Yucca Mountain News Clips - Friday, January 16, 2009

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, January 16, 2009
---------------------------

CNNMoney
January 15, 2009

Sen Reid Says Obama Won't Fund Nuclear Storage Site In Nevada

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Plans for a national repository for spent nuclear fuel could suffer a blow under an Obama Administration, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying the new president will cut off funding for the proposed facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Reid, D-Nev., in a video clip posted on his congressional Web site Wednesday, says funding for the project will face a substantial cut in the current federal budget, while receiving "zero or very close to it" in next year's budget.

"It's basically all through," said Reid, a leading opponent of the project in his home state.

His comments come as the nuclear industry awaits details on how President- elect Barack Obama will address the thorny issue of long-term storage of nuclear waste. Obama's transition office didn't return a call Thursday for comment.

The U.S. government had planned to begin hauling spent fuel from the nation's nuclear power plants and burying it at Yucca more than a decade ago. Environmental and political concerns have delayed its opening. Officials have said the earliest the repository could be in operation would be 2020, assuming sufficient funding.

The storage facility is already experiencing a funding squeezed from Congress, but a complete elimination of money would be a major blow, said Christopher Tierney of the Kenrich Group, a Washington D.C. consulting firm whose focus includes the nuclear industry.

"This would be a huge development for it to be cut off entirely," he said.

Reid in the video clip said nuclear plants should continue to store spent fuel on site using existing methods. The industry contends the federal government is responsible for long-term storage of the waste with an underground repository being the safest method.

The Bush Administration last year applied for a license for Yucca, with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission review expected to take at least three years. About $31 billion has been set aside for the project, collected mostly through electricity rates.

The nuclear industry remains optimistic about its future under the new administration, bolstered this week by comments made by Steven Chu, Obama's nominee for energy secretary, at his confirmation hearing, said John Keeley, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group. But Keeley said the industry awaits details on how the Obama Administration plans to address storage.

--By Mark Peters, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-4604; mark.peters@dowjones.com

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

Las Vegas Review-Journal
January 15, 2009

Reid, Ensign seek more Yucca cuts

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday he has no hesitation about arranging a new round of deep budget cuts in the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, even as they might displace more Nevadans during a recession.

"Yucca Mountain is not a jobs program," Reid said. "Yucca Mountain is a safety issue for the people of this country. We are not going to be deterred from where we think the Yucca Mountain waste should go. It should stay where it is," at power plants in other states.

"Yucca Mountain is a symbol of everything bad about government waste," Reid said in answer to questions at the end of a meeting among the five members of the state's congressional delegation, the first since Congress reconvened last week.

Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said they would renew efforts to obtain job displacement assistance for employees of the Department of Energy and its contractors who might be threatened in the coming months as Congress takes up bills expected to reduce spending on the Yucca project, which has offices in Las Vegas.

"There is going to have to be some mitigation for the employees," Ensign said. "You cannot just cut the thing off and lay people off. We will work on that."

On another Yucca Mountain topic, Ensign said fellow Republican leaders in Nevada who have been calling for the state to rethink its official opposition to the project were making "a big mistake."

"At this time when we have the best chance of killing Yucca Mountain once and for all, we should not be divided as a state," Ensign said. "The vast majority of people in the state are against Yucca Mountain. We are working in tireless fashion to kill this thing and we should not be showing any cracks in the armor."

About 60 members of the Nevada Republican Central Committee toured Yucca Mountain on Dec. 12. Afterwards several suggested the state should consider negotiating for government benefits in exchange for toning down its opposition.

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

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

Las Vegas Review-Journal
January 15, 2009

GOP chairwoman blasts AG over Krolicki case

Lowden accuses Masto of operating under double standard

By Ed Vogel
Las Vegas Review-Journal Capital Bureau

CARSON CITY -- State Republican Party Chairwoman Sue Lowden accused Democratic Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto on Wednesday of operating under a "partisan double standard."

Lowden questioned why Masto wants the state to pay $20,000 in legal fees for embattled former Nuclear Projects Agency Executive Director Bob Loux when her office sought to indict Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki on criminal charges.

"A bedrock principle of this nation is equal justice under the law, which means Ms. Masto should either aggressively prosecute Bob Loux or drop the case against Brian Krolicki," Lowden said. "Anything less tells the people of Nevada that their attorney general believes some people are created more equal than others."

Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons made similar objections Tuesday during a Board of Examiners meeting when he questioned why the attorney general did not represent Mendy Elliot, his deputy chief of staff, when a complaint was filed against her. That complaint later was dropped.

But Chief Deputy Attorney General Jim Spencer said Wednesday there is a big difference between Loux's case and those involving Krolicki and Elliot.

A 2005 state law requires the attorney general's office to represent state employees in civil cases before the Ethics Commission if their actions were made in "good faith" during the course of their jobs.

In contrast, Spencer said the attorney general's office does not represent employees who have been accused of criminal violations.

And Masto has said that because her office has worked with Loux repeatedly for more than 20 years on cases involving the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, there would be potential conflicts of interest either in bringing a case against him or representing him in the ethics case.

Spencer added that by law, state employees accused of any type of violation must "submit a written request" asking the attorney general's office to represent them. Loux made that request while Krolicki and Elliot did not, he said.

During a meeting of the Board of Examiners on Tuesday, Gibbons said Masto should be prosecuting Loux on criminal charges rather than paying $20,000 to lawyers who will represent him in the Ethics Commission hearing.

A decision on whether to appropriate the money for Loux's defense was delayed, although the state already has paid $7,800 to that end.

The administration contends that Loux over at least a three-year period gave himself and his staff salary increases far beyond what they legally were entitled to receive.

In a letter to the Ethics Commission, Loux said the administration of then-Gov. Kenny Guinn gave him the authority to increase the salaries.

Spencer said the veracity of Loux's claims is an issue for the Ethics Commission, not something that the attorney general needed to check out before agreeing to pay for his lawyers. Masto said Tuesday that she has asked the Washoe County sheriff's office to investigate Loux and his handling of salary increases. She added Carson City District Attorney Neil Rombardo has agreed to prosecute Loux if he is indicted.

In contrast to Loux's situation, Spencer said, the attorney general's office conducted a criminal investigation into Elliot based on information it received. When Elliot was director of the Department of Business and Industry, she was accused of reducing the fines and punishment The Orleans hotel should have received regarding worker safety problems that led to the deaths of two workers. The office's public integrity section opened the investigation.

Also, Krolicki's situation is different than that of Loux's, Spencer said.

The lieutenant governor was indicted on Dec. 3 by a Clark County grand jury on four felony charges alleging he mishandled state funds during his time as state treasurer.

Lowden maintains a legislative audit concluded that "not a dime" was missing from the college savings program that Krolicki administered.

"No one has even remotely suggested that Mr. Krolicki operated in anything but 'good faith' in establishing and administering this program," she said.

--Contact Review-Journal Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900.

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

Las Vegas Review-Journal
January 15, 2009

Reid presses Yucca Mountain cuts, says project 'not a jobs program'

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday he has no hesitation about arranging a new round of deep budget cuts in the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, even as they might displace more Nevadans during a recession.

“Yucca Mountain is not a jobs program,” Reid said. “Yucca Mountain is a safety issue for the people of this country. We are not going to be deterred from where we think the Yucca Mountain waste should go. It should stay where it is,” at power plants in other states.

“Yucca Mountain is a symbol of everything bad about government waste,” Reid said in answer to questions at the end of a meeting among the five members of the state’s congressional delegation, the first since Congress reconvened last week.

“There is going to have to be some mitigation for the employees,” Ensign said. “You cannot just cut the thing off and lay people off. We will work on that.”

On another Yucca Mountain topic, Ensign said fellow Republican leaders in Nevada who have been calling for the state to rethink its official opposition to the project were making “a big mistake.”

“At this time when we have the best chance of killing Yucca Mountain once and for all, we should not be divided as a state,” Ensign said. “The vast majority of people in the state are against Yucca Mountain. We are working in tireless fashion to kill this thing and we should not be showing any cracks in the armor.”

“There is no money to negotiate for even if we wanted to,” Ensign said.

Reid in recent years has engineered a series of budget cuts aimed at weakening and delaying the Department of Energy’s bid to license nuclear waste storage at the Yucca Mountain site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

This year, with President-elect Barack Obama having declared he also opposes the Yucca program, Reid has predicted deep cuts for the remainder of this year, and spending levels at or near zero in 2010.

“Yucca Mountain is gone,” Reid said. He said the 2009 reduction would be “$100 million or so” from DOE’s $386 million repository budget.

He also said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency that is reviewing a construction license application for the proposed repository, also will be cut back. He said he did not know the number offhand “but it will be significantly less than they wanted.”

While most Nevada leaders have declared the Yucca project bad for the state, caught in the crossfire are residents who work for the Department of Energy, its repository management contractor and subcontractors. Total employment through the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management currently is about 1,750, a drop from about 2,400 a year ago, according to DOE documents.

“All of the layoffs can be attributed to budget reductions,” DOE spokesman Allen Benson said Wednesday night.

Most of the jobs are in Nevada, officials say. Some are in Washington and in New Mexico, where Sandia National Laboratories is a major participant.

Last February at the urging of Nevada lawmakers, the Department of Labor arranged a presentation to repository workers through the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, according to Labor official Brent Orrell. It delivered information about unemployment benefits, local job conditions, and retraining opportunities.

The state of Nevada also was reminded it could apply for emergency grants if necessary but it could not be determined Wednesday how the state responded.

