Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, October 2, 2008
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Senator Harry Reid
Reid: Radiation Standard at Yucca Mountain would put Nevadans at Risk
September 30, 2008
Washington, D.C. – Nevada Senator Harry Reid today delivered the following statement in response to the Environmental Protection Agency's standard for acceptable public radiation exposure from the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.
"Today, President Bush took time away from dealing with the nation's economic crisis to direct his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to release a new standard for 'acceptable' public radiation exposure from the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. In other words, the agency decided just how much radiation you and I can live with. Let me be clear, there is no way this weak standard will breathe life into the Bush-McCain plan to dump nuclear waste in Nevada. Instead, it will breathe life into more litigation against this terrible project.
"The EPA has collaborated with the Department of Energy (DOE) to tweak a standard that a federal Court of Appeals threw out in 2001 because it failed to comply with the Energy Policy Act of 1992 and would have left Nevadans dangerously unprotected against radioactive contamination. If the repository at Yucca Mountain was ever actually built, the DOE does not deny that water infiltration would eventually corrode nuclear waste packages and radioactivity will inevitably leak into Nevada's groundwater. Instead of working to protect Nevadans from a public health catastrophe, this scandal-ridden EPA has chosen to simply make the rules more lenient so DOE can legally dump waste less than 100 miles outside of Las Vegas. This is unacceptable.
"Instead of working to protect the health and safety of Nevadans, EPA and DOE are casting science aside in an attempt to get the nuclear waste dump approved. Instead of warring against science, I side with Nevadans and experts who support safe and attainable solutions to our nation's nuclear waste. That is why I am working with Sen. Ensign to keep nuclear waste on-site at the power plants where it is produced in secure dry cask storage containers that are approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This plan is safer, more cost-effective, and will give us at least a century to find a more permanent solution to nuclear waste."
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KVBC
October 01, 2008
Reid attacks EPA Yucca Mountain radiation standards
Washington, D.C. - Nevada Sen. Harry Reid accused Bush administration officials of issuing weak radiation standards for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site as he vowed again to block the project.
The Senate majority leader was reacting to radiation standards finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday, and he accused the EPA and Department of Energy with collaboration leading to the action. He said DOE doesn't deny that if the facility is built, water infiltration could corrode containers and result in radioactivity reaching groundwater eventually.
"Instead of working to protect Nevadans from a public health catastrophe," he said Wednesday, "this scandal-ridden EPA has chosen to simply make the rules more lenient so DOE can legally dump waste less than 100 miles outside Las Vegas. This is unacceptable."
He said EPA and DOE are casting science aside and the standards will spark new litigation by those trying to block the facility from being built. He also vowed the standards won't "breathe new life" into the project and promised to continue working on an alternative. That plan would store waste at nuclear facilities instead.
The EPA said it has developed amendments to the standards "that are fully protective of human health" and issued this release about them.
"EPA is required to set standards consistent with the findings and recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences and satisfy a July, 2004 court decision to extend the standards' duration. The Yucca Mountain standards are in line with approaches used in the international radioactive waste management community."
The standards as listed in the release and on the EPA website at http://www.epa.gov/radiation/yucca/
* Retain the dose limit of 15 millirem per year for the first 10,000 years after disposal
* Establish a dose limit of 100 millirem annual exposure per year between 10,000 years and a million years
* Require the Department of Energy to consider the effects of climate change, earthquakes, volcanoes, and corrosion of waste packages to safely contain the waste during the one million year period
* Be consistent with recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences by establishing a radiological protection standard for the facility at the time of peak dose.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 01, 2008
NUCLEAR WASTE SITE: EPA sets Yucca radiation standards
DOE must prove system can meet safety requirement
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The government on Tuesday issued long-awaited radiation standards for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, setting a key public health threshold for experts to judge whether the nuclear waste site should be built.
A regulation issued by the Environmental Protection Agency purports to set the acceptable levels of radiation that people could receive from the Nevada site up to 1 million years in the future -- no matter that nobody can tell what the Earth will look like then.
Scientists vary in their confidence to predict climate and geology that far into the future, which helped explain why the EPA took three years to finalize the standards after floating a draft version in August 2005.
Now, in order to win a construction license, the Department of Energy must prove, through complex computer modeling, that the underground tunnel system it wants to excavate 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas to store spent nuclear fuel can meet the safety requirement.
"We believe we can meet the standard," DOE spokesman Allen Benson said. The department's case is laid out in a repository license application that is pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
"With the issuance of the EPA standard for Yucca Mountain, the regulatory framework is in place for the nation to move forward to a regulatory decision by the NRC on Yucca Mountain," Benson said.
The EPA set a two-part standard.
For the first 10,000 years after the repository is filled with 77,000 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel, a theoretical farmer living 11 miles south of the Yucca site at Amargosa Valley could receive no more than 15 millirem of radiation exposure annually from materials escaping from the Yucca site.
For comparison, EPA officials say a chest X-ray exposes a patient to 10 millirem while a mammogram results in a 30 millirem exposure. Americans receive about 360 millirem a year from naturally occurring radiation in the environment.
After 10,000 years, and for up to 1 million years the allowable dose from the repository would be 100 millirems.
The time period was extended that far at the direction of the National Academy of Sciences, which concluded that the most dangerous levels of radiation from decaying isotopes could exist way beyond the initial 10,000 years.
The EPA regulation also requires the DOE to consider the effects of climate change, earthquakes, volcanoes and waste canister corrosion during the million-year period.
An earlier EPA standard that limited the standard to 10,000 years was thrown out by a federal court in 2004, sending the agency back to the drawing board.
The revised regulation is more stringent than the draft, which recommended a long-term radiation standard of 350 millirem annually.
Initial reaction from Nevada was mixed.
The director of state's nuclear projects agency said the rule was being studied but it appeared the EPA tightened the standards in several ways that would benefit public health.
"Clearly this standard is more protective than the previous one, no doubt about it," said Bob Loux, who announced his resignation on Monday but who is continuing until a replacement is named.
But Loux added that if the EPA changed directions entirely between the draft and the final regulations, the state might request a new round of public comments on the rules, which could also serve to delay them from going into effect.
"It may very well be the right number," Loux said. "But if they used a different rationale it may have to be reproposed and sent out for comment again."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the leading repository foe in Congress, said the EPA standard still was unacceptable.
"Let me be clear, there is no way this weak standard will breathe life into the Bush-McCain plan to dump nuclear waste in Nevada," Reid said in a statement. "Instead, it will breathe life into more litigation against this terrible project."
The EPA said it set aside the 350 millirem standard after receiving a number of critical public comments.
It said the newly set dose level of 100 millirem per year "is well established as protective of public health under current dose limits, and as such represents a robust public health protection standard in the extreme far future."
Groups such as the International Commission on Radiological Protection, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency "recommend its use as an overall public dose limit in planning for situations where exposures may be reasonably expected to occur."
At least one environmental organization, Beyond Nuclear, echoed Reid's criticism.
Representative Kevin Kamps said it was "incredible" that the EPA would allow future generations to be exposed to higher doses of harmful radiation than current generations.
"EPA's final Yucca radiation release regulations are unacceptable. All human generations are of equal importance and moral worth," Kamps said.
--The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 01, 2008
Sun editorial:
The big picture
Nevada should look beyond salary controversy in fight against nuclear waste dump
The overwhelming majority of Nevadans and their elected officials clearly realize the potential dangers of accepting the nation’s high-level nuclear waste at the proposed Yucca Mountain dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They know that the accidental release of radioactive waste could have catastrophic effects on the state’s population, its environment and its economy.
They also realize the fight against the dump is too critical to be derailed by the resignation Monday of Bob Loux as executive director of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects. State lawmakers had questioned the legality of pay raises Loux gave to himself and co-workers. The commission, which represents the state in the fight against the dump, is needed more than ever now that the Energy Department’s application to build the dump is being considered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Commission Chairman Richard Bryan, a former Nevada senator and governor, was right when he told the Associated Press: “From my perspective, the paramount issue for all of us on this commission is that nothing we do, nothing Mr. Loux has done in the past, will divert focus from our primary mission.”
A small minority of Nevadans who want to sell out this state to the nuclear power lobby under the guise of “negotiating for benefits” would love to believe that the salary controversy somehow justifies shipping deadly waste here. They are naive to believe Nevadans are that gullible.
If the sellout crowd is so concerned about bringing more jobs and money to Nevada, it would be better served expending its energy on the recruitment of businesses that will not create public health hazards. That way we could grow the economy without worrying about the possibility of a train wreck involving nuclear waste or an unforeseen accident at the dump.
Let’s remain solidly behind the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects, state elected officials and our congressional delegation in their fight against the DOE license application as we enter the critical end game, where a unified voice is one of the strongest weapons Nevada will possess.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
October 01, 2008
Letter: Nuclear repository may not be needed
The Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency should be restructured. It should look for nuclear technology opportunities using Yucca Mountain for Nevada rather than be against Yucca. Nevada could benefit greatly from nuclear technology by allowing nuclear power plants using "reprocessing."
