Yucca Mountain News Clips - Thursday, March 20, 2008

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, March 20, 2008
---------------------------

Reno Gazette-Journal
March 20, 2008

Don't bring us nuclear waste when it's safe right where it is

Victor Gilinsky

Recently, a report titled, "Reappraising Yucca -- Is it Time for Neutral Assessment of the Proposed Repository?" was circulated by a retired Army colonel and a University of Nevada professor advocating that Nevada reassess its opposition to the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste site. The report reflects remarkably misinformed views about the basics of nuclear energy policy, the Yucca Mountain project and the applicable law.

The report outlandishly claims that the state's Yucca Mountain watchdog entity, the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, has "enjoyed" funding in the "billions" while opposing the project for purely political reasons. This claim is entirely specious. While the agency has used federal funds for overseeing the Yucca program, what has held up the project most has been DOE's incompetence and mismanagement and the inherent failings of the Yucca site itself.

The report urges Nevada to "undertake a neutral, unbiased assessment of the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository." Nevada has examined the repository project in exquisite detail for two decades and determined the Yucca site is unsuitable. To go forward would be both dangerous and foolhardy.

The report's authors don't seem to know, or at least never mention, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will examine the safety issues in an upcoming proceeding. The NRC isn't exactly a forum that tilts against the project.

The report naively accepts DOE statements diminishing impacts of the waste. First, DOE's technical work has not been independently tested. Rather, it is more like litigation support for an upcoming NRC licensing board hearing. We'll see how DOE's position stands up to cross-examination.

The authors also seem unaware that there is lots of water in Yucca Mountain, more than DOE ever imagined when it chose the site, and that the most vulnerable period for waste container corrosion is in the first hundreds of years, not hundreds of thousands, as DOE propaganda suggests.

The point is that this is not Nevada's problem to solve. If, as the report says, spent fuel is less safe stored at the reactor sites and leaving it there "may be creating a nightmare," then the authors want to bring that nightmare to Nevada. In fact, the NRC says the spent fuel is safe where it is.

There is no need to respond to the report's argument that Nevada is already so contaminated from bomb testing that it should just accept the waste.

Most remarkably, the report asserts that some states have been able to draw "billions" from the congressionally established nuclear waste fund, while Nevada has failed to claim any of that money. In fact, the exact opposite is the case. Inexplicably, the report mistook the amount of money that various utility companies paid into the fund over the past two decades for fund disbursements.

The report ends with a futuristic tribute to nuclear energy, which gets a number of facts wrong. Nuclear energy does not replace oil. In fact, the U.S. uses hardly any oil for generating electricity. Nuclear power would replace coal, so it wouldn't more than marginally "reduce our dependence on foreign imports."

The report pushes reprocessing -- chemically treating spent fuel to extract plutonium and separate the radioactive waste -- especially as it is done in France. But this doesn't reduce the size of the repository, which depends on heat output. After recycling the plutonium as fuel, you still have spent fuel rods. So it doesn't reduce the volume much, either.

All this evades the obvious -- that spent fuel can be safely accommodated at surface storage sites. It doesn't make sense to cart it across the country to a geologically inadequate site.

Victor Gilinsky is a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

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

Pahrump Valley Times
March 20, 2008

DOE insistent Yucca on track

By STEVE TETREAULT
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy has readjusted its Yucca Mountain work plans following a deep budget cut and will be ready after all to apply for a license in June to build a nuclear waste repository, the program director said Thursday.

Managers postponed work on a Nevada rail line and other segments of the Yucca program and redirected money and personnel to reach the most pressing goal of meeting a June 30 license deadline, according to Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Applying for a construction license has been a long sought but out-of-reach milestone for the Department of Energy at Yucca Mountain.

The department has encountered legal and budget problems and a number of internal missteps in recent years.

Speaking at a conference organized by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Sproat expressed confidence the application will pass initial muster to be docketed by the NRC for more thorough safety reviews and hearings.

Amid cutbacks that will reduce the workforce from 2,600 to about 1,500-1,700, DOE has singled out key scientists and engineers within DOE, the U.S. Geological Survey, the national laboratories and contract firm Bechtel SAIC, which will be needed to defend the license.

"We have identified who those people are to make sure they know their jobs are not in jeopardy," Sproat said. "I believe, and a number of people believe, that a very high quality license application is just about being completed. We have an army of national lab Ph.D.'s and engineers on our defense team. I believe we are set up for success."

Sproat's upbeat assessment came minutes after a lawyer who represents Nevada in its ongoing battle with Yucca Mountain declared the program is on a "death watch" and is destined for failure.

Martin Malsch, of the firm Egan, Fitzpatrick & Malsch, said DOE will continue to face increasingly severe budget problems.

He contended DOE's application will be rushed and incomplete and predicted a "huge dispute" over whether it should be accepted for review by regulators.

Beyond that, Nevada is poised to challenge DOE's qualifications and other key aspects of the project, he said. On top of that, both Democratic presidential candidates have pledged to stop the program if elected.

"Yucca Mountain's breaths are short and its heartbeat is faint," Malsch said. "I really don't think it has very long to continue."

In response, Sproat said: "The death watch is going to continue for a very long time because I see this program being very alive and well."

The Energy Department was sent back to the drawing boards late last year when Congress cut the 2008 Yucca Mountain budget by $108 million, a 22 percent reduction.

Sproat initially expressed doubt DOE would meet its deadline. But he said managers deferred work on all but the most pressing tasks.

For instance, work on a proposed Nevada rail line to the repository site has been pushed back several years.

To save more money, technical specialists were rotated in for short periods to perform specific tasks and then let go, Sproat said.

Questions remain about the long term for the repository, which would need billions of dollars to be built. Sproat confirmed the Bush administration is considering a proposal to reorganize the Yucca project and other nuclear waste programs into a government-chartered corporation similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority or the Bonneville Power Administration.

Promoters contend such an organization would have the advantages of a private business to hire and fire managers, set salaries to attract talent and promote accountability.

Among the boosters, Sproat said it would stop a revolving door that has seen numerous top managers attempting to run the Yucca program for short terms.

But such a big alteration would require a number of fundamental changes and approval by Congress, which might not be willing to give up control.

The Energy Daily in a Feb. 26 story quoted sources saying the DOE proposal has been at the White House for consideration since at least December. Sproat could not confirm that, saying he understood the concept still was being mulled within the Energy Department.

"I personally don't expect we are going to make anything significant happen on this over the next three to six months," he said.

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

Springfield News-Leader
March 19, 2008

Letter: Nuclear power needs attention

I read with some interest the reports of the alternative energy conference. Unfortunately the reporting was long on wishful thinking and short on facts. For those interested in a few facts I recommend reading the book: "Power to Save the World" by Gwyneth Cravens.