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

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

Las Vegas SUN
January 15, 2009

Governor outlines smaller Nevada budget

The Associated Press

Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons on Thursday detailed a nearly $6.2 billion, two-year state spending plan that is about 9 percent lower than the current two-year budget because of the lingering economic recession.

The proposed state General Fund budget marks the first time in at least 35 years that a proposed operating budget is lower than a previous one, state and legislative fiscal experts said.

The drop in proposed spending contrasts with biennium-over-biennium increases that for years have averaged gains of 15 percent to 20 percent as Nevada grew and faced steadily increasing demands for government services.

The proposed spending is more than $2 billion short of what state officials say is needed to maintain government services at current levels and deal with inflation and increased demand.

But the first-term Republican governor, who's opposed to new taxes, said he sought to maintain "essential government services" and cope with slumping revenues by proposing pay cuts for state workers, various agency consolidations and other steps.

"These steps, while difficult, will allow us to enact a balanced budget while preserving core government services the people of Nevada deserve and expect," Gibbons stated.

When expected funding from the federal government and other sources is added, the fiscal picture isn't so bleak. The total figure, which includes expected economic stimulus funds, is $17.3 billion, down about 1 percent from the current period.

___

EDUCATION

The General Fund spending includes $3.15 billion to fund the state's K-12 and college system. That's a 15 percent decrease compared with current spending. Education spending would make up nearly 51 percent of the governor's budget.

The state's community college and university system would receive $843.9 million of total education funding. For higher education, that's a decrease of about 36 percent.

Gibbons' proposal provides nearly $2.3 billion, or 37 percent of the total budget, to elementary and secondary public schools. That's down 2.6 percent, or nearly $62 million.

For the K-12 schools, the state's base per-pupil spending would drop from $5,098 this year to $4,945 next fiscal year; and increase by just $1 to $4,946 in the second year of the budget cycle.

___

HUMAN SERVICES

The governor would allocate about $2 billion, or 32 percent of the state's general funds, to human services. Proposed spending over the next two fiscal years is up 4.2 percent. Hiring in the big Health and Human Services Department would increase by 142 employees to about 5,500, mostly as a result of growing welfare caseloads.

The governor proposes allotting $930 million, or nearly half of the human services budget, to Medicaid, up from $911 million. Estimates show the program will serve nearly 235,000 by June 2011.

Here's a summary of other human services spending plans:

_NEVADA CHECK UP: The program would be capped at 25,000 recipients. The estimate of children eligible for the program is about 55,000, and current enrollment is nearly 23,000. In all, costs for the program would be $26.5 million, up about $2 million.

_PREGNANT MOTHERS: A state program that offers Medicaid insurance to low-income pregnant mothers would be eliminated. The program had been pushed by Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas.

_MENTAL HEALTH: Spending on mental health services would total $473 million, down 5 percent. The governor proposes closing eight of 20 rural mental health clinics, and increasing the number of patients per staff member in Las Vegas and Reno.

_WELFARE: Gibbons proposes $160.3 million in welfare program spending, up from $145.2 million. The increase mainly helps deal with growing demand for food stamps and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Caseload growth is expected to grow by about 7,300 recipients over the next two years.

_CHILD WELFARE: Funding for child welfare services, including foster care and residential treatment, would be about $91 million, up from $72 million.

_DISABLED SERVICES: Gibbons wants to merge agencies for disabled Nevadans and the aging. Funding for personal assistance services would drop, for a savings of about $21 million.

_EARLY INTERVENTION: Funding for services to children up to age three with developmental disabilities, including autism, would increase by $9 million, up from $30 million.

___

OTHER SPENDING:

Here are highlights of general fund spending for prisons, state employees and other programs:

_STATE EMPLOYEES: State workers would face 6 percent pay cuts, plus suspension of longevity and merit pay increases until the economy improves. The state work force totals about 25,000 employees, excluding K-12 system staffers. Gibbons would cut just over 1,400 positions, most of them currently vacant, and 375 employees would be laid off.

_RETIREES: Current state retirees would see Public Employee Benefit Program subsidies cut by 50 percent. All such subsidies would be erased for Medicare-eligible retirees, and for anyone retiring after July 2009.

_PRISONS: Corrections Department spending would decrease nearly 11 percent, to about $481 million. The old Nevada State Prison in Carson City and a prison camp near Tonopah would be closed.

_NUCLEAR DUMP: The state's Nuclear Projects Agency, charged with fighting federal efforts to open a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, would see its eight-person staff cut to two and moved into the governor's office.

_LAKE TAHOE, CONSERVATION-NATURAL RESOURCES: Spending by agencies dealing with conservation and natural resources, including the state's park system, would be reduced by just over 18 percent, to about $52 million. Park operating hours would be reduced. Funds for the bistate Tahoe Regional Planning Agency would drop by 22 percent, to $2.5 million.

_COMMERCE-INDUSTRY: Spending by agencies dealing with commerce and industry programs would decrease about 8 percent to $96.7 million. The Consumer Affairs Division would be closed, and divisions dealing with housing, manufactured housing, banking and the mortgage industry would be merged and consolidated.

_CULTURAL AFFAIRS: Spending on cultural affairs programs, including museums, would be cut nearly 36 percent, to $19.1 million. Museum operating hours would be reduced, and the East Ely Railroad Museum and Comstock History Center would be closed. Nevada Historical Society services would be limited to researchers, and the Nevada Literary Office would close.

_WILDLIFE: The state Wildlife Department would face budget cuts of about 37 percent, to about $1.7 million.

_GAMBLING REGULATION: The state Gaming Control Board, which oversees Nevada's multibillion-dollar casino industry, would see its budget cut nearly 10 percent, to $59.1 million.

_VETERANS: The Office of Veterans Services, which is seeing increased demands for services as Mideast veterans return home, would have its funding drop nearly 26 percent, to $4.6 million.

_ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, TOURISM: The economic development and tourism agencies would be combined.

_INFRASTRUCTURE: Gibbons wants to invest about $56.2 million for various infrastructure improvements, down about 19 percent.

--On the Net: http://www.NevadaSpending.com

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

Las Vegas SUN
January 15, 2009

Governor:

Governor proposes salary cuts to avoid some layoffs

By Cy Ryan

CARSON CITY – State workers will take a financial hit, but largely be spared layoffs under Gov. Jim Gibbons’ $6.1 billion two-year budget.

The governor plans to reduce the salaries of state workers and school teachers by 6 percent effective July 1, avoiding the alternative of laying off 9,000 to 11,000 employees. The average salary of a classified state worker is $50,000 and the average pay of an unclassified employee or manager is $84,000, according to state Budget Director Andrew Clinger.

The budget includes the 6 percent reduction for the state’s constitutional officers but does not hit Nevada Supreme Court justices or the district judges.

The 6 percent pay cut would save $435.2 million of the projected $2.3 billion shortfall.

In addition to pay cuts and higher insurance premiums for state employees, the governor’s budget envisions laying off 375 workers and eliminating another 1,100 vacant positions. Some agencies will be eliminated and others will be consolidated. The state will not give merit salary or longevity increases to workers for the two years outlined in Gibbons’ budget.

There are questions about whether the 6 percent cut can be applied to school teachers who may be in the middle of their contracts. Josh Hicks, chief of staff for the governor, said the contracts are being negotiated now for the next school year. And if they are already final, they can be re-negotiated. The school districts, he said, could avoid the pay cuts by reducing other expenditures.

The insurance subsidies for state workers and their dependents are also being reduced. For this fiscal year, the state contributes $626 per month per worker or 90 percent of the needed premium. That subsidy will be reduced to 25 percent of the premium, which is expected to rise next fiscal year. Employees now pay up to $28 as their share of the health insurance premium and between $62 and $194 for dependent coverage for a family of four.

The subsidies for insurance coverage for retired state workers will also be reduced. The state pays an average of $410 per month in subsidy and that will be reduced by 25 percent in July and another 25 percent in July 2010.

The subsidies for those who retire after July 1 and for those who have Medicare coverage, will be eliminated. Those retirees can still get the health insurance coverage but would have to pay the full premium.

The insurance reductions would save $158.4 million.

The planned 375 layoffs would come mainly from human resources and corrections. Gibbons plans to close the century-old Nevada State Prison in Carson City, laying off 128 workers. Staffing at the state mental health hospitals will be reduced from 2.4 staff members per patient bed to two, coinciding with the national average.

Eliminating the 1,427 positions will mean shorter hours at some state parks, cultural centers and museums.

The governor is planning to cut the staffing in the Office of Nuclear Projects from seven to two employees and move it under the direction of the governor.

Questioned about this reduction when debate of the project is coming to a head before the federal government, Clinger said most of the expenditures in the agency are for outside contracts. Hicks said, “It will not impact our ability to fight” Yucca Mountain.

The state’s tourism and economic development agencies will be consolidated. The 0.375 percent of the hotel-motel room tax that now supports the state Tourism Commission will be taken into the state’s general fund and the tourism budget will be reduced by 50 percent.

Other department mergers will include the housing division being combined with the manufactured housing division, and the mortgage lending division with the financial institution division.

The state Consumer Affairs Division, charged with investigating deceptive trade practices, will be shut down and its duties transferred to other agencies. Consumer Health Protection, which issues permits and inspects food establishments, will be closed.

The state Insurance Division will not continue to receive any general fund support and exist entirely on the fees collected from the industry.

Cy Ryan may be reached at (775) 687 5032 or cy@lasvegassun.com.

