Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, October 30, 2008
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Las Vegas SUN
October 30, 2008
Sun editorial:
‘Blah, blah, blah’
McCain’s remarks on nuclear waste storage show his contempt for Nevada
Republican presidential candidate John McCain has said he would support the use of Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the dump site for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste. That is one of many reasons why Nevadans should vote for Democratic opponent Barack Obama, who has said he would kill the repository plan.
At a campaign stop Sunday in Cedar Falls, Iowa, 1,300 miles away from Southern Nevada, McCain continued to show that he doesn’t care about Nevada. He did so by mocking Obama’s concerns about how to safely store spent nuclear fuel, something McCain brought up during their last debate.
“We talked about nuclear power,” McCain said. “Well, it has to be safe environment(ally), blah, blah, blah.” That dismissive response, which drew cheers and applause from Iowans at this McCain rally, showed just how out of touch McCain is with the majority of Nevadans, who steadfastly oppose the dump. If the federal government had instead planned for the dump to be in Arizona, McCain’s home state, do you think he would have taken Obama’s remarks so lightly?
McCain’s nuclear power response is symbolic of a campaign that has never embraced the deep thought and creative ideas Americans demand in this general election. Instead, McCain has resorted to shallow catchphrases, name-calling and other negative attacks to appeal to an ever dwindling base of support.
There is nothing funny or trite about nuclear waste. No one in their right mind would want to live anywhere near a radioactive dump or along any of the routes that would be used to transport the deadly material. Why should Nevadans, who are concerned about the future of this state, support a candidate who cares so little about their well-being?
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UPI
October 30, 2008
Yucca Mountain contract is awarded
WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy says it's awarded a five-year, $2.5 billion Yucca Mountain management and operating contract to USA Repository Services.
Officials said the company, a subsidiary of the URS Corp. (NYSE:URS), will be supported by subcontractors Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure Inc. and AREVA Federal Services Inc.
The Yucca Mountain Project is an Energy Department nuclear reactor fuel and radioactive waste repository located within Yucca Mountain in Nevada, about 80 miles from Las Vegas.
"If we are to meet growing energy demand and slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear power must be a larger part of our energy mix; it is a mature technology with significant potential to supply large amounts of safe, reliable, emissions-free base load power," said Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman.
"In order to ensure such an expansion can occur, the United States must have a permanent repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste," Bodman said. "This contract will enable our national repository program to move forward by securing the necessary management and operations expertise needed as we begin the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing proceedings."
The five-year contract has a potential five-year option period. If fully exercised, the contract would continue through March 31, 2019.
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Post-Bulletin
October 30, 2008
Tribe concerned about license renewal
By Laura Gossman
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN
RED WING -- An attorney for the Prairie Island Indian Community voiced the community's concerns regarding the renewal license for the nearby Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant during a hearing on Wednesday in Hastings, Minn., in front of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's atomic safety and licensing board.
Northern States Power Co. manages Xcel Energy Services, which owns the nuclear plant and hopes to extend operations at the Prairie Island plant for another 20 years and increase the number of on-site storage containers for nuclear waste.
Tribal attorney Philip Mahowald cited environmental and health-related concerns about the plant's application. He also said the report doesn't address historic or archeological properties that could be affected.
"When two cooling towers were erected, it destroyed six burial mounds," Mahowald said.
The power company's attorney, David Lewis, said the company hired an archeologist to investigate before construction started. The same archeologist has returned before more construction was done, and more sites were found in the 1980s.
"Three of the six mounds had already been leveled from decades of farming and plowing," Lewis said. Two mounds were excavated to see if they were resources that need to be protected, and no remains were found. He said the two mounds were designated as earthworks, not burial mounds.
Mahowald said the community wants a study to determine whether the nuclear plant has increased tribe members' chances of getting cancer. The community is about 600 yards from the storage containers at the nuclear plant.
In the past, tribal leaders have said they favor removal of the plant's nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Members of the tribal council said in a statement they appreciated the opportunity to express their concerns.
"We know this is a step in the larger process, and we look forward to working with the NRC and Xcel Energy to come to a solution that addresses our community's many concerns," the statement said.
Nonetheless, the community remains opposed to the re-licensing.
"We will continue to participate at every possible venue to ensure our voice is heard," the statement said. "The entire history of the plant demonstrates a complete disregard of our community and the rights and interests of our members, and we are committed to finding resolution to our concerns."
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Capitol Hill Blue
October 30, 2008
McCain is misleading on nuclear power...
I watched McCain give a speech in Florida where he pushed his regular piece about the safety of nuclear power... and his complaint that Obama will consider it,but has a problem with spent fuel. And then he said that the French recycles their waste and "we always want to be like the French" and he laughed.
I felt the need to do a web search on France and spent nuclear rods. This is an example of what I found:
France recycles spent rods, but they still have a portion that cannot be recycled into fissile material. This stuff gets vitrified by mixing into molten glass, and gets stored. Now, in case you didn't know, France still has overseas colonies. I don't remember the details, but last I remember, they shipped their waste away to be stored at one of their colonies, which is a disgrace.
That was from a Digg poster named Berkana.
And this from a 2005 article in IPS News:
Most of that waste is of no further use, and is simply stored at the nuclear plant. Today there are an estimated 200,000 tonnes of this nuclear material being warehoused there.
But 30 to 40 percent of Eurodif's depleted uranium -- 4,500 to 6,000 tonnes annually -- is sent to Russia, where it undergoes "enrichment" to turn it back into fuel for nuclear power plants. Just one-tenth of that uranium returns to France, and the rest remains in Russia, stored in inadequate conditions, say the environmental activists.
Our nuclear waste would likely be more... and where would we store it? Yucca Valley?
And this article in Scientific American brings up the problem with sending spent fuel to Russia and what is developing in Europe:
Those agreements specified, however, that the separated plutonium and any highly radioactive waste would later go back to the country of origin. Russia has recently adopted a similar policy. Hence, governments that send spent fuel abroad need eventually to arrange storage sites for the returning radioactive waste. That reality took a while to sink in, but it has now convinced almost all nations that bought foreign reprocessing services that they might as well store their spent fuel and save the reprocessing fee of about $1 million per ton (10 times the cost of dry storage casks).
So France, Russia and the U.K. have lost virtually all their foreign customers. One result is that the U.K. plans to shut down its reprocessing plants within the next few years, a move that comes with a $92-billion price tag for cleaning up the site of these facilities. In 2000 France considered the option of ending reprocessing in 2010 and concluded that doing so would reduce the cost of nuclear electricity. Making such a change, though, might also engender acrimonious debates about nuclear waste—the last thing the French nuclear establishment wants in a country that has seen relatively little antinuclear activism.
So there are still questions which, as Obama has aid, need to be answered.
McCain is ready to jump into a new and extreme danger to Americans for the sake of getting votes. I would feel better if he read the information that's out there and then actually put his country first.
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Personal Computer World
October 30, 2008
Challenges dog nuclear option, despite low carbon benefits
Politicians may be sold on nuclear as a vital component in a low carbon energy mix. But as Danny Bradbury discovers a nuclear renaissance is no cast iron certainty
Danny Bradbury
BusinessGreen
The world is choking on carbon. We're entering an energy-constrained economy as consumers and businesses alike begin to wonder where their next electron is coming from.
No wonder, then, that French company EDF recently agreed to take over the British nuclear industry by purchasing British Energy for £12.5bn. The purchase gives it access to all but two of the country's nuclear power plants, which will in any case shut down in 2010.
The government has touted the purchase as part of a global "renaissance" for the nuclear industry, that will see the UK's aging fleet of nuclear power stations replaced, at least four more reactors constructed and the UK begin to export its nuclear expertise to other countries. But how viable is the nuclear renaissance, at home and further afield, and what constraints do energy companies face as they try to bring reactors onstream?
There are several significant benefits to nuclear power that have prompted talk of a renaissance in the technology, and William Kovacs, vice president of environment, technology, and regulatory affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce, is happy to point them out. "A lot of people don't want to look at nuclear energy," says Kovacs, who recently authored a report warning of the costs associated with regulating CO2. "You can generate large baseloads of electricity, which is what we need, and not generate any CO2."
In contrast, renewable sources like wind and solar are notoriously unreliable in terms of baseloads. The energy is there when the sun or the wind is up, but of course such resources are sporadic. Conversely, nuclear plants produce constant energy, and lots of it. Unlike coal plants, they produce no carbon emissions, and can therefore be useful at a time when legislation is mandating energy producers to reduce their greenhouse gas output.
