewankanton Dakota Reservation is located in southeastern Minnesota along the banks of the Mississippi River, about 50 miles from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
It is adjacent to the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant owned by Xcel Energy Inc. Twin nuclear reactors and two dozen large cement nuclear waste storage casks sit just 600 yards from Prairie Island tribal homes. As many as 35 additional casks will be added in the coming years, the tribe has been told.
The Vermilion and Mississippi Rivers converge at the island and the nuclear power plant and storage casks sit directly on a low-lying Mississippi River floodplain. Like all areas with similar geographical features; it is subject to flooding.
The only evacuation route off the Prairie Island reservation is frequently blocked by passing trains. The tribe has been fighting to have the nuclear waste removed since 1994 when the state of Minnesota first allowed Xcel Energy to store the waste near the Prairie Island reservation.
Prairie Island tribal elder Chris Leith, also known as Brave Thunderhorse, recalls "Over the years we have seen our tribal members become ill with cancer and other unexplained sicknesses, and now we can't even use the plants we once used for healing and medicines."
Twenty-five years after Congress passed the National Nuclear Waste Storage Act and mandated the establishment of an underground repository, the future of the nation's nuclear waste disposal program remains in doubt. To date, more than $28 billion has been contributed by American ratepayers to the national Nuclear Waste Fund without result.
"Leaving the nation's nuclear waste in temporary locations near communities like ours is not an acceptable answer nor is it good leadership," said Johnson. "This is a critical issue that the country's next president must deal with - we can't bury our heads in the sand, we need leadership."
"Until or unless the federal government solves its nuclear waste problem, it is simply irresponsible to allow the construction of new nuclear power plants anywhere in the United States," Johnson said.
States currently housing nuclear waste are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
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Press Media Wire
February 05, 2008
President Bush Requests $25 Billion for U.S. Department of Energy’s FY 2009 Budget
(PressMediaWire) Feb. 04, 2008 - WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman today announced President Bush’s $25 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 budget request for the Department of Energy (DOE), an increase of $1.073 billion over the FY 2008 appropriation. This request will continue investments to meet growing energy demand with clean, safe, affordable, reliable and diverse supplies of energy; support the development of climate change technologies; advance environmental cleanup; and ensure the reliability of our nuclear weapons stockpile. The President’s budget for DOE directly supports the development of cutting-edge carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS); begins to transform the weapons complex to address 21st century challenges; and accelerates technological breakthroughs to further the President’s Advanced Energy Initiative (AEI), and scientific leadership through the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI).
“This budget furthers President Bush’s comprehensive strategy to increase energy, economic, and national security by focusing on accelerating technological breakthroughs, expanding traditional and renewable sources of energy, and increasing investment in scientific discovery and development,” Secretary Bodman said. “From transforming the weapons complex to maintain the utmost safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons stockpile, to issuing solicitations for loan guarantees to spur innovation in advanced energy technologies, this budget enables the Department to continue to lay the foundation for a clean, safe, secure and reliable energy future for all Americans.”
Among the President’s priorities funded in the FY 2009 budget request includes $1.4 billion to promote the expansion of safe, emissions free nuclear power. DOE continues to actively work with industry partners to promote the near-term licensing and deployment of America’s first new nuclear plants in more than 30 years. This budget also requests $648 million, the largest budget request in over 25 years, for increased research in clean coal technology and demonstration of carbon capture and storage for coal-fired power plants, an important component of the Administration’s Climate Change Technology Program.
Another key priority in the Department’s budget includes support of its Loan Guarantee program, which requests $19.9 million for administrative expenses, and would be offset by collections in the same amount as authorized under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct). In addition, DOE requests an extension of its authorization to issue loan guarantees through FY 2010 and FY 2011, enabling commitments to guarantee loans under Title XVII of EPAct to total more than $38 billion from FY 2008 through FY 2011. These efforts, combined with plans to further expand the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to an ultimate capacity of 1.5 billion barrels by 2029, will help achieve a more secure and reliable energy future for the nation.