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

Las Vegas SUN
January 15, 2009

Yucca mountain:

Obama set to scrap waste site funding

Sen. Reid confirms budget talks; nuclear dump project likely dead

By Lisa Mascaro

Washington — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday that the new president will essentially zero-out funding for Yucca Mountain when he releases the fiscal 2010 budget to Congress after taking office.

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition office declined this week to discuss budget plans beyond Obama’s previously-stated opposition to the nuclear waste dump. But Obama told Reid during last week’s sit-down meeting in the Capitol that the budget would be zero, or close to it, the senator’s office said.

Reid elaborated on that statement Wednesday after a meeting with Nevada’s congressional delegation. “When Obama’s budget comes out for the following year, there will be nothing in there for Yucca Mountain,” Reid said.

Eliminating funding for the long-running effort to develop the nation’s permanent nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert would all but kill the project.

A new multiyear management contract signed last year between the Energy Department and the new contractor on the project is contingent on funding.

“Zero is zero: If you don’t have any money, obviously you can’t work,” said Allen Benson, a spokesman for the Energy Department, which has been developing the site for more than 20 years. Benson said the department would decline to discuss specific options because the incoming Obama administration has not yet announced its budget plans.

Budget cuts engineered by Reid over the past several years have forced cutbacks to the project. Reid slashed the budget from $490 million to $386 million for fiscal 2009. The workforce is down to 1,400 employees, mostly in Southern Nevada, from 2,700 just a few years ago.

Reid said perhaps there would be some funding granted in Obama’s 2010 budget to develop alternatives to Yucca, such as the senator’s proposal to keep waste securely where it sits at nuclear power sites across the nation.

Nevada’s lawmakers have long said that storing the waste at nuclear plants is preferable to shipping it across the country to Nevada. Yucca Mountain is about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Republican Sen. John Ensign said the waste can be stored safely at utility company sites for 100 years. “That’s the best solution. And guess what, that’s the solution they’ll have to go to now,” Ensign said after Wednesday’s meeting. He and Reid have co-sponsored on-site storage legislation.

Ensign suggested that the state’s lawmakers help workers at Yucca Mountain transition to new jobs.

Yucca Mountain is now at the crossroads many envisioned when they considered what would happen with a Democratic president in the White House and Reid as Senate majority leader.

The Nevada delegation has fought Yucca for years, but has been unable to kill the project outright.

Even with the budget cuts Reid has engineered in recent years, the Energy Department was still able to meet its 2008 deadline to submit a license application for the project to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a milestone.

Obama’s aides said on the campaign trail that he would revoke that application.

Steven Kraft, director of used fuel management for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s main lobby, said Obama should let the application go forward and let the regulatory commission decide whether the project is safe.

“If, in fact, this administration believes in science, they ought to look at the science independently and say, is the science right or not?” Kraft said.

The potentially fatal blows to Yucca also come as Reid is gearing up for reelection in 2010. Finally halting the project would not only be a gesture from Obama to the state that helped elect him to the White House, but a powerful campaign slogan for the senator.

What remains to be seen is whether Congress would try to reinstate funding for Yucca Mountain if Obama wipes it out.

Nuclear waste is stored at dozens of sites across the country, and utility companies in various states have sued the federal government for failing to send it to Yucca by 1998 as promised.

Obama’s home state of Illinois has more waste stored than any other, but waste is also being generated and stored at power plants in virtually every region of the country. Some so-called orphan sites in New England still have waste even though the power plants have been long shut down. Nevada does not have any nuclear plants or waste.

The president’s annual budget is a proposal to Congress, which routinely tweaks it to its preferences.

Yet Reid’s colleagues in the Senate may not want to cross him and the House may not want to tackle the issue. Robert Loux, the former director of the state agency fighting the project, questions whether reinstating the funds would be a priority for the Democratic-controlled Congress.

In the meantime, Reid plans to cut Yucca by another $100 million for the current budget cycle. He will do so in the coming weeks when Congress takes up an omnibus appropriations bill to continue funding the government through the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

Such a cut this year would make it difficult for the Energy Department to continue pursuing the application before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Reid has also said the commission’s budget will be cut, curtailing its ability to review the application.

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

Las Vegas SUN
January 15, 2009

New Nevada Congress delegation holds first meeting

The Associated Press

The five members of Nevada's new congressional delegation have held their first meeting, discussing economic help for Nevada companies and other issues.

The group met Wednesday afternoon in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office. Also attending were Republican Sen. John Ensign, Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley, Republican Rep. Dean Heller and incoming Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, who beat Republican Jon Porter.

Reid says they got to know each other better and discussed Nevada's needs for the economic recovery plan _ particularly help for the state's businesses.

Also discussed was the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. Reid says it would get negligible funding in federal budgets proposed by President-elect Barack Obama, who campaigned against the dump.

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

Lincoln County Record
January 15, 2009

Lincoln County Nuclear Oversight Program Update Given

By Dave Maxwell

Lincoln County is pursuing ways to have quite a bit of say in 2009, along with other interested parties, in the future construction and operation of the railroad line to Yucca Mountain.

Dr. Mike Baughman, Consultant to the County’s Nuclear Oversight Program, made a presentation to County Commissioners at their regular meeting January 5 about the county being involved in at least four areas dealing with the Yucca Mountain licensing process.

He recommended the County continue to be involved as an Interested Government Participant; take part in the Bureau of Land Management Caliente Rail Route Right of Way Application and Stipulations; develop a cooperative agreement with the DOE; and pay close attention to Surface Transportation Board issues.

The railroad to the nuclear waste repository, Dr. Baughman said, not only affects Lincoln County, but several other counties and the State of Nevada itself, all of which have specific concerns of their own.

Baughman explained to Commissioners there are 316 contentions and requests for hearings that were filed prior to the December 22, 2008 deadline by various parties. Included were Caliente Hot Springs, Clark, Churchill, Esmeralda, Lander, Mineral, Nye and White Pine Counties, Inyo County, California, and both the States of Nevada and California. At least 229 of the contentions come from the State of Nevada. Baughman said that is about half of what the State originally said they would file.

Baughman gave Commissioners the Near Term Yucca Mountain Licensing Schedule, which showed that March 12 is the first prehearing conference when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB) will consider various answers and replies to contentions and motions that have already been filed. He said there will be some opportunity for oral testimony at this conference.

Another very important date is May 11 when the NRC and the ASLB will announce who is going to be allowed as an Interested Government Participant and which contentions were accepted for consideration. Baughman said the parties involved will likely discuss the matters for the next 18 months to work to resolution. He said the transportation issues that Lincoln County has raised regarding the rail line would also be decided in the May 11 ruling and may even be known before that. He said the National Environmental Protection Agency has also raised many transportation issues about the rail line in Lincoln County and the state. “If you do not like the decision handed down on May 11,” Baughman said, “you can appeal that decision by May 21, with a final ruling on appeals to be given by June 30.

The Lincoln County Nuclear Oversight Program staff is now reviewing the documents to narrow the field and see which of the contentions filed by all the players they are most interested in, joining with others having the same issues, and submitting written opinions.

With regard to the right of way application submitted to the Bureau of Land Management, Baughman said a Record of Decision granting the railroad right of way to the DOE has not yet been issued, but he expected the BLM will grant the decision very soon. He added, “In offering the grant, the BLM will issue a set of stipulations that the DOE must comply with in order to go to construction and occupy and operate within that right of way.” In the meantime, the Nuclear Oversight staff has been working to “provide input on the BLM draft stipulations.” Some have been accepted and some have not, he noted.

DOE also has to get a Certificate of Public Conveyance for the railroad from the Surface Transportation Board. Lincoln County submitted comments on about 100 proposed mitigation measures to the Transportation Board to make DOE aware of. Baughman said the STB, “Typically does condition these certificates with a lot of mitigation measures, so we are banking on DOE being compelled to address a lot of the issues.”

A meeting before the Surface Transportation Board was held in early December in Las Vegas with several County Commissioners attending and presenting testimony, along with many other concerned agencies. It was at that meeting Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, (D-NV), an outspoken opponent, labeled the project as a “Railroad to Nowhere,” and said she would lie down in front of the first train.

However, Dr. Baughman reported the STB said they were “pretty much compelled to grant the certificate to the DOE, but we will condition it though to address issues.” He said he is very optimistic that the Certificate of Public Conveyance, when issued, would be heavily conditioned.

As Lincoln County moves forward in pursuing contentions and mitigations with the Department of Energy, Sen. Harry Reid, (D-NV) said he will embark on a crippling attack in 2009 to see that funding for the controversial nuclear waste storage plan will be cut significantly. He intends that a 2010 White House spending request will contain “little if anything at all…If it runs out of money that takes care of itself” he said.

Yucca Mountain is very likely to be a main issue in Reid’s 2010 reelection campaign.

News reports say President-Elect Obama has not spoken publically on Yucca Mountain since the election, but staff members say he remains opposed to the project and plans to keep his pledge to seek an alternative to the Nevada site.

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

Reno Gazette-Journal
January 15, 2009

New Nevada Congress delegation holds first meeting

WASHINGTON (AP) — The five members of Nevada’s new congressional delegation have held their first meeting, discussing economic help for Nevada companies and other issues.

The group met Wednesday afternoon in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office. Also attending were Republican Sen. John Ensign, Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley, Republican Rep. Dean Heller and incoming Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, who beat Republican Jon Porter.

Reid says they got to know each other better and discussed Nevada’s needs for the economic recovery plan — particularly help for the state’s businesses.

Also discussed was the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. Reid says it would get negligible funding in federal budgets proposed by President-elect Barack Obama, who campaigned against the dump.