Secondly, once up and running their fuel efficiency is extremely high; uranium is up to 16,000 times as efficient as oil. On the face of it, in an economy where energy costs seem set only to rise, nuclear energy looks like a no-brainer.
Nevertheless, the concept faces significant challenges in the future, not the least of which are financial, warns Jurgen Weiss, managing director of advisory services at carbon trading analyst firm Point Carbon. "In the climate change community there is still a widespread belief that in the US nuclear will play a substantial role in solving the climate change problem," he says. "I am less certain. Even if you could argue that it makes sense, I think there are some serious practical hurdles for the next generation of nuclear plants to get off the ground, and access to debt is one."
The financial crisis could not have come at a worse time for companies hoping to capitalise on the nuclear business. Clean tech firms face enough challenges in terms of getting project funding in a cash-constrained market, but the capital required to build a nuclear plant dwarfs that needed for, say, a decent-sized wind farm.
Moreover, wind farms and solar plants can begin producing energy relatively soon after construction begins, and can expand their energy in line with additional construction. Nuclear plants don't move any juice until they're completed, and they can take a long time to build.
In Asia, which is the region most likely to kick-start the nuclear business, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency says that reactors are taking an average of 62 months - just over five years - to come online. Many of these reactors are scheduled for grid connection in the next couple of years. However, The wider picture looks more dismal. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says that 35 reactors are currently in construction around the world, but many have no official grid connection dates, or in some cases even start dates.
The UK isn't the only western country hoping for a nuclear renaissance. The outgoing US administration has been pushing for a revival since the DoE unveiled Bush's Nuclear 2010 strategy six years ago. The programme originally pursued the goal of deploying new nuclear reactors in the US by 2010, a goal that is now no longer realistic. Only one reactor is currently being built in the US, and that one started in 1972. After a long cessation, construction has restarted and it is now slated for completion in 2013.
However, despite the challenges governments remain commited to making the nuclear renaissance a relaity.
While the renewable energy sector has had to lobby extensively for production and renewable tax credits, the decades-old nuclear industry has a history of government subsidy and taxpayer support looks set to continue. In the UK, British Energy was bailed out by the British Government in 2002, leaving the UK taxpayer on the hook for at least $5.4bn, according to a Houses of Parliament Select Committee report.
In the US, the 2005 Energy Policy Act provides a production tax credit of up to $18 per kw/hr for the first eight years of a plant's operation for advanced third generation nuclear reactors. It also legislated low-debt financing on up to 80 per cent of construction costs for advanced nuclear plants subject to certain conditions, guaranteeing that if the utility defaulted on the loan, the Treasury would pick up the tab.
Advocates of nuclear power argue that such support is necssary when the cost of construction for nuclear power plants is estimated at around 30 per cent more than that for conventional non-clean coal or natural gas plants.
But while using the public purse to underwrite loans for expensive construction projects is welcomed by the nuclear industry, it is perhaps less appealing to consumers recently saddled with a trillion dollar quasi-nationalisation of the financial sector.
The future of the nuclear sector will depend in large part on the regulatory landscape over the next few years. An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office suggests conditions for the successful construction and operation of nuclear plants rests on whether carbon emissions are regulated and factored into energy plants' costs.
The Warner-Lieberman bill that failed to make it through Congress this year would have imposed a mandatory cap-and-trade mechanism in the US, as has happened in Europe. Both presidential candidates have expressed support for such a scheme going forward. The CBO analysis said that under such a carbon regime, nuclear power would become the cheapest form of electricity if carbon were traded at $45 per metric tonne. However, that is subject to current assumptions about volatile parameters such as construction costs.
But with doubts about the future make up of carbon cap-and-trade schemes and the subsequent price of carbon continuing, reviving the nuclear industry won't be the slam-dunk certainty that advocates might have us believe.
When Reagan laid out plans to expand nuclear capacity in 1981, some of the economic conditions were similar to those we face today. There was tension in the middle east following the Iranian revolution and the commencement of the Iran/Iraq war. Oil prices had spiked just as the world went into a recession. And while he didn't face the prospect of carbon regulation, neither did he have to contend with such deep concerns over nuclear waste disposal - the federal Yucca mountain project, designed to store nuclear waste in a hollowed-out mountain in Nevada, is woefully behind schedule and nuclear waste is languishing in reactor-based cooling ponds that experts suggest represent perfect terrorist targets.
Even against this backdrop, Regan failed to kickstart the nuclear industry. Bush didn't do much better. How will the next president do, or will it remain up to the Asian tigers to pull it along?
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KRNV
October 28, 2008
Dr. Ty Cobb says Yucca Mountain has two choices
It's a major issue for Nevadans but it has barely surfaced during the presidential campaign.
A new president, congress and a new head of our state's anti-Yucca Mountain efforts could mean big changes in the future of the national nuclear waste dump.
Dr. Ty Cobb-former Special Assistant for National Security in the Reagan administration joined the Dunbar Report Monday night. Cobb has become a voice of pragmatism on the Yucca Mountain issue, an advocate of re-thinking Nevada's unconditional opposition.
Cobb says, among other things, that the state nuclear projects agency hasn't been filling the purpose its name implies. He's advocated that the state should drop its no compromise opposition and explore two alternatives: to seek compensation for Nevada from the federal government and a federal commitment to reprocess the waste that would eliminate 95 percent of the material.
It will probably be late December before Gov. Gibbons appoints a replacement for Bob Loux, who resigned under fire as head of the Nevada office fighting a proposed nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain.
As Executive Director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, Loux headed the fight to keep the national waste dump out of Nevada for more than two decades.
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News & Observer
October 28, 2008
Point of View:
Nuclear power: the positives
George Landberg
APEX - There are negative aspects of all sources of electricity, so the real question in assessing nuclear power has to be, "What is the alternative?" Let's look closely at areas of discussion presented in an Oct. 15 Point of View article critical of nuclear power and examine the alternatives.
COST: Before talking about costs, one must differentiate baseload power supply available 24 hours a day and peaking power used to supply the grid when demand hits the daily maximum, from random power sources such as wind and solar that are dependent on environmental conditions and the daily solar cycle.
Wind and solar power are desirable and need to be developed, but to hold either of these sources out as a substitute for nuclear or fossil fueled generation is misleading and wrong. There is no effective economical way currently to store large quantities of solar or wind generated electricity.
The real question is how best to satisfy this country's need for increased power demand in the next 20 to 50 years.
Nuclear power is competitive with fossil fuel (coal, oil, natural gas) plants, with current operating costs in many locations lower than fossil fuel plants. Initial construction costs are higher versus fossil fuel plants, partially driven by the high costs of the permitting process and the lack of a standardized design used for multiple plants. Both of these issues are being addressed in the U.S., and we have much to learn from France, which has successfully dealt with both issues.
PROLIFERATION: This is an international political issue that doesn't change if we build or don't build new nuclear capacity. Countries such as Iran and North Korea will do what they are going to do without regard to new capacity plans here.
RISK: The simple truth is that in all the years of plant operation, no measurable nuclear release has occurred in the U.S. (including Three Mile Island). The one major global release, at Chernobyl, was from a graphite reactor of an obsolete design. Every safety system in a nuclear plant has multiple backup systems, and the test and inspection schedules provide ample protection as plants age. Many current plants are reaching the end of their operating cycles and will need to be retired -- which is exactly why we must build new capacity.
WASTE: Would you rather deal with nuclear waste or fossil fuel waste? If you believe that global warming is mankind's problem for generations to come, then we must control the release of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel plants and also face the fact that oil- and gas-burning generating plants will need to be retired because oil and gas reserves should be conserved for applications requiring mobility (i.e. highway vehicles and trains).
Removing carbon dioxide from fossil fuel exhaust gases is an expensive process and there are at present no long-term approaches for sequestering the carbon dioxide removed for long periods. The amount of storage capacity needed is staggering, and uses for these vast quantities of carbon dioxide are limited.
