Yucca Mountain News Clips - Thursday, June 19, 2008

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, June 19, 2008
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KVBC
June 18, 2008

Reid asks Nevadans to sign Yucca petition

(Washington, DC) - Nevada Senator Harry Reid today brought the Nevada congressional delegation together to call on all Nevadans to sign the petition against Yucca Mountain.

Thursday the Department of Energy will walk the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) through the application it submitted to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

The NRC will then have until September 1, 2008, to determine whether or not the Energy Department's application is complete.

The petition calls on the NRC to reject the application, which is only 35 percent complete and lacks a public safety plan in the event of an emergency.

To sign the petition against storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, visit Sen. Reid's web site.

http://reid.senate.gov/

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 18, 2008

House panel approves full funding for Yucca

Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- A House panel beginning the process of writing an energy spending bill for next year voted Tuesday to fully fund the Energy Department's request for the Yucca Mountain Project.

The action by the House energy and water subcommittee was expected. Its leaders customarily support the government's planned nuclear waste repository in Nevada.

The House bill contains $474.7 million for the Yucca project, the amount that DOE requested, according to subcommittee chairman Pete Visclosky, D-Ind.

The test for the Department of Energy program usually comes later in the year when the energy spending bill reaches the Senate. That is where repository opponent Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., tries to force cuts.

Visclosky also said funding is being increased for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the safety agency that is considering a repository construction application that DOE submitted earlier this month.

Visclosky, speaking to reporters following the subcommittee meeting, said he did not have the NRC budget figures immediately available.

For Yucca Mountain activities, the NRC had requested $37.3 million for fiscal 2009, which is $8.3 million more than what Congress supplied for the current year.

The NRC's total budget request was $1.02 billion, of which about 90 percent is funded by the nuclear industry through user fees.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
June 18, 2008

Nevadans should consider Yucca Mountain project

By Maria S. Dias

Come on, Nevada. Let's take one for the team

On June 3, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission received a license application from the U.S. Department of Energy for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. In a June 10 op-ed in the RGJ, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto made clear her point of view: This license application is the "continuation of poor quality work and unsound science."

I respectfully disagree. Instead, I would hope that this application puts us one step closer to bringing this much-needed repository to fruition.

Personally, I don't think the repository is a bad idea. The daughter of a former nuclear engineer, I grew up discussing fission around the dinner table, and I could go on all day espousing the values of nuclear energy. In short, nuclear power is clean, dependable and plentiful. The June 2008 issue of Wired magazine puts it this way: "There's no question that nuclear power is the most climate-friendly, industrial-scale energy source. You can worry about radioactive waste or proliferating weapons. "» But the reality is that every serious effort at carbon accounting reaches the same conclusion: Nukes win. Only wind comes close -- and that's when it's blowing."

Right now, the United States needs Yucca Mountain. Unfortunately, experts say the earliest the repository could be up and running is 2015. But even though the road is long, it is still worth traveling. Nevadans should do our part to achieve the greater good. This us-against-them "fight" is not helping anything; instead we should be working together with the government to ensure that our country can be energy secure.

Just as the country could benefit from opening the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, so could Nevada. While the site would be operated by the federal government, those using it -- the nuclear power companies -- have proved time and again that they are good corporate citizens and stewards of their communities.

Just ask the people of Salem County, N.J., where PSEG built the area's first nuclear reactor in 1977. Since then, the company has worked closely with the rural community to ensure that the local hospital had the resources necessary to handle all the "what-ifs" of nuclear power, the by-product being superior medical care for the area. And that commitment to community continues today. Joe Delmar, manager of communications for PSEG Nuclear, says the company also works with local high schools and colleges, so that the jobs the company provides can be filled by local workers.

I know that there are other supporters of this project in Nevada, and, while our numbers may be small, our voices need to be heard. I strongly believe that the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository can operate safely and effectively, and we can benefit from it. The research is there; the science is sound. It's time to stop stalling this project and ask not what our country can do for Nevada, but what Nevada can do for our country.

Maria S. Dias is a freelance writer and blogger living in Reno. Her blog, www.nv4yucca.blogspot.com, is updated regularly.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
June 18, 2008

We have unlimited fuel options to use

The current "oil crisis" has been caused by Congress and the environmental lobby:

We cannot drill for oil in this country, we cannot build nuclear or coal plants, and we cannot build oil refineries, etc., etc., etc.

We cannot reprocess uranium for reactor fuel, nor build new plants, like virtually every other civilized country because of fear. As a former nuclear engineer involved with reactor safety, I can tell you that the problem at Three Mile Island was caused by a USNRC employee, not the plant personnel. Chernobyl was caused by an obsolete, graphite stack reactor (not used except by North Korea and Iran).

Harry Reid and every other Nevada politician voted to develop Yucca Mountain, and now they are against it. Why? Unfounded and unproven fears. Current nuclear provides 20 percent of our energy, in France 76 percent and Japan

43 percent.

Solar and wind are a joke when comparative studies are done on cost-benefit ratios and can produce a maximum of

14 percent of our energy needs.

Tell Congress to get off its collective assets and build nuclear, drill now and stop listening to the environmental "wackos." We have unlimited fuel options now. Let's use them.

Bill McCready
Reno

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Reuters
June 18, 2008

McCain says wants 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030

By Jeff Mason

SPRINGFIELD, Mo., June 18 (Reuters) - Republican John McCain promised on Wednesday to put the United States on course to build 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 if elected president as part of a plan to move the country toward energy independence.

McCain, his party's presumptive nominee in this fall's presidential election, is laying out a strategy to wean the United States from foreign oil, an issue that has risen to the top of voters' minds as gasoline prices soar.

The Arizona senator has argued forcefully for more nuclear plants, seeing them as part of a solution to fighting climate change and establishing U.S. energy independence.

There are 104 operating U.S. nuclear reactors at present, which generate about 20 percent of the country's power supply.

"If I am elected president, I will set this nation on a course to building 45 new reactors by the year 2030, with the ultimate goal of 100 new plants to power the homes and factories and cities of America," McCain told a campaign event in Missouri, an electoral battleground state.

"If we're looking for a vast supply of reliable and low-cost electricity -- with zero carbon emissions and long-term price stability -- that's the working definition of nuclear energy."

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, McCain's presumptive Democratic opponent, has issued supportive statements about nuclear power but has set no outright goal for building plants.

Though nuclear energy is key to meeting U.S. climate concerns, the issue of disposing of nuclear waste from U.S. plants and solving nuclear proliferation concerns are also paramount, Obama's campaign said on its website.

The key roadblock to new U.S. nuclear plants has been finding a home for nuclear waste. Congress designated Yucca Mountain, 90 miles (145 km) from Las Vegas, to be the nation's waste repository, but the site is years behind schedule and may never open because of powerful opponents like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not issued a new nuclear plant license since the mid 1970s and utility companies have balked for years at constructing new sites because of concerns about plant safety and cost overruns.

McCain and Obama have sparred in recent weeks over how to address the country's energy challenges.

McCain criticized his opponent on Wednesday for supporting a "windfall profit" tax on oil companies, which McCain opposes.

"For Senator Obama, the solution to every problem and the answer to every challenge is a new tax," he said.

McCain added he would set aside $2 billion a year for research and development into clean coal technology. (Editing by Christian Wiessner and Braden Reddall)

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Las Vegas SUN
June 17, 2008

Yucca may be limping but it gets full funding from a House subcommittee

By Lisa Mascaro

WASHINGTON — For all the talk of Yucca Mountain being dead, it sure seemed healthy this evening as a House subcommittee voted to give the project full funding — $494.7 million — for fiscal 2009.

Yet at the same time, the fate of the planned nuclear waste repository 90 miles north of Las Vegas has never been more uncertain.

Throughout the pro-nuclear Bush administration, the House has supported the president’s budget requests for Yucca Mountain only to see their efforts diluted in the Senate. Sen. Harry Reid, now the majority leader, routinely succeeds in knocking down the funding – last year eliminating more than $100 million from the $490 million request.

Even more, nuclear industry advocates no longer say they need Yucca Mountain to proceed with developing new nuclear power plants, which are gaining popularity as a carbon-free way to meet the nation’s growing energy needs in the face of global warming.

Earlier Tuesday, former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman, who now heads up a pro-nuclear group, said the nuclear renaissance will go on with or without Yucca Mountain.

“That is the designated site, but we also take the position that’s not the only site,” said Whitman, co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition known as CASEenergy. “This is not a deal-breaker going forward with nuclear.”

And so the future of Yucca Mountain remains unclear.

After Tuesday night’s vote, Democratic Rep. Peter J. Visclosky, the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water, said the full funding his panel approved is a sign of its continued support for Yucca Mountain, “and obviously we’re one half of the legislative process.”

“It’s pretty clear that there is support for what I would like to characterize as a broad mix of energy utilizes in this country… be it renewables or nuclear or carbon-based or coal,” Visclosky said. “If you’re going to proceed, you need a repository.”

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UNLV Rebel Yell
June 17, 2008

Debate over Yucca continues

With Department of Energy taking major step toward construction, educators and lawmakers weigh in

By: Samantha Williams
News Editor

The controversial Yucca Mountain Project took a giant leap forward June 3, when the United States Department of Energy submitted its licensing application for approval to begin construction on the proposed nuclear waste repository.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission now has 90 days to review the application to determine if it is complete. If accepted, the NRC will have three to four years to determine if construction can begin.

Yucca Mountain, which has come under fire since 1978 when talks of the project first began, is again creating a buzz among Nevadans who are adamant in halting its production.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a longtime opponent of the project, said the application "is shoddy at best."

"I'll say it as clear as day: Yucca Mountain will never happen," Reid said. "For more than two decades, I've fought the terrible idea to store all of the nation's dangerous nuclear waste in Nevada tooth and nail, and we have been successful in fending it off at nearly every turn."

Yucca Mountain is located about 90 miles from the Las Vegas metropolitan area, and due to various delays, there is currently no official date set for its opening.

Despite decades of research on the project, the current application from the DOE has not addressed some of the most important concerns associated with the facility, according to Reid.

"The DOE application is as flawed as everything else the government has proposed about the dump," he said.

Because the site is relatively close to Las Vegas' major groundwater supply in an area known for earthquakes and volcanic activity, Reid said the application should, but does not prove the safeness of the water storage containers, partly because they have not yet been designed.

He added that the DOE knows the containers will eventually corrode, allowing radiation to contaminate Nevada's drinking water supply. The application's lack of an emergency response plan is another issue, he said.

David Hassenzahl, chair and associate professor of the Department of Environmental Studies at UNLV, is an expert on the topic and said the most pressing concern with Yucca Mountain is that transportation of the waste would be too dangerous.

"The biggest risk is most likely the … large, heavy trucks and trains moving across the country," he said. "We can reasonably expect a number of accidents if we ship it across country, [but] we won't have these accidents if we don't ship it."

Reid agrees, saying that shipping 77,000 tons of nuclear waste across the country is an "invitation for trouble," and that these "rolling dirty bombs" could serve as a target for terrorists.

Many opponents argue that there's no rush to bury the waste, but that because the government is legally bound to collect it, politicians are prematurely pushing for completion of the project.

UNLV Environmental Studies Professor Helen Neill, has done extensive research on the Nevada Test Site and said that through her work on the subject, she has found that Nevadans are hesitant in accepting the Yucca Mountain plan based on past experiences.

"There is a healthy dose of skepticism out there," she said. "This skepticism is based on history. [It's] a recognition that we do already have contamination out there."

"Instead of pushing this risky project, Hassenzahl suggests an on-site dry cask storage system. While it would be costly up front, he said, it would be much safer in the long run.