Ms. Cravens is a reporter and novelist who was an anti-nuclear protester in the 1980s. She is very conversant with the objections to nuclear power including radiation, waste disposal, plant meltdowns, terror attacks and hazards of uranium mining. Through a common acquaintance she met Dr. Richard Anderson, a chemist and oceanographer, who became involved in studying disposal of nuclear waste at sea in the 1970s.

Dr. Anderson answered her objections and arranged what she calls the Nuclear America Tour to encourage her to fully investigate her objections to nuclear power. He arranged security clearances for her to visit a uranium mining site, the Idaho National Laboratory where nuclear reactor designs were tested, an operating nuclear power plant and the only licensed nuclear waste dump in the United States as well as the Yucca Mountain waste site. She also describes a visit to a large coal-fired power plant for comparison purposes.

Her book describes the sites visited with a novelist's eye for detail and relates what she learned when questioning people at each stop on the tour in very clear language. She raises the questions an anti-nuclear activist would ask and, unlike many activists, listens to the answers with an open mind. I recommend reading the book for all who are curious about the trade-offs involved in electricity generation.

I will close with a few facts about alternative energy. A report from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory compares alternative energy sources for their ecosystem impact. City Utilities peak electricity usage was 801 megawatts in 2006 according to the annual report. A solar power plant capable of supplying 1,000 megawatts of electricity, while the sun is shining, would cover 40 square miles. A wind farm of the same capacity, in a favorable location with steady wind, would require 3,000 turbines and cover the same 40 square miles. A bio-gas system producing methane from livestock waste would require 60 million pigs or 800 million chickens. The entire state of Missouri had 2,900,000 hogs and 33,500,000 chickens in 2002. Corn to produce enough ethanol to produce 1,000 megawatts would require 6,200 square miles. The total area of Missouri is 69,697 square miles. Sugar beets would be better at 2,400 square miles but wheat is out at 104,000 square miles. Bio-oil from rapeseed would cover 9,000 square miles. Bio-mass from wood requires twice as much land as corn at 12,000 square miles. The full report is available at http://nuclear.inl.gov/docs/papers-presentations/nuclear_need_2-26-03.pdf.

For a preview of the book's ideas and a brief comparison of the pollution impacts see: The Need for Nuclear Power by Richard Rhodes at http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull422/article8.pdf.

Mark Weaver
Springfield

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

Las Vegas SUN
March 19, 2008

Next battle is for energy plan

Retired general says it’s security issue, but greens won’t like his business-backed ideas

By Lisa Mascaro

Washington — The general who led the Marine Corps during the run-up to the Iraq war is now working on national security from another angle: trying to convince the next administration that the country needs a comprehensive plan for energy.

Gen. James L. Jones, who retired last year after 40 years in uniform, strode Tuesday into Washington’s posh Hay Adams Hotel for breakfast, a place near his new office where morning coffee goes for $4.75 a cup. It was the morning before the five-year anniversary of the Iraq invasion.

Jones still looked very much a Marine, with his close-cropped hair and his mostly steel-straight frame under a charcoal pinstriped suit. He settled in for eggs and grits.

Securing the nation’s energy future — that is, dealing with the stubborn reality that worldwide demand for power and fuel will eventually outpace supply — is an initiative the next president “has got to have up there at the very top,” he said.

Jones has been meeting with the presidential candidates in his new job at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s just-launched Institute for 21st Century Energy. “The United States right now is seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution,” he said. He wants to reverse that.

Even though Jones no longer wears the uniform, he is still often called on to assess the national defense situation. The questions turn to those that might be asked of a military man.

The flow of oil from Iraq was supposed to finance that country’s reconstruction, but remains below prewar levels. The price of a barrel of crude has soared to record highs, above $100.

“I will grant there was a lot of miscalculation in Iraq,” said the general, whose final post was head of European Command and supreme allied commander of NATO. “Iraq is important, and we need to fix that, get it right, but it’s not the silver bullet.”

The institute’s energy plan is a business-friendly approach that contains many elements already rejected by the environmental community. It includes continued reliance on new coal-fired power plants that have been rejected for Nevada by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The institute calls for renewable energy development but warns against taxing oil companies, a tactic Democrats have tried to fund renewable power development.

The institute also says there is a need for new nuclear plants. The chamber has long been a big backer of the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The institute agrees, calling Yucca “well-suited” as a repository, a position counter to the state of Nevada’s assertion that the site is flawed.

Jones wants to push these issues center stage, and he said that no new president should sit down to discuss national security without the energy secretary by his side.

Jones underscored his point by suggesting that some of the billions this country sends to the Middle East each year for oil “is coming back to us” in the form of terrorism.

“I’m quite sure the inside joke in the terrorist organizations is we’re paying for our own destruction,” he said.

It’s hard for a reporter to let the conversation close without asking the general whether he thinks it was right to go into Iraq.

“Whether we should have or shouldn’t have, we are,” he said. “Our job now is to bring it to a close.”

And his new job is just beginning.

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

Contra Costa Times
March 18, 2008

Times editorial

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has set off a heated debate on nuclear energy by saying he thinks it has a "great future" and that it should be given another look. He's on the right track. After more than three decades of neglect, nuclear power deserves a reassessment.

With skyrocketing oil, natural gas and coal prices, the cost of producing electricity from these fossil fuels is rising rapidly and is likely to become increasingly expensive.

Also, especially in California, there is a need to significantly decrease greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, which are largely produced by burning fossil fuels.

Nuclear energy has the advantage of a far more stable cost of fuel. Moreover, fuel costs are a much smaller part of the total cost of electricity production from nuclear plants than from traditional power sources.

Even if there were a large increase in uranium costs, similar to the current increases in fossil fuels, the impact on electricity costs from nuclear energy would be considerably less.

For example, if the price of uranium doubled, nuclear power-generated electricity costs would rise about 7 percent. A doubling of the price of natural gas would add about 70 percent to the final cost of electricity.

Perhaps a more significant consideration is the reduction of greenhouse gases. Even if nuclear power proved to be more expensive, it would have the major benefit of making electricity without producing carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases.

However, nuclear power does have some significant drawbacks. The construction of power plants is considerably more expensive than building gas-powered plants and it takes a lot longer. It also is difficult to assess cost-effectiveness because of rapidly rising prices of fossil fuels and the true cost of handling waste, and dealing with changing regulations.

Then there is perhaps the greatest barrier to the resumption of nuclear plant construction: handling the radioactive wastes. Currently, wastes are stored at the 104 nuclear power plants around the country. This is hardly the best way to handle dangerous materials. There are also security threats to consider.

What has been needed for some time is a single depository for nuclear waste, such as the one designated by the federal government in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Unfortunately, progress has been inordinately slow because of political bickering.

Even without a single burial site for waste, California should at least reconsider ending the 1976 ban on nuclear plants. There is no reason we cannot be as successful as France and Japan, which produce most of their electricity from nuclear power. That does not mean any lessening of efforts to conserve energy and develop alternative energy sources. But it would be a short-sighted to continue to ignore nuclear power.