Nuclear waste, on the other hand, is highly concentrated. The amount of storage space required is very small versus carbon dioxide. Trying to predict the actions of geological faults a thousand years from now is not possible, but we know today that Yucca Mountain is the best site in this country, and we need to open it and start moving nuclear waste there. I have confidence that with monitoring and diligent oversight mankind is capable of managing this site, and that dealing with a contained contaminant within a small area is preferable to dealing with vast quantities of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
WATER: Nuclear plants do require larger quantities of cooling water versus a fossil fuel plant, but they do not contaminate the water (other than thermal heating) that is discharged or evaporated. The water returns to the natural water cycle. The issue is one of local availability, which needs to be studied and planned for. Fossil fuel plants use water in many instances for scrubbing the discharge gas stream, which then needs to be further treated for removal of dissolved gases and particulates. The quantities are substantially less but solid wastes result.
We have many choices for power, but in the immediate future the principal choice becomes fossil fuel or nuclear. If you believe global warming is being impacted by fossil fuel plant generation, then nuclear generation is the only current technology that can meet our energy needs.
--(George Landberg is a retired engineer and business executive.)
Baltimore Chronicle
October 28, 2008
Environmental Economics:
The Flawed Economics of Nuclear Power
by Lester R. Brown
Over the last few years the nuclear industry has used concerns about climate change to argue for a nuclear revival. Although industry representatives may have convinced some political leaders that this is a good idea, there is little evidence of private capital investing in nuclear plants in competitive electricity markets. The reason is simple: nuclear power is uneconomical.
In an excellent recent analysis, “The Nuclear Illusion,” Amory B. Lovins and Imran Sheikh put the cost of electricity from a new nuclear power plant at 14¢ per kilowatt hour and that from a wind farm at 7¢ per kilowatt hour. This comparison includes the costs of fuel, capital, operations and maintenance, and transmission and distribution. It does not include the additional costs for nuclear of disposing of waste, insuring plants against an accident, and decommissioning the plants when they wear out. Given this huge gap, the so-called nuclear revival can succeed only by unloading these costs onto taxpayers. If all the costs of generating nuclear electricity are included in the price to consumers, nuclear power is dead in the water.
To get a sense of the costs of nuclear waste disposal, we need not look beyond the United States, which leads the world with 101,000 megawatts of nuclear-generating capacity (compared with 63,000 megawatts in second-ranked France). The United States proposes to store the radioactive waste from its 104 nuclear power reactors in the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, roughly 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. The cost of this repository, originally estimated at $58 billion in 2001, climbed to $96 billion by 2008. This comes to a staggering $923 million per reactor—almost $1 billion each—assuming no further repository cost increases. (See data).
In addition to being over budget, the repository is 19 years behind schedule. Originally slated to start accepting waste in 1998, it is now set to do so in 2017, assuming it clears all remaining hurdles. This leaves nuclear waste in storage in 121 temporary facilities in 39 states—sites that are vulnerable both to leakage and to terrorist attacks.
One of the risks of nuclear power is a catastrophic accident like the one at Chernobyl in Russia. The Price-Anderson Act, first enacted by Congress in 1957, shelters U.S. utilities with nuclear power plants from the cost of such an accident. Under the act, utilities are required to maintain private accident insurance of $300 million per reactor—the maximum the insurance industry will provide. In the event of a catastrophic accident, every nuclear utility would be required to contribute up to $95.8 million for each licensed reactor to a pool to help cover the accident’s cost.
The collective cap on nuclear operator liability is $10.2 billion. This compares with an estimate by Sandia National Laboratory that a worst-case accident could cost $700 billion, a sum equal to the recent U.S. financial bailout. So anything above $10.2 billion would be covered by taxpayers.
Another huge cost of nuclear power involves decommissioning the plants when they wear out. A 2004 International Atomic Energy Agency report estimates the decommissioning cost per reactor at $250–500 million, excluding the cost of removing and disposing of the spent nuclear fuel. But recent estimates show that for some reactors, such as the U.K. Magnox reactors that have high decommissioning waste volumes, decommissioning costs can reach $1.8 billion per reactor.
In addition to the costs just cited, the industry must cope with rising construction and fuel expenses. Two years ago, building a 1,500-megawatt nuclear plant was estimated to cost $2–4 billion. As of late 2008, that figure had climbed past $7 billion, reflecting primarily the scarcity of essential engineering and construction skills in a fading industry.
Nuclear fuel costs have risen even more rapidly. At the beginning of this decade uranium cost roughly $10 per pound. Today it costs more than $60 per pound. The higher uranium price reflects the need to move to ever deeper mines, which increases the energy needed to extract the ore, and the shift to lower-grade ore. In the United States in the late 1950s, for example, uranium ore contained roughly 0.28 percent uranium oxide. By the 1990s, it had dropped to 0.09 percent. This means, of course, that the cost of mining larger quantities of ore, and that of getting it from deeper mines, ensures even higher future costs of nuclear fuel.
Few nuclear power plants are being built in countries with competitive electricity markets. The reason is simple. Nuclear cannot compete with other electricity sources. This explains why nuclear plant construction is now concentrated in countries like Russia and China where nuclear development is state-controlled. The high cost of nuclear power also explains why so few plants are being built compared with a generation ago.
In an illuminating article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, nuclear consultant Mycle Schneider projects an imminent decline in world nuclear generating capacity. He notes there are currently 439 operating reactors worldwide. To date, 119 reactors have been closed, at an average age of 22 years. If we generously assume a much longer average lifespan of 40 years, then 93 reactors will close between 2008 and 2015. Another 192 will close between 2016 and 2025. And the remaining 154 will close after 2025.
But only 36 nuclear reactors are currently under construction worldwide—31 of them in Eastern Europe and Asia. Although there is much talk of building new nuclear plants in the United States, there are none under construction.
What these numbers indicate, Schneider points out, is that plant closings will soon exceed plant openings—and by a widening margin in the years ahead. The trend is clear. From 2000 to 2005, an average of 4,000 megawatts of nuclear generating capacity was added each year. Since 2005, this has dropped to only 1,000 megawatts of additional capacity per year.
Even if all reactors scheduled to come online by 2015 make it, the projected closing of 93 nuclear reactors by then will drop nuclear power generation roughly 10 percent below the current level. Unless governments start routinely granting operating permits for reactors more than 40 years old, a half-century of growth in world nuclear generating capacity is about to be replaced by a long-term decline.
Despite all the industry hype about a nuclear future, private investors are openly skeptical. In fact, while little private capital is going into nuclear power, investors are pouring tens of billions of dollars into wind farms each year. And while the world’s nuclear generating capacity is estimated to expand by only 1,000 megawatts this year, wind generating capacity will likely grow by 30,000 megawatts. In addition, solar cell installations and the construction of solar thermal and geothermal power plants are all growing by leaps and bounds.
The reason for this extraordinary gap between the construction of nuclear power plants and wind farms is simple: wind is much more attractive economically. Wind yields more energy, more jobs, and more carbon reduction per dollar invested than nuclear. Though nuclear power plants are still being built in some countries and governments are talking them up in others, the reality is that we are entering the age of wind, solar, and geothermal energy.
--Copyright © 2008 Earth Policy Institute
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Peoria Journal Star
October 28, 2008
Summit looks for energy solutions
Nuclear, coal big in state, but Illinois will need to look to renewables more
By Steve Tarter
PEORIA — Illinois has more nuclear reactors - 11 - and larger deposits of bituminous coal than any state in the country, but both energy sources have obstacles to hurdle.
Those were among the points made at Midwest Energy Solutions, a conference held Tuesday before an audience of 200 at the Peoria Civic Center.
The idea is to generate a report on how the Midwest can help solve the nation's energy problems, said Brad McMillan, head of the Institute for Principled Leadership in Public Service at Bradley University, which co-sponsored the event with the Dirksen Congressional Center and Peoria NEXT.
A national energy policy will have to take into account a variety of power streams, said Mark Matlock, an executive with Archer Daniels Midland, the Decatur-based processing giant that's been making alcohol fuel for 30 years. "All sources of energy must grow," he said, referring to expanding national and worldwide demand.
While coal, oil and natural gas will remain indispensable, huge increases in renewable energy will be needed, said Matlock. The amount of corn-based ethanol the nation can produce is expected to level off after 2015, requiring alcohol fuel from additional sources such as corn stalks and other cellulosic material, he said.
While Illinois derives 47 percent of its electricity from nuclear-powered plants, the state has outlawed the building of any more nuclear plants until a national depository is established to handle the radioactive waste generated by the plants, said Bill Von Hoene, executive vice president of Exelon Corp., the largest nuclear operator in the country.