Additionally, the submittal of the DOE's application is again putting Yucca Mountain in the headlines and pitting presidential hopefuls senators Barack Obama and John McCain against one another.

According to a survey Neill is currently working on, roughly 35 percent of people – the majority of whom live in areas close to the proposed site – have responded in the open-ended section of the survey that Yucca Mountain concerns them. Of that figure, about half said that they were in favor of the project."

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News Journal
June 17, 2008

Nuclear energy gets a push in D.C.

Raju Chebium

WASHINGTON — Christie Todd Whitman, former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, today promoted nuclear energy as a means to cut pollution, minimize global warming and create thousands of new jobs.

Whitman, also a former governor of New Jersey, co-chairs the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a Washington-based group.

The organization released a report today making the case for nuclear power as Americans increasingly worry about global warming and energy issues take on added urgency with gasoline costing $4 a gallon.

Whitman said nuclear power generates 20 percent of America’s electricity and pressed for more because nuclear plants don't pollute the air. Seven consortiums across the country are pushing to build 70 new nuclear power plants, she said.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine’s energy plan seeks to cut the state’s energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020 and generate 22.5 percent of the electricity from renewable energy sources.

The plan raised the possibility of building a new nuclear plant. New Jersey has three nuclear plants - Hope Creek, Oyster Creek and Salem. Hope Creek and Salem are in Lower Alloways Township, across the Delaware River from Augustine Beach.

Many environmentalists and community activists oppose nuclear power because an accident or sabotage could kill thousands of people and release radiation with effects for years afterward.

The disposal of nuclear waste is also an issue, said Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., who chairs a subcommittee with jurisdiction over clean air and nuclear safety. He joined Whitman and other advocates at the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition news conference this morning.

The Bush administration wants to permanently store nuclear waste deep within Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but the proposal has powerful opponents in Congress.

Carper acknowledged that waste disposal is a problematic issue and called for a massive effort to figure out what to do with it.

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Cherry Hill Courier Post
June 17, 2008

Whitman promotes nuclear power

By Raju Chebium

WASHINGTON - Former Gov. Christie Todd Whitman today promoted nuclear energy as a means to cut pollution, minimize global warming and create thousands of new jobs.

Whitman, the former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, co-chairs the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a Washington-based group.

Gov. Jon Corzine’s energy plan seeks to cut the state’s energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020 and generate 22.5 percent of the electricity from renewable energy sources.

The plan raised the possibility of building a new nuclear plant. New Jersey has three nuclear plants - Hope Creek, Oyster Creek and Salem.

Many environmentalists and community activists oppose nuclear power because an accident or sabotage could kill thousands and release radiation whose effects would be felt for years afterward.

The Bush administration wants to permanently store nuclear waste deep within Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but the proposal has powerful opponents in Congress.

Carper acknowledged that waste disposal is a problematic issue and called for a massive effort to figure out what to do with it.

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Platts
June 16, 2008

DOE to submit EIS on canister system to NRC June 16
Washington (Platts)--13Jun2008

DOE's evaluation of the potential impacts of a cradle-to-grave spent fuel canister system it wants to use at a Yucca Mountain repository will be sent to NRC June 16, DOE spokesman Allen Benson said June 13. Benson said the supplemental final environmental impact statement, or EIS, updates information, as appropriate, included in a 2002 EIS. The TAD canister -- which can be used to transport, age (store), and dispose of utility spent fuel --was initially evaluated in the 2002 document as the "mostly canistered" scenario, Benson said.

DOE announced its plan to develop TADs in 2005, saying the multipurpose canister system will eliminate the need to repeatedly repackage the spent fuel as it moves from one operation of the federal waste management system to another. The submittal will be sent to NRC nearly two weeks after DOE submitted a license application for a high-level nuclear waste repository in Nevada to the agency June 3.

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NRC
June 16, 2008

DOE to "Walk Through" its Yucca Mountain Application in Public Meeting June 19-20 in Rockville, Md.

No. 08-116

Officials from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will present a “walk-through” of DOE’s license application for the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., for Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff during a public meeting June 19-20 at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md.

DOE submitted the license application June 3. The NRC staff is currently conducting its docketing review of the application, to determine whether the application is sufficiently complete to warrant docketing it and beginning a full technical safety review. During the public walk-through, DOE officials will explain the layout and organization of the application, which totals more than 8,600 pages.

The meeting will be held in the NRC Auditorium in Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md.. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time each day. Both sessions will be viewable by videoconference at the NRC’s Las Vegas Hearing Facility, Pacific Enterprise Plaza, Building 1, 3250 Pepper Lane in Las Vegas, and at the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, Conference Room A103, Building 189, 6220 Culebra Rd., San Antonio, Texas.

Members of the media wishing to attend, either in Rockville or Las Vegas, are urged to register by June 18 with the NRC Office of Public Affairs at (301) 415-8200, in order to facilitate security check-in for the meetings.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 15, 2008

Vin Suprynowicz: Speaking of non-answers

Isn't it interesting how no high-ranking Nevada office-holder can explain -- if they still contend they really want to stop the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste suppository -- why they have not brought a suit at the U.S. Supreme Court asking the justices to rule that the federal government does not own the land around Yucca Mountain, because they can show no deed or bill of sale for that land, never having purchased it "by the consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be," as required in order for the federals to obtain a right of "exclusive legislation" over any parcel within the several states under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution?

(No, a promise not to raise such a challenge by the former territorial legislature is not binding, if the states enter the union on an equal footing.)

We could try to order such a lawsuit by referendum, I suppose.

If it were up to me, a second initiative would then instruct the governor and attorney general -- the lawsuit stipulated above having been filed and being pursued aggressively -- to open negotiations with the federals from a position of strength, offering to issue a state permit for Yucca Mountain, "In keeping with Nevada's proud tradition of patriotic sacrifice, to encourage the expanded use of domestic nuclear power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil," etc.

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Nevada Appeal
June 15, 2008

Poll: Public still opposes Yucca Mountain project

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS — A newspaper poll shows that most Nevada voters want to fight government plans to build a national nuclear waste dump outside Las Vegas.

In a poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, 58 percent of respondents said they wanted to fight the Yucca Mountain repository plans, while 33 percent wanted to let the project move forward.

Pollster Brad Coker says the numbers show no change in public perception about the project because they are similar to results seen four years ago.

Earlier this month, the Energy Department filed the long-delayed application to build and open an underground repository to entomb 77,000 tons of high-level commercial, industrial and military nuclear waste now stored at 121 sites in 39 states.

The application amounts to a design blueprint and an operating manual for the repository.

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Political Affairs Magazine
June 15, 2008

The Dangers of Yucca Mountain

By Earth Talk

Dear EarthTalk: I’ve heard that there are plans to build a large repository for nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but that plans have been slow and are very controversial. Where is our nuclear waste kept now and what dangers does it pose? -- Miriam Clark, Reno, NV

Plans to store the majority of our nation’s spent nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive waste at a central repository underneath Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert 80 miles from Las Vegas were first hatched in the mid-1980s. But the project has languished primarily due to opposition from Nevadans who don’t want to import such dangerous materials into their backyard. Critics of the plan also point out that various natural forces such as erosion and earthquakes could render the site unstable and thus unsuitable to store nuclear isotopes that can remain hazardous to humans for hundreds of thousands of years to come.

But the Bush administration is keen to jump-start the project and recently submitted a construction license application to develop the facility—which when completed could hold up to 300 million pounds of nuclear waste—with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In announcing the filing, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman said that the facility being proposed can “stand up to any challenge anywhere,” adding that issues of health safety have been a primary concern during the planning process.

But the administration has still not submitted a crucial document declaring how protective the facility will be with regard to radiation leakage. Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency concluded that the facility needs to prevent radiation leakage for up to 10,000 years. But a federal judge ruled that to be inadequate and ordered the administration to require protection for up to one million years. The White House argues that the NRC should press on with its review process and that the standard can be settled on later.

Currently, without any central repository, nuclear waste generated in the U.S. is stored at or near one of the 121 facilities across the country where it is generated. Nevadans like Democratic Senator Harry Reid, who has doggedly opposed the Yucca Mountain repository, say it makes more sense to leave such waste where it is than to risk transporting it across the nation’s public highways and rail system, during which accidents or even terrorist attacks could expose untold numbers of Americans to radioactivity.

But others say that the current system, or lack thereof, leaves Americans at great risk of radioactive exposure. The non-profit Nuclear Information and Resource Service concluded in a 2007 report that tons of radioactive waste were ending up in landfills and in some cases in consumer products, thanks to loopholes in a 2000 federal ban on recycling metal that had been exposed to radioactivity.

As with all issues surrounding nuclear technology, where and how to dispose of the wastes is complicated. While some environmental leaders now cautiously support development of more nuclear reactors (which are free of fossil fuels) to help stave off climate change, others remain concerned that the risks to human health and the environment are still too high to go down that road. Whether or not the NRC approves plans for Yucca Mountain won’t resolve the larger debate, of course, but perhaps the greenlighting of other promising alternative energy sources could ultimately make nuclear power unnecessary altogether.

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Petaluma Argus Courier
June 15, 2008

Response to a reader's comment

Contributed by Robert Caruso

The comment:

I read books that discussed the need for energy conservation, mass transit and a sound energy policy in 1965. America's leaders have not implemented any of the above in 43 years.

Alternative fuels may be the answer in the future but not in the near future. For the next decade we need to drill for oil, utilize coal and build nuclear power plants.

NEITHER PARTY OFFERS THE SOLUTION:

END FOREIGN WARS AND DRILL FOR DOMESTIC OIL

A rapidly devaluing dollar, aggravated by the cost of the War in Iraq, contributes to recent rapid increases in the price of gas. And if the trillion plus dollars the US spent fighting that war had been invested in a Manhattan like project to produce oil from known reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, the Continental shelf and synthetic diesel/gas from America's abundant coal fields, gas would be $2 a gallon or less.

And reducing trade deficits keeps jobs in America. Every billion of trade deficit costs 13,000 jobs. $400 billion for oil last year: do the math.

Plus declaring American energy independence is the neighborly thing to do. It would place downward pressure on world oil prices by making more OPEC oil available for the UK, France, Japan, Turkey, etc.

Call Congress and demand domestic production in this decade.

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml

My response:

Michael thank you for your comments. I'm happy to enter into a dialog with you and anyone else who cares to comment about what I consider to be a topic of vital national importance.

Your comments about the inaction of America's leaders (I prefer to call them politicians since whatever they are doing, it isn't leading) reflect my thoughts. Unfortunately, if they haven't acted in 43 years, I certainly don't expect them to act now. Our politicians have shown time and again that they are more likely to act in the best interests of big business, the auto industry for example, than in the best interests of America and Americans. While Americans are losing their homes and paying record amounts for gasoline, our politicians are debating the maximum volume for TV commercials. Nero anyone?

Their unwillingness to fulfill their oaths of office is exactly why I am advocating that Americans take matters into their own hands. Even if something unusual happened and America's politicians decided to take action, there is great potential for negative environmental consequences with many of the options you have suggested. Environmental impact aside, these solutions are years away even if action were taken today. We don't have the luxury of waiting for action that may never be taken. We need to take action now!

I strongly disagree with your suggestion that we build nuclear power plants. We have difficulty predicting the consequences of our actions even 100 years into the future. For example, if we had been better at predicting the consequences of our actions when the automobile was first invented, we wouldn't be having this discussion today. If we can't see into the future 100 years, how can anyone expect us to see into the future for hundreds of thousands of years?