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

NEI Nuclear Notes
January 15, 2009

Steven Chu Energy Secretary Confirmation Hearing

If you're a proponent of nuclear energy in the United States, I'm not sure that Steven Chu's testimony from today's Senate confirmation hearing for Secretary of Energy could be any more encouraging. Excerpts from a rush transcript are below.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK): Let me ask you about nuclear energy. You have indicated in your statements and in our conversations that you support continued nuclear development. I think we recognize as we want to move towards a world where we have greatly reduced our emissions, that nuclear is a very key component in our energy package there. The nuclear waste policy act requires that in exchange for a 1 mill per kWh fee on nuclear power, the DOE has an unconditional obligation to take and dispose of that nuclear waste. That was beginning back in 1998. Obviously we’re about ten years late. The projected taxpayer liability for DOE’s failure is $11 billion at this point and growing. The issues as they relate to Yucca Mountain. I understand that President-elect Obama has said he opposes that. If confirmed, what do you propose to do, in the short term, to meet the government’s obligation as it relates to the nuclear waste issue. And if you could speak just a little bit about the option of nuclear fuel recycling.

Steven Chu: Thank you, Senator. I think these are very thorny questions, as you know. The President-elect has stated his position very clearly. On the other hand, the Department of Energy has an obligation, a legal obligation, to safely dispose, provide a plan that allows the safe disposal of this nuclear waste. And indeed I am supportive of the fact that the nuclear industry is, should have to be part of our energy mix in this century. And so, in going forward with that, we do need a plan on how to dispose of that waste safely, over a long period of time. There’s a lot of new science that’s coming to the fore and I pledge, as Secretary of Energy, that I would work with the members of this committee to try to use the best possible scientific analysis to try to figure out a way that we can go forward on nuclear disposal. So it will occupy certainly a significant part of my time and energy.

Sen. Murkowski: Can recycling be a part of that solution?

Steven Chu: Yes. Again, in the long term, recycling can be a part of that solution. Right now, even though France has been recycling, Japan is starting to recycle, Great Britain is now beginning to look at this. I think, from my limited knowledge about that, that the processes we have are not ideal. There’s an urge to increase the proliferation resistance of recycling. This dates back to the days of the Carter Administration where he said the United States will go once through recycling, once through the fuel cycle in order to decrease the chance of nuclear proliferation. Now we’re in a different place and time. There are other countries doing recycling. And so the idea here is now to do it in a way that makes it more proliferation resistant. And there’s an economic feasibility issue. This is actually, in my mind, a research problem at the moment and something that the department should be paying a lot of attention to. I think there’s time to look at it and develop means, but certainly recycling is an option that we will be looking at very closely.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC): In 2005 we passed EPAC. That Energy Policy Act incorporated a loan guarantee program for companies willing to step out and build new nuclear generation. It was authorized at $18.5 billion. Not sufficient for the future, but a good start. Just recently, Progress Energy in North Carolina announced two new plants in Florida that they would construct. And they made this statement that they think that, they will seek to do these without DOE loan guarantees. Because they had run into too many hurdles with the program. One, it’s been slow to get up and running and structurally in place. Now, all of a sudden, we’re hearing companies that talk about it’s problematic to go that route. We’re on a timeline that, from a reliability standpoint, we have to start construction and we have to do it soon. Do you support the loan guarantee program, number one?

Steven Chu: Senator, yes I do.

Sen. Burr: If confirmed, do you commit to expanding the authorization levels?

Steven Chu: Well, I think that’s a matter of Congress.

Sen. Burr: [Are you] seeking to expand?

Steven Chu: I think it is something that is very important. As I said before, [as is] the development of nuclear power. But as these companies, what little I know of what these companies are doing, it’s a mixture of the loan guarantee program and the local regulatory authorities that can allow the utility companies to fold whatever they want to do in the rate base. The point here is that nuclear power, as I said before, is going to be an important part of our energy mix. It’s 20% of our electricity generation today, but it’s 70% of the carbon-free portion of electricity today. And it is baseload. So I think it is very important that we push ahead. I share, what little I know, again, your frustrations of the time it has taken and I will do my best to, as I said before, put together a leadership and management team that can do it in a more timely manner.

Sen. Burr: Do I have your commitment that you’ll work to make this a more workable program?

Steven Chu: You absolutely do.

Senator Bob Corker (R-TN): The issue of nuclear. I'm gonna skip down and just be very brief since you've had now nine questions regarding that [nuclear]. I noticed a lot of people say that they support nuclear, but they also mention the waste issue. And it's as if once we solve the waste issue then we can pursue nuclear again. It's my understanding, based on what I've heard here today, you mean pursue nuclear now in spite of the, some of the issues that we have regarding waste. Is that correct? All out now? Loan guarantees, let's move ahead. We have 104 plants today. Probably need 300, let's move on?

Steven Chu: Yes, because I'm pretty confident, I'm confident that the Department of Energy, perhaps in collaboration with other countries, can get a solution to the nuclear waste problem.

Sen. Corker: Okay. Perfect. So, you'd move ahead while that was being solved?

Steven Chu: I think, certainly, these first several [new] plants that we talked about, use the loan guarantee to start them going. Just also, as you well know, Senator, I think, this is a complicated economic decision by the utility companies that will invest in these plants. So it's partly loan guarantee, it's partly the rates that utility companies will allow. But it, there is certainly a changing mood in the country, because nuclear is carbon-free, that we should look at it with new eyes.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL): Let’s talk about nuclear power. You’ve mentioned this as an option, as something that will be part of the mix. I guess my question to you is, if you accept the CO2 as a global warming problem, isn’t it important that we accelerate this proven source of clean energy? And will you take a lead, not just to talk about it, not just to opine about it, as we often do, but actually do the things necessary to see if we can’t restart a nuclear industry in America? Are you committed to that?

Steven Chu: Senator, yes I am. I think, first to get these first several projects [new plants] going. In the meantime, we need to do the work necessary to see if recycling and proliferation resistant and economically viable ways also [are] feasible. I think those are two areas that are very important.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA): My question is, to follow-up, and I ask this, because, not because it hadn’t been asked ten times to you this morning, but I think, in asking, you’ll understand how many of us feel about nuclear. You’ve had a least six or seven questions. Mine’s going to be the eighth. It’s just apparent to us, mainly based on the great leadership of Senator Domenici, who is with us, I think, this morning, and others, the importance of getting off the dime on nuclear. So would you just briefly state again what are your number one, number two, and number three strategies to move us forward on nuclear?

Steven Chu: The first is to accelerate this loan guarantee program for the several [new] nuclear reactors, their need to start, to restart the nuclear industry. So that, certainly, you’ve got to get going as you say. I agree with you, Senator. The other question, and it’s a concern of other Senators, is that we need to develop a long range plan for the safe disposal of the waste. And this is something that’s the responsibility of the Department of Energy. And that has to go forward as well, because you have to develop that concurrently with the starting of this industry again. And so those are [inaudible], in my mind, the two highest priorities. The third is that there is research that has to be done. Again, because reprocessing has the potential for greatly reducing both the amount and lifetime of the waste and to extend the nuclear fuel.

Sen. Landrieu: Well can we, can this committee count on you to go to bat in the atmosphere of these troubled financial markets? Can we count on you to go to bat with the Administration to make sure that the energy sector of this country is given priority, in terms of stabilizing markets so that we can get a lot of this done with government, you know, not being done by the government but supported by the government?

Steven Chu: Yes. It’s been said again and again on the importance, for example, of that $18.5 billion loan guarantee program that to start moving in that direction.

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

Dallas Morning News
January 15, 2009

Harold Simmons' company wins radioactive waste permission

By Randy Lee Loftis
rloftis@dallasnews.com

Harold Simmons' company wins radioactive waste permission

Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons won a decade-long battle to dispose of radioactive waste in West Texas when state regulators on Wednesday granted a license for his company's Andrews County facility.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved a request by Simmons' Waste Control Specialists LLC for permanent disposal of low-level radioactive waste from Texas and Vermont – two states with a compact governing their waste – and from federal sources.

Chairman Buddy Garcia and Commissioner Bryan Shaw voted to approve the license. Commissioner Larry Soward abstained.

"WCS and the citizens of Andrews and Lea [N.M.] counties and the Permian Basin have been waiting for this day for many years," company chief executive officer William J. Lindquist said after the vote. "The state of Texas will now be able to meet its obligations to the power plants, hospitals, universities, research institutes and other industrial generators" that need the facility, he said.

Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Sierra Club's Texas chapter, said the commissioners' decision put the public at risk. He said the club would consider suing to block the license.

"The agency and commissioners by their action are approving the nation's largest commercial radioactive waste site when basic facts about the site are still inadequately understood," Reed said. "They had nothing to lose and everything to gain by granting us the opportunity to prove in court that the site is inadequate and potentially dangerous."

The site will become a permanent graveyard for contaminated materials such as tools, clothing, instruments, cleaning compounds and other items from nuclear power plants, medical facilities and other sources. It does not include highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants, which the U.S. Energy Department wants to ship to its proposed Yucca Mountain site in Nevada.

Despite its name, low-level radioactive waste poses a health risk to people without proper handling and disposal.

The Simmons plan won support from political and business leaders in Andrews County, on the New Mexico state line between Lubbock and El Paso. They argued that the facility would provide 75 new jobs and posed no threat to the environment.

Environmental groups opposed the plan, saying the state had not adequately investigated earthquake dangers, risks to groundwater and other concerns. They also predicted that under pressure from waste generators, Texas would eventually let the facility take waste from any state.

