Yucca Mountain News Clips - Friday, February 15, 2008

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, February 15, 2008
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PlanetSave
February 14, 2008

Why Has It Taken So Long?

by Max Lindberg

That’s the question I posed to Ward Sproat, the DOE’s manager of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. His agency is in charge of the Yucca Mountain waste repository project in Nevada.

This is the classic “Not in my back yard” battle, even more understandable since Nevada was the site of nuclear weapons testing beginning in 1951. There were 100 atmospheric tests until they went underground in 1962, when 828 devices were exploded. Testing ceased in 1992, although the Nevada Test Site is still an active research area.

It’s easy to see why Nevadans are tired of the word, “nuclear” and object to the storage of thousands of tons of highly radioactive materials just 100 miles from the state’s major tourist attraction, Las Vegas.

Here is Mr. Sproat with his answer to that question, and other observations about Yucca Mountain and the future.

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NRC
February 14, 2008

Evaluating Igneous Activity at Yucca Mountain, Technical Basis for Decisionmaking (NUREG-1890)

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1890/sr1890.pdf
NUREG-1890 (PDF - 7.03 MB)

Publication Information
Manuscript Completed: February 2008
Date Published: February 2008

Prepared by
W.J. Hinze1, B.D. Marsh2, R.F. Weiner1, N.M. Coleman1
Johns Hopkins University
3400 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials

Abstract

Eighty thousand years ago a small-volume basaltic volcano, the Lathrop Wells volcano, erupted about 20 kilometers south of the Department of Energy’s proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Lathrop Wells is one of a series of infrequent basaltic volcanoes that have occurred near the proposed repository site during the past 10 million years. This report presents the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials (ACNW&M) summary and analysis of the range of current technical views on the nature, likelihood, and potential consequences of future igneous activity at the proposed repository. This report responds to the request of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Staff Requirements Memorandum M06011B, February 9, 2006. The technical views have been abstracted from published literature and public agency reports and presentations. The alternative views reflect uncertainties of the igneous processes that have occurred in the region and those that are likely to occur in the future, as well as the interaction of these processes with the proposed repository. Analysis of the views and observations is based on professional judgment and quantitative considerations within the scope of the resources available to ACNW&M.

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Platts
February 13, 2008

US DOE to reissue key Yucca Mountain contract tender

Washington (Platts)--11Feb2008

The US Department of Energy said Monday it plans to reissue a tender for a multibillion-dollar management and operating contract for support of the proposed spent nuclear fuel repository project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

"Securing the necessary contractor staff to accomplish our mission is critical to moving the Yucca Mountain Project forward into its next phases," DOE waste program director Edward Sproat said, adding that DOE plans to submit a repository license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later in 2008.

The job was last offered for tender in 2000 and resulted in Bechtel SAIC, a limited liability corporation formed by Bechtel National and Science Applications International Corp., being named the program's prime integration contractor during the program's site characterization and engineering phases.

The five-year, $3.1 billion cost-plus-incentive-fee contract was the largest awarded to date in 2000 and, DOE said at the time, could swell to $8 billion if options giving BSC another five years were exercised.

DOE said Monday that the contract had been extended through March 2009.

DOE said that key activities proposed under the new M&O contract include managing completion of the repository design, responding to questions from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission following the submission of a repository license application to the agency, managing the construction of an NRC-licensed repository and operating the facility.

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KOLO
February 12, 2008

Energy Department Seeks bids on Yucca Mountain Management Job

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The federal Energy Department says it's going to seek bids for a contract to manage the Yucca Mountain program into the next decade.

The contract for current manager Bechtel SAIC Co. expires at the end of March 2009, and the Energy Department holds two one-year options to extend it.

But the agency might also enter a new contract to carry into the next decade.

The department plans later this year to submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build and operate the repository to entomb at least 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste at the Yucca site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The department will have meetings later this month in Las Vegas for potential bidders to review a proposed work plan.

Bechtel SAIC is eligible to submit a bid to continue on the project.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
February 12, 2008

DOE meeting set to seek bids for Yucca program

Current contract expires in March 2009

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy said Monday it will seek bids for a contract worth millions of dollars to manage the Yucca Mountain program into the next decade.

The department set meetings for later this month in Las Vegas for potential bidders to review a proposed work plan that would include helping DOE defend a construction license application, and oversee all facets of the nuclear waste repository proposed to be built 100 miles northwest of the city.

The contract for current manager Bechtel SAIC Co. expires at the end of March 2009. DOE spokesman Allen Benson said DOE holds two one-year options to extend the firm's contract. Or it could decide to activate a new contract that would carry into the next decade, when DOE hopes to have gone through Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety reviews and overcome determined opponents in Nevada, to build an underground tunnel complex to hold 70,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste.