While nuclear power's reliability and its safety record have proven exemplary, plants are expensive - two units proposed by Exelon for Texas would cost $18 billion - and the disposal of nuclear waste remains an issue, he said.
While the federal government has explored the possibility of establishing a waste depository in Yucca Mountain in Nevada, that location is opposed by presidential candidate Barack Obama, said Von Hoene.
Similarly, coal has its own pros and cons, said Michael Murphy, manager of coal programs for the state of Illinois. While confident that the $1.8 billion FutureGen coal gasification project previously planned for Mattoon would be put "back on track" in the next administration, increased use of coal has to overcome environmental concerns, he said.
Coal plants are a big concern when it comes to global warming because of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted - more than what comes from cars.
"Coal gasification is the name of the game for us," said Murphy, referring to plants that reduce carbon emissions from coal.
The name of the game for renewable electrical power is wind, said Allen Grosboll, senior policy advisor for the Environmental Law & Policy Center in Chicago. "Wind is the fastest-growing form of energy in the world and Illinois is one of the leading wind states," he said.
A report based on the conference findings will be completed by year's end, said McMillan.
--Steve Tarter can be reached at 686-3260 and starter@pjstar.com.
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WEBCommentary
October 28, 2008
Roy Innis
National Chairman & CEO, CORE
Nuclear power reality check
Nuclear horror stories and alternative energy visions often bear little resemblance to reality.
Abundant, reliable, affordable energy makes our jobs, health, living standards and civil rights possible.
Remember that when you read about people losing their jobs or having to choose between heating, eating, paying the rent or mortgage, giving to charity, or covering healthcare, college, car or retirement costs. Remember it when Congress makes more hydrocarbon energy off limits – or puts more obstacles in the path of nuclear power that generates a fifth of America’s electricity.
I recently visited nuclear power plants and a fuel reprocessing plant in France, which gets almost 80% of its electricity from uranium. And I’ve read some shockingly ill-informed claims about nuclear power and its supposed alternatives. Here are some essential facts.
Reliability. Nuclear plants generate electricity over 90% of every year, shutting down only occasionally for maintenance, repairs and changing fuel rods. Wind turbines can be relied on just 30% of the time, on average – and just 10% of the time during hot summer days, when air conditioners are on high, but there’s barely a breeze.
Operational safety. Three Mile Island was the “worst accident in US history.” But it injured no one and exposed neighboring residents to the radioactive equivalent of getting a CT scan or living in Denver for a year. It led to major improvements in nuclear plant management, operation and training.
The Chernobyl disaster was due to its shoddy design, construction, maintenance and management. According to the World Health Organization, “fewer than 50” people died as a direct result of this massive meltdown and fire, and nearly all were employees and rescue workers.
Storage of used nuclear fuel. The Energy Department spent 25 years and $10 billion studying the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, before concluding that it will meet all safety standards. In fact, the largest expected annual radiation dose for someone living near this geologically stable site would be less than 1 millirem – compared to 1,000 millirem from an abdominal CT scan.
America’s 104 nuclear plants generate enough electricity for nearly 75,000,000 homes – and produce about 2,000 tons of “spent” uranium fuel annually. So Yucca will be able to hold all the used fuel from the past 50 years, plus another 35 years of used fuel, without expanding on the original design.
Spent fuel and other wastes (high-level defense wastes, plus low-level wastes like protective clothing) are solid materials. There is no liquid that can leak into rocks or groundwater. Liquid wastes, like water used in reactors, are treated and reused.
Transportation safety. Shipping containers are constructed from layers of steel and lead, nearly a foot thick, and carried on trucks or rail cars. (The 25 to 125-ton containers are too heavy to go in airplanes.) They’ve been slammed into concrete walls at 85 mph, dropped 30 feet, burned 30 minutes in 1475-degree fires, and submerged in water for hours. They haven’t broken or leaked.
Over 3,000 shipments of spent fuel have traversed 1.7 million miles, with no injuries, deaths or environmental damage. Only one significant accident occurred. A semi-truck overturned while avoiding a head-on collision, and the trailer and attached container crashed into a ditch. No harmful releases of radioactivity ever occurred.
That hasn’t stopped imaginative writers from saying “catastrophic” accidents could put “millions” of Americans at risk of exposure to “deadly radiation” or even death, especially if an airplane crashed a cargo of nuclear wastes into a city. They’ve been watching too many Hollywood movies, where every car accident becomes a raging inferno.
Theft and terrorism. The notion that spent (or even fresh) power plant fuel could be stolen and turned into a powerful bomb is likewise more Hollywood than reality.
Those pesky little atomic numbers and enrichment levels are confusing, but important. Weapons grade materials are plutonium, uranium 233 and highly enriched (better than 20%) U235. Power plant fuel is slightly enriched (under 4%) U235. Spent fuel is U238, which cannot cause a chain reaction.
Turning spent fuel into a bomb would require sophisticated reprocessing facilities, which terrorists are unlikely to have. Even a “dirty bomb” (radioactive materials around a non-nuclear explosive) would cause more fear than actual damage. And the US nuclear industry’s commitment to safety applies to plant design and management, shipping and storing wastes, and guarding against theft and terrorism.
The bottom line? We need the electricity that nuclear power provides, and we can get it safely. Just try to imagine life without all the things that require electricity. Remember the pain, inconvenience and financial losses you or people you know suffered when storms or blackouts knocked out the electrical power.
Consider the warnings of experts: We are dangerously close to experiencing major brownouts and blackouts in many parts of the United States, especially in our western states, because we haven’t built the power plants and transmission lines we need for a growing population that depends on electricity 24/7/365.
We need to conserve more, install more insulation and better windows, and use more efficient light bulbs, computers, servers, heaters and air-conditioners. We need more wind and solar power, where those sources make economic, practical and environmental sense. But we also need a lot more affordable, reliable electricity from nuclear power plants.
Ponder how far our heating, cooling, communication and other technologies have come in just 100 years – and where we’re likely to be 50 or 100 years from now. However, we’re not there yet.
Futuristic technologies – like solar generators orbiting above the Earth, beaming electrical power to urban receivers – for now are pure science fiction. They’ll be reality about when Scotty beams Captain Kirk back to the Enterprise. We need to work on them. But we need real energy for real people, today.
Otherwise, homes, factories, offices, schools and hospitals will go dark. Bread winners will go jobless. Energy prices will soar even higher. Families won’t have basic necessities, much less luxuries. And poor and minority citizens will see civil rights gains rolled back, because only energy and a vibrant economy can turn constitutionally protected rights into rights we actually enjoy.
--Roy Innis is chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, co-chair of the Campaign to Stop the War on the Poor, and author of Energy Keepers - Energy Killers: The new civil rights battle.
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Tri-City Herald
October 27, 2008
DOE study favors reusing nuclear fuel
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
A new draft environmental study for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership on the impacts of expanding nuclear energy favors reprocessing fuel that has been used in nuclear power plants rather than using it only once.
A public hearing on the plan is planned at 7 p.m. Nov. 17 at the Pasco Red Lion, 2525 N. 20th Ave. An Oregon hearing will be held the next evening in Hood River.
The draft study, or programmatic environmental impact statement, looked at alternatives to the practice of using nuclear fuel once and then sending it to a deep geological repository, such as Yucca Mountain, Nev.
It did not pick one option as preferred, saying only that the Department of Energy preferred to close the fuel cycle, or reuse fuel. The study also did not narrow sites for researching or reprocessing fuel, but did include information about areas, including Hanford, that might be appropriate for nuclear projects.
"At this time DOE is not proposing project-specific or site-specific actions," the study said. That would be premature without knowing the size and type of facilities needed, it said.
Rather, the study is intended as an initial step in deciding whether and how to recycle used nuclear fuel.
The study projects that electricity use in the U.S. could increase by about 40 percent by 2030. DOE is looking at ways to support the expansion of nuclear energy production, which now supplies 19 percent of the nation's electricity, while reducing the risks of nuclear proliferation and the impacts of disposing of nuclear fuel in geologic repositories.
Yucca Mountain has yet to open but the nation will have enough spent nuclear fuel to fill it to its legal capacity by 2010, the report said. It assessed alternatives that could reduce the amount or change the characteristics of used fuel and radioactive wastes requiring disposal in the future.