Other low-level facilities are in Barnwell, S.C.; Clive, Utah; and Richland, Wash. Each limits the type or origin of waste it accepts, leaving Texas generators with few options. At the same time, proposed new nuclear power plants, including six or more new reactors possible in Texas, are expected to boost disposal demand.

Waste Control Specialists, a subsidiary of Simmons' Dallas-based Valhi Inc., already has a license for permanent disposal of other types of hazardous and radioactive waste – including some Cold War nuclear weapons byproducts – at its 12-year-old facility. WCS president Rodney Baltzer predicted that the state license would boost annual revenue from $10 million to $100 million.

Simmons, the 77-year-old Valhi chairman, is one of Texas' biggest donors to political candidates, mostly Republicans. He personally gave nearly $3.83 million to Texas politicians or party organizations from 2000 through 2008, campaign disclosures show. That does not include money spent on lobbying.

Waste Control Specialists' state license stemmed from two major victories for Simmons. In 1998, state environmental commissioners rejected a proposed state-owned and operated low-level waste facility in Hudspeth County that had sparked protest.

That left the door open for Simmons' venture, but only if the Legislature would allow private companies to operate a low-level waste facility. The Legislature voted to allow that in 2003.

When the application period closed the next year, only Waste Control Specialists had applied.

--Staff writer Elizabeth Souder contributed to this report.

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

Las Vegas SUN
January 14, 2009

Reid: Obama to zero out Yucca’s budget

By Lisa Mascaro

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today that the new president will essentially zero out funding for Yucca Mountain in the 2010 fiscal year budget being submitted to Congress in coming weeks.

President-elect Barack Obama’s proposed budget may contain only minimal funds to begin transitioning the Yucca Mountain program from a long-term nuclear waste dump north of Las Vegas to a system of on-site storage sites at existing power plants across the country. There may also be funds to help workers in Nevada adjust as the project mission is changed.

“When Obama’s budget comes out for the following year, there’ll be nothing in it for Yucca Mountain,” Reid said.

Zeroing out the budget could all but kill the long-running plan to store nuclear waste in the desert.

Reid's comments came during a meeting this afternoon with the Nevada congressional delegation.

Republican Sen. John Ensign agreed there could be funds to make the transition to on-site storage, which he, Reid and other lawmakers from Nevada have maintained was “the best solution.”

Obama's budget is expected in coming weeks, after he takes office. Eliminating funding would make it all but impossible for the Energy Department to continue developing the project, which is now undergoing a four-year review before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Reid said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's budget would also be less than expected.

But first Reid expects to slash another $100 million from the Energy Department's budget for Yucca Mountain for the remainder of this fiscal year. Reid has systematically directed Congress to cut the project’s budget in recent years, an effort to essentially starve the Energy Department of the funds it needs to fully develop the Yucca Mountain. For the first half of this year, Reid cut the project by 20 percent.

The Energy Department advanced the project to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year despite the cuts.

A spokesman for Obama's transition office was not immediately available to comment.

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

Las Vegas SUN
January 14, 2009

Yucca Mountain:

Nevada skipped in talk of nuclear waste storage

Energy nominee sidesteps Yucca project in Hill session

By Lisa Mascaro

Washington — Energy Secretary nominee Steven Chu managed to get through his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday while barely mentioning the words Yucca Mountain.

Even though the Energy Department has spent $9 billion and more than 20 years developing the plan for a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, when asked by senators about the site, Chu said only that he would use sound science to find a long-term solution to the storage problem.

By sidestepping the issue and pointing to President-elect Barack Obama’s stated opposition to Yucca Mountain, Chu did more than simply avoid a thorny question during a confirmation hearing. He signaled the new direction Obama seems to be taking on the dump: It was as if Yucca Mountain did not exist.

“The Department of Energy has an obligation, a real obligation, to provide a plan that allows for the safe disposal of nuclear waste,” Chu testified. “We do need a plan of how to dispose of that waste safely over a long period of time.”

Nevertheless, the Nobel physicist said nuclear energy is necessary as the nation confronts climate change. It satisfies 20 percent of the nation’s energy needs — and constitutes 70 percent of its carbon-free energy, he reminded the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The next point public officials usually make in conversations of this kind is that nuclear recycling will provide a way out of the waste conundrum. Many lawmakers in Nevada say they favor nuclear power if the waste can be reused rather than dumped.

Chu, however, seemed unconvinced that reprocessing nuclear waste is a sound choice, describing existing technology as “not ideal.” He echoed concerns in the scientific community that nuclear waste stockpiled for recycling could fall into enemy hands, and that reprocessing used fuel now costs more than mining for fresh uranium.

“The idea here, now, is to do it in a way that makes it more proliferation-resistant and there’s economic feasibility,” he said.

Chu told the senators that waste storage is an issue that would “occupy a significant amount of my time and energy.”

He said that in many ways the nuclear dilemma is similar to the quest for clean coal: More coal and nuclear plants should be brought on line even as new technologies are being developed – to capture carbon in the case of coal or resolve the waste issue with nuclear energy.

“It doesn’t mean you stop everything today,” he said.

Perhaps one clue to his approach in resolving the waste issue can be seen in his views on the politically difficult task of choosing routes for new energy transmission lines. Communities have protested the so-called electricity superhighways proposed for their neighborhoods.

“How do you site these in a way that takes into consideration the local feelings?” Chu said.

When one senator asked whether the federal government should be given more authority to decide where the transmission lines belong, Chu suggested the government instead “try a gentler approach.”

Chu’s comments seemed light years from those of Energy Department officials who forced Yucca Mountain on Nevada over the years. “If one just expands the authority and gives more power, my feeling is the states, and the local people in the states, might react,” Chu said.

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

Las Vegas Review-Journal
January 14, 2009

Chu calls nuclear waste 'thorny' issue

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Steven Chu said Tuesday that as energy secretary he will pursue the "best possible scientific analysis" to chart the disposal of the nation's nuclear waste, without saying what he plans to do about the proposed Yucca Mountain repository.

Appearing at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Chu was asked how he plans to approach nuclear waste management, where the government's preferred disposal site in Nevada is more than 10 years behind schedule.

Nuclear waste poses "very thorny questions," Chu said, noting that President-elect Barack Obama has stated "very clearly" his opposition to the repository, where the Energy Department is seeking a license to build disposal tunnels for more than 77,000 tons of radioactive material.

If confirmed as expected, Chu will be the Energy Department leader, and he offered no endorsement of the Yucca project in answering questions about nuclear power and its byproducts.

He spoke beyond the program, saying several times that finding a solution to the issue of nuclear waste storage would be a priority.

Chu said those efforts should not hold up development of new nuclear power plants.

"I am very confident the Department of Energy with cooperation with other countries can get a solution to the nuclear waste problem," he said.

Chu, a Chinese-American who has been director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004, said he hopes science will provide answers, including nuclear waste recycling "in the long term."

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

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

Las Vegas Review-Journal
January 14, 2009

Governor opposes legal help for Loux

By Ed Vogel
Las Vegas Review-Journal Capital Bureau

CARSON CITY -- Gov. Jim Gibbons and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto clashed Tuesday when the governor objected to paying the legal expenses of former Nuclear Projects Agency Executive Director Bob Loux.

Gibbons said the state should not be paying $20,000 to cover legal expenses incurred by Loux to fend off a complaint filed against him with the Ethics Commission.

Instead of paying his legal costs, the attorney general's office should prosecute Loux on criminal charges, Gibbons told Masto during a Board of Examiners meeting. Both serve on the commission.

The administration contends Loux over at least a three-year period gave himself and his staff salary increases far beyond what they were legally entitled to receive.

For example, they allege Loux paid himself a $151,542 salary last year, nearly 33 percent more than the $114,088 he was entitled to receive by law. Governors in Nevada are paid $141,000 a year.

"Should the state of Nevada be defending someone who violated the state law?" Gibbons asked.

While defending her decision to cover Loux's legal costs, Masto revealed that the Washoe County Sheriff's Office is investigating whether criminal charges should be brought against Loux.

She added that Carson City District Attorney Neil Rombardo has agreed to prosecute if Loux is indicted on criminal charges. Rombardo is a former deputy attorney general.

The attorney general reminded Gibbons, a non-practicing lawyer, that Loux is innocent until proven guilty.

Masto also mentioned that Loux stated in documents given to the Ethics Commission that Andrew Clinger, Gibbons' budget director, authorized the salary increases he gave himself and his staff.

Clinger, in an interview, flatly denied that allegation and expressed amazement that Loux had made it.

Masto said that she would prefer not to provide funds for Loux's defense, but that she had no choice under state law.

"In no way do I condone the actions taken by Mr. Loux," Masto said. "I share your concerns."

With Masto and Gibbons unable to reach a compromise, Secretary of State Ross Miller requested that the issue of spending $20,000 on Loux's defense be postponed to a future Board of Examiners meeting. Miller is the third member of the commission.

His proposal was accepted by Gibbons and Masto without comment.

Loux has denied he paid himself and his staff anywhere near what Gibbons and his staff have reported they found in an audit of his agency.

But he did say in a legislative hearing that he converted the salary of an employee who quit into 16 percent pay increases for himself and his staff.

It was discovered they were receiving additional pay after Loux went before the Interim Finance Committee in September to seek $72,000 to cover retirement and other benefit increases that he did not calculate when he changed payroll records to increase their salaries.

Masto added that her office has a longtime record of working with Loux on cases involving the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal project. That poses potential conflicts of interest, she said.

Loux ran the Nuclear Projects Agency for more than 23 years, acting as the state's principal opponent against the Yucca Mountain Project, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Because of the potential conflicts of interest, Loux has hired private lawyers, including former state Budget Director Judy Sheldrew, to represent him with their fees paid by the state.