Bechtel SAIC is eligible to submit a bid to continue on the project, Benson added. DOE has scheduled meetings for potential bidders on Feb. 26, 27 and 28.

"This is just the beginning of the process," Benson said. "This is a procurement strategy that brings us to the next phase of the program."

Nuclear Fuel Cycle Monitor, a trade newsletter, reported DOE was pursuing a "multi-contract" strategy. The winning bidder would help the department integrate a number of contracts to build the repository and nuclear waste-handling facilities.

The Energy Department indicated Monday it also is in the process of seeking a construction manager for a planned 300-mile railroad across rural Nevada to the repository site.

The department also said it will award multiple railroad design and construction contracts. No timetable was given. DOE managers have said the rail segment of the Yucca program likely will be delayed because of budget cuts.

A Bechtel SAIC spokesman said the firm was reviewing the government's requirements that were laid out in a 75-page work statement and other documents posted to the Internet on Monday.

"We have not had a chance to take a look at it and decide where we are going," spokesman Jason Bohne said. "We have a contract and we are going to fulfill that contract."

Bechtel SAIC was named the Yucca management contractor in November 2000, and was awarded a contract worth $3.1 billion. The contract has been renegotiated several times since then as the project has been delayed and reorganized, with its latest value estimated to be $2.4 billion.

At the time the contract was awarded, it was believed a Yucca repository would be completed and nuclear waste would be arriving at the site by 2010. Latest official estimates put a repository opening at 2020 or later.

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Austin American-Statesman
February 10, 2008

While U.S. moves slowly, Europe moves ahead with nuclear power buildng boom

By Shelley Emling

LONDON — The nuclear industry in the United States is beginning to show signs of life after years of lying dormant but still is weighed down by concerns about accidents, waste disposal and the possibility that fuel might wind up in terrorists' hands.

For inspiration, America needs only to look to Europe, where nuclear energy is increasingly being seen as the only way to tackle the problems of climate change and energy security.

After years of resistance, the British government last month gave the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power stations. As many as 10 new reactors are in the works. Around the world, up to 90 nuclear reactors are being planned, many of them in Europe.

Adam McCarthy, associate director of Energy Policy Consulting in Brussels, Belgium, said "there is a growing realization that nuclear will have to be part of the energy solution for Europe."

He said the main driver is the desire among Europeans — who tend to be more environmentally minded than Americans — to reduce the carbon emissions that cause global warming. Rising oil and gas prices are other factors.

The situation marks a U-turn in European attitudes. After the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident in the Ukraine in 1986, much of the continent lost its taste for nuclear energy. Italy banned construction of new nuclear reactors, while Spain, Sweden, and Germany pledged to phase out theirs.

It has been about two decades since a reactor has been built in Western Europe outside of nuclear stalwarts such as France and Finland. About 30 percent of Europe's electricity is produced by nuclear plants, versus about 20 percent in the United States.

The nuclear industry is on the verge of a new building era in the United States, including three proposed new reactors in Texas. Companies are lining up to get a part of federal loan guarantees.

A burgeoning reliance on nuclear power is even more likely in Europe.

Finland is building the world's largest reactor. The 1,600-megawatt reactor is scheduled to open in 2011. France is constructing its 60th reactor, in Normandy. Eastern Europe is embracing nuclear energy, with Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia all constructing new reactors.

Widespread media coverage of a new generation of reactors that are safer and cleaner than existing reactors has helped alleviate fears. New reactors will boast features such as water-filled basins that would capture and cool the core in the event of an accident.

The new reactors also will create less waste — perhaps only one-tenth of that generated by current reactors, according to some estimates.

"Public concerns about safety seem to be less of an issue due to the long and excellent track record of safe operations," said Gilbert Brown, coordinator of the nuclear engineering program at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. "Waste issues are addressed in Europe by countries pursuing deep geologic sequestration."

Even concerns over nuclear material falling into the wrong hands are diminishing as a result of the International Atomic Energy Agency's safeguards.

Striving to be a leader in the fight against climate change, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown did an about-face when he agreed to refresh the country's nuclear reactors.

New reactors would be financed by private companies, and taxpayers may be called upon to foot the bill of waste disposal.

Nuclear reactors supply nearly 20 percent of Britain's electricity.

But as they age, all but one of the country's 19 reactors will have to be taken out of commission by 2023.

The government chose not to replace that generating capacity with carbon-spewing coal and gas plants, especially with the European Commission proposing that the European Union slash carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.

"Our carbon emissions are going up 2 percent every year, and the public is growing concerned," said John McNamara, a spokesman for the Nuclear Industry Association in London. "Polls show that 65 percent of the public now believes nuclear should be part of the energy mix."