Some nuclear facts: A) France generates 80 percent of its energy from nuclear by reprocessing spent nuclear fuel; B) If all the existing stored nuclear fuel rods in the U.S. plus all the currently mined uranium were used to generate power by reprocessing, this could supply all the U.S. energy needs for about two centuries; C) Spent nuclear fuel rods from U.S. nuclear plants have about 96 percent of their energy remaining in them, and thus are very valuable, requiring retrievable storage; D) The amount of nuclear waste remaining after reprocessing can be as low as 1/40th that produced by current U.S. nuclear power reactor technology; E) Japan, England and Russia also reprocess.
If existing nuclear power plants were adapted to reprocessing of some type, then storage of their waste "on site" becomes feasible while at the same time reducing the transportation risk and making Yucca Mountain less essential for nuclear waste storage.
Bruce M. Douglas
Reno
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Platts
October 01, 2008
EPA releases final radiation standards for planned repository
Washington (Platts)--30Sep2008
The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, released its final radiation standards for the nuclear waste repository that DOE wants to build at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The regulation had been under an interagency review at the White House Office of Management and Budget since 2006. EPA's issuance of the final standard September 30 comes roughly three weeks after NRC formally accepted DOE's repository application for a licensing review. NRC, whose own repository licensing requirements must reflect the EPA standard, has said it cannot license a repository until the final EPA standard is in place. As with the draft standard EPA issued nearly three years ago, the final standard is a two-tiered regulation that would establish for 1 million years the acceptable levels of radiation from a repository at Yucca Mountain. EPA kept its earlier proposed 15 millirem annual dose limit for the first 10,000 years after the waste is emplaced but reduced the post-10,000-year limit by more than a third. The 350 mrem a year limit that EPA's draft standard proposed for the period between 10,000 and 1 million years was lowered to a more stringent 100 mrem a year in the final standard.
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Grist Magazine
October 01, 2008
Go tell it on the mountain
Will the push to open Yucca Mountain shift Nevada toward Obama?
Posted by Kate Sheppard
The Bush administration is pushing full speed ahead with plans to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain -- and that could affect the presidential race in the battleground state of Nevada, where John McCain and Barack Obama are in a dead heat.
Last month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreed to review the federal government's license application for the site, where it wants to store spent fuel from nuclear plants around the U.S. as well as military nuclear waste. The review is expected to take about four years, and if all goes as planned (a very big if), the Bush administration says Yucca Mountain could open in 2020.
Yesterday, the U.S. EPA issued new radiation standards for Yucca, responding to a 2004 federal court ruling that found its initial regulations inadequate. The new regs are the same as the previous ones in the standards they set for the first 10,000 years after waste disposal: the average human living within 18 kilometers of the facility should be exposed to no more than 15 millirem of radiation per year, about what one would get from an X-ray. What's different is that the new regs tighten the standards for years 10,000 to 1 million, from 350 millirems to 100. Yep, the court required the agency to plan a million years into the future.
Most Nevadans probably aren't concerned about the particulars of radiation standards set for tens of thousands of years from now -- they are just generally opposed to the idea of 77,700 tons of waste being shipped to a site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The state has petitioned the NRC to reject the federal government's license application. In a recent poll, 58 percent of Nevadans surveyed said they opposed the storing of nuclear waste at Yucca.
Anti-Yucca sentiment, brought front of mind by the Bush administration's recent moves to push the project forward, would seem to benefit Obama; he's opposed to using Yucca as a waste site while McCain is a longtime supporter of the idea. "I believe we have to have a waste repository, and I believe Yucca Mountain is a place that can be made safe," McCain said in an interview in May 2007. McCain is also more pro-nuke than Obama, proposing to build 45 new nuclear reactors in the U.S. by 2030, and 55 more after that. Obama has run ads in Nevada criticizing McCain for supporting Yucca.
How much will Yucca Mountain actually matter at the ballot box? A poll conducted in August found 60 percent of Nevadans saying the Yucca issue would have some influence on their vote, including 23 percent who said it would sway their vote; 38 percent said it would not affect their vote. Among independents, 69 percent said the issue would influence their vote at least to some extent. In a closely fought swing state, those are numbers to be noted, but for now they haven't pushed Obama ahead of McCain.
Nevada Sens. Harry Reid (D) and John Ensign (R) yesterday condemned the EPA's new radiation standards and said they would continue to push for a nuclear-waste solution that doesn't involve Yucca. Said Reid, "Instead of working to protect the health and safety of Nevadans, EPA and [the Department of Energy] are casting science aside in an attempt to get the nuclear waste dump approved."
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, also weighed in on the development, and linked it to presidential politics: "Today's new rules make clear that the Department of Energy jumped prematurely with an answer before the question had been finished," he said. "They need to withdraw the application, finish their homework assignment, and resubmit it. The rules on Yucca Mountain are especially critical given that some in Congress, including Sen. McCain, are calling for an explosion in nuclear construction that would generate the need for a new Yucca Mountain every 17 to 24 years."
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KLAS-TV
October 01, 2008
Loux Tells Commission He Will Step Down
The man who fought Yucca Mountain for more than three decades in Nevada and in Washington ended his career Monday. Bob Loux resigned under a cloud after he admitted he gave major pay raises to himself and others during the state's billion dollar financial shortfall.
When it was learned Loux misspent more than $70,000, a lot of people wondered if the entire battle against the nuclear dump was in doubt.
In some ways it was a toastmasters' roast, a much needed goodbye and a back-handed compliment all in one.
"I think he's done an extraordinary job," said former Senator Richard Byran.
Bryan sees both sides of Bob Loux years of helping Nevada now unraveled by a career-ending mistake, "It's just indefensible."
For 32 years, Loux fought the Yucca Mountain dump, "This has essentially been my life's work."
And three decades later, no one expected that life-long battle to end like this, "At no time did we ever exceed our overall budget."
Earlier this month, Loux came under fire after he admitted he gave himself and other members of his staff thousands of dollars in raises -- some 30-percent higher than lawmakers allowed.
"It was the timing and the amount at a time when the state faces a crisis of this magnitude," said Bryant.
Some called for criminal charges and others wanted him fired. Most just wanted an explanation.
Loux says a nearly decade old law allows him to free up salaries when a job is vacant. He can move the money around, leave the job open and give everyone else raises as thank you for hard work.
Legal or not, Bryan says Loux needed to go, "This would always be an issue that would be a distraction, if you will."
So instead of firing him, the commission gave him a chance to leave his way. "I apologize for the actions that I took with the salary increase. I want to apologize to you," he said. "I think it's time that I step down and I will do so at a time of your choosing."
Loux had no other comment after he resigned. His attorney will fight an ethics complaint and potential arrest. "Once the information and evidence is produced, Bob will be cleared of any wrongdoing," said attorney Judy Sheldrew.
Now all the years of good might be forgotten, while the fight against Yucca goes on.
The Attorney General's office has not filed charges at this point for misusing the money. The ethics complaint appears to be moving forward as well.
The governor's office will now have to appoint a new chair of the agency. That may take place in the next few months. The governor's office doesn't want to lose any momentum and keep the fight going.
Bob Loux will actually stay with the commission until his replacement is ready to go.
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UPI
October 01, 2008
Head of Nevada nuclear agency quits
CARSON CITY, Nev., Oct. 1 (UPI) -- The head of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency has resigned in the midst of a scandal about unauthorized pay hikes for his staff.
Bob Loux, 59, has held the post for 23 years. He has been the point man in the state's effort to derail a federal plan to create a nuclear waste depository at Yucca Flats, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
"It's clear to me now this issue of my employment and other related
issues have become too big of a distraction to the overall effort," Loux said.
Former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, head of the Nuclear Projects Commission, accepted Loux's resignation while acknowledging that he has "ably advised four governors." Loux will remain on the job until Gov. Jim Gibbons names a successor.
Loux last year raised pay for employees of his agency, including himself, by 16 percent. The increase was above the pay raises authorized by the state Legislature.
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Deseret News
October 01, 2008
EPA sets Yucca radiation standards
Reid, Matheson call 'lowered' number risky
By Stephen Speckman
Deseret News
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday it has established final radiation standards for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The standards are intended to protect human health and the environment for 1 million years.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the "lowered" radiation standard will instead put people at risk.
"In other words, the (EPA) agency decided just how much radiation you and I can live with," Reid said. "Let me be clear, there is no way this weak standard will breathe life into the Bush-McCain plan to dump nuclear waste in Nevada. Instead, it will breathe life into more litigation against this terrible project."
Last June the Department of Energy submitted an 8,600-page license application to build the dump 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas at the edge of DOE's Nevada Test Site. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will include EPA's new standards in its licensing regulations. Congress directed the EPA to develop the standards.
The new EPA standards set per-year limits on millirem doses of radiation (15 millirem) for the first 10,000 years after disposal and 100 millirem for up to 1 million years after that on allowable annual radiation exposure at the dump site. Fifteen millirem is the amount of radiation from a typical X-ray.
On average human beings are exposed to about 360 millirem per year from naturally occurring and man-made sources, the EPA noted in a statement. Invisible, odorless radon gas in homes, ultraviolet radiation from the sun and medical X-rays are a few sources.
The final standards also require the Department of Energy "to consider the effects of climate change, earthquakes, volcanoes and corrosion of the waste packages to safely contain the waste during the 1 million year period."
Utah Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, also called the standard weak.