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

Victorville Daily Press
March 18, 2008

Gas theft

Steve Williams
Opinion Page Editor

There are all sorts of reasons for the price of a barrel of oil skyrocketing above $110 a barrel, not least of which was the explosion February 18 at Alon USA’s refinery in Big Spring, Texas. In a country with a dearth of oil refineries (California, which consumes more oil and gasoline than any other state, and more than most foreign countries) hasn’t built a new refinery in several decades.

Beyond that, the deterioration of the dollar also shares some blame. As the value of the dollar falls, the price of a barrel of oil climbs. At pretty much the same rate. The Federal Reserve, charged with keeping the nation’s economy on a steady keel, has instead opted for inflation by steadily increasing the nation’s money supply, which has, just as steadily, shrunk the value of the dollar. And the board is still at it. Monday the Federal Reserve Board voted to reduce the federal interest rate by 25 base points, from 3.5 percent to 3.25 percent.

But there are others at fault here, with the United States Senate leading the way. The Senate seems to be pursuing — well, is pursuing — a policy of using the rest of the world’s oil, and not our own. A vast part of “our own” lies beneath a patch of frozen tundra in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska about the size of what used to be George Air Force Base in the Victor Valley. There, conservative estimates say 10 billion barrels of the stuff await extraction. At today’s prices, that amounts to more than $1 trillion. Yet we keep buying oil from the Saudis, and Hugo Chavez, and the rest of the world, at those steadily rising prices.

So who’s against using America’s natural resources to meet America’s energy demands? The usual suspects.

Hillary Clinton, for instance, has voted nine times — nine times! — to block drilling in ANWR. Bill Clinton first blocked ANWR development in 1995. Barack Obama has voted twice against drilling in ANWR. And then there are our California senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. Both not only have voted in lockstep with Hillary, and before that with Slick Willie, to prevent development in ANWR, they have been instrumental in stopping oil companies from seeking to further develop known reserves off the California coast.

And beyond that, Feinstein and Boxer have spared no effort, and no legislative roadblock, to prevent opening Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a safe receptacle for the nuclear waste generated by the country’s nuclear power plants. Nuclear power has enormous potential not only to reduce the great bugaboo of the global warming hysterics, carbon emissions (the plants generate no carbon emissions), but vastly reduce our dependence on electricity generated by oil, natural gas and coal. The chief obstacle to constructing more nuclear power plants is our inability to store the waste safely. Yucca Mountain offers that, but the senators insist, in steadily rising shrillness, that it’s not safe.

None of these people — the Federal Reserve Board, members of the U.S. Senate, Bill Clinton, et al, will pay for this irresponsibility. Or at least they won’t pay until after the American people do. The American people, of course, are already paying dearly for the misguided thinking of both elected and appointed government types, both at the gasoline pump and at their banks, where, inevitably, the inflation monster will steal their savings and make a shambles of their credit.

As for the oil companies, last year Exxon paid $29 billion — $29 billion! — in taxes, which represented more than half their revenues. Exxon, of course, is owned by stockholders, most of them Americans, who also pay taxes. So not only does the federal government steal directly from Exxon (much of the money it earns either goes to stockholders in the form of dividends or is plowed back into exploration and production), but it steals indirectly by inflating the dollar and forbidding the company from increasing its reserves, and thus its ability to supply its customers.

So when you next fill up, keep in mind who’s to blame for what you’re paying. And why.

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

Allentown Morning Call
March 18, 2008

Another View

Nuclear energy makes nation freer and cleaner

By Forrest J. Remick

Imagine that the twin problems of foreign-oil dependence and fossil-fuel air pollution could be limited by greater reliance on a commercial energy source already in common use. Wouldn't you expect a big celebration? A rush by politicians and pundits to talk about its economic and environmental benefits? After all, improvement in America's energy security and a reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions are no small things.

You don't need to imagine: the hypothetical is real. Nuclear power provides about 20 percent of the nation's electricity, safely, economically and reliably. Its benefits are real. Nuclear power has played a central role in replacing oil in electricity generation, and it could do the same in transportation if plug-in electric vehicles catch on.

The great environmental advantage of nuclear power is that it produces no greenhouse-gas emissions or air pollution. The 104 U.S. nuclear power plants account for more than 70 percent of the nation's emission-free electricity generation. Without ''base-load'' electricity from nuclear plants, we would be burning substantially more coal and natural gas.

U.S. energy needs are projected to grow in the coming decades, even with improved efficiency and conservation. The use of nuclear power in this country is on the rise, producing a record 807 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity last year, compared to 557 billion kilowatt-hours in 1990, adding the equivalent of 25 large power plants without any fanfare. Steady safety and efficiency improvements of nuclear plants made this possible.

Industrial and nuclear safety records are consistently improving. Significant events at U.S. nuclear plants have steadily declined. A plunging workplace accident rate and far fewer unplanned automatic plant shutdowns reflect increased attention to training and plant safety. The fact is, there has been only one plant shutdown of more than a year for safety reasons over the past decade, compared to 26 shutdowns from 1987 to 1997 and 21 in the decade before. Everyone involved in plant operations, from reactor operators to those responsible for refueling and spent-fuel management, receive rigorous and continuous training.

The result is improved safety and efficiency. In 2007, nuclear plants, on average, were running at full power 91 percent of the time, compared to 62 percent in 1980 and 71 percent in 1990. Pennsylvania has some of the nation's top-performing plants. Between 2004 and 2006, plants operating more than 90 percent of the time included Beaver Valley 1 and 2, Limerick 1 and 2, Peach Bottom 2 and 3, Susquehanna 2, and Three Mile Island 1. Spent fuel is being stored safely at the plant sites until it can be moved to a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

To ensure safety, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations -- which the industry established some 25 years ago -- monitors each plant's performance. Its inspections typically run two weeks each, and it shares lessons learned from experience and technological advances across all plants. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has at least two resident inspectors and as many as four inspectors at each nuclear site.

It is only in recent years that the NRC and the industry have made increased use of computer-based analyses of each plant. Known as probabilistic safety analyses, they provide plant personnel and regulators with a valuable tool for zeroing on what are the most important maintenance needs and safety risks at a plant. These safety analyses have permitted the NRC to shift from a prescriptive approach to regulation, which was based on the best engineering judgments of past decades, to one which is more risk-informed and performance-based, enabling its inspectors to determine whether or not a plant is being operated safely.

This vigilance has produced an outstanding safety record. No one in the public has ever been harmed by the operation of a nuclear power plant in the United States. Instead of nuclear plants being shut down after their initial 40-year licenses, half of the plants have been licensed by the NRC for another 20 years. Almost all of the remaining plants have either applied to the NRC to have their licenses renewed or intend to.