"Reducing the volume, thermal output and/or radiotoxicity could expand the number of acceptable sites for future geologic repositories, and could expand the number of acceptable sites for future geologic repositories and could reduce both the cost and difficulty of siting and operating a geologic repository," the report said.
The report is posted at www. gnep.energy.gov. Public comment will be accepted until Dec. 16. Comments can be left at www.regulations.gov or mailed to Francis Schwartz, GNEP PEIS Document Manager, Office of Nuclear Energy NE-5, DOE, 1000 Independence Ave. S.W., Washington, DC 20585.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 26, 2008
Election 2008:
Yucca isn’t the only difference
On some energy issues, distinctions between presidential hopefuls are matters of degree
By Phoebe Sweet
Before all the talk turned to the economic crisis, the energy crisis had our attention.
Remember rising electricity prices, global warming, stranded polar bears?
Here’s a breakdown of the presidential contenders’ energy policies, and how they might affect the environment and Nevadans’ wallets.
Nuclear power
The main thrust of John McCain’s energy policy is a call for 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030.
Although the plants produce no carbon emissions, making them an attractive power source in a carbon-constrained world, there are serious environmental and safety concerns with uranium mining and disposal of nuclear waste.
Barack Obama has said there must be solutions to the waste storage and safety problems before he would support new nuclear power plants.
Nevada is unlikely to see a nuclear plant built within its borders even if McCain is elected because the plants require large amounts of water. Still, local environmentalists are concerned that more nuclear plants mean more radioactive waste, which could wind up dumped at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
McCain supports the Yucca project; Obama has said he would kill plans for a repository there.
There are also concerns about the cost of nuclear plants, which would receive billions in federal subsidies under McCain’s plan.
“The real concern with nuclear power is it’s so expensive,” said Lydia Ball, a local representative of the Sierra Club.
Coal-fired power
Both candidates advocate researching how to capture the carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, because experts say coal will continue to provide a significant amount of the nation’s electricity. Fifty percent of America’s electric power comes from coal.
There are three coal-fired power plants in various stages of the approval process in Nevada, but environmentalists shouldn’t expect the next president to step in to stop those plants, according to William Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.
“They’re going to wait and see. New coal plants have been on the decline in the last year or so — not because of any federal action, but because of the price of coal, how (plants) will be affected by carbon pricing, by lawsuits, by states’ refusal to issue permits,” Becker said.
Still, it’s the federal legislation putting a price tag on carbon emissions, which both candidates support, that would have the greatest effect on the price of energy from new coal plants and be most likely to stall plans for more.
Renewable energy
Both candidates say they support renewable energy, although environmentalists question McCain’s dedication to the technology.
“McCain used to be one of the few Republican voices ... calling for action on global warming,” said Anna Aurilio, director of Environment America’s Washington office. But she says McCain skipped out on many important environmental votes from June 2005 to February 2008, earning him a 27 percent grade to Obama’s 86 percent from the environmental group.
And his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate — and possible point-person on energy — hasn’t helped him in environmentalists’ eyes.
“McCain putting Palin in charge is not going to lead us to the kind of clean energy policies we need,” Aurilio said.
Among McCain’s promises are a $5,000 tax credit to consumers who buy zero-emissions cars (which are not now available in the market); a $300 million prize to the inventor of a better battery for plug-in hybrids or electric cars; and a tax rebate equal to 10 percent of what companies spend on wages for employees doing research and development.
What he hasn’t called for, and what environmentalists and renewable energy industry insiders say will be the real driver of clean energy development, is a requirement that the nation get a percentage of its energy from renewable sources, such as wind or solar power plants. Obama has called for 10 percent of America’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2012. Last year, less than 1 percent of the nation’s power came from solar, geothermal and wind combined.
Nevada business leaders and politicians of both parties have said the state could benefit from a strong national standard for renewable energy, because it has rich solar and geothermal resources and could export clean energy to power-hungry Southern California.
Obama is also calling for $15 billion in federal funding for renewable research and development.
Carbon caps
Both candidates favor setting a national cap on the carbon emissions that contribute to global warming, but they differ on how low that cap should be and how to trim emissions to reach it.
McCain wants to cut carbon emissions to their level in 1990, or by 40 percent from today’s level, by 2020. By 2050 his plan would cut emissions by an additional 60 percent from 1990 levels.
Obama’s caps are initially on par with McCain’s, but over the longer term they are more aggressive. Obama would cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, but then by an additional 80 percent by 2050.
Climate scientists have agreed that emissions must be trimmed to the levels Obama is calling for to prevent the most severe effects of climate change, although some scientists now say even that might be too little.
‘Trade’ in cap and trade
A cap and trade system would set a carbon emissions limit that would grow more strict each year. The government would distribute pollution permits, and as the cap becomes more strict it would create a market for those permits. Power plants, factories and other businesses that emit carbon could either spend money installing pollution control devices to meet the cap, or buy pollution permits from other companies that have gone below it. Companies that cut their pollution to get it below the cap could sell their permits for the difference to other emitters.
The candidates differ, however, on how to regulate the market for these pollution permits.
McCain wants to give away at least a portion of the permits, called allowances. He would auction the rest.
Obama wants to auction 100 percent of the permits.
In either case, the system is likely to be incredibly complicated — with the price of permits and the cost of all kinds of energy varying based on everything from whether the utility where you live is regulated (as in Nevada) to what kind of fuel the utility uses to generate its electricity.
Utilities such as NV Energy that get the majority of their power from fossil-fuel-burning coal and natural gas plants would pay more; utilities generating hydroelectric or nuclear power would pay less.
Michael Yackira, president of NV Energy, said the rules that govern a cap and trade system will also matter more to utilities that serve growing populations such as that of Las Vegas, because their carbon emissions are growing, too.
NV Energy also buys a portion of the energy it sells to customers from the energy market. That electricity will certainly be more expensive under a cap and trade system.
Yackira said his company favors at least a partial giveaway of allocations, because an auction would push up energy prices in Nevada.
“An auction is the equivalent of a tax,” Yackira said.
The candidates also disagree over what to do with the revenue from auctions.
McCain would spend the money from the auction portion of his plan on research and development of clean energy technology and energy assistance for the poor.
Estimates are that Obama’s 100 percent auction program would bring in $100 billion to $200 billion, and he says he would spend $15 billion of that on research and development. The rest would go back to taxpayers and to fund energy assistance programs.
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San Bernardino Sun
October 26, 2008
Maybe we should be burying more than our nuclear waste
By John Weeks
The latest news about the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository has left me feeling a little down in the dumps.
New federal guidelines, announced this month, mandate that the facility be capable of securing highly radioactive nuclear waste for a period of one million years.
A previous standard of only 10,000 years was deemed to be insufficient.
Yucca Mountain is in the Nevada desert about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, or about 200 miles north of San Bernardino. The proposed underground vault, where the government hopes to store more than 70 tons of nuclear waste from both military and commercial reactors, would be built to become operational in 2020, if final plans are approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
If asked today, I would have to say that I'm a little nervous about living so close to a place that is full of one million years worth of danger.
Perhaps, as time goes by, I will look at the situation with different eyes. By then I probably will have grown a third one, and maybe an extra arm or two, as well.
My perspective may have changed, too.
In the present, though, I am struggling with my feelings. Yes, I know that we have a responsibility, even an obligation, to protect future generations.
I can't help but reflect, however, on the fact that the people of one million years ago failed to protect us in any way.
We don't know much about those people, except that they looked like Raquel Welch and ran around in fur bikinis, but really, they might have taken a little time to build an underground repository in their own desert somewhere, and hide away forever the ingredients for gunpowder and greenhouse gases and fuel and poison and nuclear weapons and artificial sweeteners and all that other perilous stuff.
Boy, that really would have saved us some toil and strife. We wouldn't be in half the messes we are in today, if the people of one million years ago had been looking out for us properly. But I guess they couldn't be bothered.
Thankfully, we are better stewards of the future than they were.
And, come to think of it, as long as we are hiding away some of the dangerous materials that might threaten the welfare of tomorrow's humans, aren't there other items we should pack in there as well?
I mean, there's lots of embarrassing stuff that will make us look like jerks and lunatics if we leave it lying around.
How about beer helmets, for example, and talking fish plaques? Shouldn't we throw those in there, too? And chest wigs and Betamax video recorders and mood rings and aerosol cheese and Rob Schneider movies and New Coke and eight-track music systems and pet rocks and appliances that you turn on and off by clapping your hands?