"Shoddy science has been used to move the flawed choice of Yucca Mountain forward ... and the latest action by the EPA is more of the same," Matheson said in a statement. "That is why I oppose Yucca Mountain and have proposed a plan to store the nuclear waste on site where it is produced."
The EPA added how its standards will be "consistent with the recommendations of the NAS (National Academy of Sciences) by establishing a radiological protection standard for this facility at the time of peak does up to 1 million years after disposal."
The waste site would be located in Yucca Mountain, 1,000 feet below the top of the mountain and 1,000 feet above ground water.
The EPA has noted that the repository would be located over a "large, deep source of fresh water currently used as agricultural and drinking water. This water feeds a larger groundwater basin south of the site that has the potential to supply many people in the surrounding area."
If approved, the site would be the country's first geologic repository for disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Thousands of tons of nuclear waste from around the country, some transported through Utah, would be dumped at the Nye County site. About 1,400 people live within 20 miles of the site.
Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons has said he will continue to try stopping the Yucca Mountain site from being built, and Reid also has been a vocal opponent. Last June Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said the application to build the site will "stand up to any challenge anywhere."
The site at one time had been proposed for opening in 1998, but legal, political and scientific controversies have pushed the new estimated operational date to at least 2020. The lifetime cost of maintaining the site is estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, while earlier this year Congress approved spending nearly $390 million on the project. In 1978 the DOE began looking at Yucca Mountain as a possible nuclear waste dump.
--More information is available at www.epa.gov/radiation/yucca.
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Salt Lake Tribune
October 01, 2008
U. scientist to stay on nuke-waste board
Brian Maffly
University of Utah geochemist Thure Cerling has been re-appointed to a federal panel charged with reviewing plans to store high-level radioactive waste in a long delayed Nevada repository.
President Bush first appointed Cerling, a distinguished professor of geology and geophysics, as well as a distinguished professor of biology, to the 11-member U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board in 2002. His new appointment runs until 2010.
The proposed underground nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, north of Las Vegas, originally was to open in 1998 as a final resting place for waste from the nation's nuclear power plants and military facilities.
The opening was delayed to 2010 and then to 2018 due to government foot dragging, ballooning costs and legal challenges.
The president also has announced his intention to re-appoint Mark D. Abkowitz, of Vanderbilt University; David J. Duquette, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.; and Ronald Latanision, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Senator Harry Reid
September 30, 2008
Reid Delivers Millions to Nevada Projects, Cuts Millions from Yucca
Washington, D.C. – Nevada Senator Harry Reid today commended the passage of a package of bills that funds the federal government and important Nevada projects, while also cutting millions from the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.
"I am pleased the Senate passed these important funding bills," said Reid. "By working in a bipartisan fashion, we were able to pass legislation that funds the federal government, delivers millions of dollars to important Nevada projects, and also cuts more than $100 million from the President's budget for Yucca Mountain."
The Continuing Resolution passed today will fund the federal government through March 2009. Funding for Yucca Mountain was frozen at fiscal year 2008 levels, $386.451 million, a cut of more than $108 million below the President's request level for fiscal year 2009. The continued resolution only provides funding through March 6, 2009, when Congress will need to revisit the funding for the agency and determine the budget for the rest of the fiscal year.
The Defense Appropriations bill, passed in this package, contains more than $82 million for military and defense projects at Nevada's military bases, universities and in the state's private sector. More than $160 million was included in the Military Construction bill for operations, improvements, and construction of Nevada military facilities. In addition to the above funding for military projects and facilities, Reid secured $102 million in the Homeland Security bill for the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium which includes the Nevada Test Site. The test site will receive $23 million of the funding to continue its vital research of new security measures and operations.
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AP Google
September 30, 2008
EPA issues radiation exposure rules for Yucca dump
By H. Josef Hebert
WASHINGTON (AP) — No one knows what the earth will be like in a million years. But a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada must be designed to ensure that people living near it a million years from now are exposed to no more than 100 millirems of radiation annually.
And over the next 10,000 years, radiation exposure to the waste dump's neighbors may be no more than 15 millirems a year, or about what people get from an X-ray. People receive about 350 millirems a year of radiation on average from all background sources.
After three years of deliberations, the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday announced its radiation health standard for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, a proposed system of underground caverns 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas where the government hopes to keep highly radioactive commercial and military nuclear waste.
It is scheduled to open in 2020 if a license application is approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The EPA has struggled to comply with a 2004 court directive that said it must establish a radiation health standard for a million years into the future because some of the isotopes in the buried waste will remain extremely dangerous for that long. An earlier standard of only 10,000 years was ruled inadequate by the court.
The agency said Tuesday it believes its latest standard is "consistent" with the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences and is expected to satisfy the court decision.
The Energy Department last June submitted its license request for the Yucca Mountain dump to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has three years to consider the request. Despite strong opposition from Nevada officials, the Bush administration hopes the site can be opened by 2020.
It is designed to hold 77,700 tons of used reactor fuel from commercial nuclear power plants in 31 states. The Energy Department recently estimated a cost of $96.2 billion of building and operating it for 150 years, until it is closed in 2113.
The EPA said that in submitting its design for a license, the Energy Department must consider the effects of climate change, earthquakes and volcanic activities as well as the corrosion of the waste packages to assure it can meet the radiation exposure requirements over a million years.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has said he is confident that the license application submitted to the NRC will "stand up to any challenges anywhere" including questions about whether the design will be adequate to meet the EPA's radiation exposure standard to nearby residents.
The NRC's primary job will be to determine whether the proposed design will protect public health and meet the EPA radiation standard. The NRC has proposed a less stringent radiation standard. And the EPA itself had a maximum exposure of 350 millirems per year for the 10,000-to-1-million-year time frame, more than three times the exposure level it announced Tuesday.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 30, 2008
Government issues radiation safety standards for Yucca Mountain
The government today issued long-awaited radiation safety standards for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, putting in place another key element to judge whether the nuclear waste site should be built.
The regulation issued by the Environmental Protection Agency purports to set the acceptable levels of radiation that people could receive from the Nevada site up to 1 million years in the future — no matter that nobody can tell what the earth will look like then.
The uncertainty helped explain why the EPA took three years to finalize the standards after floating a draft version in August 2005.
Now, in order to win a construction license, the Department of Energy must prove, through complex computer modeling, that the underground tunnel system it wants to excavate 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas can meet the safety standard.
The EPA set a two-part standard.
For the first 10,000 years after the repository is filled with highly radioactive spent fuel, a theoretical farmer living 11 miles south of the Yucca site at Amargosa Valley can receive no more than 15 millirem of radiation exposure annually from materials escaping from the Yucca site.
After 10,000 years, the allowable dose would be 100 millirems.
For comparison, EPA officials say a chest X-ray exposes a patient to 10 millirem while a mammogram results in a 30 millirem exposure.
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Las Vegas SUN
September 30, 2008
EPA issues final Yucca Mountain radiation rules
Nevada senators blast proposals as using bad science
By Mary Manning
The federal Environmental Protection Agency today issued final rules for limiting radiation standards from a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but reactions came from Nevada's congressional delegation and an environmental activist.
The new rules satisfy a July 2004 court decision to extend the standards to protect public health and the environment, the EPA said.
The Yucca Mountain standards are in line with international radioactive waste management approaches, although Yucca Mountain is the only site designated as a final repository for both spent nuclear fuel and Defense Department nuclear wastes from the Cold War.
The EPA said it retained the dose limit of 15 millirem per year for the first 10,000 years after nuclear waste is disposed.
The agency established a dose limit of 100 millirem for annual exposure per year between 10,000 years and 1 million years.
It also requires the Energy Department to consider effects of climate change, earthquakes, volcanoes and corrosion of the waste packages buried in the mountain to safely contain radiation during the 1-million-year period.
The agency also ordered the Energy Department to be consistent with National Academy of Sciences standards for Yucca Mountain at peak dose up to 1 million years after disposal.
Nevada's two senators blasted the proposed rules for radiation protection as a decision based on flawed science that will put millions of Nevadans at risk.
"Instead of working to protect the health and safety of Nevadans, EPA and DOE (Department of Energy) are casting science aside in an attempt to get the nuclear waste dump approved," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the Senate majority leader.
"Instead of warring against science, I side with Nevadans and experts who support safe and attainable solutions to our nation's nuclear waste," Reid said. " That is why I am working with Senator Ensign to keep nuclear waste on-site at the power plants where it is produced in secure dry cask storage containers that are approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This plan is safer, more cost-effective, and will give us at least a century to find a more permanent solution to nuclear waste."
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he will work with Reid in a bipartisan manner to push for a new direction in nuclear waste storage and away from a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
"The risks associated with Yucca Mountain are no secret," Ensign said. "Yet the EPA has decided to disregard science and the health and safety of Nevadans to push this nuclear waste dump further into action. Instead of trying to dismiss the risks of Yucca Mountain, our country should be moving towards safe on-site nuclear waste storage."
Bob Loux, the former director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency said his staff had not had time to do a thorough analysis, but the 100 millirem dose for annual exposure per year between 10,000 years and 1 million years is a three-fold reduction in radiation exposure.
Loux resigned Monday before the Nevada Nuclear Projects Commission.