"Certain radioactive elements (such as plutonium-239) in "spent" fuel will remain hazardous to humans and other living beings for hundreds of thousands of years. Other radioisotopes will remain hazardous for millions of years. Thus, these wastes must be shielded for centuries and isolated from the living environment for hundreds of millennia." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste)

Nuclear power is an immoral response to our energy needs. The power plants themselves have the potential for catastrophic failure as we saw with Chernobyl. They are prime targets for a terrorist attack. They generate waste that we don't know how to store and that even if we did, no one wants in their back yard; talk to people in Nevada about Yucca Mountain. Finally, it forces future generations to bear the responsibility for what we do today.

My suggestion that we begin a national effort to encourage Americans to drive the speed limit on our highways has the following benefits:

Anyone can do this the next time she or he drives a car.

It may be the most patriotic action any American can take.

Driving 65 has no negative environmental consequences.

It does not require the participation of a dysfunctional government that is addicted to power and its perks.

Because it is something we can all do, it has the power to unite us in a common cause.

I realize that driving 65 will not solve our energy problems by itself. But it will start us down the right path. If enough of us drive 65, it will show us and the world that for the first time since WW II, Americans acted together to work towards a solution to a national crisis. And I'm betting once enough of us participate in this movement, politicians of all stripes will want to be part of the action!

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Baltimore Sun
June 15, 2008

NRC reviewing applications for 15 reactors

Constellation Energy among companies waiting for an OK

Angela K. Brown

FORT WORTH, Texas - The nation's nuclear energy industry, all but stagnant for three decades, is quietly building toward a resurgence, with more than two dozen reactors on the drawing board in 15 states.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing license applications from plants in eight states to build 15 reactors, and it just received another application for two more. Later this year, plants in seven other states plan to seek permits for a dozen more reactors.

The first could be built and operating by 2016.

Maryland's Constellation Energy Group is among the companies hoping for a nuclear revival. The company said earlier this year that the NRC had begun the years-long licensing review process for a new $4 billion reactor at Calvert Cliffs in Lusby - one capable of generating enough electricity to power up to 1.6 million average homes.

The nuclear revival is far from a done deal, however. Though 104 commercial nuclear reactors remain in operation in the United States, the NRC has not approved a construction license for a new reactor since 1978. Companies still must arrange financing, and they will need federal loan guarantees and states' approval to raise rates to pay for construction if those loans are to be affordable.

The current push is being driven by soaring demand for electricity nationwide - about 25 percent more electric-generating capacity will be needed by 2030, according to industry experts. And utility companies say environmental and regulatory hurdles have stalled their efforts to build more coal-fired plants.

Economic incentives included in a 2005 energy bill passed by Congress are another factor, encouraging utilities to build new, advanced nuclear reactors that produce no greenhouse gases but cost billions to build.

"We're talking about a trillion-dollar investment in the nation's power infrastructure," said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's policy organization. "That's a very substantial undertaking in providing the electricity that we all depend on.

"We have to have nuclear power as part of that," he said. "We need renewables, but by themselves, that's not going to get us where we need to be."

But critics say that solar, wind and other "greener" electricity-producing alternatives can play a bigger role and that nuclear reactors are expensive and dangerous. Some residents near the proposed sites have protested, saying nuclear plants could become terrorist targets. Opponents also are concerned that while the updated reactors called for in the plans are used in Europe, they are untried in the U.S.

And in arid states such as Texas, where two companies are looking to build new reactors, there are concerns about the vast amounts of water such plants require. Most of the new plants would be built in the South, which has faced severe drought recently.

"Investing in a very expensive nuclear plant with technology that's never been used in this country is a risky and costly option," said Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Sierra Club's Lone Star Chapter. "And there's no power source that uses more water, which is especially a problem in parts of Texas."

The last time the NRC approved a construction license for a nuclear reactor was in 1978 near Raleigh, N.C.; it started operating in 1987. The last reactor to go online in the U.S. was in 1996 - Watts Bar near Spring Hill, Tenn. - although its construction license was approved in 1973.

Dozens of permits were issued in the 1960s and '70s and nuclear reactors were built in the '70s and '80s, although some projects were scrapped because of high costs and new regulations, said Sam Walker, an NRC historian.

In 1979, an accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa., caused radioactive material to be released. It was the most serious commercial nuclear plant accident in the nation's history.

Although no one died, the NRC didn't issue licenses for a year and a half and the incident prompted significant changes to safety regulations and oversight, Walker said.

Since then, existing nuclear reactors have increased output by 25 percent, Kerekes said. But many are reaching their limits and some must eventually be decommissioned due to age.

The NRC received its first application in about 30 years in November, when Houston-based NRG Texas applied for a license to build two reactors at its South Texas Project near Bay City.

Dallas-based Luminant Power is expected to apply in September to build two reactors at its Comanche Peak plant in Glen Rose, about 50 miles south of Fort Worth. Luminant spokesman Tom Kleckner said the reactors are used in Japan, based on proven technology and have a good operating record.

Utilities looking to build new nuclear plants may have to wait in line for the huge steel containers that house the reactors. Most of the vessels - about the size of a 6-story building - are supplied by a single Japanese company.

They will also face the still-unresolved issue of long-term nuclear waste disposal.

The Bush administration is trying to get approval for a national 77,000-ton nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain outside Las Vegas. Federal law requires the government to take spent reactor fuel piling up at commercial power plants and defense sites.

But Nevada's attorney general has recently challenged that plan.

"We feel it's very important to go ahead with the project because we need to stop greenhouse gas emissions," said David Knox, an NRG Texas spokesman. "We're confident the government will meet its obligation."

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Pahrump Valley Times
June 14, 2008

Yucca Mountain: 'Dumb as we wanna be'

Our nation's effort to "permanently" store 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain is the biggest thing ever seriously proposed for the state of Nevada.

Its economic and social impact would dwarf the Comstock (1859), Tonopah (1900) and Goldfield (1902) booms.

With its estimated $70 billion-plus cost, you could afford to buy most of the Las Vegas Strip.

Yet despite such opportunity, the Yucca Mountain project has had a tortuous history and is no closer to opening than it was 20 years ago.

I don't know what the future holds for Yucca Mountain but I do know some of its history, and it's not pretty.

Let's briefly review that history, along with a little background on nuclear power, and suggest some future trends.

Background

At its simplest, a nuclear reactor is nothing more than a mass of Uranium 235 (U235) or Plutonium 239 (PU239) atoms held in a controlled environment. As the atoms are gradually split, energy is released. That energy, in the form of heat, is used to generate electricity.

Splitting the atom leads to the formation of spent nuclear fuel, often incorrectly referred to as "waste."

The first nuclear reactor was successfully tested in 1942 by a team of scientists led by Enrico Fermi in a laboratory beneath the stands of the University of Chicago football field. From there, nuclear research focused mostly on the development of nuclear weapons.

The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched in 1954. On Dec. 8, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower offered a prophetic vision of the use of nuclear power for the betterment of mankind, known as "Atoms for Peace." A special purpose of his program, he said, "would be to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world."

Nuclear power

The first commercial-scale nuclear power plant opened in England in 1956. The first commercial nuclear power plant in the United States began operation in 1957 in Shippingport, Pa.

According to Sen. Peter Domenici (R-N.M.), a strong proponent of nuclear power, as of 2004, there were 437 operable nuclear power plants in 30 countries producing about 16 percent of the world's electricity.

One hundred three of these plants are in the United States, producing about 20 percent of our nation's electric power.

Although nuclear power has come a long way since Fermi's first demonstration, it was recognized early on that one final step was needed to complete the nuclear power production cycle, or loop, as it is called. This last step concerns proper disposal of the spent nuclear fuel.

Two possible disposal solutions exist.

The first is based on the fact that the spent fuel still retains most of its original energy and can be reprocessed, and the good stuff -- the U235 and PU239 -- removed, then "reburned" in a reactor to produce more energy.

After several "reburnings," the quantity of spent fuel remaining is much less.

In the 1970s, the U.S. was well on its way to solving its spent fuel problem through reprocessing. So confident were our leaders in the future of nuclear power in 1975 that President Gerald Ford called for the construction of 200 nuclear power plants in the U.S. to help free the country from dependence on foreign energy sources.

It looked like President Eisenhower's vision was going to become a reality.

Unfortunately, history took a detour. In April 1977, President Jimmy Carter ordered an end to the U.S. effort to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. He tried to get other nations to go along with his stance, but some did not.

Carter's action resulted in the United States having to depend on the second disposal solution -- permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel. In practice, this meant putting it in the ocean or burying it in the ground. Disposal at sea was impracticable.

Carter's decision to forgo reprocessing saddled the nuclear power industry and the federal government with an unanticipated problem -- where to entomb the spent fuel.

Matters were further complicated, at least in terms of public perception, by the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979.

Carter's action and Three Mile Island brought a halt to forward movement in the nuclear power industry in America and, to some extent, overseas. The accident at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union in 1987 only deepened the public concern.

Existing nuclear plants in this country continued to operate, but no new ones were constructed. Easy availability of oil, gas, and coal provided a further disincentive to moving forward with nuclear power.

Yucca Mountain

In an attempt to solve the problem of disposal of spent nuclear fuel, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in December 1982, and it was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on January 7, 1983 (Public Law 97-425). Nine potential disposal sites were initially considered.

After study, the list was narrowed to three locations -- Deaf Smith County, Texas; Hanford, Wash.; and Yucca Mountain.

The act also required the federal government to begin accepting spent nuclear fuel from the power producers for permanent entombment in 1997.

In 1987 the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was amended, narrowing the list to one potential disposal site -- Yucca Mountain.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) held its first public meeting in Nevada on Yucca Mountain at UNLV early in 1983. I was at that meeting. Don Veith, the Yucca Mountain project manager for the DOE, presided. After welcoming everyone, he presented an overview of the new legislation and suggested what we could expect to happen at Yucca Mountain. Then he opened the meeting to public comment.

The first speaker was then-Gov. Richard Bryan who, accompanied by an entourage, entered the large meeting hall with considerable pomp. He announced, in the most forceful and concrete terms, that he was "unalterably opposed" to the storage of "nuclear waste" in Nevada.

Following Bryan, a surrogate for then-Congressman Harry Reid announced the congressman's strong opposition to the storage of nuclear waste in Nevada.

As I recall, most of the other speakers expressed an opinion amounting to, "Interesting -- perhaps there is something in it for us."

The state, through the governor's office and the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects (created in 1985), adopted a highly negative perspective on Yucca Mountain.

Under Director Bob Loux, the Yucca Mountain program has faced more than two decades of unrelenting criticism and obstruction, from the state, to any effort to move the repository forward. Such negativity continues with unabated vigor to this day.

Spent fuel is stored at temporary sites located around the nation.

For its part, Nye County has received funds in lieu of taxes on Yucca Mountain from DOE yearly as well as financial support for the county's own oversight of Yucca Mountain through the Nye County Nuclear Waste Project Office.

This DOE money for Nye County, while extremely helpful, has not significantly influenced DOE's effort to build a repository.

From early 1983 on, DOE held periodic public information meetings in the communities in the Yucca Mountain impact area intended to keep citizens informed on what was happening with the program. The meetings were typically poorly attended.

No significant effort was ever made, either at the meetings or in other venues, to truly educate the public on why Yucca Mountain is needed and the huge amount of science that lay behind it.

Never was there an attempt to sell the project and, in current marketing parlance, to "brand" it.

DOE also established small museum-like information centers in several local communities, including Las Vegas, Beatty and Pahrump. Adequate as information centers, they were never up to the task of winning over public support, especially in Las Vegas.