Utilities have applied for NRC licenses for seven new nuclear plants that are expected to be ready for commercial service by 2015. The industry has indicated that more applications are anticipated during 2008 and 2009. Once these plants are on-line, construction of another group of nuclear plants will be launched. Together, these actions demonstrate the nuclear industry is serious about providing reliable electricity that safeguards public health and protects the environment.

Forrest J. Remick, Ph.D., is professor of nuclear engineering emeritus and associate vice president for research emeritus at Penn State University and a former NRC commissioner.

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

Reno Gazette-Journal
March 17, 2008

State officials must keep eyes on proposed Yucca strategies

Nevadans who continue to reject federal plans to establish a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain should look closely at a new strategy for shared responsibility with the private sector. State officials need to keep close watch on the progress of the plan.

When failing to achieve a set goal, it just makes sense to put creative people on the project to devise alternate avenues to success.

That is what is happening with the stalled project to store 77,000 tons of spent nuclear material in the Nevada desert.

Clearly there are benefits to be gained from the use of nuclear energy, but while researchers say they have discovered a means of recycling or otherwise disposing of the waste that reduces its dangers, government has lagged in their implementation. Nor have satisfactory efforts been made to shift the burden from Nevada's shoulders and to require all the states to share the responsibility for what happens to partially spent nuclear reactor fuel.

This most recent proposal, a public-private partnership established through "legislative fiat," is more than Energy Department officials promoting the use of nuclear power as part of the nation's energy solution.

It is more than living up to agreements with other states to relieve them of their stored waste. The plan comprises a new and creative strategy to move the Yucca Mountain project forward. Energy officials admit as much.

Prospects for the "nongovernmental entity" include possible sanction by Congress with a board of directors appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The "entity" would fund what realistically would become its own project and manage its own employees.

There may be some validity in all the language about inability to effect "stable management," but one does not have to be privy to high-level meetings or adept at reading between lines to see that what all this means is that officials given the responsibility to move the Yucca construction license application before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have been unable to get their jobs done in a timely manner and are looking for new management solutions.

Members of the Nevada congressional delegation have done a good job of diverting the project in response to the wishes of their constituencies. Delay and budget-cutting, however, may not be good enough for much longer. The nuclear industry reportedly likes the idea.

And of course, the Bush administration would want it to work. The Energy Department would like to submit the license application by the end of June and begin operations in 2017, regardless of how difficult those goals might prove.

This new strategy bears close scrutiny.

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

NEI Nuclear Notes
March 17, 2008

McCain, Clinton and Obama on Nuclear Power

The Wall Street Journal's blog provided some insights on where the three presidential candidates stand on nuclear power.

McCain:

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, policy director for Sen. McCain, said nukes can’t be left out. ‘The Senate Majority leader is the problem—we have Yucca Mountain [storage facility], we have the technology. I can’t see why we don’t take advantage of that,” he said.

Clinton:

Gene Sperling, chief economic adviser for Sen. Clinton and a veteran of the other Clinton White House, made it clear that New York’s junior senator “does not embrace nuclear power,” for a host of reasons ranging from Yucca Mountain’s uncertain storage to worries over nuclear proliferation. She doesn’t want to take nuclear power—which accounts for 20% of U.S. electricity—“off the table,” she just doesn’t want to see any more of the stuff until it dies of natural causes, he said.

Obama:

Jason Grumet, Sen. Obama’s energy adviser, appeared to leave the door cracked open—at first. “We have to overcome the problem, which is that renewable energy alone won’t do it,” he said. But, ticking off nuclear’s worries on his fingers—like safety, storage, and proliferation—he rushed to disavow “current nuclear” technology.

Posted by David Bradish

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

Vanderbilt University News
March 17, 2008

Podcast: William E. Burchill: "The U.S. Nuclear Renaissance and the Challenges it Presents" 3-17-2008

Dr. Burchill discusses the factors that are producing the renaissance of nuclear power in the United States, the current status of that renaissance, and the challenges that it presents. These challenges include re-establishing the United States nuclear infrastructure, addressing proliferation concerns, building public confidence, licensing the Yucca Mountain High Level Waste Repository, and closing the nuclear fuel cycle.

William E. Burchill is Vice-President/President-Elect of the American Nuclear Society. He is also Adjunct Professor and Retired Head of the Nuclear Engineering Department at Texas A&M University.

His career highlights are: 4 years with Texas A&M University as Department Head, Nuclear Engineering and HTRI Professor; 5 years with Commonwealth Edison/Exelon as Director, Risk Management responsible for risk management at 17 Nuclear Power Plants at 10 sites; 3 years with Pennsylvania Power & Light as Manager, Assessment Services responsible for QA, QC, OE, CAP, ISEG, ECP, Assessment; and 25 years with Combustion Engineering concluding with his most recent position as Director, Operations and Field Engineering Services. His career professional focus has been nuclear safety. He earned a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering (Nuclear Option) from the Missouri School of Mines & Metallurgy, an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Illinois, and an M.S. in Management from the Hartford Graduate Center of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The seminar was sponsored by Vanderbilt's American Nuclear Society (ANS) Student Chapter.

Contact: Stacey Worman
Stacey.L.Worman@Vanderbilt.edu

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

Sheboygan Press
March 17, 2008

Posted March 17, 2008

Letter: Nuke waste disposal still big problem

There is a question I would like to ask all respondents to March 9 Sheboygan Press question of the week, “Should Wisconsin again allow the building of nuclear power plants?”

My question is: How long are you willing to live with more nuclear waste? The Kewaunee and Point Beach plants north of us are burying nuclear fuel rods now with the long-range questionable plan of transferring the waste to Yucca Mountain, Nev.

Of course, these plants are not in Sheboygan County. Is that why we are comfortable with the idea of more nuclear power?

Yucca Mountain has been under study for nearly 20 years, has been vigorously opposed by the state of Nevada for just as long and remains at least a decade from completion.

Construction of a nuclear reactor is enormously expensive and takes six to 10 years. Some U.S. reactors that began operation in the 1990s took more than 20 years. New and cleaner alternative energy sources could be in place in that time.

If the state of Wisconsin should repeal our state statute 196.493, it would repeal two legal requirements that must now be met before new reactors can be built in Wisconsin.

* That a federal nuclear waste storage unit must be in operation

* That reactors generating electricity must be economically advantageous to the ratepayer compared with alternatives.

If there is new waste produced by new reactors, this might open up the possibility that Wisconsin could be on a list of potential dumpsites.

How do you all feel about that?

Janet Ross
Sheboygan

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

Nevada Appeal
March 16, 2008

Reprocessed thoughts on Yucca Mountain

Guy W. Farmer

As my regular readers know, when it comes to the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, I'm much more interested in the politics of the issue than I am in the science. Nevertheless, I finally have an answer to those who ask what we should do with highly toxic waste if it isn't stored in Nevada: reprocess it at regional reprocessing centers outside our state, like the one in neighboring Idaho.