The budget also continues to significantly invest in the President’s Advanced Energy Initiative (AEI) and the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI), both unveiled in President Bush’s 2006 State of the Union Address.
Advancing the American Competitiveness Initiative ($4.7 billion)
The Department’s FY 2009 budget request of $4.7 billion for the President’s ACI, approximately $748.8 million above the FY 2008 appropriation, will increase basic research in the physical sciences that will have broad impacts on future energy technologies and environmental solutions. ACI funding will also continue to support the construction and operation of world-class scientific facilities and will support thousands of scientists and students, which are essential for the U.S. to maintain its world class, scientific leadership and global competitiveness.
Accelerating the Advanced Energy Initiative ($3.2 billion)
At a request of $3.2 billion, $623 million above the FY 2008 enacted appropriation of $2.5 billion, the President’s AEI will continue to improve the nation’s energy security and aims to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy. AEI supports a diverse energy portfolio designed to meet the energy challenges of the 21st century by promoting the licensing of new nuclear power plants and conducting research on an advanced nuclear fuel cycle; furthering a robust vehicle technology program by developing lithium-ion batteries, plug-in hybrids, and drive-train electrification; and investing to make solar power cost-competitive with conventional sources of electricity by 2015.
Office of Science ($4.7 billion)
The Office of Science is the single largest federal supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the nation, and its $4.7 billion request will help ensure U.S. leadership across a broad range of scientific disciplines. DOE’s Office of Science budget request, an increase of almost 20 percent over the enacted FY 2008 appropriation, includes $100 million for the Energy Frontiers Research Initiative, a new initiative to leverage intellectual strength across the country by awarding several small competitive grants annually to universities, labs, and leading non-profit organizations to advance energy research projects. This budget request also supports the work of DOE’s world class national science laboratories in High Energy Physics ($805 million); Fusion Energy Sciences ($493 million), including $214.5 million for the ITER project; and Basic Energy Science ($1.6 billion), which supports research and operates facilities to provide the foundation for new and improved energy technologies.
This budget request continues support for three bioenergy research centers in Tennessee, Wisconsin and California announced last year to accelerate the development and commercialization of cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels ($75 million); $368.8 million to support the Department’s supercomputers, some of the fastest in the world that deliver forefront computational and networking capabilities to scientists nationwide; $510 million for research in nuclear physics, including operations of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider; and $145.9 million for cutting-edge research through the Climate Change Science Program.
National Nuclear Security Administration ($9.1 billion)
The FY 2009 National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) budget requests $9.1 billion, an increase of $287 million above the FY 2008 enacted level, to promote national security by maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile and promoting nuclear nonproliferation and threat reduction to address the realities of the 21st century. The NNSA budget requests $6.6 billion, a $320.6 million increase over the FY 2008 appropriation, for its weapons program to meet the immediate national security requirements of the stockpile, and continue progress toward transforming the nuclear weapons complex to a much smaller size by 2030. The Department’s FY 2009 request for nonproliferation activities includes $1.8 billion for detecting, securing, eliminating, and disposing of dangerous nuclear materials around the world as well as the installation of radiation detection equipment at an additional 49 foreign sites in 14 countries and at 9 additional Megaports locations. This budget also supports implementation of an aggressive schedule to complete all shipments of Russian-originated highly-enriched uranium (HEU) fuel by the end of 2010 and maintains a schedule for completion of the construction of the second of two fossil-fueled power plants located in Zheleznogorsk, Russia in 2010.
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy ($1.25 billion)
The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy budget requests $1.25 billion, $1 million more than the Administration’s FY 2008 request, to support a diverse portfolio of energy options, including fuels and vehicles ($592.3 million); renewable power ($241.6 million); and energy efficiency ($185.9 million) programs. For fuels and vehicles research and development, the budget requests funding for biomass ($225 million) to achieve President Bush’s goal for cost-competitive, commercial scale cellulosic ethanol by 2012 as well as support for plug-in hybrids, lithium-ion batteries, and critical hydrogen fuel cell technology. To advance renewable energy, DOE’s budget request includes funding for the President's Solar America Initiative ($225 million total - $156 million from EERE and $69 million from the Office of Science); wind power research and development ($52.5 million); and geothermal power ($30 million). This budget request also supports energy efficiency programs, including buildings and industrial technologies ($185.9 million), to reduce energy consumption and reduce the carbon footprint through zero-energy buildings. DOE’s request also includes $15 million for the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate that will advance the President’s goal of developing and accelerating the deployment of cleaner and more efficient technologies and practices globally.