In retrospect, what was, and still is, desperately needed is a community education and organizing program with boots on the ground, with face-to-face contact with citizens and local groups.

But neither DOE nor the nuclear industry ever went to such lengths to educate Nevadans; such activities would have been seen as beyond their job descriptions.

Several multi-billion-dollar offers were informally made to Nevada by the U.S. Department of Energy or the nuclear industry in exchange for the state's acceptance of the repository.

Though the offers were never made public, they were impressive. For example, at one point the Reagan administration offered Nevada a multi-billion-dollar nuclear medicine and nuclear science research facility to be associated with UNLV and situated on the Nevada Test Site in exchange for the state dropping its opposition to the repository. That offer was rejected out of hand.

On another occasion, Nevada was offered a super-train between Las Vegas and Los Angeles and the multi-billion-dollar super-collider as well as other large unspecified gifts in exchange for support. Like the research facility, these offers were dead on arrival.

(Writer's note: I borrowed this title from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who used it as the heading of a piece he wrote recently critiquing the silly ideas of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain to place a moratorium this summer on the federal gas tax. I believe the heading aptly describes the history of the Yucca Mountain project.

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MWC News
June 14, 2008

24 reasons to shut San Onofre Nuclear (Waste) Generating Station Today

1) Diablo Canyon's operators have stated that they feel terrorists would be much more likely to strike San Onofre, and that is one of the factors making them feel safe from terrorism. If there's any truth to their opinion, the correct response is surely to shut San Onofre!

2) Spokespersons for San Onofre have lied for decades. Upon complaining to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about numerous blatant lies, an activist received the following written response from the NRC: "Statements made by the public affairs officer of a NRC licensee are not regulated activities. Therefore, the veracity of such statements will not be investigated by the NRC." So nuclear industry spokespersons will just go on lying to the media, to the government, and to the public. To cite just one example, in June, 2001, the day one of the San Onofre reactors went back online after a four-month-long shutdown following a fire, workers improperly rigged, and then dropped, an 80,000-pound crane about four stories inside the turbine room, nearly killing at least one worker. The incident was covered up, and the plant's spokesperson was shown on local television that very day, responding to a question unrelated to the crane drop, saying that activists: "don't understand the laws of physics."

3) San Onofre is an accident-waiting-to-happen. Chernobyl is a symbol the world over of the worst possible industrial accident. More than 22 years later, the list of health effects from Chernobyl continues to grow. Deformities among plants, animals and humans are the subject of an entire museum and a research institute near the site. But not too near. There is a 1200-square mile exclusion zone around Chernobyl, which is expected to remain for the foreseeable future, and which many scientists feel is woefully small. Animals (and some people) enter the exclusion zone through holes in fences, or by just flying, jumping, or climbing over it, or burrowing under it. The U.S. nuclear industry claims only 29 people died because of Chernobyl, but the real figure is probably over 100,000! In 2002, the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio nearly melted down -- it was perhaps just minutes -- or at most a month or two -- away from a potentially catastrophic LOCA (Loss of Coolant Accident). Three Mile Island's 1979 partial meltdown is a better-known, but much older, example. Society tends to forget, or just doesn't know, that it can happen here, too. San Onofre makes us ALL unnecessarily vulnerable.

4) After 9-11-2001, San Onofre's spokespeople, and the rest of the nuclear industry, immediately and inaccurately claimed that nuclear power plant containment domes can withstand the force of a jetliner crashing into them. The domes weren't actually designed to do this. (They were designed to withstand the force of a steam explosion from within.) A few weeks later the nuclear industry was forced to back off their specious claim, because unbiased engineers could easily prove it was inaccurate, especially if an engine turbine shaft crashed into the top portion of the dome, perhaps as the result of a steep, suicidal dive. But that lie was replaced by other lies. For example, the lie that our skies are completely protected now, and no American jet could ever be hijacked, ever again! And what about private jets, which can be just as big as commercial planes, and can be rented for a wad of cash? The truth is, even if the domes were jetliner-proof (which they aren't), a far worse accident awaits if the spent fuel pools or dry cask storage systems are breached -- and again, the industry will lie and tell us these are also safe from jetliners, but they aren't even close. And the control rooms, and the backup diesel generators, and the coolant intakes, and the offsite power lines, and so on -- all are vital parts of a nuclear power plant, but none of them are safe from jetliner crashes -- accidental OR intentional. So San Onofre is an accident waiting to happen and its spokespersons are liars.

5) Right now, San Onofre is undergoing enormous retrofitting. Its steam generators are being replaced, as are several other major parts and thousands of smaller parts. But billions of dollars worth of parts will not be replaced: Pipes, pumps, valves, vessels, control cables, actuators, motors, sensors, power cables, data transmission cables, fireproof insulation, steel supports, gantrys, cranes, old thinking. Retrofitting these reactors instead of building completely new ones saves billions of dollars for Edison International (SCE's parent corporation) and avoids a public relations nightmare. But endless retrofitting also means some critical systems will be half a century old, or even older. The need to replace the steam generators surprised the nuclear industry, as have the failures of many other parts of our nation's nuclear reactors. Are all the old parts that need to be replaced going to be replaced? not at all! Most of the time, parts are still only replaced when they fail completely. Even the steam generators -- which leak like sieves -- are only being replaced because they are becoming too clogged and inefficient to make money for SCE. Holes are plugged only when the reactor is shut down for other maintenance reasons, so crack by crack, the steam generators have been leaking poison into our environment more or less constantly for decades. And they were supposed to last the life of the plant. SCE doesn't understand metallurgy, that's for sure.

6) San Onofre is old technology and in a fair market -- a competitive environment where all the costs are included -- nuclear energy simply cannot compete with clean energy solutions. We now all know that radiation is a mutagenic, carcinogenic, teratogenic, destructive force. What it does to steel is awe-inspiring; what it does to children is terrifying. In nearly every study, the public has rejected nuclear power, and women especially -- perhaps more keenly aware of the biological consequences of radiation -- have consistently rejected nuclear power by margins of 2 to 1 or more. Smart people go into real "high tech" fields like wind turbine blade design (what the Wright Brothers spent a long time on is now done with computers), wave energy systems, the Internet and other interconnected networks including the electrical energy grid, and many other things which unfortunately must include health care for cancer victims. Radiation causes cancer. Wind turbines do not. Even the most efficient nuclear power plant is rendered dreadfully inefficient because of the waste it generates, and the potential for catastrophic accidents, and because it's simply a dumb way to boil water to generate steam to turn a turbine to generate electricity.

7) Like all nuclear power plants, San Onofre is prone to outages, as decades of experience has shown. Outages are sudden, sometimes prolonged, and always inconvenient. In contrast, a distributed energy system is nearly impossible to bring down accidentally, either through acts of God, acts of stupidity, acts of negligence, or acts of malice. Renewable energy is almost always distributed, and it is not a potential target of terrorism. Instead of getting our power from nuclear energy, which is failure-prone, expensive, dangerous, and secretive, we can switch to renewables today. In 2007, when fires swept throughout San Diego County (for the second time in less than half a decade), San Onofre (as so often happens) was not available to help provide emergency power. Typical. If San Onofre doesn't melt down after an earthquake ("Genpatsu-Shinsai" in Japanese), it nevertheless will probably be unavailable just when it's needed most. A proper mix of small-scale energy production systems would have no possibility of suffering a complete failure, and certainly would not poison the air, land, and water, regardless of what portion of it failed.

8) San Onofre generates about 500 pounds per day of high level radioactive spent fuel and other "high level" waste. That waste has nowhere to go. There are good, solid, scientifically-valid, unarguable reasons why Yucca Mountain, the proposed repository in Nevada, is a bad idea, and the Yucca Mountain team of scientists (a revolving-door of people, by the way) were told not just to look at Yucca Mountain, but to consider anything that anyone brought them: Rocketing the waste to the sun, deep-sea burial, various retrievable-storage systems -- they couldn't find anything better to do. Yet Yucca Mountain is unlikely to be built: The entire project is rife with criminally negligent scientific fraud, is despised by everyone in Nevada, is decades behind schedule, is being pushed forward by a corrupt Bush Administration, and is really more of an excuse to pretend there is a solution coming for the waste problem. Well, there isn't. Not a good one. Not a safe one. Not a cheap one. And maybe just plain -- there isn't. Elected and appointed officials in California should get real about this fact. The problem is unsolvable. It's intractable: A dilemma, a conundrum, an Achilles' heel (another one). It can't be solved because nuclear disintegrations (radioactive decays) break down all known molecular and chemical bonds (bonds between atoms) in the universe and can even destroy the nuclei of atoms. Chemical bonds in biological systems are particularly weak and easily broken. But the point here is that ALL containers are broken down at the atomic and even subatomic level by their radioactive contents. It's a fact of life. And death.

9) San Onofre destroys the aquatic life around it. It does this not just by raising the temperature of the water it uses -- millions of gallons every minute -- by about 15 to 20 degrees, but also by sucking in millions of fish, fish eggs and young hatchlings through its deadly swirling pumps every day. And when the plant shuts down, the thermal shock to the ecosystem is also damaging. In addition, San Onofre spews radioactive waste into the environment every day. Every day they lie and say there are "no releases." What they mean is that the release is diluted, by using storage vessels and dribble-valves, to be below regulatory concern. But Government studies (and others) have shown that there is no minimum dose of radiation. any dose of radiation can destroy your DNA. any dose of radiation can cause cancer. Any dose of radiation can kill. Studies have verified that living downwind of radioactive sources is dangerous. This is especially true for a source which also spews a lot of other chemicals into the environment, usually getting special dispensations from the federal government to do so! After half a century, why is such favoritism still necessary? Why are insurance loopholes still necessary? Why can't California regulate any -- let alone all -- of these things? Why must the federal government overrule our state's normal right to tighter, safer restrictions if we want them? (And we want them!)

10) The biological effects of radiation are undoubtedly worse than the federal government admits. Nearly all radiation risk assessments are still based on what are called the "healthy survivors" of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those biased studies were designed to show that nuclear weapons could continue to be used. Newer, more honest research has shown time and again that radiation is more harmful than previously assumed. That is why allowable doses for nuclear workers and for the general public have dropped dramatically over the years. But they should drop even further. and much more frequent and much more accurate radiation measurements should be required throughout the community. Accurate epidemiological studies of the people around San Onofre should be carried out by independent researchers, but should be paid for by Southern California Edison.

11) San Onofre is located near several major earthquake faults, and the design basis, which only requires the facility to be able to survive a 7.0 earthquake, isn't adequate. In fact, it's woefully, laughably, disgustingly, thoroughly antiquated and should be discarded. Furthermore, even a much smaller earthquake could trigger an "underwater land slide" down the slopes of one of the many offshore underwater canyons, which could, in turn, generate a tsunami which would inundate San Onofre. The Banda Ache earthquake-triggered tsunami in 2004 generated well-documented wave heights of sixty feet, even hundreds of miles from the epicenter. But afterwards, the San Onofre power plant operators continued to assert that the facility's tsunami wall of about half that height is still considered adequate. It's not adequate, and any fool can see it.

12) San Onofre's existence prevents renewable-energy projects, and even people who hate San Onofre have to pay for it. But the utility doesn't want the public to be able to choose. The utility doesn't want the public to recognize the full costs of nuclear power, so they fudge the numbers by putting this cost and that cost off on some other entity. They simply expect the federal government to pay for air safety around the plants. But there aren't, and never will be, anti-aircraft batteries around our nuclear power plants ready to shoot down civilian planes. They expect the fuel disposal problem to be solved. They deny responsibility for every cancer, even among their own workers. And when they do settle with a harmed worker or their survivors, the details of the agreement are always kept secret from the public, from the media, and from epidemiological researchers. The utility makes a fortune. The public pays through the nose and then gets cancer. Lucky for the utility, nuclear poison is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Indeed, it is impossible to detect without sophisticated equipment, except for extremely high doses which are nearly always quickly fatal. Its primary health effects are often delayed by many years. Radiation is, in reality, the perfect murder weapon.