Maybe we should put leisure suits in there, too, and fish ties and lawn jockeys and shag carpets and Nehru jackets and robot dogs and love beads and Chia Pets and Kevin Federline CDs and ...
You know, we might have to build a bigger dump.
--John Weeks is features editor. Read his past columns at www.sbsun.com/johnweeks. Contact him at john.weeks@inlandnewspapers.com.
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San Francisco Chronicle
October 26, 2008
Nevada voters play crucial role
Carla Marinucci
Chronicle Political Writer
Somewhere between the Western wear outlet and the muffin stand inside the Shoppers Square mall, Xiomara Rodriquez, 52 - a veteran, former small-business owner, and grandmother of two - pumps her fist in the air, dancing like she's already hit the jackpot.
More than two weeks before Nov. 4, she cast her early ballot for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election at the crowded voting booths in one of Reno's oldest malls. And with her were a dozen friends - some of the estimated 1,000 Democrats in Nevada she says she has personally registered to vote over the past two years.
"There hasn't been a door in this town that hasn't been knocked on," said Rodriquez, high-fiving fellow Democrats from the key swing area of Washoe County, which voted for George W. Bush in 2004 and recently flipped to majority Democratic registration after years of GOP rule.
"I want my retirement back. I've lost my business. I want my grandkids to go to college," she said. "We need this country back on track."
With barely a week left in the long 2008 presidential race, a down-to-the-wire political shootout here underscores the issues, the changing landscape and the new clout of a handful of Intermountain West states in the presidential contest.
Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico all went to President Bush in 2004 and were considered likely McCain camps earlier this year. But they are all leaning blue as the election approaches; only Nevada is still considered a toss-up, with recent polls showing Obama leading McCain there by just three percentage points.
Nevada has prided itself on being free of personal, state and corporate income taxes, but it ranks among the worst states on quality-of-life issues, on health care for seniors, and on other critical indicators from "smoking to senior suicides," said banker Matthew Dickson.
Economic woes
With Silver State home foreclosures among the highest per capita in the nation, its casinos laying off employees and tourism hurting because of high gas prices, "Nevada is in a precarious situation, " Dickson said. "This is a very libertarian state - gambling, brothels and liquor are part of the culture. People want to be left alone so the government can do its job. And the government has failed."
Some 450 miles away in a Las Vegas coffee shop, Miriam Mora talks about the same bread-and-butter concerns, but she wants to see a different result.
Mora, 26, a Mexican-born newly naturalized U.S. citizen, is getting ready for another 14-hour day on the campaign trail, knocking on doors and making phone calls to GOP voters, hoping to get them to the polls for the Republican team of Arizona Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
In Democratic-leaning Clark County, where she helped gather more than 5,000 enthusiastic Republicans to see Palin last week, Mora recounts the worries of Latino voters like Irma Aguirre, owner of La Madonna Mexican restaurant, who stood next to Palin onstage at the Henderson rally.
"If Irma has to pay higher taxes, she loses her business - and it's 20 people she has to let go," said Mora, the Western regional coalition director for the McCain-Palin campaign. "If we raise taxes on small-business owners ... we lose jobs."
Nevada's changing voter profile tells the tale of the GOP presidential ticket's challenges: Democrats outnumber Republicans among registered voters by more than 111,000 , a yawning gap that could deliver Nevada's five electoral votes to Obama.
Latino voters
Playing a major role in the shift is an army of new Latino voters who have helped push a 4-1 registration advantage by Democrats since the high-energy Nevada caucuses took place in January.
"What you are seeing is the second installment - California being the first - of the impact of the changing Latino vote, the empowering of a changing demographic," said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a nonpartisan group concerned with public policy and Latino issues.
In 2008, more than at any time in history, "they're registering, voting and running candidates," Gonzalez said.
Simon Rosenberg, who heads NDN, a moderate Washington, D.C.-based Democratic advocacy group, said the shift reflects how "the Republican brand with Latinos has been severely degraded" by President Bush's leadership on the economy and the war. "And John McCain has not been able to distance himself from it."
But, he added, Democrats carefully laid the groundwork for gains when party leaders like Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader from Nevada, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker from San Francisco, "added Nevada to the early caucus states and put their national convention in Colorado."
"In 2004, John Kerry didn't know the Southwest existed on the map," he said. "They spent no time and no money there."
Though rural Nevada has always been a GOP stronghold, McCain hasn't had a particularly easy battle here. He was battered by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the Nevada caucuses, and his stand in support of nuclear power - including storing nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain - has continued to irk many Nevadans.
And on the right, there's still the possibility of some trouble from former GOP Rep. Bob Barr, running as the Libertarian Party candidate for president with vice presidential nominee Wayne Root, a professional Las Vegas handicapper.
Looking to the future
Still, when it comes to the choice between Obama and McCain, some Nevadans - like Republican John Griffin, 41, an employee in Las Vegas' gambling industry - said their choice comes down to the future.
"We have a home, and we watch our budget," Griffin said, standing with his wife, Maria, 38, after Palin's rally in Henderson last week. McCain offers "a combination of things - his economic plan and national security" that will best preserve both, he said. "Obama wants to tax people ... and that's redistribution of wealth."
But Reid, who joined students casting early ballots in Las Vegas last week, said that with the current economic problems, Republicans and Democrats alike in his state "have come to the realization that the government is not the enemy. It's our friend. ... 9/11, Katrina, where do you go?" Reid said. They realize that "when the government is not functioning, we have big problems."
Residents of some of the state's rural areas like Virginia City, which ranked among the world's richest towns during the peak of the Comstock Lode era - said economic concerns are some of their worries, especially because the economy is failing everyday Joes.
In search of tourists
Gold panner Behr Hafner, 55 - whose bedraggled prospector shack sports a hand-written sign that is only partly in jest: "Foreclozed" - said he's an independent voter. But this year, his ballot goes to Obama rather than the Arizona senator, whom he calls "McSame."
"Everybody knows everybody in this town, and most of them depend on tourism," said Hafner as he prepared his Territorial Gold Mine, a "Pan for Gold, $7" business, for what he hoped would be an onslaught of weekend tourists. "But we used to get 1.5 million in a season here ... and now, they're not flying or taking long trips" to the town, which is a National Historic Landmark and the seat of Storey County.
Though polls show Obama leading and volunteers from California are pouring into the overflowing campaign offices, Democrats like Xiomara Rodriquez said they still aren't celebrating, because in the West, fortunes can change as quickly as the sunsets over this vast and unpredictable territory.
"It's not over until the fat lady sings," she said cautiously. "I'm the fat lady in this town ... and I'm not singing yet. ... But on Nov. 4, I'll be hollering."
--E-mail Carla Marinucci at cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com.
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LaCrosse Tribune
October 26, 2008
Is nuclear energy in Wisconsin’s future plans?
By Joe Orso
jorso@lacrossetribune.com
The future of nuclear energy in Wisconsin looks different depending on who you talk to.
Some see it as a necessary part of our energy mix. They say it’s cleaner than coal and more reliable than renewable sources like wind for meeting our growing needs.
Others see it fraught with environmental and economic dangers and have no interest in lifting a moratorium on new nuclear plants in the state.
But with both major party presidential candidates at least considering nuclear as part of their energy policies, the energy source that fell out of favor in recent decades has, surprisingly, found its way back to the table.
Five years ago, political science professor Joe Heim wouldn’t have expected presidential candidates to be talking about nuclear.
But now Sen. John McCain has called for 45 new nuclear plants to be built by 2030, with an ultimate goal of 100 new plants. Sen. Barack Obama does not mention nuclear in the energy policy published on his Web site, but has said it should be explored as part of the mix.
“The government seems to be warming up to the idea of at least considering nuclear power,” said Heim, of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. “What they like to say is that everything has its place but there’s no one solution to our problems. And that’s why nuclear is being looked at again.”
After nuclear plants sprang up around the nation in the 1960s, safety issues caused support to wane. But a new energy context, affected largely by climate change and a desire to become energy-independent, has made nuclear power more palatable to some.
Dairyland Power Cooperative began commercially operating the first nuclear plant in Wisconsin in 1969, a decade after the nation’s first commercial plant went online.
With a 50-megawatt capacity, the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor in Genoa, Wis., was a relatively small generator. Dairyland shut down the plant in 1987.