Office of Nuclear Energy ($1.4 billion)
The Office of Nuclear Energy FY 2009 budget requests $1.4 billion, a $386 million increase over the FY 2008 enacted level, to support the expansion of nuclear power as a safe, economical, emissions-free source of energy capable of powering the nation in the 21st century. This request includes $301.5 million for one of the key nuclear priorities, the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative in support of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which supports research and development activities focused on reducing the volume and toxicity of high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel through recycling. To address the immediate need for nuclear power expansion domestically, the Nuclear Power 2010 program seeks $241.6 million to support industry cost-shared, near-term technology development and licensing demonstration activities. The FY 2009 budget request includes $70 million to continue the development of next-generation nuclear energy systems known as “Generation IV” and will focus on long-term research and development of a gas-cooled very-high temperature reactor through the Next Generation Nuclear Plant project. In accordance with the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, the Office of Nuclear Energy is requesting $487 million for the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility, a key component of the nation’s nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management ($494.7 million)
The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management requests $494.7 million, a $108 million increase over the FY 2008 appropriation, to further plans for the licensing and construction of a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. The primary focus of the funding will be for the submission of and support for DOE’s license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for authorization to construct and operate the nation’s repository for spent nuclear fuel and high level waste. Other activities will include continuing essential interactions with state, local, and tribal governments to support national transportation planning. All of these activities are critical to addressing the Federal government’s mounting liability associated with unmet contractual obligations to move spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear plant sites in 121 temporary locations in 39 states.
Office of Fossil Energy ($1.1 billion)
The Office of Fossil Energy’s FY 2009 budget requests $1.1 billion, an increase of $223 million above the FY 2008 enacted level, to support the Administration's priority of developing and demonstrating advanced clean coal technologies that produce electricity from coal with near-zero atmospheric emissions. Funding priorities include: DOE’s restructured FutureGen approach ($156 million); the Clean Coal Power Initiative ($85 million), which will issue solicitations this year for its third round of projects focused on carbon capture and storage technologies; and $407 million for advanced coal research and development activities including Carbon Sequestration Regional Partnerships ($149 million) for continued work to inject up to one million tons of carbon dioxide into several types of geologic formations. To further protect the nation against oil supply disruptions that could harm our economy, the budget includes $171.4 million for expanding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve toward an ultimate capacity of 1.5 billion barrels by 2029.
Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability ($134 million)
The FY 2009 Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability budget requests $134 million, a $19 million increase over the FY 2008 request, to modernize the electricity transmission and distribution system by making it more reliable, secure, and efficient. The FY 2009 budget request allocates $100.2 million for research and development activities in superconducting cables and energy storage technologies to strengthen grid stability, reduce frequency and duration of operational disruptions, and increase efficiencies. The budget request also supports implementation of EPAct requirements in transmission and energy corridor designation and enhancement of DOE’s energy emergency response capabilities to advance energy assurance through federal, state, and local coordination.
Office of Health, Safety and Security ($446.9 million)
The Office of Health, Safety and Security (HSS) FY 2009 budget requests $446.9 million, $22.4 million above the FY 2008 enacted appropriation, to support the Department’s continued commitment to ensure the safety and health of DOE workers and members of the public and management of DOE facilities across the country in a safe, secure, and environmentally responsible manner. HSS is responsible for policy development and technical assistance; safety analysis; corporate safety and security programs; education and training; complex-wide independent oversight; and enforcement.