The previous EPA rule set the dose at 350 millirems, Loux said.
The 100 millirem dose limit roughly equals radiation from five chest X-rays.
The average annual radiation exposure from both naturally occurring radiation such as radon and ultraviolet radiation from the sun and other sources such as X-rays is 360 millirems a year, the EPA said.
Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear said the move shows how politicized the issue has become as the Bush administration attempts to push the Yucca Mountain project along a month before the Nov. 4 elections.
"EPA's final Yucca radiation release regulations are unacceptable," Kamps said. "All human generations are of equal importance and moral worth. Generations living 10,000 years from now are as important as current generations, yet EPA would allow them to suffer six to seven times more harmful, cancer-causing radioactivity doses than allowed for current generations.
"EPA's statement tries to downplay the harm its proposed 100 millirems per year radiation doses at Yucca would cause by station that we currently average 360 millirems per year of exposure from natural and artificial radioactivity," Kamps said. "What EPA fails to mention is our current exposure to 360 millirems of radiation kills many thousands of Americans each year with fatal cancer."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 30, 2008
YUCCA MOUNTAIN BATTLE: Nuclear projects chief steps down
Controversy over unauthorized raises leads to downfall
By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal
Nevada's Nuclear Projects Commission accepted the resignation Monday of Bob Loux, the man who for 23 years led the state's charge against federal plans to bury nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain and whose career now ends marred by controversy over unauthorized pay raises.
The seven-member commission, led by former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, decided unanimously to accept Loux's resignation and allowed him to continue to serve as executive director of the State Nuclear Projects Agency until his replacement is chosen by Gov. Jim Gibbons.
That process is expected to take at least six weeks.
"It's clear to me now this issue of my employment and other related issues have become too big of a distraction to the overall effort," Loux, 59, said as he apologized to the commission and to the public for giving himself and other agency staffers unauthorized pay increases of up to 16 percent.
"I think it's appropriate at this point in time that I do step down from this position," he said.
Bryan acknowledged that Loux, the agency's only executive director since it was created by state lawmakers in 1985, had "ably advised four governors." He also said Loux has steered the state's effort against the planned high-level nuclear waste repository, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to a crucial point. The Department of Energy's plans are now entering a lengthy licensing review by nuclear regulators.
But, Bryan said, Loux's unauthorized pay raises to himself and his staff were "an indefensible lapse of judgment."
"Obviously the actions that you've taken with respect to your own pay are things that have been greatly troubling to all of us," Bryan said.
Loux has admitted that last year he gave his entire staff, including himself, salaries that exceeded what was authorized by Legislature. He told the commission he thought he had the latitude to do so because of a state employee classification created when Kenny Guinn was governor in 1999. Essentially, he said, he redistributed money to himself and his staff that would have been paid to an employee who left.
Loux contended the agency never exceeded the budget or salaries allowed by the governor's chart.
But he sought permission a few weeks ago from the Interim Finance Committee to transfer money from the agency's current budget to cover $500,000 he had overspent last year. The request included $72,000 for additional retirement and benefit expenses for himself and his staff that had not been factored in when he increased salaries beyond legal limits.
Upon learning that, Gibbons called for Loux's resignation. The governor then sent a letter Thursday to Bryan and other commission members that said he had ordered that the salaries in question be corrected to the approved amounts and asked that the Department of Personnel obtain repayment of the excess salaries.
"This action will ensure that the general fund is reimbursed for any salary overpayments and will also ensure that any retirement benefits to employees of the Agency for Nuclear Projects are based on the correct salary levels," Gibbons wrote.
Gibbons' chief of staff, Josh Hicks, said Monday that Loux's salary has been rolled back to the 2006 budgeted amount of $104,497. Loux's retirement will be based on a percentage of his three highest pay years, excluding the unauthorized salary increases.
"We're still in the process of ironing everything out," Hicks said, referring to an audit Gibbons ordered. It will "determine how far back overpayments go; then we'll determine any corrective action."
In a statement, Gibbons said the commission's action to accept Loux's resignation "sends a strong message that fiscal accountability must be maintained."
Before Bryan called for a vote to accept Loux's resignation with the condition that he serve until his successor is hired, he said, "This is a sad day for all of us."
After the meeting, Bryan said he had many conversations with Loux after the salary issue surfaced. "He recognized in light of the public outcry that existed that he needed to submit his resignation. He used the term, 'stepping down,' and we accepted his offer."
Commissioner Steven Molasky was absent during the meeting at the Las Vegas City Council chambers. Commissioner Joan Lambert participated by telephone.
In public comments, several people praised Loux's service but a couple of his critics, including Stuart Waymire, said that Loux, who holds a bachelor's degree in education from the University of Nevada, Reno, did not have credentials for the job.
"There must be at least a thousand people in Nevada who have better expertise than Bob Loux," Waymire said.
--Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
September 30, 2008
State nuclear commission chief resigns
By Oskar Garcia
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS -- The executive director of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects resigned Monday after questions were raised whether he illegally gave pay raises to himself and others in his office.
Commissioners of the state agency fighting federal plans for a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain voted to keep Bob Loux in office until a replacement is appointed by Gov. Jim Gibbons, who had pressured him to resign.
Loux, in offering his resignation to commissioners, said he did not want the pay raise controversy to distract the agency from fighting the dump.
"This has been essentially my life's work for the last 32 years," Loux said at the commission meeting in Las Vegas.
Loux said he authorized the raises based on interpretation of a 1999 state law that defined a classification system for employees in his agency. Loux said a state legislator asked at a hearing before the law was passed if the proposal would allow managers to redistribute the salaries of unfilled position among other staff members, and a representative for then-Gov. Kenny Guinn said it would.
"At no time did we ever exceed our overall budget," Loux said.
Loux said employees of his agency met to redistribute the salary of the departed employee as well as her duties. The pay raises last fiscal year for Loux and six agency employees amounted to about $72,000.
Commissioners said they would work to fill the post as soon as possible and estimated it would take at least six weeks. The commission does not have authority to arrange for the money to be repaid or to determine whether the raises violated law, according to an official from the state attorney general's office.
Loux had been drawing a $151,542 yearly salary, nearly a third more than his authorized amount, according to documents released by the governor's office.
The agency is under the governor's office, but Loux did not report the raises to the governor and instead signed the paperwork needed to authorize the higher pay.
Gibbons' office has said the procedure has been changed to ensure that the governor's chief of staff signs off on any future pay raises for the agency.
Gibbons issued a statement praising the commission for accepting Loux's resignation.
"This action sends a strong message that fiscal accountability must be maintained," Gibbons said. "I thank the commission members for meeting promptly to consider this matter, and I anticipate expedited recommendations of qualified replacement candidates from the commission so Nevada will continue the fight against nuclear waste without delay."
Richard Bryan, the commission chairman who had expressed support for Loux, praised his work on Monday but called the pay raises an "indefensible lapse of judgment."
"He's ably advised four governors, he's ably advised four commissions," said Bryan, a former Nevada governor and U.S. senator. "We have never been closer to the victory we seek."
Bryan said the commission would not change its position opposing the nuclear dump as a result of its change in leadership.
"From my perspective, the paramount issue for all of us on this commission is that nothing that we do, nothing Mr. Loux has done in the past, will divert focus from our primary mission," Bryan said.
Nevada is fighting efforts by the Energy Department to construct a national repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas that would hold up to 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste now stored around the country.
The department's current best-case opening date for Yucca Mountain is 2020. It still needs approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
September 30, 2008
Letter: One solution is nuclear power
I was dismayed to find a 500 percent error in the Sept. 8 article about the proposed wind farm on the Pah Rah Range.
It said, "50 turbines would produce 150 megawatts." The article failed to point out that the 150 megawatts would result only if the turbines generated at full capacity all the time. But wind is intermittent. We need only look to Europe, where they've been installing wind farms for years, to know wind farms produce at 20 percent of capacity -- in the lingo, they have a "20 percent capacity factor."
The proposed wind farm will be hard-pressed to generate
30 megawatts. Plus, it's ugly.
Frankly, the answer to the energy crisis is to install more nuclear-generated electricity. It's clean, cheap, safe, has over a 90-percent capacity factor and already generates 20 percent of the U.S.'s electricity (vs. 1 percent for wind). Carbon-free nuclear power is the only way we can retire emissions-belching coal plants.
Waste storage really isn't a show-stopper, either. The waste can be reprocessed and reused until the little waste remaining is only dangerous for a few hundred years (vs. the 10,000 to a million years we hear about for Yucca Mountain).
It's a time for hard-nosed realism, not fudged projections.
Robert Moen
Reno
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Deseret News
September 30, 2008
Bush reappoints U. geochemist to panel
University of Utah geochemist Thure Cerling was recently reappointed to a federal panel advising President Bush on radioactive waste.
The panel is mainly responsible for reviewing plans to store high-level radioactive waste in an underground repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. The panel also evaluates packaging and transportation of waste.
Yucca Mountain was originally set to begin storing waste from the nation's nuclear power plants and military facilities in 1998, but that date has been delayed to at least 2018 due to escalating costs and other issues.
Although the appointment for a second term began in 2006, Cerling, who teaches geology, geophysics and biology, said White House officials "didn't get around to the second appointment until now."