Polls also show a growing appetite for nuclear energy in Italy, Sweden, and Germany.

If there is still one remaining worry in Europe over nuclear energy, it is the disposal of the radioactive waste — and that worry is being addressed, said Luis Echavarri, director general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency in Paris.

"Waste has always been a worry, but countries are dealing with it," he said.

In France, where nuclear energy provides 78 percent of electricity, much of the waste is reprocessed and turned into energy again.

In Finland, where the private company TVO is building the world's largest nuclear reactor, a repository is being built deep in the earth.

In Britain, a government advisory committee has found that the best long-term solution is to bury waste deep in the ground.

"We feel the best long-term solution is deep repositories in stable geological formations," Echavarri said. "The problem is that the populations around repository sights often don't like the idea. But putting waste a mile underground is the safest way to dispose of it, and the public is being educated on this."

Though new reactor designs offer hope of easing fears of catastrophic accidents in the United States, the waste issue remains an obstacle.

The United States has shied away from reprocessing because of fears it could lead to nuclear weapons proliferation. And progress on a planned repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain has slowed to a crawl in the face of strong opposition.

Some European environmentalists, too, have yet to be convinced of the merits of nuclear energy.

"There are still no firm answers to the safety and waste issues," said Lisa Weatherley, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace UK. "Britain can meet its energy needs through renewables and decentralized energy, whereas nuclear power will cut our CO2 emission by only 4 percent."

Jim Green, nuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth Australia, a federation of environmental groups, said that — as in the United States — there is still no permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste anywhere in Europe.

"Finland and Sweden have made some progress but are still some years — perhaps decades — from having a functional high-level nuclear waste repository," he said. "And any reductions in waste volumes from new reactor types would be marginal.

"More nuclear energy is not the answer," he said.

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Albany Times Union
February 10, 2008

Use of biofuels questionable

As even the Bush administration, long the holdout, becomes more convinced that drastic changes must be implemented to combat greenhouse gases that lead to global warming, the solutions so far proposed are neither silver bullets nor even the silver lining on the clouds of pollution.

Two studies published in the most recent issue of the journal Science stuck the ice pick in the ear of ambitious plans to substitute supposedly less polluting biofuels -- made from corn, sugar cane, grasses and wood chips -- for the contaminating fossil fuels -- oil and natural gas -- that power the world's economies.

This was only the latest bad news about how to offset the growth of emissions.

Science reported that prior calculations about the superiority of biofuels were incomplete. Besides the energy it takes to make biofuels, emissions are engendered by clearing land to plant the desired crops. Also contributing is the diminution of rain forests and grasslands that, along with oceans, are effective absorbers of carbon dioxide.

Clearing forests to produce biofuels also runs into the counter-effort by the World Bank to reward countries that retain their forest resources.

When all costs are factored in, the losses overwhelm the gains by a factor of more than 90. "Using good cropland to expand biofuels will probably exacerbate global warming," the study concludes.

As a result, The New York Times reported, a handful of eminent scientists wrote President Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pointing out the danger biofuels pose to the environment.

Earlier on, the enthusiasm for corn-based ethanol, once expected to be the remedy for gas guzzling nations to reduce their consumption of oil, faded. Ethanol's plus margin was at best slightly positive, at worst negative, also sucking up vast additional quantities of water in the process of production.

As agriculture shifted to cultivate biofuels, food prices were driven up to historic levels, according to a U.N. report, with the poorer nations of the world faced dwindling food supplies.

Last May, Science reported on another study fraught with bad news for the environment. That found that the southern oceans were about a third less efficient than they had been at removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

A virtual clean burning fuel is produced by nuclear power. The problem with nuclear fuel is that hardly anyone wants to have a nuclear power plant anywhere in the neighborhood. Most importantly, that nowhere on Earth is there a safe depository for the highly poisonous nuclear waste already being produced. America's attempt to locate such a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., has run into scientific as well as political opposition and remains stymied.

Furthermore, the effort to mandate the use of power-saving compact fluorescent bulbs to replace the ubiquitous incandescents faces a challenge that has not been addressed. Containing mercury, they constitute a hazardous waste.

The advice given when such a bulb breaks is to leave the room for 15 minutes and then carefully sweep up the shards. Then there's the problem of disposing of used bulbs.

When that is solved, there remains the distinct possibility that the new bulbs would make life more difficult for people prone to headaches.

With the shortcomings of the solutions to global warming so far proposed emerging more clearly, what can be done, without paying too high a price?

The answer is plain to see, which makes it all the more difficult to implement. It means conservation is the immediate way to go. It requires official support and leadership, as well as imposition of certain rules and regulations. A huge amount of gasoline could be saved by people agreeing to drive less and/or more slowly.