Office of Environmental Management ($5.5 billion)
The FY 2009 Environmental Management (EM) budget requests $5.5 billion to clean up Cold War era legacy waste at sites across the country. Funding is focused on activities that will yield the greatest risk reductions while achieving environmental cleanup: stabilizing radioactive tank waste in preparation for treatment (about 34 percent of the FY 2009 budget request); storing and safeguarding nuclear materials and spent nuclear fuel (about 20 percent of the FY 2009 request); disposing of transuranic, low-level, and other solid wastes (about 14 percent of FY 2009 budget request; and remediation and decontamination and decommissioning of excess facilities (about 23 percent of the FY 2009 request). The FY 2009 request will also fund the consolidation and disposition of surplus plutonium and other special nuclear materials and the construction and operation of waste treatment and immobilization facilities across the complex. The amount requested would enable the completion of cleanup at DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories and Argonne National Laboratory by the end of 2009.
Office of Legacy Management ($186 million)
The Office of Legacy Management FY 2009 budget requests $186 million for the Department’s long-term stewardship responsibilities at DOE sites where active remediation has been completed. The funding will ensure the sustainability of environmental remedies and continuity of pension and medical benefit payments to former contractor workers at completed cleanup sites.
Media contact: Megan Barnett, (202) 586-4940
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Senator Harry Reid
February 4, 2008
Reid Statement On President Bush's FY 2009 Budget
Washington, DC – Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement today in response to President Bush’s FY 2009 budget, which he released this morning:
“The president’s budget represents more of the same policies that have gotten our country into the weakened economic position we’re experiencing today: a position that is hitting Nevada’s working families especially hard.
“A president’s budget is a statement of his priorities and, once again, we are seeing President Bush’s priorities are out of sync with Nevada’s. Take Yucca Mountain for example. Despite the fact Congress cut his proposal by $108 million last year, President Bush requested $495 million again this year. Clearly, he will not get that funding, which is half of what the Energy Department says it will need to proceed with the dump anyway. I will continue working with Nevada’s congressional delegation, while leveraging my leadership position in the Senate, to stop the dump from ever being built.
“Meanwhile, as the president is attempting to throw more money at Yucca Mountain, his budget cuts nearly $200 billion from health programs for seniors, people with disabilities, and poor children, which affects hundreds of thousands of Nevadans. On top of cutting funding for states to fight bioterrorism and improve rural health care, the budget continues to underfund No Child Left behind and would eliminate 48 other education programs. Further, while experts agree the foreclosure crisis that exploded under his watch will continue to grow this year, not shrink, the president cut funding for foreclosure prevention and counseling programs. This crisis has weakened our nation’s economy and is already having an impact on Nevada’s state budget.
“President Bush’s fiscal policies are the worst in our nation’s history -- he has turned record surpluses into record deficits – while ignoring the needs of working families across the country. I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress this year to ensure Nevada’s needs are met, while passing a responsible budget that is balanced and ends the Bush approach of spending money we don’t have.”
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KLAS-TV
February 04, 2008
President Seeks $495 Million for Yucca Mountain in 2009 Budget
President Bush is seeking $495 million for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in 2009.It's a figure that Congress is unlikely to give him with Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, who opposes the dump, running the Senate as majority leader.
Bush proposed the figure in the final budget blueprint of his presidency, released Monday orning. It covers the government's 2009 fiscal year beginning next October 1.
"A president's budget is a statement of his priorities and, once again, we are seeing President Bush's priorities are out of sync with Nevada's," said Sen. Harry Reid, (D) Nevada.
The $495 million is about the same amount Bush asked for in 2008, but Congress ended up giving him just $386.5 million that year, prompting layoffs and more delays for the country's first national nuclear waste dump.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Las Vegas SUN
February 04, 2008
Bush knocking his head against the Yucca wall?
By Lisa Mascaro
WASHINGTON — It’s budget day in Washington, and the one number Nevadans may want to know is $495 million — the amount President Bush is seeking for Yucca Mountain in fiscal 2009.