He has been serving on the panel since 2002. His second term extends to April 19, 2010.
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Springfield News-Leader
September 30, 2008
Nuclear power is the key to weaning America off oil
Ryan Cooper
T. Boone Pickens is full of hot air.
The former oil mogul is running paid advertisements urging Congress to adopt greater use of wind power, a natural resource he claims will solve our dependence on foreign oil.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Pickens wants to replace 20 percent of the nation's energy supply using vast acres of wind mills, freeing up natural gas for use in large transport vehicles. To prove it, he's spending $10 billion to build a gigantic 4,000 megawatt wind mill farm that will occupy 800 square miles of west Texas sagebrush.
He's already promising investors a 15 to 25 percent rate of return. Large government subsidies of alternative energies give him an automatic return on his investments.
Much like ethanol, wind power is a colossal waste of taxpayer money. It's unreliable, difficult to transport and generates little energy for the amount of effort.
Picken's enormous farm of stainless steel can produce the same amount of energy as a large nuclear power plant - on a windy day. On average, wind mills only generate 30 percent of total capacity.
Once produced, this energy has to be used or transported to another location for use. With constant fluctuations in the amount of energy produced, wind mills create huge problems for engineers, who have to balance peaks and valleys in usage to avoid electrical surges and shortages.
That's why Denmark, the world's leading producer of wind energy, stopped building wind mills in 2007. With constant variations in wind speed, it becomes too difficult to rely on wind power to maintain a power grid.
Transporting power over great distances is a losing proposition, as regular power lines lose 10 to 15 percent of their power every 1,000 miles. This can be solved with higher voltage power lines, but that would cost tons of money replacing our electrical infrastructure.
For the country to achieve 20 percent of its power from wind power, every available square mile of unused land would have to be converted into a wind mill farm. In much the same way, all of America's farmland would have to be covered with corn just for ethanol to make a dent in our gasoline supply.
Other government ideas, such as million dollar prizes for better electrical car batteries, will fail as well. If huge government prizes worked, we would have already captured Osama bin Laden.
Instead of subsidizing wind mills and other noneffective sources of energy, the federal government should remove the massive regulator roadblocks restricting the construction of new nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is a cleaner, more efficient energy source than coal, natural gas or alternative sources.
Uranium requires less mining than coal and produces the greatest amount of energy per resource. Nuclear waste byproducts can be safely stored in pellet form sealed in specialized containers placed in a hollowed-out mountain in the middle of nowhere, Nevada.
Radical environmentalists and their political friends wrongfully believe that nuclear power is dangerous and harmful to the environment. Sen. Harry Reid continues to insist that Nevada residents will be harmed by potential radiation from Yucca Mountain due to possible exposure less harmful than that of the sun within the next thousand years.
For the pure earth crowd, the only perfect solution is no power. That's why they celebrate high gas prices, hoping that America reverts back to the supposedly environmentally friendly times of horse-and-buggy.
They forget that horses create pollution. Before the invention of the automobile, horse manure was a constant problem in every major city. During the hottest days of summer, cities had to remove dead horses from the streets before they rotted.
Rather than step back in time with wind mills and horses, America needs to move forward with modern solutions to an age-old problem. The answers will come from entrepreneurs, who will develop more fuel efficient vehicles that use little if any gasoline.
California beer distiller maker Jerry Ogle is hoping that his $7,000 three-wheeled electric two-seater, the Vulcan, will be a huge sales success. That's why he's building a larger factory to mass produce his concept car, which he plans to introduce nationwide within two years.
Corporate welfare recipients such as Pickens aren't going to let true innovation get in the way of their government gravy train. He'll sell his energy to the nearest municipality at a market loss, relying on taxpayers to subsidize his failure.
--Editor's Note: In the interest of full disclosure, Cooper has done election work for local campaigns, including that of 136th District state representative candidate Eric Burlison, who Cooper mentioned in a recent column.
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EPA
September 30, 2008
EPA Issues Final Yucca Mountain Radiation Standards
Contact Information: Cathy Milbourn, (202) 564-4355 / milbourn.cathy@epa.gov
(9/30/08) EPA has established radiation standards for the proposed spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste disposal facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
EPA is required to set standards consistent with the findings and recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and satisfy a July 2004 court decision to extend the standards' duration. The Yucca Mountain standards are in line with approaches used in the international radioactive waste management community. The final standards will:
* Retain the dose limit of 15 millirem per year for the first 10,000 years after disposal;
* Establish a dose limit of 100 millirem annual exposure per year between 10,000 years and 1 million years;
* Require the Department of Energy (DOE) to consider the effects of climate change, earthquakes, volcanoes, and corrosion of the waste packages to safely contain the waste during the 1 million-year period; and
* Be consistent with the recommendations of the NAS by establishing a radiological protection standard for this facility at the time of peak dose up to 1 million years after disposal.
Human exposure to radiation varies from natural sources, such as radon and ultraviolet radiation from the sun, and other sources, such as medical X-rays. The average annual radiation exposure from both naturally occurring and manmade sources for a person living in the United States has been estimated to be 360 millirem per year.
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KRNV
September 29, 2008
Gov. Gibbons releases statement regarding Loux resignation
Governor Gibbons released a statement Monday regarding the requested resignation of Bob Looux, head of anti-Yucca Mountain project.
"This action sends a strong message that fiscal accountability must be maintained. I thank the Commission members for meeting promptly to consider this matter, and I anticipate expedited recommendations of qualified replacement candidates from the Commission so Nevada will continue the fight against nuclear waste without delay."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 29, 2008
Loux resigns as Nevada nuclear projects chief
The Nevada Nuclear Projects Commission today unanimously accepted the resignation of Bob Loux as executive director of the state nuclear projects agency after recent revelations of inappropriate salary increases to himself and his staff.
The commission allowed Loux to stay on until his replacement can be found. The process is expected to take at least six weeks.
Loux apologized for the actions he took in the salary matters. He said he thought it would be best for him to step down so as not to be a distraction in the state's efforts to defeat federal plans to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
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Las Vegas SUN
September 29, 2008
Head of Nevada Nuclear Projects office resigns
Associated Press
The executive director of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects has resigned amid questions over whether he illegally gave pay raises to himself and others in his office.
Bob Loux stepped down Monday at a meeting of the state agency fighting federal plans for a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.
Loux says working at the office had been his "life's work" for 32 years, and he does not want the controversy over pay raises to distract the agency from fighting the dump.
Commissioners are asking Loux to stay on until a replacement is named. Loux's replacement will be appointed by Gov. Jim Gibbons, who had pressured him to resign.
The pay raises last fiscal year for Loux and six agency employees amounted to about $72,000, covered by money left over when another employee left.
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Salt Lake Tribune
September 29, 2008
Utahn reappointed to nuclear board
By Judy Fahys
Thure E. Cerling, a University of Utah geologist and biologist, has been reappointed by President Bush to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.
Cerling has extensive experience with nuclear waste issues. He is a member of National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Geological Society of America. He also served on the 1981-83 Governor's Nuclear Waste Task Force and as an expert reviewer for plans to clean up the Atlas uranium-tailings pile near Moab.
The board advises Congress on high-level nuclear waste, in general, and on the proposed federal repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., in particular.
Cerling would serve on the technical review board until April19, 2010, under the president's latest recommendation.
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Charleston Post Courier
September 29, 2008
A waste issue states can solve
Now that South Carolina's low-level radioactive waste landfill has finally been closed to all but three states, those without a place to dump are calling it a national problem. It's a problem, all right, but one which states should be able to address under existing law.
The law allows states to form compacts among themselves to share the low-level radioactive waste problems within their borders. Under the federal legislation that created the compact system, states should be able to pass the responsibility from one state to another.
In fact, that was supposed to happen in the Southeast, which had long been served by the Chem-Nuclear landfill in Barnwell. But North Carolina's plans for a successor landfill were derailed by "not in my backyard" opposition in the Tar Heel State. Presumably, it was expected that South Carolina would be willing to keep Barnwell open forever because of the accompanying financial incentives for doing so.
The S.C. Legislature decided otherwise after a long and difficult debate, and in the face of an extensive lobbying campaign. Now South Carolina only accepts waste from within its borders and from two other small states in its compact: New Jersey and Connecticut.
Apparently Texas is taking a similar route by creating a compact with rural Vermont as its joint user of a low-level radioactive waste landfill under preparation in Texas. The option exists for other states who really want to deal with the problem of radioactive waste generated by hospitals and industry.
Anyone who thinks that the federal government should step in and solve the low-level waste problem should look at the failure to meet its high-level waste responsibilities. Despite many years of study and the expenditure of billions, Nevada's Yucca Mountain has yet to take reactor and defense waste, as planned. The same NIMBY mindset that confounded low-level waste disposal in the Southeast has stymied the federal government's efforts to dispose of high-level waste.
The opposition of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to Yucca says any effort to provide a federal solution to low-level waste disposal can expect intransigent opposition in Congress.
States should solve the problem among themselves, using the authority they already have. At least five states already have done so.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 27, 2008
Valley residents cheer their favorite candidate
By Molly Ball and Paul Harasim
Review-Journal
When Barack Obama declared that looking into someone's eyes and seeing his soul is no way to conduct foreign relations, the North Las Vegas home of Sheryl Parks went up in cheers.