13) San Onofre's land can (in theory) be -- and is required by law to eventually be -- turned back into pristine beachfront property. At that point society could, of course, develop that land. What would 84 acres of beachfront realty located about midway between Los Angeles and San Diego be worth today if it came on the market? More than that stupid plant is worth, that's for sure! If San Onofre has a catastrophic accident, it will NOT be possible to return those 84 acres, nor the rest of Southern California, to pristine condition.

14) At San Onofre, a meltdown -- an accident beyond comprehension -- is possible. Therefore, we as citizens, have a duty to contemplate it. To be aware of what might cause it, and what the real consequences would be for us and our children. And even though no modern study of the costs has been done, it is inarguable among reasonable people that the cost of a meltdown at San Onofre could reach upwards of a trillion dollars. In lives, perhaps a million people could get cancer -- even in the unlikely event that an evacuation is somehow 100% successful. Even more could die if evacuations are hindered for some reason, such as a concurrent wildfire or earthquake or even just a few traffic accidents. In the event of a meltdown, what are the chances of a perfect evacuation? Approximately zero.

15) If Yucca Mountain opens (a dubious assumption) and San Onofre were to shut down today (a less dubious assumption, we hope), it will still take hundreds and hundreds of individual shipments to dispose of the radioactive waste which has already accumulated at San Onofre. Hundreds and hundreds of chances for a terrorist attack or an accident -- a bridge falling down, whatever. Two trains colliding. The federal government has offered hollow assurances that every chemical truck that the spent fuel might pass near on its journey will likewise be carefully monitored to keep the two separated. But it's a lie. Lies make the nuclear industry seem safe to the uninformed, but they do nothing to protect the public and nothing to fool the experts (or the terrorists). It is the duty of all citizens and honest government officials to see through the lies. If San Onofre stays open, then every few weeks forever, another shipment of extremely hazardous nuclear waste, capable of destroying thousands of square miles, will have to travel through our state to SOMEWHERE. Somewhere where nobody wants it, either. After sitting for years -- possibly for decades, and perhaps even for centuries -- on our coast.

16) San Onofre is a relic of the Cold War. Nuclear power was touted as "too cheap to meter" by a corrupt government agency which believed their own propaganda. We now know nuclear power is not cheap. We know it's not safe. We know that in 60 years of trying, the best minds have not been able to solve the waste problem. We know that renewable energy is ready to completely replace coal, oil, and nuclear power for electrical energy generation. In other words, renewable energy can help solve both the radioactive waste disposal problem AND the global warming problem.

17) Despite pro-nuclear claims to the contrary by people who, until about five years ago, didn't believe that global warming was happening, nuclear power is a major contributor to global-warming. Not only do the radioactive gasses emitted by nuclear power plants destroy the upper atmosphere at a terrific rate, but the entire nuclear fuel cycle burns an enormous amount of carbon-based fuels just to exist. The fifteen hundred workers at each plant also burn lots of carbon fuels getting to and from work, at work, and everywhere else, while accomplishing no long-term benefit for society, and at great risk to society. All proposed nuclear waste management solutions require enormous amounts of fossil fuels, as the reactor waste is moved to and fro, and guarded for eons. Eons! Try to calculate the cost of even one security guard on duty 24/7 for a million years, just to guard your waste (and don't forget to account for inflation)! Then factor in all the security guards needed to protect the waste created by everyone who comes after us. If we don't choose renewable energy solutions, society will be wallowing in nuclear waste. Hundreds of dry casks in California will turn into thousands. More and more "exclusion zones" where accidents have happened will be created. Is this the future we want?

18) Nuclear fuel is not renewable and any sort of nuclear renaissance would just burn up the limited supply faster. Some say we have only thirty years' worth of cost-effectively recoverable uranium left, others put it around 150 years, tops. And the price of uranium has skyrocketed in the past few years, going up by more than 1000%, with no end in sight. So-called "breeder reactors" are extremely dangerous and inefficient and, like the current reactors, generate fission products which must be contained away from human life, in many cases for thousands and tens of thousands of years. An impossible demand. An impossible promise.

19) San Onofre's owners hope to get tens of billions of dollars in federal, state, or public money so they can build a third reactor at the site. Unit one was closed down in the 1990s because it was inefficient. Its reactor pressure vessel still remains at the site because no waste management facility will take it. No one even wants it traveling through their neighborhood, and so it will probably remain here for decades. Pound for pound, spent fuel is at least ten million times more lethal than the "RPV" (and there is a lot more of it), so you can see that it too, will be very difficult to get rid of. Nobody wants radioactive waste. A state law (recently unsuccessfully challenged) prohibits new reactors in California until a solution to the radioactive waste problem is found. But nevertheless, the license for Unit One can be re-activated and the public has virtually no legal right to stop a "new" third reactor from being built at the site at any time. The only way to ensure it won't happen is to shut the whole facility down and put the people to work building clean, efficient, safe renewable energy systems. Or jail them.

20) In the 1960s, the public that originally accepted San Onofre was blatantly lied to, and that is now well-documented. Citizens who now spend the time to wade through the current lies, who learn about radiation's effects, have no trouble rejecting this technology. Virtually every supporter had, or still has, a financial connection to nuclear power -- it pays their bills, it provides for their retirement, it sends their kids to college, it buys their yacht. But virtually every detractor either dropped out of the industry to become a whistleblower of conscience, or studied nuclear power independently and simply reached a logical conclusion. The more the public knows about nuclear power, the less they like it. And the more they know about the renewable energy alternatives, the more they know that those are the way to go, not nuclear.

21) The nuclear industry is filled with people who fear knowledge. In an honest debate, they quickly prove that, while they might be experts in, for instance, ground-assault security, they know nothing of the biological consequences of tritium. Or perhaps they think they understand the biological consequences of tritium, but will not consider the engineering problems caused by the potential for 100-foot tsunami waves -- it's out of their area of expertise. Pro-nukers invariably assume that all the problems outside their little area of understanding have all been solved, but they are wrong. And, things which would be just "problems" for other industries are fatal flaws for nuclear technology. Reactor engineers are not pediatricians (and no pediatrician works for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, you can be sure of that).

22) No national, open debate about nuclear power has ever occurred. Any public focus has always been couched in lies brought about by the fears of enemy forces within and without, real and imagined, named and unnamed. A realistic attitude about nuclear power cannot be cubby-holed by false promises, dark threats, or threats of darkness. A realistic attitude cannot be the product of lies believed, however strongly or frequently those lies are told. A realistic attitude cannot misrepresent the health risks or the financial risks. It also cannot ignore the alternatives.

23) The biological consequences of radiation poisoning are horrendous. An infinite variety of deformities are possible. Pro-nukers like to claim that "radiation" causes "evolution" but in reality, DNA strands join and divide in unique patterns without any need for radiation to destroy those delicate molecules, each comprised of billions of atoms, on which life depends. Radiation can help trigger every known type of cancer, as well as heart disease and many other ailments. Pro-nukers even like to claim that a little radiation is good for you -- like a vitamin. But any beneficial effect that has ever been noted must always be balanced against the long-term consequences. Even medical radiation treatments to "cure" cancer also can cause cancer, and this is a well-known and fully-accepted medical fact. Small doses of radiation can kill, and the amount of hazardous waste produced in just one minute at San Onofre could wipe out a city if it got out -- and sometimes it gets out, and sometimes people in the community undoubtedly die because of it, even though the plant's owners deny every death they cause. Mere micrograms, or at most a few milligrams of Polonium-210, a product of nuclear reactors, was all that was used to kill British citizen and ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, and leave a trail of contamination from Russia to London. Radioactive materials are extremely dangerous in vanishingly-small quantities. But the pro-nukers would have you believe it's health food!

And...

24) San Onofre's State overseers (the CEC, the CPUC, the CCC, etc.) claim that their hands are tied -- that "federal" regulations "prohibit" the state agencies from "considering health and safety issues." And if you read the Nuclear Regulatory Commission web site's description of these so-called statutes, agreements, regulations, and laws, you might be tempted to believe that the Feds have somehow taken away your right to life (for, a sufficiently radiative environment will kill you). But look at the actual state statutes by which authority was relinquished. There lies the truth about who gave up what and who took what. California gave up authority on one condition: That the feds would handle the nuclear issue, the whole kit-and-kiboodle, safely. That California's citizens would be protected. So how would the CEC, the CPUC, the CCC, or any other commission, or all of them put together, know if our safety is being protected when they immediately wash their hands (in tritiated water, no doubt) of all health and safety issues, and have done so since the 1962 agreement relinquishing authority to the federal government was first signed (with the old A.E.C. (Atomic Energy Commission))? Dozens of countries far smaller than California (geographically, by population, and / or by economic power) have complete control of their own nuclear facilities (let alone, the 100+ countries which have so far been wise enough not to have any nuclear power facilities on their soil). So why are California's elected and appointed officials arrogantly "playing dumb"? They keep saying they couldn't close California's nuclear power plants if they wanted to. Can't they at least have the good sense to want to?

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Billings Gazette
June 14, 2008

Guest Opinion: U.S. needs alternative energy and fossil fuels

By Alan Weakly

Many environmental organizations including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council are advocating a moratorium on the continued use of fossil fuels. Their coordinated offensive has been very successful. As of Jan. 1, 311 fossil fuel power plants have been canceled or postponed, representing 138 gigawatts. (One gigawatt equals 1,000 megawatts.) These environmental organizations say that fossil fuels can be replaced with energy conservation and renewable and clean energy. Although great advances have been made in energy conservation and improved energy efficiency, this author could not find specific projections of the electrical energy saved from these two programs.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts a required increase of 197 gigawatts of electrical generating capacity by 2030. The North American Electric Reliability Corp., an organization given the authority to enforce reliability standards, has determined that at least 66 gigawatts of new electrical power will be required by the year 2016. If an additional 34 gigawatts of electrical power is not constructed and brought on line during the next eight years, then the unintended consequences of canceling fossil fuel plants to reduce greenhouse gases means that a large segment of the United States would experience serious electrical power interruptions.

Wind, sun, water potential

The United States has tremendous wind energy potential. As of Dec. 31, there was a total of 16.8 gigawatts of installed wind generation operating in 34 states. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory projects that the U.S. will have 100 gigawatts of installed wind energy by 2030. Due to the variability of wind at each site, wind energy has an average capacity factor of 36 percent. This means that the 100 gigawatts really translates into 36 gigawatts of base load power. Unfortunately, there are socio-economic and electrical transmission problems with this resource.

Solar energy's potential is unlimited. There are approximately 484 megawatts of photovoltaic and concentrating solar power systems operating in the southwestern U.S. today. NREL projects a total of 30 gigawatts of solar energy in place by 2030. Solar energy has a 40 percent capacity factor. Solar systems require very large land areas, so permitting for this energy resource is highly problematic.

Hydroelectricity is produced at about 2,181 locations in the U.S. and produces 80 gigawatts of power. This amount will be reduced 6 percent by the year 2020 due to the decommissioning of hydroelectric dams because of environmental concerns. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that there could be 10 gigawatts of wave and tidal energy installed by 2025. This form of energy has a 33 percent capacity factor.