This practical solution to the nuclear waste problem was presented at a recent Yucca Mountain seminar organized by former Reno Gazette-Journal columnist Ty Cobb, a retired Army officer who worked on national security issues for President Reagan. During the Feb. 26 seminar, Cobb advocated a reappraisal of the Yucca project based on a "neutral" assessment of the proposal, if such a thing is possible. For his part, longtime Nevada Nuclear Projects Director Bob Loux rejected Cobb's proposal and reiterated his ongoing opposition to the project, a point of view shared by this columnist and more than 70 percent of Nevada residents.

"There is a unique opportunity for the Silver State," Cobb wrote in a position paper presented to the seminar. "Assuming Nevada's legitimate safety and security concerns were met, the state would accept Yucca as the nation's nuclear waste repository ... (and) would draw extensively on the Nuclear Waste Fund to offset its transportation, communication, health, public safety and education requirements."

"(Cobb's) report reflects remarkably misinformed views about the ABCs of nuclear energy, the Yucca Mountain project and the applicable laws," Loux asserted in his written response. "Just about every significant fact in (Cobb's) paper is either wrong or misleading." Although the pro-Yucca paper calls for a "neutral, unbiased assessment" of Yucca-related economic and safety issues, "the report's real agenda is obviously to reverse the State's opposition to the project," Loux charged, and I agree.

Cobb's arguments are familiar to those who follow this controversial issue. Although he isn't connected to the Nuclear Energy Institute or other Yucca project lobbyists, he waves a fistful of federal dollars at us and urges the state to cash in. Cobb contends that Yucca represents "a significant economic stimulus" for the Silver State, but Loux rejects his "pie in the sky" argument by claiming that federal law prohibits Nevada from tapping into the $27 billion Nuclear Waste Fund.

While the Yucca Mountain debate rages unabated, I remain firmly opposed to the idea of converting Nevada into the nation's toxic waste dump. But I am willing to consider a proposal presented to the Reno seminar by Dr. John Scire, who teaches an advanced energy policy course at the University of Nevada. He advocates nuclear waste reprocessing using new waterless electro-metallurgical technology currently being developed and tested at the nearby Idaho National Laboratories.

REPROCESSING

Scire and many scientists think the U.S. should follow the example of France and other countries by extracting reusable plutonium from the radioactive waste. "Reprocessing might be the most efficient, intelligent and best way to handle nuclear waste in the U.S.," Scire has written. "Reprocessing burns very long-lived waste products in a fast-burner reactor, reducing the duration of storage to 300 years and the waste volume by 95 percent." To me, that sounds like a promising solution to the nuclear waste storage problem unless the U.S. is somehow less technologically advanced than France, which I doubt.

Although Loux isn't opposed to nuclear waste reprocessing, he wants it to happen somewhere else since Nevada doesn't generate any toxic waste. "Plutonium ... is a nuclear explosive and a handful can blow up a city," he notes. "Having lots of it around ... means we'd have a lot to worry about," especially since Yucca Mountain is only 90 miles from Las Vegas, the nation's fastest growing city.

According to Scire, one or two reprocessing plants would have to be built in order to facilitate his plan. Each plant would have three separate structures: one to reprocess the waste, one to fabricate new fuel rods and a fast burner reactor to incinerate long-lived elements of the waste. "While nuclear waste reprocessing may not be the perfect solution, it is certainly the most intelligent approach for Nevada," the professor argues. His approach makes sense to me as long as the reprocessing is done elsewhere, marking the final death knell for the infamous 1987 "Screw Nevada Bill," which made Yucca Mountain the only site to be studied for a national nuclear waste dump.

The political landscape has changed dramatically, however, and Nevada now has much more political clout than it did 20 years ago, especially since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and every other elected official in our state have vowed to kill Yucca Mountain. This 21st century political reality makes it highly unlikely that Congress would be willing to consider a "neutral" reappraisal of the Yucca project.

In the meantime, Reid and his congressional allies continue to cut the project's budget while the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency prepares to examine troubling safety issues. I still believe this dangerous project is on life support if it isn't dead already. But along with most of my fellow Nevadans, I won't be satisfied until Congress finally kills the project once and for all.

--Guy W. Farmer, a semi-retired journalist and former U.S. diplomat, resides in Carson City.

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

Sacramento Bee
March 16, 2008

Nuclear power industry reasserts itself after 3-decade lull

David Whitney
dwhitney@mcclatchydc.com

WASHINGTON – Stoked by new federal subsidies and worries over global warming, the nuclear power industry is beginning to glow brightly once again.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission received seven applications for new power plants last year and is expecting a dozen more by the end of December. The applications, combined, will cover a total of 22 reactors since more than one is proposed at some sites, spokesman Scott Burnell said.

"Nobody had started the applications process for 30 years until last year," Burnell said.

Even in California, where state law bars new plants from being constructed until a permanent repository opens to hold the highly radioactive spent fuel, business is picking up.

Westinghouse Electric Co., a Pittsburgh-based Toshiba Group Co. subsidiary, announced this month that it is opening a San Jose office "to support the growth of its boiling water reactor nuclear power business."

Some are even beginning to plan ways around the state's 1976 moratorium, which has effectively capped the number of operating reactors at four – two at San Onofre in San Diego County and two at Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo.

Former labor union leader John Hutson is head of the fledgling Fresno Nuclear Energy Group, which wants to build a 1,600-megawatt power reactor on 80 acres of city land, using effluent from a wastewater treatment plant for cooling.

"This is not Wall Street businessmen," Hutson said. "These are farmers. They are salt-of-the-earth guys who know how to get things done."

Hutson said his idea is to avoid the state moratorium by not producing waste. Used fuel would be shipped to France for reprocessing, rather than encased in steel and concrete and stored on site awaiting a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Pie in the sky? Maybe. But 30 years ago when Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant nearly melted and leaked radioactive gases, nuclear power looked dead. After a largely clean safety record since then, nuclear power is now being touted alongside wind and solar energy as a solution to global warming.

Most power produced in the United States comes from plants fueled by coal or natural gas. Burning coal is a leading emitter of carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming, but even natural gas is not pollution-free.

Nuclear plants release virtually no greenhouse gases.

Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said billions of dollars in plant subsidies included by Congress in a 2005 energy bill also are helping power the industry's revival. He said the subsidies are needed because nuclear plants are so expensive to build – about $5 billion apiece.

Nuclear critics maintain that federal taxpayers are being zapped, and that the 2005 law's inclusion of $13 billion in subsidies and tax breaks will compound the intractable problem of what to do with all the waste. Some think the cost to taxpayers will be far higher.

According to the NRC, the seven license applications filed last year call for 11 new plants in Texas, South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. Burnell, the commission's spokesman, said the first of the new plants could be licensed as soon as 2011.