Five women, all Obama supporters, had gathered there to watch the first presidential debate between Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, and Republican John McCain. They cackled knowingly at Obama's barb, a reference to President Bush's relationship with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was then Russia's president.
Across town, at the Las Vegas home of John and Caridad Pfeiffer, the reaction was the opposite. The 25 McCain supporters who gathered there frowned at Obama's remark.
But when McCain responded that he had looked into Putin's eyes and seen "three letters, K-G-B," the room went wild. "He's not going to get anywhere trying to tie McCain to Bush!" a listener yelled.
Terry Wagner, 63, said the KGB remark was one that showed "the layers of experience that McCain has."
"He has so many layers you can't even deal with them in a debate of this length," the administrative assistant said.
When McCain said he doesn't need any on-the-job training to serve as president, Wagner and the crowd shouted their approval.
Obama's attempts to try to continually tie McCain to Bush, said Damian James, a 40-year-old postal worker, will not resonate with voters.
"He's his own man, he's showed that through his life," James said. "Obama is very charismatic in front of a big crowd with everyone going 'rah, rah,' but when he's got someone firing back in a debate it knocks him off stride."
Josh Whitfield, who said he is an Army veteran who earned the Purple Heart in Iraq, said that like McCain he finds it distressing that Obama won't speak more positively about the troop surge.
"I just don't get the sense that he understands how Iraq works," the 21-year-old Whitfield said. "I was part of the surge and I saw how the people in the areas responded positively."
When McCain referred to his own military experience, Anthony Pfeiffer was impressed. The Pfeiffers' 18-year-old son is about to go into the Air Force.
"When I'm in the military, I want a president who's also been there," he said. "Obama just doesn't have the right background."
Wagner said she does not believe Obama's continual reference in the debate to McCain's voting for the Iraq war as a mistake will help elect the Democrat.
"We can argue about whether it was right or not forever," she said. "But what people want to know now is what is going to be done in the future."
Dave Gibbs, a 52-year-old Air Force veteran, said that McCain showed that Obama doesn't understand the Middle East.
"Obama sees the terrorists and al-Qaida as being in Afghanistan," he said. "McCain knows that they're throughout the Middle East. We had to go into Iraq to get (Saddam) Hussein so we could move forward throughout the region. McCain sees the whole picture and Obama sees everything in little pieces. I think we're much safer with a president who sees the big picture."
Over at the Obama party in North Las Vegas, one of several Democrats held throughout the valley, 61-year-old Ruth Brooks couldn't sit still watching the debate. She paced the kitchen floor, shouting replies to the candidates on the television in the corner of the living room.
"Yes! Preach it!" she said when she thought Obama had scored a point. "Come on now, Barack!" McCain's answers she greeted with tsk-tsking, headshaking or a tart retort.
When McCain brought up storing and reprocessing nuclear waste, Brooks hooted, "Yeah, he wants to put it here, at Yucca Mountain!"
The lights were out, the women intent on the action onscreen. The volume was turned up on the TV, which sat next to a fireplace with a display of military memorabilia on the mantel -- medals and a flag belonging to Parks' husband, a retired Air Force man.
He wasn't watching the debate. "Don't tell anybody, but he's a Republican," said Parks, 44, who owns a business development company.
Brooks, the dean of students at the Agassi College Preparatory Academy, was annoyed by McCain's declaration that "we're winning in Iraq."
"How can you say that?" she said. "Is he living in the same world as we are? We're going to tell them democracy is what they need, and for what? So we can get our oil, and 4,000 of our guys dead?"
She exhorted Obama to be more aggressive and fretted that he was being "too nice" much of the time.
She was happier when Obama at one point called McCain out for previously threatening North Korea and Iran, saying the GOP senator was not believable when, during the debate, he counseled prudence.
"Coming from you ... I don't know how credible that is," Obama told McCain.
"Hit him where it hurts!" Brooks exulted.
Sophie Braddock, 33, beamed, "You know what they say, with Muhammad Ali -- that's rope-a-dope right there."
Braddock was especially pleased when Obama insisted he was right about meeting with hostile world leaders. "He's consistent," she said. "He'll say something and be criticized as naive, but he stays with it and then people come around to his point of view, because he's right."
Several of the women in the room started out as supporters of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, including Cathy Wilson, 65, a retired General Motors worker who now works as a substitute teacher. She said she was impressed with Obama's ability to be specific about issues.
"From McCain I heard a lot of dancing around the issues," she said. "He kept bringing up his experience. Well, he's been in Congress all this time -- I think that makes him part of the problem."
On the whole, the Obama supporters didn't think the debate was likely to change a lot of minds. Parks said most people who watched probably came away with their pre- existing ideas reinforced.
The women were already looking ahead to next week and the next debate. "I think what will be really telling," Wilson said, "will be when we have the vice presidential debate."
--Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Contact reporter Paul Harasim at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2908.
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Nevada Appeal
September 26, 2008
Chuck Muth: Why Loux and the Nuclear Waste Office should leave together
Bob Loux, executive director of the Nuclear Waste Project Office (NWPO), was recently caught with his sticky little fingers in the cookie jar. Turns out the man has been giving himself a lot more in pay raises than anyone knew about or approved. This isn’t an unsubstantiated allegation, mind you. Loux admitted to this malfeasance in office on Sept. 9 at a meeting of the Interim Finance Committee where he asked the Legislature to cover a half-million dollar shortfall in his budget due to his actions.
And yet here we are, more than two weeks later, and Bob Loux is still, amazingly, in office. He hasn’t had the decency to resign in disgrace and slink off into the sunset.
Apparently only the Nuclear Projects Commission — coincidentally chaired by former Nevada Sen. Dick Bryan, who originally hired Loux for this job — can fire Loux and make him go away. But Bryan, clearly conflicted in the matter, can’t even bring himself to call for Loux to resign. Which in itself is reason enough for the Legislature to pull the commission’s funding and eliminate the entire office altogether.
The NWPO has been as intellectually dishonest in the public policy debate over Yucca Mountain as Bob Loux has been in jacking up his salary to well over $150,000-a-year without telling anyone. That neither Dick Bryan nor any member of Nevada’s congressional delegation has yet to call for Bob Loux’s head over this matter calls into question the very integrity of the state’s opposition to Yucca Mountain. If these folks will look the other way on something as serious as ripping off taxpayers, do you really think they’d raise a stink over Loux providing false or misleading information to Nevada’s citizens about the Yucca project? Hardly.
For example, one of the key opposition points constantly hammered home by Loux and the NWPO is how dangerous it is to transport nuclear waste across the country on its way to Yucca Mountain. Fine. Yes, it is potentially dangerous. However, what they aren’t telling Nevadans is that nuclear waste is and has been shipped safely all over the country for years. Or that it is potentially far more dangerous to ship other substances such as chlorine gas via the rails, something also done every day.
Equally dishonest is the habit of mislabeling anyone who merely suggests we have a more open, neutral discussion of the repository as “pro-Yucca” in an effort to demean, belittle, denigrate and demonize the person. I know this from a little first-hand experience.
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) was a sponsor at a public policy conference my organization co-hosted in Las Vegas last weekend where a discussion of nuclear energy was a workshop topic. NEI donated a mere $5,000 for the tote bags and name badges that were handed out to attendees. And yet this was reported as my being “backed” by pro-Yucca forces, suggesting my opinion was bought and paid for by some tote bags and name badges. Puh-lease.
Meanwhile, over the years Bob Loux has personally and directly been paid almost $2 MILLION in salary and benefits to oppose Yucca Mountain. Funny how they never report that Loux is “backed” by anti-Yucca forces or that his opinion is bought and paid for, isn’t it?
Loux and the NWPO also constantly tell us the notion that there might be benefits available to Nevada in exchange for hosting the repository is a “myth.” But a couple months ago an NEI representative said there might be a billion dollars worth of benefits available each year. Hello? Was he serious? Exactly what might those benefits be? No one knows because no one asked. Everyone’s too afraid of being slapped down by Loux and the NWPO. Is this the way an important public policy issue with such serious ramifications should be handled?
So yes, Bob Loux should go for being absolutely corrupted by the absolute power he abused for his own self-enrichment at the NWPO. But the NWPO should go, as well, for committing an even more egregious crime: stifling free speech. The sooner, the better.
• Chuck Muth, of Carson City, is president and CEO of Citizen Outreach and a political blogger. Read his views Fridays on the Appeal Opinion page or visit www.muthstruths.com. You can e-mail him at chuck@chuckmuth.com
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Nevada Appeal
September 26, 2008
Letters to the editor
Muth’s attacks on Loux motivated by his desire to make Yucca a reality
Chuck Muth is reason enough for me to consider canceling my subscription to the Nevada Appeal which I have had since 1971 when I moved to Carson City. I don't care for his columns but tolerate them as opinions completely opposite of mine that are to be respected.