Masto said about $8,000 already has been spent on those lawyers and the Board of Examiners had no choice but to approve a contract change to bring that total to $20,000.

Loux's appearance on March 12 before the Ethics Commission can lead only to civil fines against him. The complaint against him was filed by Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert, R-Reno, after the Interim Finance Committee hearing.

--Contact Las Vegas Review-Journal Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@ reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.

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

Pahrump Valley Times
January 14, 2009

Nye suggests nuke recycling payoff

By Mark Waite
PVT

The proposed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which is studying the possibility of recycling nuclear waste, should look at building sites near the Yucca Mountain repository to spur economic development.

That's the the pitch Nye County officials made at a public hearing Monday night.

The 55 members of the audience at the Bob Ruud Community Center included representatives of Pahrump Alliance Valley Economic Development (PAVED), Valley Electric Association, Nye County Yucca Mountain consultants, the Nevada Test Site Citizens Advisory Board and the Sierra Club.

It was the only public hearing held on the program in Nevada.

Darrell Lacy, director of the Nye County Nuclear Waste Project office, said the initial 70,000 tons slated for burial at Yucca Mountain isn't being targeted for recycling under the programmatic environmental impact statement.

Sal Golub, the hearing moderator for the U.S. Department of Energy, said there will be enough nuclear waste next year to fill Yucca Mountain to its 70,000-ton statutory limit set in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Lacy said it's likely Yucca Mountain will be expanded beyond the 70,000 tons.

Golub said recycling nuclear fuel, what they called a closed fuel cycle, would actually increase the amount of transportation and handling. The current EIS isn't proposing any specific sites for nuclear reactors using recycled waste or other facilities, he said.

The possibility of recycling the nuclear waste won't preclude the need for Yucca Mountain, Lacy said. But it could reduce the volume and toxicity of the waste, extending the capacity of the nuclear repository and delaying the need to build a second one, he said.

Lacy said Nye County recommends DOE not preclude recycling of the high-level nuclear waste already destined for Yucca Mountain.

"Yucca Mountain is designed for retrievable storage and appears capable of allowing for retrieval of the wastes for a very long time period," Lacy said. "Scattering the location of GNEP facilities around the country will not optimize environmental safety and cost impacts. Co-locating facilities in close proximity to the site of the geologic repository for which the waste stream is utlimately destined is a sound approach."

Nye County Commissioner Gary Hollis said nuclear power is critical to America's energy security. He said GNEP is part of an energy policy that limits emission of greenhouse gases and reduces the volume and toxic nature of waste associated with nuclear generation.

"If Yucca Mountain becomes a reality, we believe that Nye County should receive benefits associated with the repository. We have a goal to ensure that people who work at Yucca Mountain live in Nye County and that the businesses and industries associated with Yucca Mountain are located in Nye County," Hollis said.

In addition to being the site of Yucca Mountain, Hollis said Nye County has already been burdened with years of contamination from over 900 nuclear weapons tests and should receive economic benefits from any nuclear waste reprocessing and related facilities.

Ed Mueller, Esmeralda County's consultant on nuclear waste, said nuclear resurgence will require a broad industrial and technological expansion.

"Ultimately the road to cleaner air and the success for nuclear power must run through Yucca Mountain," Mueller said.

But Jane Feldman, conservation chairman with the southern Nevada group of the Sierra Club, said nuclear energy isn't "carbon free." Carbon is produced in mining the uranium needed for nuclear power.

"If nuclear power made the air cleaner, the Sierra Club would support it," Feldman said. "The GNEP process would end up producing a higher volume of nuclear waste."

Feldman charged the nuclear industry itself isn't supportive of GNEP. She said a National Academy of Sciences study in 1996 estimated recycling uranium and plutonium from high-level waste would be hugely expensive, on the scale of the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry.

While Golub said GNEP would reduce nuclear proliferation risks, encouraging nations in the partnership to ship their spent fuel for recycling, Feldman said separating plutonium from high-level waste could also make it more susceptible to terrorists.

Feldman said the U.S. doesn't have a good track record in cleaning up tens of millions of gallons of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. At one site in South Carolina, the DOE processed less than 3 percent of the radioactive waste for disposal, she said.

"There is nothing good, nothing clean about nuclear energy," Feldman said.

Irene Navis, planning manager for Clark County, said the EIS should be placed on hold or withdrawn.

Navis said several actions undertaken since the release of the draft, programmatic EIS was released for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership should be included for consideration.

They include the docketing of the license application for Yucca Mountain by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; the release of an updated waste confidence ruling by the NRC; a DOE report on the feasibility of a second repository and another on interim storage and a public hearing by the Surface Transportation Board on the proposed Caliente rail line.

"For example, the DOE's second repository report calls for an expansion of Yucca Mountain to three times its current capacity, rather than the siting of a second repository," Navis said. "Based on this report, there is a high degree of certainty that all final waste products resulting from GNEP, as well as spent fuel from existing and any newly built reactors over the next several decaes, would be emplaced in the Yucca Mountain repository for long-term disposal."

Navis added President-elect Barack Obama and the new U.S. Secretary of Energy could bring new thinking to the GNEP concept. She said a new budget is likely to affect funding for GNEP, rendering much of what is included in the draft unrealistic at best.

There is speculation the new administration will appoint a blue ribbon panel to examine nuclear waste, Navis said. Clark County wouldn't object to evaluating GNEP as part of that panel's studies, she said.

Comments on GNEP are being accepted until March 16. They may be sent to: Mr. Frank Schwartz, GNEP PEIS Document Manager, Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave. S.W., Washington, D.C., 20585-0119 or by fax at 1-866-489-1891.

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

Reno Gazette-Journal
January 14, 2009

Nevada panel balks at paying for nuclear official's defense

By Anjeanette Damon
adamon@rgj.com

Gov. Jim Gibbons balked Tuesday at approving $20,000 to defend the former director of nuclear projects against ethics charges he illegally overpaid himself and his staff.

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said her office is obligated to defend former nuclear projects director Bob Loux on the charges before the state ethics commission.

State law requires her office to defend employees charged with ethics violations while they are conducting their public duties in good faith.

Gibbons disagreed, saying her office should instead be bringing charges against Loux.

"The attorney general should be prosecuting Mr. Loux not defending him," Gibbons said amid a heated 30-minute exchange with Cortez Masto at the Board of Examiners meeting.

The board -- the governor, attorney general and Secretary of State Ross Miller -- deferred action on the spending.

Loux is accused of bypassing the governor and the Legislature and giving himself and several of his employees unauthorized pay increases for several years. The overpayments came to light last year when Loux overspent his budget and requested more money.

At the time of the discovery, Gibbons demanded Loux's resignation.

Loux resigned in September after spending more than two decades coordinating the state's fight against the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository near Las Vegas.

Cortez Masto said she hired a law firm to defend Loux because she wanted to avoid any conflicts of interest. She also has asked the Washoe County Sheriff's Office to conduct a criminal investigation into Loux's actions.

If Loux is found guilty of the ethics violations or is charged criminally, which would indicate bad faith, Masto said she would "go after him" to recover the money the state spent on his defense.

Loux maintains he overpaid himself and his staff with the knowledge of Gibbons' budget director Andrew Clinger and the Department of Personnel. Clinger denies knowing of the overpayments.

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

World Nuclear News
January 14, 2009

Chu looks set to be next US energy secretary

Steven Chu looks set to be confirmed to serve as president-elect Barack Obama's secretary of energy.

Chu sat before the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on 13 January to pledge his willingness to take up the job as head of the Department of Energy. He said that Obama's "aggressive" plan to meet the challenge of a "push towards energy independence" was achievable.

The plan would mean, Chu said, a greater commitment to wind, solar and geothermal energies, more efficient transport including plug-in hybrid cars and investment to achieve carbon capture and storage. He included "a continued commitment to nuclear power and a long-term plan for waste management and disposal" along with a smarter transmission and distribution system and a "cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse emissions."

The Senators asked Chu what he proposed to do, in the short term, about the US government's obligation to take charge of and dispose of high-level radioactive wastes from nuclear power plants. The DoE's plan has long been to put those wastes inside a respository within Yucca Mountain, but this is likely to happen at least 20 years late and come saddled with legal liabilities amounting to over $11 billion for the delays.

Chu said he was "supportive of the fact that the nuclear industry is, should have to be, a part of our energy mix in this century." He said that using new science he would "try to use the best possible scientific analysis to try to figure out a way we can go forward on nuclear disposal. So it will occupy certainly a significant part of my time and energy." He later added: "I'm confident that the Department of Energy, perhaps in collaboration with other countries, can get a solution to the nuclear waste problem."

Reprocessing of used nuclear fuel and recycling of uranium and plutonium within it "can be a part of that solution," Chu said, adding that "the processes we have are not ideal." The issue of the economics of recycling nuclear fuel was "a research problem at the moment and something the department should be paying a lot of attention to." He concluded: "I think there's time to look at it and develop means, but certainly recycling is an option that we will be looking at very closely."

Chu said he supported accelerating the loan guarantee program that will see the DoE use $18.5 billion as security to encourage lending for low-carbon power generation technology.

On loan guarantees for nuclear projects: "The point here is that nuclear power, as I said before, is going to be an important part of our energy mix. It's 20% of our electricity generation today, but it's 70% of the carbon-free portion of electricity today. And it is baseload. So I think it is very important that we push ahead."