But California Energy Commission Vice Chairman James Boyd said that with waste problems unsolved and popular opinion running 54-37 percent against more plants, a groundbreaking in California is many years away.

"The likelihood of a new nuclear power plant being built in California within the next decade," he said, "is low."

--Call David Whitney, McClatchy Washington Bureau, (202) 383-0004.

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

Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 15, 2008

Senate confirms 39 to federal posts

Former Reid adviser helped in Yucca fight

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Senate broke a long impasse early Friday, confirming 39 nominees to federal posts including two to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The clearances came after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and the White House reached a deal apportioning appointments sought by Reid and those favored by President Bush.

Under the deal, the Senate approved five Reid choices including the reappointment of Gregory Jaczko to have his term at the NRC extended through June 2013.

Reid promoted Jaczko for the panel that is expected to play a deciding role in whether a nuclear waste repository might be built at Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Jaczko, a physicist, is a former Reid science policy adviser who helped the Nevadan fight the Yucca project before joining the NRC in 2005.

At the same time, 34 Bush nominees were approved. Among them was Kristine Svinicki to the NRC. Svinicki, a nuclear engineer and a professional staffer to several senators including Larry Craig, R-Idaho, was the choice of Republicans to fill a term that will expire in June 2012.

Svinicki and Jaczko were confirmed in tandem in a deal to maintain political balance on the NRC, which regulates nuclear power plants and the management of nuclear waste and nuclear materials.

The confirmations bring the NRC's membership to four, with one remaining vacancy.

According to reports in trade publications, Reid has urged Bush to fill the final vacancy with Allison Macfarlane, an associate professor of environmental science at George Mason University who also has expressed skepticism about the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site for nuclear waste disposal.

While Reid has declined to confirm reports that Macfarlane is his preference, nuclear industry lobbyists have said the White House is resisting the nominee.

"Macfarlane is being left at the altar," one lobbyist said Friday.

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

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

Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 15, 2008

Yucca project veteran promoted

Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Christopher Kouts, a veteran Yucca Mountain Project manager, has been named to the No. 2 leadership post of the program, it was announced this week.

Kouts, 58, was named principal deputy director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

He has worked on the Nevada project for 22 years, most recently in charge of developing specialized canisters that would be used at the planned nuclear waste repository site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"Chris has a long and successful history with this program and has a strong desire to make it succeed," director Ward Sproat said in an internal e-mail to Yucca employees.

Kouts, an engineer by training, is from the Washington, D.C., area. Sproat announced the appointment Thursday at a Nuclear Regulatory Commission conference.

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

Pasadena Star-News
March 15, 2008

Business Digest

Warther assumes new Parsons post

PASADENA - Parsons Corp. announced that Robert F. Warther was recently hired as vice president, conduct of operations and closure, for the Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Newport, Indiana.

Warther has more than 25 years of experience in the private and government sector, including his most recent position as director of license application at Yucca Mountain, where he established industry benchmark data to deliver the repository's license to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Warther additionally served as the Department of Energy's Ohio field manager where he closed four former nuclear weapons production sites with a total project cost of nearly $2.5 billion.

He was also a senior member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board's technical staff.

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

Morning Call
March 15, 2008

McCain speaks out on Iraq, earmarks in Delaware County

By Patrick Lester

SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP, DELAWARE COUNTY - In his first public appearance in Pennsylvania since becoming the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, John McCain made three promises to supporters today: to eliminate pork barrel spending, keep American troops in Iraq until military success is assured and run a "respectful and vigorous" campaign against his Democratic opponent.

Speaking at Springfield Country Club on the 35th anniversary of his release from a North Vietnamese prison, the Arizona senator also called for increasing nuclear power and training programs at community colleges to help the unemployed.

Although the 71-year-old McCain spent much of his time addressing the situation in Iraq during the town hall-style meeting, he saved his most impassioned comments for his colleagues in the Senate, which the night before shot down a moratorium on "earmark" spending by a 71-29 vote.

"The spending spree will stop," he said of pet-project spending that lawmakers attach to appropriations bills. If elected president, he said, "I will veto every bill with a pork barrel project on it.

"The inability of the U.S. Senate to get more than 29 votes ? is an interesting commentary on how [lawmakers] are disconnected from the American people," McCain said, chiding senators in his own party for voting against the measure.

McCain, who said he's never received funding for a pork barrel project, called on Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who voted in favor of the moratorium, to stop spending the earmark funding they've already secured.

Acknowledging that many Americans want to see U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq, he said the Democratic candidates' plan to withdraw troops would be a mistake. The larger troop deployment in Iraq, McCain said, is working.

"The new strategy is successful, but we have a way to go," he said.

McCain said he worries that terrorists will plan attacks in America this fall in an attempt to influence the election, but said that wouldn't stop his pursuit of Sept. 11 terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, who remains on the loose.

"If I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I'll get Osama bin Laden," McCain said.

Drawing laughter and cheers throughout much of his hour-long visit, the often self-deprecating McCain, whose campaign held a fundraiser in Philadelphia on Thursday night, emphasized the importance of winning Pennsylvania in November.

Virtually assured the GOP's nomination, McCain said he plans to have a continued presence in the state while Obama and Clinton battle it out for their party's nomination.

"Pennsylvania will be a battleground state," McCain said. "I plan to be here, stay here and win with your help."

On other issues:

The senator called for development of more hybrid vehicles and solar power as a way to reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil. Calling climate change "real," he said the use of more nuclear power must be part of the solution. He said spent nuclear fuel could be reprocessed and stored in places such as Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert.An "unabashed free trader," McCain said he would make the Bush tax cuts permanent, cut corporate taxes and eliminate the alternative minimum tax paid mostly by middle-class families. Calling federal programs for the unemployed a failure, he wants to see training programs at community colleges for displaced workers. "If you're not trained and equipped to take part in this technology revolution, you'll be left behind," he said.

To Rob Reed, a student at nearby Springfield High School, McCain's words were right on target. Reed, who will turn 18 in September, will cast his first vote in November for McCain.

"He's the most principled man out of all of them," Reed said. "I'm more in line with his strategy with Iraq. I think we need to stay there until we get the job done. I think people who are supporting Obama are delusional."

Bill Fleming, a 56-year-old supermarket manager and father of seven daughters, said he's most concerned about the job market and wants to see the nation decrease its imports. He likes McCain's honesty and position on Iraq.

"If we want to live our lives and prosper, we have to be involved" in Iraq, the Drexel Hill man said. Fleming said "the most important thing" will be McCain's choice of a running mate, and he'd like to see him select Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Asked if he'd tap former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge as his running mate, McCain said, "Tom Ridge is a great, dear friend." However, McCain said he has not begun the process of picking a running mate.