Turning off unnecessary lights or lights that illuminate empty rooms would also do their measurable part as the search for other solutions is pursued with renewed vigor.

--Harry Rosenfeld is editor-at-large of the Times Union. He can be reached at 454-5450 or by e-mail at hrosenfeld@timesunion.com.

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Pahrump Valley Times
February 09, 2008

Students gain funds for D.C. trips

PVT

TONOPAH -- Three students were given tuition money to attend the People to People World Leadership Forum conference in Washington, D.C., by Nye County commissioners Tuesday, while eight students from Round Mountain were given money to attend the Close Up program in the nation's capital.

The People to People World Leadership Conference seeks middle school students with academic promise, leadership potential and a strong interest in diplomacy and government.

The cost of the tuition is $2,595 per student. Parents of Zoie McDonald, a Manse Elementary School student from Pahrump, were told the county couldn't pay another $515 for the airfare. She will travel to Washington, D.C., in September 2008.

Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley remarked to Zoie McDonald, "That must mean you're a very good student."

"Yup, straight A's," she proudly responded.

Round Mountain High School students Janelle Johnson, Levi Price, Christa Andrews, Blanca Ramirez, Greg Warnert, Marcus Hubred, Taylor Damon and Doug Kehoe are scheduled to travel to D.C. April 27 to May 3 for the Close Up Program. Common in schools, the program allows students a chance to observe the workings of the federal government.

"I think it's exhilarating to see such young minds that are willing to look into the future and become leaders," Nye County Commissioner Butch Borasky said.

The total cost of the tuition for those eight students will be $2,864.

The cost of all the tuition requirements will be paid out of funds Nye County receives from the U.S. Department of Energy for the land value of Yucca Mountain.

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Atlanta Journal Constitution
February 09, 2008

Europe warms up to nuclear power

By Shelley Emling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

London — The nuclear industry in the United States is beginning to show signs of life after years of lying dormant, but it is still weighed down by concerns over accidents, waste disposal and the possibility that fuel might wind up in terrorists' hands.

For inspiration, America needs only to look to Europe, where nuclear energy is increasingly being seen as the only way to tackle the twin problems of climate change and energy security.

Adam McCarthy, associate director of Energy Policy Consulting in Brussels, Belgium, said "there is a growing realization that nuclear will have to be part of the energy solution for Europe."

He said the main driver is the desire among Europeans, who tend to be more environment-minded than Americans, to reduce the carbon emissions that cause global warming. Another factor is rising oil and gas prices.

The situation marks a U-turn in European attitudes. After the Chernobyl accident in the Ukraine in 1986, much of the continent lost its taste for nuclear energy. Italy banned construction of new nuclear reactors, while Germany, Spain and Sweden pledged to phase out theirs.

It has now been about two decades since a reactor has been built in Western Europe outside of nuclear stalwarts such as France and Finland. Only about 30 percent of Europe's electricity is produced by nuclear plants, vs. about 20 percent in the United States.

But a burgeoning reliance on nuclear power is likely here.

The new reactors also will create less waste — perhaps only one-tenth of that generated by current reactors, according to some estimates.

"Public concerns about safety seem to be less of an issue due to the long and excellent track record of safe operations," said Gilbert Brown, coordinator of the Nuclear Engineering Program at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. "Waste issues are addressed in Europe by countries pursuing deep geologic sequestration."

Even concerns over nuclear material falling into the wrong hands are lessening as a result of the International Atomic Energy Agency's safeguards.

Striving to be a leader in the fight against climate change, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown did an about-face when he agreed to refresh the country's nuclear reactors.

Nuclear reactors currently supply nearly 20 percent of Britain's electricity. But as they age, all but one of the country's 19 reactors will have to be taken out of commission by 2023.

Polls also show a growing appetite for nuclear energy in Germany, Italy and Sweden.

Perhaps if there is still one remaining worry in Europe over nuclear energy, it is the disposal of the radioactive waste — and even that worry is being addressed, said Luis Echavarri, director general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency in Paris.

In France, where nuclear energy provides 78 percent of electricity, much of the waste is reprocessed and turned into energy again.

In Finland, where the private company TVO is building the world's largest nuclear reactor, scheduled to open in 2011, a repository is being built deep in the earth.

In Britain, too, a government advisory committee has found that the best long-term solution is to bury waste deep in the ground.

While new reactor designs offer hope of easing fears of catastrophic accidents in the United States, the waste issue remains an obstacle.

Some European environmentalists, too, have yet to be convinced of the merits of nuclear energy.

"There are still no firm answers to the safety and waste issues," said Lisa Weatherley, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace UK.

"Any reductions in waste volumes from new reactor types would be marginal. More nuclear energy is not the answer," he said.

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