Today, principally in the southwestern United States, geothermal energy is being tapped to generate 2.9 gigawatts of electrical power. The Idaho National Laboratories project 13 gigawatts of geothermal energy in place by 2030.

There are 104 licensed and operating nuclear power plants generating 100 gigawatts in the U.S. today. The EIA projects that 14 to 15 new plants will be constructed and generating an additional 18.6 gigawatts of electrical energy by the 2030. The development of this clean energy resource is problematic as 10 states have restrictions on new nuclear plants until there is a nuclear waste repository available. Unfortunately, the environmental community is against licensing the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nev., repository.

Cleaner coal plants

Fossil fuel power plants can be made clean. There are six operating integrated gasification combined-cycle plants operating in the world today that are proving the technology of removing carbon dioxide from the exhaust stream. For existing fossil fuel power plants, there are two emerging technologies that are capable of removing CO2, NOx, SO2 and particulate. The cost of clean fossil fuel energy is still less expensive than most renewable forms of energy. Once the CO2 is removed it needs to be utilized in enhanced oil production or sequestered (stored) in geologic formations.

Liberally calculating the projected increase in renewable energy to the year 2030, a total of 37 gigawatts of base load power is obtained, far short of the 197 gigawatts required. The inconvenient reality is that renewable energy cannot replace fossil-fuel-generated electrical energy required for the future nor the existing 759 gigawatts operating today.

Ayn Rand stated. "We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of reality." Fossil-fuel-generated electrical energy cannot be taxed out of existence and replaced with renewable energy. Global warming is occurring in the world today and the United States needs a comprehensive energy policy that includes renewable, nuclear and clean fossil fuel energy.

--Alan Weakly is a civil and mining engineer in Story, Wyo., and a former Campbell County commissioner.

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Journal Times
June 14, 2008

Atomic power merits new look

There is an option in the energy dilemma that has gained some new attention and which is deserving of a second look. That option is nuclear power.

It has been anathema since the radiation leak at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and especially since the accident at Chernobyl, yet nuclear power does not consume massive quantities of fossil fuels and thus does not produce large amounts of greenhouse gases.

That makes this source of energy very attractive at a time when global warming is almost palpable and when we have to speedily find new energy sources if we are to maintain our current lifestyle while not cannibalizing the planet.

The governor’s global warming task force acknowledged as much last week when its members suggested studying the nuclear option coupled with an increased reliance on renewable energy derived from sources such as wind power. Indeed, people who have studied the energy issue say repeatedly that there is no magic cure, that we need and will probably end up with a combination of energy sources including wind, solar, biomass, perhaps nuclear, and of course conservation practices that make the most of what we produce.

In October 2007 there were 435 operating nuclear power plants on the planet with another 29 under construction. Although the United States has the largest number of operating plants, 103, it derives just 19 percent of its power from nuclear energy. France derives the largest percentage, 78.

There are unknowns to deal with.

There is waste, the spent nuclear fuel rods which remain dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. Here there is slight progress. On June 3, after many years of tests and hearings, the U.S. Department of Energy submitted its license application to build and operate a nuclear fuel depository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada where old rods would be entombed beneath miles of rock.

There is the cost of constructing the plants and the question of safety, of security against potential terrorism, and of how safe is safe enough when the aftermath of one accident may last hundreds of years. There is the question of whether the nuclear power industry should receive special treatment, thus shifting the cost and the responsibility for problems from companies and shareholders to society at large. That the industry will ask for this is almost certain, given recent history.

No matter what we do, human activity affects the planet. Nuclear power has had its problems and generated fear, yet current science tells us that dependence on coal may have produced a larger, longer-lasting, and more widely experienced set of problems. Our task should therefore be minimizing the harm we cause so that our descendants have as decent a place to live as we can provide. From that standpoint nuclear energy isn’t perfect, but it may be a worthwhile interim solution until we work out the next technology.

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Ars Technica
June 14, 2008

Trying to solve the long-term nuclear waste storage problem

By John Timmer

The increased awareness of the potential consequences of humanity's carbon emissions has generated intense interest in renewable energy sources. One nonrenewable technology that has also received significant attention is nuclear power. Although nuclear isn't truly renewable—there are finite sources of usable uranium—it has the significant advantage of being emissions-free once the construction and fuel isolation steps are completed. Although nuclear power does carry significant baggage in terms of safety and proliferation concerns, a significant barrier to its adoption remains the long-term storage of nuclear waste, some of which will remain a health threat for millions of years. Now, in a Policy Forum published in this week's Science, two former members of the US Geological Survey argue it's time to start addressing that issue by opening a long-term storage facility to pilot studies.

The problem the authors address is unlike anything humanity has ever faced. Some of the waste from nuclear plants will retain harmful levels of radioactivity for tens of thousands to millions of years. Beyond basic issues of securing and identifying it in a way that will persist even if our current culture doesn't, we will also have to encase it in a way that will be stable on geologic time scales. In the US, a proposed solution to the storage problem was to use areas in the desert Southwest where the water table remains hundreds of meters below the surface of geologically consolidated and stable mountains.

According to the authors, the trouble started with the selection of the site for the US storage facility. Initial legislation called for the full evaluation of three potential sites before choosing a final one; instead, five years later, Congress short-circuited the process and selected Yucca Mountain in Nevada. This action, according to the authors, obscured the fact that Yucca Mountain was on the list of finalists for a variety of well-documented technical reasons.

From there, the article discusses how the inherent uncertainties of science and engineering have left the public and legal system with a poor picture of our understanding of long-term storage. Science is poorly equipped to provide the certainty that everyone would like to see for a project of this nature, and engineering faces clear limits when predicting the behavior of structures over periods that are longer than human civilization has existed. "There is unlikely to be complete closure," the authors write. "Nor will honest disagreements among scientists and engineers regarding some YM [Yucca Mountain] issues likely ever cease."

Despite the uncertainties, the authors argue that there are very real reasons to start using Yucca Mountain: 60,000 metric tons of waste, currently stored in 72 sites, "many adjacent to metropolitan areas and all next to rivers, lakes, or the ocean." It's easy to default to inertia while waiting for greater certainty about Yucca Mountain or hoping something better comes along, but the authors argue that the current storage system creates far too much risk for this to be an acceptable path.

The paper argues that storage in the facilities at Yucca Mountain is not irreversible; if problems arise, the waste could be temporarily removed, or adjustments to the structural properties could be made. In fact, the authors argue, experience with pilot programs may be the best way to start reducing some of the outstanding uncertainties that are making the current debate so difficult. Without this knowledge, we may never be able to refine long-term models of waste storage.

What is perhaps most striking about the discussion is that the message of the authors focuses on helping the public understand that science is actually not a method of establishing certainty—"There need be no embarrassment to admit to the limitations of our explanatory and predictive capabilities," they write. Getting the public to realize that science can make the very best predictions possible despite residual uncertainties remains a significant challenge for nearly every case where science has to be translated to policy.

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Nevada Appeal
June 13, 2008

Letters to the editor

Muth’s Yucca musings based on myths

Maybe it’s the rarified air atop his soapbox or perhaps it's the blinding glare of fool’s gold, but once again Chuck Muth has it all wrong on Yucca Mountain (“Welcome to Yucca Mountain Appreciation Month,” June 6).

The fact that the U.S. Department of Energy has submitted a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not, as Muth asserts, an indication that new life has been breathed into this moribund project. Rather, it is a last ditch attempt by DOE to forestall the inevitable demise of this ill-conceived federal project.

What DOE has done is foist a fundamentally flawed and incomplete application onto the NRC — in essence punting the Yucca football to the NRC in the hopes that such a move will keep the project alive through the upcoming change of administrations. DOE is also banking on political and industry pressures to force NRC into accepting the application, even though it is blatantly deficient.

Muth’s call for the State of Nevada to sit down and negotiate with the feds over Yucca is laughable. Nevada is probably closer today to killing this disastrous program outright than it has ever been. The Yucca site is still fatally flawed and cannot isolate deadly radioactive waste. There's simply nothing to negotiate.

Muth’s myth that the state is somehow losing out on millions of dollars that can be had for the asking is equally laughable. It is a fiction the nuclear power industry has sought to perpetuate for years in an effort to get Nevada to blink in its opposition. I have been closely involved with the Yucca project for over two decades, and I can tell you Muth’s assertion that the federal government once offered hundreds of millions of dollars to the state is pure fantasy.

In study after study the state undertook in the 80s and 90s, the negative impacts and costs of the Yucca project far outweighed any possible benefits that might accrue. Plus, there has never been any basis for negotiations since the Yucca site itself is wholly unsuitable for a nuclear waste repository.

In reality, support for Yucca is drying up everywhere. In Congress, long time advocates like New Mexico’s Sen. Domenici are abandoning ship. In the industry, there are calls to delink the nuclear renaissance from Yucca and pursue at-reactor and interim storage solutions (using volunteer communities, I might add). And Nevada's Sen. Reid and the congressional delegation are slowly but surely tightening the budgetary noose around the project's neck. The license application will not re-animate this project, and it likely will not even delay the inevitable for very long.

Joseph Strolin
Planning Division Administrator
Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects
Minden

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 13, 2008

Berkley wants to talk with Obama

Congresswoman has earful for Illinois senator

By Tony Batt
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- It's been a week since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., to be the next president.

But Nevada's other congressional Democrat remains conspicuously silent.

"I'm waiting for a telephone call," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said Thursday.

Berkley said she wants to talk to Obama about what he plans to do about U.S. efforts to store the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Although she feels "secure" that Obama will oppose the project, Berkley said, she needs to hear it from him.

Berkley also wants to talk to Obama about Israel and a number of other topics. Obama "hit a home run" with his speech last week to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

"I will be playing a pivotal role in this presidential election. Nevada is a must-win state for both parties," Berkley said. "I think, given that reality and given the reality that I'm on the ground all of August and all of October leading to the election, and there will be certain expectations of me, that a phone call from Senator (Obama), our nominee, is not asking a lot before I publicly make my endorsement."

Berkley also said the timing of the endorsement is important. Her endorsement of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., helped "blunt" the Culinary union's endorsement of Obama in the Nevada caucus in January because both endorsements occurred on the same day, Berkley said.

"As close as (Obama) is to Senator Reid, and they have a strong working relationship, and (Senator Reid) has already come out and endorsed him, I think I add a uniqueness to this as well," Berkley said.

"I want to establish my own relationship with Senator Obama rather than rely on Senator Reid," she said.

A call to state Sen. Steven Horsford of Clark County, who helps lead Obama's campaign in Nevada, was not returned.

Berkley said she wants to be a part of Obama's presidential campaign, not an "appendage."

Although she said in February she would be proud to become "an Obama mama" if the Illinois senator won the nomination, Berkley said she is still troubled by the way Clinton was treated during the bitter contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The sexism issue came up during a meeting Berkley attended Wednesday night with a group of women House Democrats.

"Even the most ardent female supporters of Barack Obama acknowledged and spoke with great sensitivity about the way Hillary Clinton was treated and the things that were said that went unchallenged," Berkley said.

Berkley complained about hecklers who showed up at Clinton rallies and held up signs like, "Iron my shirt."

"I don't think any of us stood up and denounced that as convincingly and as strongly as we should have," she said.

Nevertheless, Berkley said Clinton is not necessarily her choice to be Obama's vice presidential running mate.

"She would make a wonderful vice presidential candidate, but it's not a condition of my support, and I'm not sure it's in her best interest," Berkley said.