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

Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 14, 2008

Yucca Mountain: DOE: Expect license application after all

Sproat says June back on track

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department has readjusted its Yucca Mountain work plans after a deep budget cut and will be ready after all to apply for a license in June to build a Nevada nuclear waste repository, the program director said Thursday.

Managers postponed work on a Nevada rail line and other segments of the Yucca program, and redirected money and personnel to reach the most pressing goal of meeting a June 30 license application deadline, according to Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Applying for a construction license has been a long-sought but out-of-reach milestone for DOE at Yucca Mountain. The department has encountered legal and budget problems, and a number of internal missteps in recent years.

Cutbacks will reduce the work force from 2,600 to 1,500-1,700. The Energy Department has singled out key scientists and engineers within DOE, the U.S. Geological Survey, the national laboratories and contract firm Bechtel SAIC who will be needed to defend the license.

"We have identified who those people are to make sure they know their jobs are not in jeopardy," Sproat said. "We have an army of national lab PhDs and engineers on our defense team."

Sproat's upbeat assessment came minutes after a lawyer who represents Nevada in its ongoing battle against Yucca Mountain declared the program is on a "death watch" and is destined for failure.

Martin Malsch, of the firm Egan, Fitzpatrick & Malsch, said DOE will continue to face increasingly severe budget problems. He said DOE's application will be rushed and incomplete and predicted a "huge dispute" over whether it should be accepted for review by regulators.

"Yucca Mountain's breaths are short and its heartbeat is faint," Malsch said. "I really don't think it has very long to continue."

In response, Sproat said: "The death watch is going to continue for a very long time because I see this program being very alive and well."

The Energy Department was sent back to the drawing boards late last year when Congress cut the 2008 Yucca Mountain budget by $108 million, a 22 percent reduction.

Sproat initially expressed doubt DOE would meet its deadline, but he said managers deferred work on all but the most pressing tasks. For instance, work on a proposed Nevada rail line to the site has been pushed back.

To save money further, technical specialists were rotated in for short periods to perform specific tasks and then let go, Sproat said.

Questions remain about the repository, which would need billions of dollars to be built. Sproat confirmed the Bush administration is considering a proposal to reorganize the Yucca project and other nuclear waste programs into a government-chartered corporation similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority or the Bonneville Power Administration.

Promoters contend such an organization would have the advantages of a private business to hire and fire managers, set salaries to attract talent and promote accountability. Sproat said it would stop a revolving door that has seen numerous top managers trying to run the Yucca program for short terms.

But such a big change would require a number of fundamental changes and approval by Congress, which might not be willing to give up control.

"I personally don't expect we are going to make anything significant happen on this over the next three to six months," he said.

Steve Kraft, senior director for used fuel management at the Nuclear Energy Institute, said a "move like that would greatly enhance the chances of success of the Yucca Mountain project and recently Congress is not inclined to enhance the success of the Yucca Mountain project."

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., long has been declaring Yucca Mountain dead and his spokesman said no new plan would change that.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or (202) 783-1760.

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

Las Vegas SUN
March 14, 2008

Feds say Yucca moving forward

By Lisa Mascaro

WASHINGTON — Yucca Mountain is back on track, the Energy department said Thursday, despite steep budget cuts engineered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The head of the Yucca Mountain project now believes he will meet the June 30 deadline to submit the project’s license application, even after seeing more than $100 million slashed from his fiscal 2008 budget. He had earlier put the deadline in doubt.

But all is not well with the proposed nuclear waste repository.

Separately on Thursday, Reid’s office released documents detailing the Energy department’s contract with Morgan Lewis, the law firm the senator believes has a conflict of interest and should be taken off the Yucca Mountain project.

The firm, hired in 2007 to help shepherd Yucca Mountain’s license through the regulatory process, also represents utility companies suing the Energy department over the project’s delay. (The government faces enormous liabilities, running more than $7 billion, because it has been unable to open Yucca Mountain as promised, leaving the companies to incur costs for storing nuclear waste on site.)

The contract documents explain the firm’s plans for avoiding the conflict by walling off attorneys working on the Yucca Mountain license from those handling the utility cases.

The firm would forbid attorneys in either camp from discussing or disclosing any information about their work. It is would be creating secure computer systems and even plastering file cabinets with warning stickers advising staff that contents are off-limits.

The company wrote that it has experience dealing with any potential conflicts, which “may be resolved through disclosure, reciprocal waivers, and as an extra safeguard, screening procedures.”

The Energy department consented to the arrangement, according to the documents, in part because it believes that the pool of available firms is “severely limited and all such potential contractors are likely to be encumbered by the same types of representational conflicts.”

Reid is not convinced. “Disclosure doesn’t eliminate the conflicts,” spokesman Jon Summers said, adding his boss is awaiting a report from the Energy department’s Inspector General, which he hopes will conclude, as he said the Nevada delegation has, that the firm is “unfit to be working on Yucca Mountain.”

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

Las Vegas SUN
March 14, 2008

DOE Idea: Going Private With Nuke Waste

The Associated Press

Energy Department officials trying to promote nuclear power are suggesting that private industry assume some responsibility for the country's nuclear waste.

Edward F. "Ward" Sproat said Thursday that the idea could ensure more stable management and financial support for the long-delayed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project in Nevada that he manages.

"I do think that providing some sort of an organization with legislative fiat that provides that stability and fixes some of these institutional problems is a good idea," Sproat said after addressing a conference of nuclear regulators. "But it's got to be done right."

He heads the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Even Yucca Mountain supporters say stability has been lacking at the 77,000-ton repository planned 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It is intended as the resting place for the spent reactor fuel and high-level defense waste piling up at power plants and other sites around the country.

Yucca Mountain's most ardent critic, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is in position to engineer annual budget cuts of $100 million or more.

Sproat suggested a public-private partnership modeled on, for example, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's largest public power company. The TVA was created by Congress and has a board of directors appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but raises its own money and manages its own employees.

A power point briefing prepared for lawmakers by Dennis R. Spurgeon, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for nuclear energy, includes a slide showing a "nongovernmental entity" that would manage nuclear waste disposal and fees from nuclear utilities in concert with a still undeveloped recycling program supported by the Bush administration.

The power point was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

Yucca Mountain's opening date has been delayed repeatedly since the original 1998 goal. Sproat had pegged 2017 as the best achievable opening date. But that has slipped and he could not give a new one on Thursday.

He did say that plans to submit a required construction license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of June are back on track, after coming into doubt this year because of Reid's budget cuts.

Meanwhile, liability to taxpayers is surpassing $7 billion because the department contracted with utilities to take possession of their nuclear waste beginning in 1998.

The idea of a public-private partnership to manage Yucca Mountain and other elements of spent fuel disposal has support from the nuclear industry and is garnering some interest on Capitol Hill. But the change would require legislation that also would have to deal with the liability to utilities and dedicating money from a special nuclear waste fund paid into by utilities, according to Sproat. No one thinks that could come about anytime soon.