Dairyland closed the plant because regulations and a systemwide surplus of powermade it unprofitable, company officials said.
At the same time, the industry as a whole was facing new challenges.
Two accidents ? Three Mile Island in 1979 in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in 1986 in the former Soviet Union ? made the public wary. And since 1977, when President Jimmy Carter put a moratorium on reprocessing nuclear fuel out of a concern for weapons proliferation, the industry and government have not been able to agree on where to store the spent fuel.
The government chose Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and it was to begin accepting waste there in 1998. But opposition has kept plans on hold, and energy companies have sued the government. Dairyland is seeking $54 million and counting for the ongoing costs of storing its waste.
Dairyland still employs 27 people plus 24-hour security at its Genoa plant, which costs $5.5 to $6 million a year to maintain. While some of the plant has been dismantled and shipped to storage sites, rods filled with used fuel pellets still sit in a cooling pool there.
“We would not be here if the government had picked up the fuel, like they had promised, in 1998,” said plant manager Roger Christians, standing near the cooling pool.
But while the Genoa plant has been shut down, Dairyland, like other energy companies, would like to see more nuclear plants in the future. They recently studied the feasibility of collaborating to build and operate a new plant outside of Wisconsin, said Charles Sans Crainte, vice president of generation. The La Crosse-based cooperative serves customers in Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois as well as Wisconsin.
But on its own, Dairyland doesn’t have enough money to build a new plant, he said.
The cost can range from $5 billion to $12 billion, according to industry estimates.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is processing 17 applications for new plants.
Supporters point to the need for an around-the-clock base load energy supply, which currently comes from coal, natural gas and nuclear plants.
While Dairyland and Xcel Energy are both pursuing renewable energy sources like wind and solar, the companies say these sources can complement, but not sustain, that base load.
“When you look at the load forecast and the energy appetite of the public and business, it doesn’t seem to be going down,” said Terry Pickens, Xcel’s director of nuclear regulatory policy. “We’re still learning how we’re going to incorporate all of these renewables into our system... Wind doesn’t blow all the time. Sun doesn’t shine all the time... The one carbon-free resource we have that does have a long-established history is nuclear.“
Xcel operates three nuclear reactors at two sites in Minnesota, with a combined capacity of about 1,600 megawatts. They are applying to increase the output by about 235 megawatts.
Wisconsin gets about 20 percent of its electricity from three nuclear reactors at two sites on the eastern side of the state.
While Minnesota and Wisconsin both have legislation prohibiting new nuclear plants from being built, those have been challenged in recent years.
Rep. Mike Huebsch, speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly, has introduced legislation to lift the state’s moratorium in the past. The West Salem Republican said he’d like to see nuclear producing as much energy as possible in this state.
Besides being cleaner than natural gas and coal, he said, it keeps the U.S. from relying on foreign fuel.
“Generally you’re not going to purchase (energy) from countries who have put funds into armies who are out to destroy us,” Huebsch said.
Major suppliers of uranium are Canada, Australia and Russia’s weapons stock. The U.S. also has uranium.
Huebsch’s opponent in the November Assembly race, Democrat Cheryl Hancock, is less supportive of nuclear.
“I wouldn’t block it from being discussed,” Hancock said. “But my personal belief is that I don’t believe it’s the answer.“
State Rep. Jennifer Shilling voted against lifting the ban in the last legislative session. The La Crosse Democrat wrote in an e-mail that her opposition was based on transportation and storage issues for nuclear waste.
“Given that the Governor’s Task Force on Global Warming included modifying the current moratorium to allow (the nuclear) option ? I would expect nuclear power to be included in a comprehensive energy package that would come before the Legislature in the near future,” she wrote. “However, without knowing what other elements would also make up that package, I cannot give it my support at this time.”
Generally, Democrats have been less supportive of nuclear than Republicans.
Heim, the political science professor, said both houses would probably have to become Republican for the moratorium to be lifted.
“Even proponents of this are not just running down the road as fast as they can,” Heim said. “They’re fairly controlled in their response. Lifting the ban is not the same as approving a power plant. It’s sort of like opening the door just a bit.“
State Sen. Dan Kapanke said nuclear should be on the table, but he currently supports the moratorium. He said allowing the reprocessing of nuclear fuel, which is done in some European countries, is key to making nuclear work here.
Others think the moratorium should remain.
“Discussion about lifting the moratorium does a disservice to the discussion we need to have,” said Dan Kohler, director of Wisconsin Environment. “We get sidetracked with the nuclear question.“
Energy policy must prioritize sources that are cheapest, most efficient and cleanest, he said, and nuclear does not rank high on that list.
“It fails miserably at cheapest and most efficient,” Kohler said.
While energy companies argue nuclear is needed to create emissions-free base load energy, Kohler would like to see investments in renewable technologies.
“It depends on your framework for where we are headed,” Kohler said. “What does your energy approach look like 10 to 20 years down the road?“
Homeowners, farmers and businesses could generate their own energy from windmills, biomass and solar power sources, he said. The UW system could be tapped for research into these new technologies. And new jobs could be created retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency and building an infrastructure for renewable energy, which could be more local and decentralized than the current infrastructure.
“I think most people would agree it’d be better if you could just create your own energy,” Kohler said. “Most people would agree if we could have an energy mix in this country that didn’t involve nuclear power, that would be better. ? The question is just, ?Can we do it?’ And we think absolutely we can.”
No one interviewed for this article sees new nuclear coming to Wisconsin in the near future, and the national future of nuclear energy depends largely on the next president.
At the Genoa plant last week, plant manager Christians discussed the candidates with Tim Krueger, a health physics technician there.
“Obama says he’ll look at nuclear and that’s what he’ll do,” said Krueger, a McCain supporter. “He’ll look at it and he’ll discount it.“
Christians, an Obama supporter, said if nuclear was the only issue, there’d be only one candidate: McCain.
“There’s a lot of other issues,” he said.
Where the candidates stand on the issue
State Rep. Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem): Supports nuclear and has introduced legislation to lift state moratorium on new plants.
Cheryl Hancock (Democrat challenging Huebsch): Against
Would not vote to lift the moratorium today, but wouldn’t block nuclear from discussions.
State Rep. Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse): Voted against lifting the moratorium; concerned about transportation and storage of waste.
State Sen. Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse): Nuclear should be considered but supports moratorium pending solution to waste storage.
Tara Johnson (Democrat challenging Kapanke): Against. “I am an open minded problem solver. However, I lived in Pennsylvania, was 16 years old when Three Mile Island happened. So I’m not there yet. I am not convinced of its safety yet.”
U.S. Rep Ron Kind (D-La Crosse): Supports nuclear power as part of energy mix.
Paul Stark (Kind’s Republican challenger): Supports nuclear power as part of energy mix.
Kevin Barrett (Kind’s Libertarian challenger): Supports nuclear power as part of an overall transition to sustainable energy, agriculture, and infrastructure. That transition requires planet-wide demilitarization, without which there will almost certainly be a world-war-driven civilizational collapse during the coming century.
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Energy Bangla
October 25, 2008
Challenges for Nuclear Power Expansion
Toni Johnson
Global construction of nuclear reactors is rising after a decades-long decline. A number of factors account for this shift, including soaring energy demand in the developing world and the threat of climate change. Most of the new interest in nuclear is occurring outside the United States. Some U.S. policymakers argue nuclear power is a vital part of the country’s energy future. But despite legislative efforts and a softening of attitudes toward nuclear power, the U.S. industry has been slow to revive. In fact, nuclear power faces a number of significant obstacles to expansion worldwide, from manpower shortages to high construction costs.
A Global Slowdown
Even before the 1979 nuclear accident at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island facility and the Chernobyl accident in the Ukraine, the nuclear power industry was struggling globally. High start-up costs coupled with growing public opposition over safety led to a falloff in nuclear reactor construction. Two-thirds of all nuclear reactors ordered after 1973 were cancelled, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The agency attributes the drop-off to “economic recession, rising capital and fuel costs and environmental concerns.”
As of July 2008, the United States had 104 commercial nuclear reactors, providing about 19 percent of electricity generation. The last U.S. reactor to come online was the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in 1996; its construction began in 1973.
Of the 439 commercial reactors online throughout the world, less than 20 percent started after 1986. The World Nuclear Association, a private-sector organization, also notes much of the increase in nuclear capacity over the last decade were from improvements at existing reactors—between 1999 and 2006 there was no net increase in the number of reactors worldwide.