--Contact Stephens Washington Bureau reporter Tony Batt at tbatt@ stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 13, 2008

Likely Voters: Reid lacks luster at home

Poll finds majority has reservations

By Molly Ball
Review-Journal

He's a big deal in Washington, but Sen. Harry Reid still has reason to worry about what his constituents back home think of his performance, according to a new statewide poll commissioned by the Review-Journal.

The Nevada Democrat and Senate majority leader's performance is rated excellent or good by just 43 percent of likely voters, while 56 percent rate it fair or poor, according to the poll conducted Monday through Wednesday by Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc.

But Reid can take comfort from the fact that he is much better regarded than President Bush. The lame-duck president got excellent or good marks from 23 percent of those polled, fair or poor from 76 percent.

Reid's performance rating was a slight uptick from six months ago. In a December Review-Journal poll, he was rated excellent or good by 41 percent, fair or poor by 58 percent.

"You can't call it a huge turnaround, but he's kind of stopped the bleeding for the time being," Mason-Dixon managing partner Brad Coker said of Reid's numbers. "It didn't get any worse; it got a couple points better. He's certainly more popular than Bush. He can take some solace in that."

Still, officeholders like to see their performance regarded more positively than negatively, and anything under 50 percent is generally seen as a sign of trouble, Coker said.

Reid's performance was rated excellent by 17 percent of those surveyed, good by 26 percent, fair by 20 percent and poor by 36 percent.

The poll of 625 likely voters carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In the December Review-Journal poll, 12 percent viewed Reid's performance as excellent, 29 percent good, 16 percent fair and 42 percent poor.

Reid's approval in Nevada slipped when he became majority leader after Democrats took over Congress in the 2006 election. Analysts said the position casts him as a high-profile partisan, an image at odds with his 2004 election slogan, "Independent Like Nevada."

Also, voters' view of Congress is generally low. In the current poll, Congress' performance was rated excellent or good by 14 percent of those surveyed, fair or poor by 84 percent.

"Being the majority leader in an unpopular Congress makes it hard to maintain too much popularity at home," Coker said.

Reid does not have to run for office until 2010, and with the presidential election this November, the political landscape will be vastly different two years from now, Coker said. But the numbers suggest Reid makes an easy scapegoat for those dissatisfied with goings on in the nation's capital.

"These numbers show he's vulnerable, very vulnerable," Coker said. "Two years from now, he will be in the position of running for re-election and defending the sitting Congress. If promises are made and things don't get done, people are going to be looking for scalps."

Reid, through a spokesman, professed to be unbothered by the poll, saying he is more concerned with his work.

"Senator Reid isn't focusing on polls," Jon Summers said. "He's focused on continuing to deliver results for Nevada, like killing the proposed dump at Yucca Mountain, stopping home foreclosures and making Nevada the world leader in clean renewable energy."

Kenneth Fernandez, a political scientist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, also chalked up the poor rating to Reid's duties in Congress.

"When a Congress member takes on a leadership role, they're no longer a representative of their state alone," Fernandez said. "They're a representative of the entire party, and they have to say things and do things that are not necessarily reflective of their constituency locally."

But, Fernandez said, while Reid is someone many "love to hate," he is also someone whose position enables him to deliver for the state, something Nevadans are likely to remember.

As for Bush, Coker said his polling around the country has seen abysmal ratings for the outgoing president.

The Nevada poll found he was viewed negatively by Democrats and Republicans, men and women, and urban and rural voters.

"We're seeing this everywhere," he said. "He's on his way out the door, gas prices are at $4 a gallon, and he's trotting around Europe. There's a general sense that he's mailing it in right now."

Reid's partner in the delegation, Republican Sen. John Ensign, had higher ratings in the poll.

Ensign was rated excellent or good by 56 percent, fair or poor by 39 percent. The good marks reflect his continued success at seeming to stay out of the partisan fray, Coker said.

"He's from Clark County, the Democratic bastion, so he's able to maintain a certain degree of popularity in Clark that other statewide Republicans wouldn't have," Coker said. "As a senator, he's done his constituent work well. He takes care of the home front. If you go to Washington and do that, you're generally pretty popular."

Ensign's numbers were basically unchanged from December, when 57 percent rated him excellent or good and 40 percent rated him fair or poor.

Also maintaining high regard in the poll was Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., whose constituents rated her performance the highest of any member of the Nevada delegation.

Berkley was rated excellent or good by 61 percent, fair or poor by 33 percent of voters in her district.

The poll of 163 voters in Berkley's district carries a margin of error of plus or minus 7.8 percentage points.

--Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.

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Geotimes
June 13, 2008

Time to build Yucca

Rachel Carr
Geotimes contributing writer

After 30 years and $9 billion worth of federal research, Yucca Mountain is one of the most intensely studied pieces of real estate in the world. But the Nevada landmark — the proposed site of a national geological repository for high-level nuclear waste — remains shrouded in controversy. In a new report, two experts admit that scientists cannot answer every question about the site's future security. Still, they say, it is time to move forward and build a carefully monitored facility.

"The point we're making is that there will never be closure to all the questions about Yucca Mountain, or any other site" that could host an underground nuclear repository, says Isaac Winograd, an emeritus scientist of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). But that's no excuse for inaction, argue Winograd and Eugene Roseboom, also a USGS emeritus scientist, in a paper published today in Science. "We have to live with some unknowns," Winograd says. "The real question is whether it's safer to put this waste in one isolated, monitored site or to keep it spread among 121 sites throughout the country."

The idea for a centralized nuclear waste repository dates back to a 1957 recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences. Since the beginning of the U.S nuclear program, waste from nuclear reactors and other projects has been stored in temporary facilities in 39 states. Moving it to a single, underground site would reduce the environmental, health and security risks of storage, the Academy said. Congress endorsed the strategy in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, which authorized detailed studies of three potential storage sites. In a 1987 amendment, Congress settled on Yucca Mountain. Since then, the Department of Energy (DOE) has worked to design the facility.

The original plan called for waste storage to begin in 1998. Ten years after that deadline, however, the project is still mired in debate. Citizens and policymakers from Nevada and across the nation have waged an ardent legal battle to prevent implementation. Winograd and Roseboom examine the reasons behind the opposition. For one, they note, the Yucca Mountain Project was born in political controversy. Congress passed the 1987 amendment before officials completed technical reviews of the three proposed sites, fueling distrust among Nevadans who now call it the "Screw Nevada Bill."

But the other factors, they say, would apply to many proposed repository sites and thus should not continue to hamper the project. One sticking point is the public's belief that radioactive waste, once stored underground, cannot be accessed if new problems arise and the waste needs to be moved. That's simply false, the authors explain. In fact, one of Yucca Mountain's chief benefits is its openness to monitoring and possible future retrieval. The public's more general discomfort with radioactive waste storage, they argue, stems from a fear of nuclear radiation, wariness of experts and NIMBY ("Not In My Backyard") sentiments — not from technical questions about Yucca Mountain.

One technical question does have some scientific basis — lingering unknowns about the facility's security and its future stability. Yet that's just the nature of scientific endeavors and pioneering projects, Winograd and Roseboom write: "The more we learn about a given subject, the more complex it becomes." Given the vast time scales involved — much of the radioactive waste has a half-life of thousands or millions of years — precise predictions are an especially tough business.

The best way to limit that uncertainty, the authors say, is to build the repository in stages, initially as a pilot plan. "Each step of the process should provide feedback to the step that follows it," Winograd says.

Bob Loux, director of the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, says that's not enough to clear the controversy. In the minds of Nevadans, he says, uncertainty isn't the real issue. "The problem is with the site, not with the predictions."

Loux offers a long-range forecast of his own. Most Nevadans, he says, will never support the Yucca Mountain Project — even if officials follow a closely monitored, multi-step plan. "There's no chance," he says. "There's such a distrust of the DOE and the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission]. Nevadans believe the whole process is rigged."

For now, the fate of Yucca Mountain remains uncertain. On June 3, DOE finally submitted its application for a license to build the full-scale repository at Yucca Mountain (a pilot project repository has been built) to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the approval process will take three to four years. Says NRC spokesman David McIntyre, "It's definitely too early to say what will happen."

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PolitickerNV
June 13, 2008

Berkley wants a call from Obama

By Wally Edge

The R-J is carrying a great story this morning on U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) and her lack of endorsement of presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

For the lazy:

Our resident badass U.S. Rep (D-NV) who was a Clinton backer wants to take an active role in the campaign and help deliver the state. Although she loved his AIPAC speech, she wants to hear it directly from him on Yucca Mountain before anything happens.

She has a lot of friends here. I'd make the call.

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Savannah Morning News
June 13, 2008

Conspicuous absence

THE MOST glaring characteristic about our national energy policy is its absence.

Disparate initiatives lurch out of Washington like sailors on shore leave.

With gas at four bucks a gallon, people are worried. And with good reason: Every major U.S. recession since Carter donned a sweater has been preceded by skyrocketing fuel prices.

We need a plan

What could calm those fears is a coherent plan to wean the nation off foreign oil, provide necessary investment in renewable energy sources and require common-sense energy conservation measures.

To D.C.'s credit, Congress recently passed and the president signed an energy bill that bans power hogging incandescent light bulbs by 2014 and increases automobile fuel economy, among a raft of other initiatives.

But fighting our way out of an energy deficit will require more.

Here's one idea: The federal government requires emission standards for cars and heavy industry, but homes and office buildings are also big users of electricity, contributing to carbon emitted from power plant smokestacks.

Perhaps it's time for a nationwide standard on environmentally sound building practices that reduce power use, similar to voluntary LEED building codes (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

Here's another: Removing the shackles from domestic oil production.

Democrats argue that opening up areas on the continental shelf and in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling will provide small relief.

But the oil market is influenced by perception, and America taking concrete steps to find alternative sources for petroleum should have an impact beyond the oil production new wells would muster.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle must also realize the American farming community extends beyond those who raise row crops like corn.

Subsidies and tax incentives aimed at ethanol production should be strengthened for cellulosic ethanol producers. Derived from materials such as wood waste from paper production, cellulosic ethanol converts what is now refuse into a viable energy source. It does this without the inflationary pressures on food prices that corn ethanol instigates.

Renewable energy

Another necessary federal initiative is a package of tax breaks and incentives to make the infrastructure for wind, solar and wave action power production more affordable for regional power companies. While many are familiar with wind and solar power, the use of wave-powered generators is a fairly new phenomenon.

Working much like underwater windmills, wave generators may be powered by tidal action, or by swift Gulf Stream currents.

The problem is that fossil fuels pack a mighty punch. They produce a lot of energy for the price, even in today's market. Shifting to alternative fuels will require a big infrastructure investment, and that will mean a hefty jump in electricity bills should power companies have to pony up those investment dollars on their own.

It's a situation that calls for the power of the federal government to spread the pain of expensive projects among 300 million users.

Going nuclear

For their part, Americans must come to grips with another fact: Nuclear power must be part of any rational, long-term energy policy. If the French have the guts to use nuclear power, Americans should too.

Nuclear plants emit virtually zero carbon emissions. They represent one of the cheapest ways to produce electricity. And with Yucca Mountain lumbering back on track, the U.S. will have a massive storage facility for spent fuel rods.

No single measure will fill America's energy needs while lowering our dependence on foreign oil. But working in concert, a broad menu of initiatives could help insulate the U.S. from the volatile world oil market.

However, it will take compromise in Congress, leadership from the White House and skillful communication from our next president to persuade the public of such a plan's viability and ultimate affordability. At the very least, it's better than stumbling along in an oil-soaked stupor.

--Every major U.S. recession since Carter donned a sweater has been preceded by skyrocketing fuel prices.