Bush’s proposed spending on the nuclear waste repository north of Las Vegas is on par with the $494.5 million he sought last year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid knocked that back to $390 million, severely crippling the project and prompting massive layoffs.
Now, the project faces a critical juncture as Energy department officials say the budget cut leaves them unable to guarantee they will meet a June 2008 deadline to submit Yucca’s license application.
Bush’s budget request looks encouraging to the nuclear industry, but it will be up to Congress to decide if Yucca deserves more or really is, as Nevada’s lawmakers believe, a dying project.
Said Reid in a statement: “Clearly, he will not get that funding. I will continue working with Nevada’s congressional delegation, while leveraging my leadership position in the Senate, to stop the dump from ever being built.”
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Federal Times
February 04, 2008
Bush budget adds 26,000 employees
By Stephen Losey
Security needs and the 2010 census are expected to help swell the federal work force to its largest point in 13 years in 2009.
The federal government expects to add nearly 26,000 full-time employees to the federal payroll, excluding the U.S. Postal Service, according to the proposed budget released today. That will put the government’s work force well over 1.9 million employees.
By the end of 2009, the government will have grown by 94,600 employees — a 5 percent increase — since 2005, the Office of Management and Budget said. Among the highlights:
• The Homeland Security Department’s work force is expected to hit 166,200 in fiscal 2009, up 3,900 employees from fiscal 2008 and nearly 16 percent larger than it was in 2005.
• The Commerce Department is also expected to grow by 34 percent in 2009. Its 2009 work force of 53,900 will be needed to conduct early canvassing for the 2010 census and to hire more employees to cut down on patent application processing times at the Patent and Trademark Office.
• The Energy Department would gain 300 new employees, mostly to help with nonproliferation programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration and to obtain licensing for the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste storage project.
• The State Department would add about 1,100 more employees to enhance security for diplomatic personnel abroad, strengthen efforts against visa and passport fraud, and improve training.
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Reuters
February 04, 2008
Bush budget boosts nuclear, coal, science
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Research into producing electricity from low-emission coal and nuclear plants saw big funding boosts in the 2009 budget request submitted by the U.S. Energy Department on Monday, along with basic energy sciences.
The 2009 budget proposed by the White House -- which requires congressional approval -- includes $25 billion in discretionary budget authority for the Energy Department, up nearly 5 percent from 2008.
Research into cutting heat-trapping emissions from coal-burning power plants would receive $648 million -- the biggest request in more than 25 years, and funding to encourage building new nuclear power plants was up substantially.
U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said the funds will allow the department to "continue to lay the foundation for a clean, safe, secure and reliable energy future for all Americans."
Democrats criticized the White House for cutting funding for low-income energy assistance, as well as a popular program to help poor families winterize their houses.
Rep. Ed Markey, Massachusetts Democrat, said the budget supports "dirty, dangerous fuels" like coal that could contribute to global warming.
Funds for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, fell 22 percent to $2 billion.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, said it was "completely wrongheaded" to slash funding for weatherization, after seeing funds fall to $59 million versus $285 million in 2008. Some 97,000 homeowners used the program in 2006 and 55,000 homes used it in 2007.
"I will work vigorously to reverse this decision," Bingaman said.
U.S. lawmakers will quiz Bodman about the budget at two separate hearings this week.
The lion's share of department funds -- about $9.1 billion -- goes to securing U.S. nuclear weapon stockpiles. Funding for energy resource initiatives fell 10 percent to $3.65 billion, while funding for science programs rose 19 percent to $4.7 billion.
The budget requests big boosts for research into high-energy physics, nuclear physics and basic energy sciences, which saw funding rise 19 percent to $1.57 billion.
The Energy Department's scientific reach is immense -- it funds everything from relativistic heavy ion colliers to linear accelerators to research into dark energy. It is the largest U.S. funder of physical science research, and operates five of the ten fastest supercomputers in the world.
Building a long-delayed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada would receive about $495 million in funds in 2009. The Energy Department will seek a license for the dump from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later this year.
Capturing carbon emissions from coal plants and socking them away