Future Projections
In the United States, the industry had twenty-nine reactors in the planning stages as of July 2008. The U.S. Department of Energy says no utility has committed to construction, with the exception of the TVA—though two other utilities have initiated construction contracts and are in the engineering phase. The authority has resumed construction on a second reactor at its Watts Bar plant (it was halted in 1988). That reactor is expected to come online in 2013. The U.S. Energy Information Agency projects that nuclear power as a percentage of total electricity in the United States will fall slightly by 2030 .
In 2008, the call for a nuclear reappraisal rose amid spiking energy prices. The presumptive Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) proposed building forty-five new reactors by 2030. His rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), has said he would support more nuclear power if it could be made cost-efficient and safe, and the waste stored securely. Arguments for nuclear power—a near emissions-free source of energy—have arisen alongside efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Such policy efforts would likely impose restrictions on plants that could raise energy prices—now a significant public concern. A 2007 Council Special Report on the potential of nuclear power casts doubts on the industry’s potential to be a major player in improving energy security and reducing greenhouse gases.
Thirty-five reactors are under construction worldwide and another thirty are expected to be built in the next decade, according to the World Nuclear Association. All but a handful are located either in Asia or in Eastern Europe. Sharon Squassoni, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, notes that with projections for electricity consumption expected to double by 2030 , the industry will have “a difficult time just keeping its market share–currently 16 percent of global production.”
Many existing reactors are near the end of their life spans. A 2008 report commissioned by the European Union’s Green Party points out that between 2008 and 2015, more than ninety units will reach the age of forty , the initial estimated life span for many reactors. But Adrian Heymar, senior director of new reactor deployment for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a U.S. industry advocate, says some reactors could be commissioned for between sixty and eighty years, particularly if they’ve been upgraded. CFR Senior Fellow Charles D. Ferguson says about forty U.S. reactors have applied for license extensions to sixty years, and he expects most to be approved.
“We are still learning about how [nuclear reactors] operate and how they age,” Ferguson says, pointing out that original operating-age estimates were made when the industry was still relatively young. Heymar and Ferguson say an eighty-year extension, while possible, might be pushing things a little far.
Nuclear Regulations
Regulations have been a big hurdle for the nuclear industry in the United States. In the United States and Europe, a growing environmentalist movement in the 1970s and 1980s—propelled by two high-profile accidents—helped spur regulations that made it difficult and expensive to license and build reactors.
In the past, federal regulators did not require approval of final technical specifications before issuing a construction permit. This led to a number of plants having to be changed during construction as safety issues were uncovered. Such changes caused delays, added to costs, and sometimes even caused projects to be scrapped. Unlike France, which enforced a single design for its nuclear reactors, allowing them to streamline construction, U.S. companies were allowed to choose the reactor designs they liked.
In the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congress modified nuclear licensing to provide investors more certainty. Utilities now can apply for a combined construction permit and operating license instead of having to apply for them separately. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering preapproval of a few reactor designs to help provide more certainty prior to construction.
Aiding lawmakers in efforts to loosen nuclear regulations is an easing of public fears. While a few incidents have occurred in places like Japan, there have been no major accidents since Chernobyl. And the industry says new technologies help make reactors safer than ever. A June 2008 poll by Zogby International suggests Americans generally favor building more nuclear plants.
Nuclear Expenses
Costs remain the biggest hurdle for the nuclear industry. The production of electricity from nuclear reactors—once online—is economically competitive with other power generation types, says the World Nuclear Association. However, a 2003 Massachusetts Institute for Technology paper on nuclear power notes that high start-up costs, regulatory uncertainty, and long-lead construction times put nuclear power at an investment disadvantage.
Projections for costs for building a single nuclear power plant range from $5 billion to $12 billion (WSJ), with construction times estimated at between six and ten years. The lower-end estimate alone is almost double the cost and the construction time of building a coal or gas plants. Heymar, of the Nuclear Energy Institute, says recent nuclear construction contracts were priced between $6 billion and $7 billion. Some experts say until some of these current projects are completed, including the TVA reactor, there is no way to know the full cost of nuclear construction.
A reactor’s price is estimated at “overnight costs” (as if the reactor could be built tomorrow). Yet as construction stretches over several years to a decade, a number of things can unpredictably raise the price tag. For example, prices for necessary commodities—such as steel, copper, and concrete—have risen significantly in the past few years.
The 2005 energy law sought to spur nuclear investment by providing loan guarantees for up to 80 percent of project costs. However, the amount of loan guarantees each year must be approved by Congress. So far the amounts have been a mere fraction (IHT) of the $50 billion the industry says it needs to move forward in the next two years.
In a 2007 Online Debate, Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said federal subsidies “should be unnecessary for a mature technology like nuclear power—already the most subsidized energy source in the U.S. over the past 50 years.” He argues that subsidizing more new reactors “is an indication that nuclear power’s economics simply aren’t viable.” But his debate opponent, the Nuclear Energy Institute’s Steven Kerekes, says in the past twenty years renewable energies such as wind and solar have received more subsidies than nuclear while only increasing their share of electricity generation by a fraction.
Other Obstacles
Construction Bottlenecks. Another obstacle for getting new nuclear construction under way is the capacity to make ultra-large forging. Pressure vessels—at the core of a nuclear reactor—can be made in several pieces. However, most utilities now want vessels forged in a single piece. Welds can become brittle and leak radiation (older reactors slated for U.S. license extensions have their welds rigorously checked before approval). No welds can decrease the time a reactor is shut down for safety inspections, saving the reactor money.
Only one company in the world, Japan Steel Works, currently can forge reactor vessels this way (Bloomberg). The company can only do about four to five a year, though it hopes to expand to eight per year by 2010. The company’s current order backlog is about three years. This requires utilities to place orders well in advance of construction, plunking down about $100 million just to get in the queue.
Utilities are also considering using smaller forgings. Also on the table are more experimental reactors such as pebble-bed modular reactors, which does not require a pressure vessel.
Nuclear Waste. Long-term storage of nuclear waste has proven politically difficult in some cases because of environmental concerns. No long-term storage facility is operating anywhere in the world. The United States has about 45,000 tons of high-level spent fuel currently stored in various places around the country, usually inside the nuclear plant facility. “The waste issue isn’t a red herring,” says Jeremy Kranowitz, a senior associate for energy at The Keystone Center’s Science and Public Policy program. “It’s a real issue for the industry.”
A proposed long-term storage facility sited at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain has been the source of two decades of political debate and expense to the U.S. government. Though the facility was supposed to be finished in 1998, it is still under construction. Its date for completion continues to be uncertain (the latest estimate is 2017). Meanwhile, Nevada lawmakers have increased efforts to have the facility scrapped entirely. Lawmakers have begun looking at interim storage options or the possibility of reprocessing waste , as is done in countries such as France.
Skilled Workers. Another issue both for construction and operation of reactors is lack of trained personnel. In the United States, 35 percent of nuclear workers will reach retirement age (US News) within the next few years. University majors and other educational programs supporting the industry have diminished in the past two decades, as has the number of students going into such programs. Heymar said recent efforts to increase college programs as well as to educate potential students about opportunities in the industry are starting to pay off.
Climate Policy’s Impact
Even with these challenges, some still believe climate change policy will soon make nuclear power more competitive. James Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, said in a 2007 CFR symposium that when the life cycle cost of nuclear is accounted for, nuclear power “is still the best way to produce electricity with zero greenhouse gases from the actual operation”—even compared with energy sources such as wind. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in May 2008 that a carbon price of between $20 and $45 per ton, which many projections say is feasible, would make nuclear competitive with coal.
But other experts point to a climate change policy model that indicates at least 700 gigawatts in additional capacity would be needed for nuclear power to make any measurable additional contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That could amount to over one thousand new reactors in the next forty years if the majority of reactors currently online need to be replaced.
Some experts believe that while daunting, it is possible to achieve that level of building even with the current lack of construction capacity. Ray Ganther of the French nuclear company Areva said in 2007 the industry managed to start building 150 nuclear reactors within a decade of inception. A 2007 report written by a number of energy and environmental experts concludes that to reach 700 gigawatts the industry would need to return to nuclear power’s “most rapid period of growth” and sustain this rate of growth for the next fifty years.
--(Toni Johnson is a Staff Writer for the Council on Foreign Relations. Source: www.cfr.org)
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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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