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Stanly News & Press
June 13, 2008

Albemarle to benefit from Yucca Mtn. site

Sarah Jane Rosser
Staff Writer

As a partial owner of the Catawba Nuclear Power Plant on Lake Wylie in South Carolina, Albemarle will benefit from a geologic repository for spent nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The Department of Energy submitted its license application in early June to the Nuclear Regulatory Com-mission to construct the permanent geologic repository after Congress approved the location six years ago.

“The local people in Utah and Nevada and a lot of environmentalists have been fighting nuclear power plants for years,” Albemarle City Council member Jack Neel said.

“They are going to lose because we have to use nuclear power.”

Neel also said no one in the United States died in any nuclear spills.

“There’s no reason to be upset. There’s nothing dangerous about it,” he added.

Gen. James L. Jones, president and chief executive officer of the United States Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for the 21st Century Energy, said in a press release he cautions that politically motivated acts to delay the project will leave 39 states currently storing spent fuel above ground and set back the nation’s energy security.

“America’s current fleet of 104 nuclear reactors produces about 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel annually and with dozens of reactors planned for the future, the nuclear industry must have a clear pathway to transfer spent fuel to the government to responsibly manage its disposal,” he added.

As a huge supporter of this movement, Neel said it’s very important for Albemarle that there is a place to dispose of the waste from the Catawba plant.

“We’ve had to keep a lot of money tied up for potential disposal and it’s taken us years to store it,” he said.

“Now we can dispose of it and it will be gone.”

--Sarah Jane Rosser can be contacted at snaponline26@carolina.rr.com.

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Charleston Post Courier
June 13, 2008

When darkness comes, who will take the fall for failure?

By R.L. Schreadley

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick you head out and yell, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

— Fictional newscaster Howard Beale in the 1976 motion picture, "Network."

I sometimes wonder what it will take for Americans to get up out of their chairs today and yell, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" The thought comes to mind seeing the sheer stupidity of the ongoing debate on Capitol Hill and on the presidential campaign trail concerning what should be done in response to the soaring price of gasoline at the pump and the widespread inflation it is fueling.

Let's understand one thing at the start. The world market for oil is not a free market. The law of supply and demand does not function when the supply side of the equation is manipulated by a giant cartel, in this case OPEC, and its perhaps unwitting facilitator, Big Oil. Let's call this what it really is: a deliberate attempt by America's enemies to destroy our economy and bring our nation to its knees. Yes, we are in a real war. We just haven't done a very good job of identifying who it is we should be at war with, much less how we should fight it.

A vast transfer of wealth is taking place in the world. The fruits of Western civilization, labor and ingenuity are flowing insensibly to repressive and backward regimes that by an accident of political geography sit on vast reserves of oil and natural gas. And what is Washington doing to end this senseless dependancy? Fiddling like Nero while Rome burned?

Democrats want to tax the "windfall profits" of the oil industry as if this tax would not wind up on the backs of consumers. They want to keep in place the insane ban on drilling our own proven and potential domestic oil and gas reserves. Republicans want to drill in Alaska and in our coastal waters to lessen the need for foreign imports. Where were they when they controlled for seven years the White House and the Congress? The presidential candidates support "cap and trade" legislation that almost certainly will drive energy prices in America even higher.

Doesn't anyone remember the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, shortages, long lines at the pump, Nixon's wage and price controls, Jimmy Carter's stagflation, the misery index, etc.?

If the policies of Democrats and Republicans take effect, you can bet your SUV and your $4-a-gallon gasoline (soon to be $5) that it's going to be a Yogi Berra deja vue all over again.

Only this time it will be worse. We have not built a new refinery in 30 years and must now import a substantial amount of gasoline. We've put so many regulatory roadblocks in the way of nuclear power plants (and coal-fired plants) that it takes years to go through the permitting process. How long has the not-in-my-back-yard crowd kept Yucca Mountain from becoming our much-needed national repository for nuclear waste?

Thanks to chemistry, many things that were made of wood or glass are now made of oil-derived plastics. You cannot get away from petroleum products used in packaging, preserving and transporting the things we eat, drink and use in our everyday life. We are wedded to oil for years to come, whether we like it or not.

One of our "bright" ideas is the big subsidy we pay to distillers of corn-based ethanol even though we know manufacturing ethanol requires more petroleum-fueled energy than the equivalent ethanol it produces, and that this diversion of the corn crop contributes to the explosion of food prices that is destabilizing much of the developing world.

Nutty? Crazy? You bet. And who will take the blame for the fix we are in? Not the politician who entered office on promises and came out on alibis. Not the starry-eyed idealist who will never be happy until everyone in America is commuting by golf cart or bicycle, 20 miles each way, to work.

Not the defender of the snail darter, and who knows how many other non-human life forms on this spinning planet we call home. Who will take the blame? No one. When the lights go out, when darkness comes, all will try to make the case that it didn't happen on their watch.

But it did.

--R.L. Schreadley is a former Post and Courier executive editor.

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Indian Country Today
June 13, 2008

Not in my backyard anymore

by: Rob Capriccioso

Tribe wants nuclear waste site away from its lands

WASHINGTON - In an effort to get nuclear waste moved away from Minnesota's Prairie Island Indian Community, its tribal officials are supporting a national nuclear dumping spot in Nevada - despite strong objections from Natives living in the Silver State.

Ron Johnson, president of the Prairie Island tribal council, has recently come out strongly in favor of a renewed push by the U.S. Department of Energy to secure a controversial national waste storage site, which is proposed to be centered in an underground facility in Yucca Mountain, Nev.

Johnson's small reservation is located just 600 yards from a power plant owned by Xcel Energy Inc., and is believed to be the closest community in the U.S. to such a site. In the mid-1990s, the company constructed a waste storage pad near the reservation. Old nuclear rods containing radioactive material are housed in the aboveground storage facility.

''Until the waste is moved elsewhere, it's going to permanently sit on these pads,'' Johnson said. ''We cannot live with that at Prairie Island because this is our community, and we were here long before the plant was built.''

Johnson believes that when the plant was first constructed in the early 1970s, the federal government failed to protect the health and welfare of the tribe's citizens under its trust responsibility.

A few tribal members have been employed at the facility, but there has been increasing concern that the waste storage site is having negative health impacts on the greater population. Johnson's own grandmother passed away from thyroid cancer, and his father is currently in remission from lymphoma. Another tribal member recently passed away after suffering from lymphoma.

As a result of a recent relicensing proposal by Xcel Energy Inc., the tribe has also discovered that there may be burial grounds on the plant's property. Tribal leaders have partnered with Mankato University to explore the site to determine whether Indian artifacts and remains exist on the plant's grounds.

Many tribal members overwhelmingly support getting the radioactive material away from their lands, which is why they have turned their attention to the long-talked-about Nevada Yucca Mountain plan.

A Nevada waste storage site is supported by the Bush administration, and resolutions have passed both the House and Senate approving funds for construction there. The Energy Department is currently seeking a license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for construction to begin building the storage facility.

Many Indians in Nevada are dead-set against the plan. Just like numerous state lawmakers and citizens, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, tribal members are staunchly opposed to having much of the nation's nuclear waste stored for eternity in their area. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has expressed opposition to the site as well, while Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is supportive.

Robert Hager, a lawyer who represents several Western tribes and bands, said the area proposed for the nuclear waste site on Yucca Mountain is located on traditional ancestral lands of the Western Shoshone Nation. The tribe is currently a party to a proceeding in the United Nations before the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination regarding its claim. In March 2006, the committee found that the development of the repository would be a violation of the human rights of the tribe.

Yucca Mountain is considered by many Shoshone tribal members to be sacred. Prophecies have foretold that the crust of the mountain will one day be broken by man, and the mountain will open up, spewing poison into the air.

''The tribe feels this development is racially motivated, and that they're being targeted because there are only about 10,000 tribal members with little political power,'' Hager said.

Although Shoshone tribal members are sympathetic to the concerns of the Prairie Island tribe, they say that a further injustice involving nuclear waste shouldn't be committed on another tribe to right the wrong.

''We understand that people are desperate to get rid of this poison that is near their homes,'' Hager said. ''But it's that same desire to not want that poison in their backyards that my clients have.''

Johnson is admittedly not well-versed on the tribal concerns in Nevada. He said it's his understanding that the Yucca Mountain area is located in a U.S. test site region where many nuclear bombs have been tested and detonated over the years.

''It's an uninhabitable site that no one can even live on now,'' Johnson said, ''so what a perfect place to store this.''

Hager and many of the Indians he represents have heard the argument time and again.

''My clients feel that they have done more than their fair share of bearing the burden of the nuclear holocaust in this country. If somebody is going to have to deal with this nuclear problem, it shouldn't be them again. The time has come to stop using tribal lands and the state of Nevada as the toilet of the universe.''

Nevada lawmakers have come down on the side of Hager's argument, and have opposed the Energy Department's request for proposal to the NRC to develop the Yucca Mountain site. The commission is now in the process of determining whether it will accept the application for formal review.

Even if the license is granted, the building and transporting of nuclear materials would still be several years away. And Hager vowed that the Western Shoshone Nation will no doubt file suit, if the license does come through.

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MonroeNews
June 13, 2008

If they build a new nuclear plant, this is what it might look like

by Charles Slat

DTE Energy has chosen the kind of new nuclear power plant it wants to build near its Fermi 2 reactor, but still hasn't formally committed to the project.

The utility said it will opt for the "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor," a General Electric/Hitachi design that is attracting the interest of other large utilities and is said to be cheaper and safer than other designs.

"We are not in a position to commit to build the plant at this point, but we had to make this selection as part of the application process," said John J. Austerberry, a DTE spokesman.

"We selected that design based on several factors. One is that our analysis indicates that the cost for that plant over its full life cycle will be among the lowest of the advanced reactor designs that are available. It also makes extensive use of advanced safety features that rely on natural forces which contribute, to some extent, to its lower life cycle cost but also provide a certain level of reliability that's attractive as well."

Mr. Austerberry said another reason DTE is considering the design is because other utilities also are interested in it.

"Several of the largest nuclear utilities have selected that reactor design and we do see advantages in working with that group of plant owners, which includes Exelon, Dominion and Entergy.

"With the new standardized designs, companies that select the same plant have opportunities to gain efficiencies by working together on training, sharing operating experience, jointly managing supplies and components and sharing specialized equipment," Mr. Austerberry said.

He said he wasn't aware of any utilities that have placed an order yet, but several companies have selected the same design for the application process. The ESBWR isn't yet among the advanced reactor designs that federal regulators have approved, although it is in the review process.

According to the General Electric Energy Web site, the plant uses "passive design" features, essentially gravity-feed tanks and cooling systems to flood the reactor if there's a plant shutdown or power loss.

It says the plant has about 11 fewer systems than earlier reactors and 25 percent fewer pumps, valves and motors.

In a theoretical estimate of probabilities, GE asserts,"It is 11 times more likely for the largest asteroid near the earth to impact the earth over the next 100 years than for an ESBWR operational event to result in the release of fission products to the environment."

Mr. Austerberry said the plant would tie into the existing cooling water configuration that now exists at the Fermi 2 plant, a system of reservoirs and cooling ponds, but probably would use an additional single cooling tower, larger than either of the cooling towers now at the Fermi site.

DTE is considering building a $3 billion-plus plant with construction starting in 2014. But utility officials insist that Michigan needs to revamp its utility regulation laws before it can commit to such an investment.

Meanwhile, DTE officials applauded the U.S. Department of Energy's recent license application for the long-planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.

"I commend this milestone action by the Department of Energy," said Anthony F. Earley Jr., DTE Energy chairma