Sidebar: "Nuclear power, as I said before, is going to be an important part of our energy mix. It's 20% of our electricity generation today, but it's 70% of the carbon-free portion of electricity today. And it is baseload. So I think it is very important that we push ahead."

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

Tri-City Herald
January 14, 2009

More nukes look likely

By E. Kirsten Peters
Special to the Herald

PULLMAN -- President-elect Obama’s pick for Secretary of Energy is a physicist with a Nobel Prize.

Dr. Steven Chu also has a long record of advocating more nuclear power, as well as increasing our use of renewable energy such as next-generation solar.

In short, Chu looks likely to move our nation a step away from heavy reliance on fossil fuels and toward a more high-tech energy future.

Chu’s nuclear commitment will likely be fodder for glow-in-the-dark jokes from Leno and Letterman. But his ideas challenge all of us to seriously look again at our energy priorities.

Today, we get about 20 percent of our electricity from nuclear reactors, making them a significant slice of the national energy pie. But some citizens strongly fear high-tech nuclear plants. Others worry about nuclear waste and note that our government has not yet provided a full disposal path for spent nuclear fuel.

On the other hand, some citizens see nukes as an energy source that’s based on American resources. And nuclear plants don’t contribute to carbon dioxide levels, a clear positive for climate concerns.

Many scientists see great potential for reducing the hazardous waste from nuclear power plants by recycling the fuel rods that lie at the heart of reactors. The stumbling block for such recycling in this country has not been a technical one, but a political issue -- which brings us back to the new administration.

Obama’s pick for Energy Secretary is the director of the prestigious Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Dr. Chu has long spoken in favor of increasing the number of nuclear power plants and improving what we do within those plants to radically decrease nuclear waste.

Just for the record, I’m a geologist who wears a Stetson and drives an aging pickup truck. Because I’m such a red-blooded American, I feel free to say we might possibly learn something from the example of the French, at least when it comes to energy.

France gets a whopping 88 percent of its electrical power from nukes. With limited fossil fuels given to them by Mother Nature, the French long ago made the decision to embrace nuclear power. And embrace it they have: many French citizens line up to tour nuclear plants on their summer vacations!

With 59 nuclear plants in operation, France chose not to store immense volumes of waste deep underground, as the American government proposes to do at Yucca Mountain. Instead, the French recycle old fuel rods to generate still more power and reduce their waste pile. The residual amount of radioactive material is vastly reduced, and is much easier to store.

Recycling was an approach the Carter administration nixed for America in the 1970s, citing security concerns. But the French have had no security issues with their recycling program. That’s why I expect Dr. Chu will advocate both recycling and new nuclear power plants after he’s confirmed as Energy Secretary.

Congress no doubt will consider energy from several vantage points, weighing our national needs and the diverse opinions of so many citizens.

One thing is sure -- part of any broad American effort to build recycling facilities and construct next-generation nukes would depend on recreating the human infrastructure we’ve lost since the 1970s. In other words, if we choose to keep our cowboy hats firmly on our heads (as I’m surely going to do), but also make use of more nuclear power, we’ve got to support education in nuclear science and engineering.

A friend, Dr. Donald Wall of Washington State University, works each day in exactly that field, educating the next generation in everything from running the nuclear reactor we have on campus for research purposes to investigating new methods of using radioactive materials to benefit humanity.

“Americans are very creative and industrious people, and I know we have the talent to safely expand the nuclear energy industry,” Wall said to me this week. “I’m dedicated to this field because it holds incredible promise. We’re excited to start working with the new Secretary of Energy.”

Leno and Letterman will write more jokes about glowing in the dark with Homer Simpson. But scientists such as Chu and Wall are in earnest about expanding the nuclear power industry in the U.S.

--E. Kirsten Peters is a native of the rural Northwest, but was trained as a geologist at Princeton and Harvard. Questions about science or energy for future Rock Docs can be sent to epeters@wsu.edu. This column is a service of the College of Sciences at Washington State University.

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

Hanford News

Sen. Murray proposes billions in federal funds for nuclear site cleanup

Annette Cary
Herald staff writer

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is proposing that $6 billion to $7 billion be included in a national economic recovery package for cleanup work at Hanford and other Department of Energy nuclear sites.

That's in line with a proposal that's outlined in a DOE report that covers one option for the Obama administration to consider.

The DOE proposal calls for $6 billion to be spent to significantly reduce the size of large contaminated sites such as Hanford and finish cleanup at smaller sites. The proposal also calls for DOE cleanup sites to be developed into energy parks.

"To make progress ... we need to put in enough funds to reduce the size of the sites," Murray said Tuesday during a Senate Budget Committee confirmation hearing for Peter Orszag, nominated for director of the Office of Management and Budget.

DOE is paying significant amounts of overhead costs for areas waiting for nuclear and chemical contamination left from World War II and Cold War nuclear production to be cleaned up, she said. Those overhead costs have been estimated at more than $1 billion a year.

"I am very aware of the importance of the issue," Orszag responded.

Spending to accelerate cleanup has been discussed both in the context of the fiscal 2010 budget and also as part of more immediate economic recovery spending, he said.

"I will assure you that I am focused on it and more details will be forthcoming," he said.

Including $6 billion or more in the economic recovery package for DOE cleanup would be a huge boost for the Hanford nuclear reservation, said Gary Petersen, Tri-City Development Council vice president for Hanford programs.

The money likely would be spent over four years, since no site would be able to immediately use as much money as it might receive, he said.

However, he cautioned that getting that much money for cleanup programs is far from certain and the House still must discuss what it is interested in spending. The Senate and House will develop separate economic recovery packages, and after they are passed they would need to be reconciled.

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., a strong supporter of cleanup money for Hanford, will be key to efforts in the House, Petersen said.

Economic recovery money appropriated for cleanup likely would be given to DOE to allocate site by site, rather than coming as earmarks for specific sites.

The proposal that's been circulating in Washington, D.C., to reduce the footprint of cleanup sites and develop energy parks is a concept paper for the new administration to consider, according to DOE. It also said the proposal was not the only one from DOE.

The proposal, Reduction of EM (Environmental Management) Footprint and Establishment of Energy Parks, says the $6 billion could be spent to achieve a 90 percent footprint reduction for a total reduction from 900 square miles of contaminated area to 135 square miles by 2015 or earlier.

At Hanford, the plan now is to reduce the contaminated portion of the site to about 75 square miles in central Hanford by 2015.

The additional cleanup work nationwide would create "thousands of new blue collar environmental jobs immediately," likely within 90 to 180 days, the DOE proposal said.

Longer term, it could create 10,000 additional jobs for the next four years, it said.

"Footprint reduction will be accomplished by focusing cleanup activities on decontamination and demolition of excess contaminated facilities, soil and ground water remediation, and solid waste disposition, all of which have proven technologies and an established regulatory framework," the report said. "Ultimately, completions of these types of environmental cleanup activities reduce the monitoring and maintenance costs associated with managing large tracts of land."

That will allow DOE to focus on its tougher problems of disposing of high level radioactive waste now stored in tanks at Hanford and other sites and disposing of weapons-grade materials and irradiated nuclear fuel, the report said.

Once federal land is cleaned up, the land -- plus state-of-the-art facilities and technologies and a highly trained work force -- can be leveraged to establish energy parks to produce energy and demonstrate advanced technologies, the report said.

The plan calls for reducing the contaminated footprint of Hanford, the Idaho National Laboratory, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.

There also may be similar opportunities at sites in Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky.

In addition 12 small sites might be closed by 2015 and work at three others might be accelerated, the report said.

--Annette Cary: 509-582-1533; acary@tricityherald.com

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

Times Picayune
January 14, 2009

Former Entergy New Orleans CEO Dan Packer is being considered for Nuclear Regulatory Commisison appointment

by Rebecca Mowbray
The Times-Picayune

Former Entergy New Orleans chief executive Dan Packer confirmed that he is under consideration for a possible appointment to the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which formulates nuclear policy for the nation and oversees the nation's nuclear plants.

If chosen, Packer could join other New Orleanians in important positions in the new administration, such as Desiree Rogers as White House social chair and Lisa Perez Jackson as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. But the move is also potentially controversial because Packer's former employer, Entergy Corp., has applications pending before the commission to build two new nuclear reactors.

Packer said he met about three or four weeks ago in Washington, D.C., with Barack Obama transition officials for the Department of Energy.

"They were looking at me as a potential NRC commission member and possibly its chairman. I don't want to say any more about it. I know those things can come pretty quick and end pretty quick," said Packer, whose entire career before coming to Entergy New Orleans revolved around nuclear energy. "The last I heard was that they would be giving me a call back. That was last week sometime."

An Obama transition official said the transition team does not comment on appointments before announcements are made.

Beth Hayden, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Rockville, Md., said that her group has heard nothing from the incoming presidential administration about Packer.

If Packer were chosen, his appointment would be somewhat unusual. Hayden said commissioners have generally been lawyers, congressional staff members, engineers, professors or physicists rather than industry people.

One reason why such commissioners have worked well in the past, Hayden said, is that commissioners have to divest any stock in utility companies that they regulate.

If Packer were selected, he'd probably have to get rid of any Entergy stock he owns and recuse himself from any Entergy issues before the commission.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will have to deal with some thorny questions in the next few years.

The commission will have to deal with an application submitted in June by the Department of Energy for long-term storage of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada at a time when financing is questionable.

Nuclear regulatory officials will also have to deal with a wave of new license applications, to build a new generation of nuclear reactors.