I really felt Muth had gone too far when I read 9/16/08's paper that he was taking Bob Loux to court because of his outrage at Loux's handling of his agency's budget. Anyone who has read Muth's column on his stand concerning Yucca Mountain knows that he is extremely pro-Yucca Mountain. So it stands to reason that Muth's taking Loux to court is not due to his "outrage” concerning Loux's handling of his agency's budget but due to his own political agenda: ensuring that Yucca Mountain becomes our nation's repository of spent nuclear rods, which can only be ensured by the removal of Bob Loux.
Bob Loux has done an outstanding job as Director of the Nuclear Waste Agency and is a major factor of why the toxic, poisonous, spent nuclear rods are not currently buried in Yucca Mountain. I have no comment regarding Loux's disposition of his agency's budget and am waiting for the legal authority, the Nuclear Waste Commission, to issue a conclusion on this issue — not the governor's opinion and certainly not Chuck Muth's opinion.
So who is Chuck Muth and why does he write an editorial weekly in the Nevada Appeal? I Googled his name and came up with this information: He is a political consultant and also a professional campaign trainer. One of his favorite movies is The Exorcist and one of his favorite books is Harry Potter. He is married and has two daughters, 5 and 7, and a baby son. Child Welfare Services received a referral regarding the welfare of his children but nothing resulted of the investigation. He used to live in Las Vegas and ran for the State Senate but was defeated. Now he is living in Carson City (do you think he has an eye on Amoedi's seat?)
Bob Loux deserves an honest and fair investigation regarding his handling of the budget for his agency. But I also feel his performance for the past 30 years should be taken into consideration for the outstanding job he has done as protector of Nevada's citizens from the poisonous waste of spent nuclear rods; not Muth's self-serving extreme right-winged political activism.
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CAROLE TRIPP
Gardnerville
Nevada Appeal
September 26, 2008
Letters to the editor
Loux’s experience too valuable to discard
After reading Guy Farmer's call for Bob Loux's resignation (Nevada Appeal, Sept. 21, "A Message for Bob Loux ... it's time to go"), I'm now convinced Loux needs to stay.
Mr. Farmer worries that the Yucca dump proponents will roll out the red carpet for the Energy Department. Isn't that all the more reason to keep on board the gate keeper who's been watching the radar for 20 years? I know of no-one who knows more about how to fight the Department of Energy than Bob Loux. I shudder at the thought of an inexperienced person at the helm.
It's not time to dump Bob Loux. If he's going to be punished, I'd punish him by not letting him retire this October, as he had planned. As a matter of fact, I'd make him stay at his post until the Yucca Mountain issue was dead.
Ron Bourgoin
Rocky Mount, N.C.
Editor’s note: Ron Bourgoin, a physicist at Edgecombe Community College, says he’s been watching the Yucca Mt. issue since he worked as an unpaid consultant in 1984 to investigate a North Carolina site that was being considered as a potential nuclear waste repository.
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Pahrump Valley Times
September 26, 2008
NRC outlines process to study Yucca Mountain application
By Mark Waite
PVT
AMARGOSA VALLEY -- There have been years of research and public comment on the Yucca Mountain project. Now the application by the U.S. Department of Energy is moving into the formal hearing process before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
NRC scientists will do a review to verify the DOE results.
After the NRC issues a safety review, the case will be argued before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a five-member panel appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
No more than three members can be from any one political party. The chairman was appointed by President Bush and one vacancy exists.
Consultants for the Yucca Mountain project from throughout Nevada were in the audience at the LongStreet Inn and Casino Tuesday night to hear precisely how the NRC process would unfold.
"The only thing that NRC would be doing is some confirmatory analysis to check key elements of DOE"s conclusions, to make sure with our information independently gathered in our models and independently developed, that we arrived at the same or different conclusions," N. King Stablein, branch chief of the NRC licensing and inspection directorate, told the crowd of about 50 people.
NRC officials took pains to tell the public that though they decided the DOE application to build and operate Yucca Mountain was complete, that didn't mean the application would be approved.
The first speaker, Lawrence E. Kokajko, director of the NRC division of high-level waste repository safety, began his speech by saying, "NRC takes no position now on whether a repository can be constructed and operated at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This remains for DOE to prove."
The NRC reviewed 33 questions to evaluate whether the application was complete. Twenty-nine were listed in the Code of Federal Regulations, Stablein said.
When an affirmation hearing is scheduled, probably around mid-October, a 60-day period will begin for the affected parties like counties, Indian tribes and the state to submit their contentions. Janet Kotra, senior project manager, said Nye County has "a very special role as the host community."
Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley, in her prepared remarks, said the Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office has reviewed DOE documents and conducted its own independent technical work, including an extensive drilling program.
After all the years of independent research by contractors to verify DOE results, Eastley told the NRC: "We have yet to identify any serious issues with DOE"s program as a result of these activities. But we do believe, however, that there are areas where additional work may enhance our confidence that the safety of our citizens and the quality of our environment will be protected."
Nye County intends to participate as a party in the licensing proceeding, submitting a petition to intervene with proposed contentions, Eastley said.
"To achieve party status we realize that at least one of our contentions must be admitted by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board," she said.
Crowds turned out in Pahrump for the public hearings convened by the DOE on the environmental impact statements for the Yucca Mountain project a few years ago.
Kotra said by contrast, in the NRC hearings the public will have to demonstrate a scientific or legal contention.
"It's not just, 'I don't like the idea,' or 'DOE can't be trusted.' We have to have specifics. They have to be supported by documents," Kotra said.
When questioned further, however, Kotra said the hearing board will go into the community where the public will have an opportunity to give "limited appearance statements." Those won't be subject to cross-examination and challenges to the expertise of the witnesses and can't be used as evidence, but the judges may uncover areas where more information is needed.
Kokajko refuted accusations there were no radiation standards. But he admitted those standards were only designed for up to 10,000 years.
Kokajko listed some of the experts on the NRC staff: environmental scientists, geologists, hydrologists, materials engineers, geochemists, health physicists, seismologists, structural engineers, a vulcanologist.
Bob Halstead, state of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects transportation advisor, said his office is looking for conditions that specify the DOE will set a maximum limit of 70,000 tons to be stored at Yucca Mountain and no more than 10 percent of the waste shipments by truck.
Kokajko replied, "You mentioned a good one about the statutory limit for the capacity of the mountain. We would certainly incorporate something like that in there."
Halstead also had questions about the titanium drip shields in the casks and the cooling of nuclear waste at surface facilities before storage in the mountain.
The NRC can approve the license application, deny it, or approve it with conditions, Kokajko said.
"I may hasten to note that almost all, if not all, of any approvals issued by the NRC -- whether it's a certiificate or whether its a license -- all typically have some conditions of operation placed upon them," Kokajko said.
The NRC delegation also sought to refute any indications that by accepting the application, the NRC was inclined to support the application.
Jan Cole, who represents Lincoln County, questioned the use of a metallurgist in the interim review studying the waste packages. Stablein said the interim review only determined whether the NRC can truthfully go forward with a detailed, technical review of whether the canisters can hold up for 10,000 years.
James Rubenstone, in charge of an NRC committee reviewing the DOE environmental impact statements, a separate process from the license application, said the NRC asked the DOE for supplemental information on the effect on groundwater. He said the EIS has a wider scope and could include studying rail alignments.
Halstead was concerned that if the railroad isn't ready before nuclear shipments begin, the DOE will ship the waste by truck. There will already be 5,000 truck shipments over 50 years if 10 percent of the waste goes by truck, he said.
Kotra said the hearings on the environmental impact statements could begin as early as next year. The hearing on the license application could take place in 2010.
"If this sounds like the receiving and possessing and disposal of spent fuel is a long way off, that's in fact true. I think the DOE has suggested the earliest is around 2020 right now. It's a long way from now and we have a lot of work to do before we can assure the safety of that," Kokajko said.
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Reno News and Review
September 26, 2008
The dump fight continues
By Bob Fulkerson
The pro-nuclear sharks smell blood in the wake of Bob Loux’s alleged pay improprieties at the Nuclear Projects office. Whatever the outcome of that dispute, Nevadans should not allow pro-dump forces to soften the state’s steadfast opposition. As a 23-year-old neophyte activist just hired to run Citizen Alert in 1984, one of my first meetings was with Bob. He treated me and other activists as equals, provided accurate information, and was always accessible.
When Gov. Richard Bryan had Bob set up a nuclear waste oversight office, the first thing Bob did was hire a geologist with strong nuclear credentials to look at the U.S. Department of Energy’s claims and see if they held water. He brought on a very talented team of professionals whose studies and data collection are legendary.
In the early days of the federal program, it was Bob who stood up to the DOE’s hierarchy and demanded accountability.
His was the strongest voice insisting that DOE’s original siting guidelines reflect real measures of suitability—not approximations. While the guidelines that DOE eventually adopted were not as strong as we would have liked, they did represent a set of credible criteria. It was no surprise when, just prior to site recommendation in 2002, DOE scrapped the guidelines in favor of a general approach that was easily manipulated. Yucca would have been disqualified under the original guidelines.
Bob Loux has been the glue that’s held together the state’s Yucca fight and kept the momentum for opposing the site going. I’ve been in this fight since 1984, and it is very apparent to me that, without Bob and his team at the project office, the state’s opposition would have been drastically weakened many times. In 1987, when Congress was debating what to do about the screwed-up DOE program, and the “Screw Nevada” bill was in Congress, state legislators were being brought back to DC by the nuclear industry to tell senators and congressmen that Nevadans weren’t really that opposed and would go along eventually. It was Bob who was there making sure that the opposition stayed focused, always pointing out the undeniable fact that Yucca was a lousy site.