"A move like that would greatly enhance the chances of success of the Yucca Mountain project and recently Congress is not inclined to enhance the success of the Yucca Mountain project," said Steve Kraft, senior director for used fuel management at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Reid has long been declaring Yucca Mountain dead and his spokesman said no new plan would change that. "It's hard to privatize something that's not going to be built in the first place," said Reid spokesman Jon Summers.

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

Reno Gazette-Journal
March 14, 2008

Agency: Private industry should be responsible for nuclear waste

By ERICA WERNER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Energy Department officials trying to promote nuclear power are suggesting that private industry assume some responsibility for the country's nuclear waste.

Edward F. "Ward" Sproat said Thursday that the idea could ensure more stable management and financial support for the long-delayed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project in Nevada that he manages.

He heads the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Even Yucca Mountain supporters said stability has been lacking at the 77,000-ton repository planned 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It is intended as the resting place for the spent reactor fuel and high-level defense waste piling up at power plants and other sites around the country.

Budget cuts

Yucca Mountain's most ardent critic, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is in position to engineer annual budget cuts of $100 million or more.

Sproat suggested a public-private partnership modeled on, for example, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's largest public power company. The TVA was created by Congress and has a board of directors appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but it raises its own money and manages its own employees.

A PowerPoint briefing prepared for lawmakers by Dennis R. Spurgeon, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for nuclear energy, includes a slide showing a "nongovernmental entity" that would manage nuclear waste disposal and fees from nuclear utilities in concert with a still undeveloped recycling program supported by the Bush administration.

The PowerPoint was obtained Thursday by the Associated Press.

Yucca Mountain's opening date has been delayed repeatedly since the original 1998 goal. Sproat had pegged 2017 as the best achievable opening date. But that has slipped, and he could not give a new one Thursday.

Meanwhile, liability to taxpayers is surpassing $7 billion because the department contracted with utilities to take possession of their nuclear waste beginning in 1998.

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

Wall Street Journal
March 14, 2008

Schwarzenegger: Nukes Are Great

Posted by Keith Johnson

Most of the candidates running for office may not care much for nukes, but the Governator sure does.

“I think nuclear power has a great future, and we should look at it again,” California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, closing The Wall Street Journal’s “ECO:nomics” conference. While he understands some people might still be afraid of the nuclear option, most Three Mile Island analogies are “environmentalist scare tactics. The technology has advanced so much,” he said.

It sure has—just not in the U.S. That was the message from the nuclear industry at the same conference, grappling with a question beguiling policy makers—and plenty of Environmental Capital readers: If coal is out of the question, and renewables are too small, how will America get its power if it keeps ignoring the nuclear elephant?

“The U.S. is far behind the rest of the world,” said Tom Christopher, a top executive at France’s Areva, which builds nuclear reactors. He chalks that up to bad nuclear economics a generation ago, a dwindling of home-grown tech, and a “dysfunctional licensing process” in the U.S.

Being nuclear-technology orphans makes it a really uphill battle. Everything has to come from abroad at a time when the rest of the world is furiously licensing new nuclear plants and supplies are stretched.

“We don’t make anything here anymore,” said David Crane, chief executive of NRG Energy in New Jersey, who suggested bringing Areva and French technology back to jumpstart the U.S. nuclear-power sector.

One of the biggest hurdles remains the storage issue, personified by the never-ending Yucca Mountain saga. That in particular is blocking new nuclear build-out in California. Of course, said Areva’s Mr. Christopher, the U.S. could forget storage and learn from the U.K., Japan and Russia and focus on reprocessing spent fuel rods—“absolutely the right answer,” Mr. Christopher said.

But as long as nuclear power is in limbo, as it is in California despite the governor’s sunny words, power companies are in a bind, said John Bryson, chief executive of Edison, the big California utility. “It would be very hard to get there” with a cocktail of energy efficiency and more renewable energy.

What’s that leave? A lot more natural gas. That would be fine, Mr. Bryson said, if America’s quest for cheaper and more independent energy doesn’t mind lots of price volatility and growing imports.

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

Jackson Citizen Patriot
March 14, 2008

Consumers' future ought to be nuclear

JACKSON — Consumers Energy is planning for the future, building an 800-megawatt coal plant. However, I wish it luck in getting approval from the environmentalists to build it.

Consumers hasn't had much luck with nuclear power, i.e. the Midland venture, recent sale of the Palisades nuclear plant and cancellation of the Quanicassee plant. Presently, the U.S. gets 50 percent of its electricity from coal and 20 percent from nuclear. Reversing these percentages should become a goal of both global-warming advocates and those who want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

The nuclear industry has gone through an outstanding revival over the past decade with 103 reactors up and running 90 percent of the time. Plans for four new reactors have been submitted, and 30 are waiting to be approved.

The main obstacle to nuclear power is fear. For a 1,000-megawatt power plant, a 20-ton train car of coal will produce 20 minutes of electricity. With a nuclear plant a fleet of trucks deliver a load of fuel rods every two years. Each rod stays in the reactor for six years. Only one third of rods are replaced during a refueling outage.

With nuclear power, there is no air, water or ground pollution. If we were to reverse President Carter's 1977 law that outlawed nuclear recycling, we could recycle most of the 5 percent of the hazardous part of the fuel. Ninety-five percent of the spent fuel is U-238, which is naturally occurring in the ground. A small amount would probably go to the repository (Yucca Mountain, if it ever gets up and running).

I'm sure Consumers has analyzed all the options, but has it put its past behind it and is it realistically looking at the future to "Power Michigan's Progress?"

— Daniel Agnello

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

Wall Street Journal
March 14, 2008

Climate Politics: For Once, No Hot Air

Posted by Keith Johnson

The conventional wisdom among the boys on the bus – including us – has been that there’s essentially no difference among the three presidential contenders on climate-change policy. It turns out there is.

Tonight at the “ECO:nomics” conference, top advisers to all three senators gathered on stage to drill deep into the subject of energy and climate policy. (See a video of highlights from the panel discussion.)

Given how little attention this issue has gotten on the trail, or in the umpteen debates, this hour-long exchange could be as hot as it gets. The most explosive issue: nuclear power. It may have zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but it’s apparently toxic for politicians.

The debate that’s more-often discussed may prove less important: whether, assuming the U.S. does impose a carbon constraint, it should come through “carbon taxes” or “cap-and-trade

Mr. Holtz-Eakin rejected the notion that a carbon tax would be more efficient and less subject to special-interest loopholes. “Economists would rather be right than useful,” arguing that even a carbon tax would become an appropriations-committee nightmare.

But make no mistake: Even the “market” solution of a cap-and-trade solution is still a hidden tax, admitted Mr. Grumet. But that’s what it will take to, erm, bring order to the island.

“You can have the Lord of the Flies, or you can have a government,” he said.

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