Under Bob’s leadership, the law firm hired to fight Yucca Mountain challenged the site recommendation and won the case against the Environmental Protection Agency. EPA was ordered by the court to go back and write a new standard; it still has not done so. Without a standard, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can’t license the site.
Loux was instrumental in every legislative resolution formally opposing the Yucca project. He worked intensely and effectively with sponsors and opponents alike. He also has provided continuity on the Yucca issue for five governors.
Now the pro-dump forces will exploit the current misfortunes at the Nuclear Projects Office to serve their own narrow interests. Let’s not allow this to happen. Nevada is still not a wasteland.
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Reno News and Review
September 26, 2008
Bruce promotes nuclear energy
By Bruce Van Dyke
Just about everybody who’s talking about energy these days is talking about the twin glamour goddesses of renewables, solar and wind. As well they should. Solar and wind power provide less than 1 percent of our power. If we can up that number to 20 percent or even 30 percent by 2020, that’d be nice. There’s also plenty of talk in the chatosphere about natural gas, biodiesel, flex fuels, hydrogen, coal (clean coal? right), even algae, for cryin’ out loud. It’s an exciting time.
But with all this energy talk going ’round, I can’t help but notice that the one source of power that could very well be THE answer to our dilemma, the one source of energy that could, within the next 30 years, truly and finally deliver us into this most desirable place known as Energy Independence, is rarely mentioned. If ever.
Here we have an impressive power source that will provide energy around the clock, no matter if the sun shows, the wind blows, or the corn grows. A source that, when packaged in a pellet the size of your little finger, contains the same amount of energy as 149 gallons of oil and 1,780 pounds of coal. Let that sink in for a second. A pellet the size of YOUR LITTLE FINGER, packing the energy equivalent of nearly a TON of coal.
It’s an energy source found in abundance in North America, especially Canada. Enough to run power plants for a long, long time. This means we would never again have to invade countries and kill a bunch of people to keep our homes humming. That’s big. We could tell OPEC, once and for all, to buzz the eff off. That, too, would be big. You realize how many TRILLIONS of dollars we would save? Most important, in this era of rapidly rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, the combustion of this particular material in a power plant releases only 1 to 4 percent of the CO2 of a similarly-sized coal plant. That’s huge. HUGE.
And yet, we’ve pretty much turned our backs on uranium. Yep, I’ve been drinkin’ the U-flavored Kool-Aid, from a 2007 book entitled Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy, by Gwyneth Cravens. And damned if I haven’t come away with the feeling that new, modern nuke plants should at least be included in The Energy Conversation.
Twenty years ago, we could be decadent enough to allow ourselves to be scared off by Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and The China Syndrome. Oil was cheap and plentiful, solar was eccentric and expensive, and nukes, well, nukes were just too damn dangerous to take seriously anymore. And leave us not underestimate Homer Simpson’s ability to make nuclear power look like a bad joke!
But things, as Cravens discovered, have changed. More next week, including critical new developments in handling plutonium waste and the best place in the world to stash it. And no, it ain’t Yucca Mountain.
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World Nuclear News
September 26, 2008
Oak Ridge wastes begin disposal
Oak Ridge National Laboratory sent its first consignment of radioactive waste to the Wipp facility yesterday for permanent disposal.
The site shipped defence-related transuranic waste directly to the US Department of Energy's (DoE's) Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (Wipp). A truck with three loaded Trupact-II shipping containers departed from Oak Ridge on 24 September and arrived at Wipp yesterday.
Packaging and certifying the waste took several months, the DoE said, and final approval was needed from both the Environmental Protection Agency and the New Mexico Environment Department. An audit report was also produced, which validated Oak Ridge's ability to perform the work by established procedures.
Wipp is designed for permanent storgage of defense-related transuranic waste. Waste temporarily stored at sites around the country is shipped to Wipp and permanently disposed of in rooms mined out of an ancient salt formation 650 metres below the surface. The project opened in 1999 and has so far received precisely 6894 shipments of waste, which covered almost 13 million loaded kilometres.
The USA's civilian radioactive nuclear waste management program by contrast has seen less success: The Yucca Mountain repository has been dogged by opposition and escalating costs, while current estimates putting completion in 2017 have been described as optimistic. A license application for construction has been submitted, but the lateness of the project has inconvenienced the nuclear utilities that have paid billions of dollars to government for the project. The US government has already refunded some utilities the costs they incurred building interim stores for their used fuel.
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Greenville News
September 26, 2008
PSC official: Nuclear waste issue has gotten Washington's attention
Doug Abrahms
WASHINGTON -- David Wright, a South Carolina Public Service commissioner, said Thursday that a Senate roundtable on what to do to with the nuclear waste building up at nuclear power plants shows that Washington is focusing on the problem.
"It's a discussion that has been bubbling below the surface for awhile," said Wright, who suggested that the U.S. should look at a number of alternatives to moving nuclear waste from power plants.
The U.S. plan to ship high-level nuclear waste to geologic repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is decades behind schedule and faces an uncertain future. Sens. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and Tom Carper, D-Del., held a roundtable discussion Thursday to talk with industry and government experts about other options.
Attention has focused on reprocessing the nuclear fuel after it used by commercial reactors, similar to what is done in France and Japan. Another possibility is setting up interim storage facilities that could store the nuclear waste for decades until a better solution is developed.
South Carolina is home to four nuclear power plants that produce more than half the state's electricity. Power companies have filed applications to build four more reactors.
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Green Bay Press Gazette
September 26, 2008
Nuclear power gaining support Wisconsin Utility meeting discusses energy sources
Richard Ryman
ASHWAUBENON — Nuclear power increasingly is discussed as a solution to both electric supply and environmental problems in Wisconsin.
Evidence of that was apparent during Thursday's Wisconsin Utility Investors Inc. annual meeting at the Resch Center.
A panel discussion on nuclear power packed a conference room — something WUI representatives said was unusual — and the panel consisted of a Republican, Rep. Phil Montgomery of Ashwaubenon, and a Democrat, Rep. Jim Soletski of Green Bay, who both favor nuclear power.
Montgomery is chairman and Soletski a member of the Assembly energy and utilities committee, and Soletski is a retired employee of the Kewaunee nuclear plant.
Montgomery said he and Soletski, during the last legislative session, were able to get 58 Assembly votes, out of 99 members, toward the repeal of a state moratorium on new nuclear plant construction. Soletski said even some Democrats who voted against the repeal admitted it is time to resume the discussion on nuclear power.
Montgomery said renewable energy must be in the mix, but cannot be the core of electricity production. Soletski said the transportation costs of coal make it an increasingly expensive source of electricity.
"If we want to get away from gas and oil and we want to have electric cars, how are we going to charge them up at night? We'll need electric plants," he said.
In a later presentation, Mary Ann Bernald of Edison Electric Institute said demand for electricity is expected to increase 30 percent by 2030.
One of the cornerstones of Wisconsin's moratorium is a requirement that the federal government have available a spent nuclear fuel storage facility. The government is trying to provide such a facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, but is decades behind schedule.
Jim Nemecek of Kewaunee is not happy with the spent fuel storage situation. He is quick to point out that he is entirely in favor of nuclear energy, but he thinks the government has failed on its end.
"Kewaunee and Manitowoc counties did not buy into being nuclear storage facilities," he said. "Why can't we be like France and recycle (fuel rods). We've become Yucca Mountain."
Currently, nuclear plants store spent fuel onsite, either in fuel pools in the plants or in dry-cask storage. Point Beach Nuclear Plant in Two Creeks used dry-cask storage. Kewaunee Power Station uses in-pool storage, but is building a dry-cask facility. Kewaunee spokesman Mark Kanz said the plant expects to begin moving spent fuel to dry storage in late spring or early summer 2009.
Wisconsin Utility Investors has 16,000 members, the majority of whom are retired and, the organization says, 96 percent of whom voted in the last election.
The organization is supporting an effort to get Congress to extend the 15 percent tax rate on dividends past 2010.
Many retired people invest in utility stocks because they pay the highest dividends of any industry.
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SlashGear
September 26, 2008
Hyperion Power’s portable nuclear reactors could ship by 2013
by Brenda Stokes
Late last year word first got around about the portable nuclear reactors Hyperion Power was planning on developing. But now in late 2008, the company is still committed to the idea and have even set a shipping date of June 2013. That’s pretty ambitious!
Not much is known about the planned portables, but concerns about backyard nuclear bomb making should be put to rest according to the company. They note that their fuel is uranium hydride, UH3, which is low-enriched and 10% -235. Fuel used in bombs is 98% enriched. Somehow, this doesn’t make me feel that much better about it.
Waste would obviously be a big concern here, especially when you look to the big nuclear power plants which are currently housing their waste in Yucca mountain. But again, Hyperion Power ensures waste won’t be a problem as it will only be “about the size of a football,” and that’s after “powering 20,000 homes for 8-10 years.” They have a recycling plan, apparently but can’t reveal it due to “security reasons.” Hmm, still not on board with this one. What do you all think?
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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