Two of those applications are from Entergy, the nation's second-largest operator of nuclear plants. The company would like to get licenses to build an additional reactor at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Port Gibson, Miss., and one at the River Bend Nuclear Generating Station near St. Francisville. Last week, Entergy had to put those applications on hold after it was unable to negotiate a deal with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, the company whose reactor design was part of the applications.

With the credit crisis and declines of stock values, it's unclear whether companies will continue to file applications or pull existing ones because of difficulty in finding the money to build plants.

Technical staff members evaluate applications and decide whether to grant nuclear licenses, Hayden said, but commissioners ratify the issuance of licenses and handle appeals.

The five commission slots are full-time jobs with five-year terms. The president appoints all five commissioners, and the nominees must be confirmed by the Senate.

Hayden said that one seat on the commission that expires in June 2010 is open. Another commissioner's term expires in June. The chairmanship of the commission is also expected to turn over with the change in administration.

Packer, who retired as president and chief executive of Entergy New Orleans at the end of 2006 and gave up his position as chairman of the board of directors of the local utility in April 2007, said he's not sure he wants the job. "I'm not sure what I'll do one way or another. I'm not necessarily vying for the position," he said.

Still, Packer is passionate about nuclear power. "My first love in the power industry was nuclear," he said.

Packer began his career in the U.S. Nuclear Navy Program from 1969 to 1975, then worked for six years at Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., where he earned a senior reactor operator's license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He joined Entergy in 1982 and worked his way up at the Waterford III nuclear station in Taft to become the nation's first African-American to manage a nuclear plant. He was named president of Entergy New Orleans in 1996 and chief executive in 1998, serving as the public face of the company for a decade, including the rocky period after Hurricane Katrina.

In the late 1980s, Packer visited the Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear power accident. "It was pretty interesting. There are a lot things that we did differently in the United States. We had a lot more scrutiny at the NRC."

Packer said he believes he would have a lot to offer the nation's regulatory body. "I can bring a practical and safety perspective to the NRC."

Entergy Corp. spokeswoman Yolanda Pollard said that the company is aware that Packer has been contacted by the incoming administration, and has no concerns about potential conflicts of interest because any nomination would be thoroughly vetted by the U.S. Senate.

"Obviously we hold an extremely high opinion of Dan's leadership abilities. Entergy is proud of its long history of having former employees serve in high profile roles within and outside our industry," she said.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog group that is "agnostic" on questions of new nuclear power but believes that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission needs to strengthen its oversight of existing nuclear plants, said it doesn't know Packer and can't comment specifically about his case.

But the group says that it's concerned about precedents that a Packer appointment could set, because of his long career at Entergy, even though it's been two years since he retired. The group says it's concerned about former industry officials being viewed as a potential source of commissioners.

"As a general rule, we wouldn't support someone with close ties to the regulated industry as a commissioner," said Edwin Lyman, senior staff scientist at the Washington, D.C. nonprofit. "What the commission really needs and is lacking are technically competent skeptics, or those who have really been independent from the nuclear industry."

--Rebecca Mowbray can be reached at rmowbray@timespicayune.com or at 504.826.3417.

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

Mountain Xpress
January 14, 2009

Deadly decisions

Transport of nuclear waste could put area residents at risk

by Mary Olson

Vol. 15 / Iss. 25 on 01/14/2009

Asheville? Nuclear waste? Why worry that Asheville City Council declined to pass a measure that would have sent federal planners the message “Don’t come through here” with these deadly wastes?

Taken in a larger context, this nonaction by City Council may be vitally important. Folks have a right to know about some very local nuclear history and the potential for future impacts on Asheville residents’ safety and welfare.

Does the name Sandy Mush mean anything to you?

About 25 years ago, a federal agency was studying Sandy Mush—a rural area in Leicester, about 20 miles from City Hall—as a potential site for a permanent high-level nuclear waste dump. Were you part of the citizen action that helped block it?

I only recently learned, however, that back in 1986, Congress did not eliminate the Sandy Mush site from future consideration. Instead, the attempt to site a second, eastern dump was merely shelved when Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada was targeted as the nation’s lone dump site for high-level nuclear waste. And the news that Sandy Mush is merely “on hold” changes the frame on City Council’s failing to assert local jurisdictional authority to oppose or prohibit the transport of high-level nuclear waste through Asheville.

Let’s be clear: The waste in question isn’t on the roads today; it’s sitting at the various nuclear-power plants and nuclear-weapons sites where it was created, and so far, that’s still the best plan. But once it has a destination, there will be decades of federal shipments—thousands, possibly tens of thousands of enormous containers full of high-level radioactive waste—traveling by truck, rail, boat or a combination of these. Extremely concentrated and immediately deadly, this waste (aka “spent fuel,” primarily from commercial nuclear-power plants) will not be simple to move safely.

In effect, the penetrating gamma rays would make this akin to an X-ray machine going down the road. Shielding the material sufficiently to prevent this radiation exposure would make the loads so heavy that shipping would be impossible. So federal standards allow a specified radiation level at the container’s surface—equivalent to receiving 10 chest X-rays per hour. Even without an accident, these shipments constitute a hazard.

Inevitably, however, there will be accidents, ranging from fender-benders to the worst-case scenarios. And even harmless incidents can cause significant disruption, as it can take much time to confirm that there was no release of hazardous material.

But in a bad accident involving both crushing forces and a fire, if even a fraction of the waste were lofted into the smoke plume and off the accident site, it could result in “sacrifice zones” that could never be fully cleaned up. Unlike chlorine spills, residents evacuated from these areas do not go home again, because the area is either permanently off-limits or the “cleanup” involves demolition and even scraping the earth.

On Nov. 25, Asheville City Council heard but didn’t act on a locally proposed ordinance (based on a Las Vegas statute) that would have prohibited the transport of this type of waste through the city. Council also declined to draft a nonbinding resolution opposing these shipments. And apparently—with one exception—they didn’t even read the reports submitted to them concerning this vital issue.

On Dec. 9, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman sent a report to Congress stating that even if the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository eventually opens, a second dump will be needed. Why? Because by 2010, the waste already generated will have exceeded Yucca’s capacity. By law, however, the second repository is to be east of the Mississippi River. So WNC beware: Will a few politicians single-handedly decide our future for us? The report also claims that Yucca Mountain’s legal capacity could be expanded, but in fact, this is not technically feasible.

The Nevada site was a political choice; geologically speaking, it would be hard to find a worse place for a waste dump. The combination of volcanic activity in the area and chemically corrosive, fractured rock means it is doomed to fail. People across the U.S. oppose Yucca Mountain both on technical grounds and because it’s a sacred Shoshone Indian site.

Because this is such a complex matter, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and WNC Physicians for Social Responsibility are planning a public forum for sometime early in 2009 where we hope a variety of views will be shared.

Both groups are active in Common Sense at the Nuclear Crossroads, the local educational campaign that offered the proposed draft ordinance to City Council. I have the great good fortune to work with citizen activists nationwide on nuclear issues, and Asheville is exceptionally lucky to have such a vibrant, dedicated and, indeed, prescient band of professionals-turned-activists. CSNC has met regularly since 2004, the year the possibility of sending this waste to South Carolina for so-called “recycling” was announced.

Make no mistake: Only about 1 percent of the waste is actually reused, and the process is very dirty, dangerous and results in massive air pollution. Common Sense also educates people about the local impacts of other federal plans, including the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (http://www.gnep.energy.gov).

CSNC has produced two reports on the transport of nuclear material. The second—“More Than a Tad” by John Sticpewich—specifically concerns the transport of high-level radioactive waste in the Carolinas. These documents are available at http://www.nuclearcrossroads.com. Now imagine if this waste were going to Sandy Mush!

The next meeting of Common Sense at the Nuclear Crossroads is Monday, Feb. 9, at 6:30 p.m., in a downstairs classroom at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville on Edwin Place.

--Mary Olson is the southeast regional coordinator for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.

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

KLAS-TV
January 13, 2009

Governor opposes legal help for ex-official

Associated Press

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto clashed Tuesday over legal assistance for the former head of the state Nuclear Projects Agency, who resigned after disclosures he gave himself and his staff unauthorized pay raises.

Gibbons and Masto, both members of the state Board of Examiners, clashed during discussion of a board agenda item adding about $20,000 to a $10,000 contract with a private attorney representing Bob Loux before the state Ethics Commission. The agenda item finally was deferred.

Masto said state law requires the representation unless there's a clear finding that Loux shouldn't have it. Gibbons said he believes it's already apparent that the legal assistance should be withdrawn.

"We don't have an obligation to defend him when he violates the law. I believe we should be prosecuting him and not defending him," Gibbons said.

Masto said the Washoe County Sheriff's Office is investigating whether Loux violated the law, and the Carson City district attorney's office has agreed to handle a criminal prosecution if there is one.

Masto also said she determined in September that Loux was acting within the scope of his employment and was acting in "good faith." Under such circumstances, she said she's obligated to represent him during his Ethics Commission proceedings.

The attorney general also said that if Loux is found to have violated ethics or is found guilty of a law violation, than the state will seek to recover the money it spent in defending him.

Loux spent 23 years as the top state official working to block federal plans for building a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

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

Las Vegas Review-Journal
January 13, 2009

DOE nominee hopeful new science has answers for nuclear waste

Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Steven Chu said today that as energy secretary he will pursue the “best possible scientific analysis” to chart the disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste, without saying specifically what he plans to do about the proposed Yucca Mountain repository.

Appearing at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Chu was asked how he plans to approach nuclear waste management where the government’s preferred disposal site in Nevada is more than 10 years behind schedule.

Nuclear waste poses “very thorny questions,” Chu said, noting that President-elect Barack Obama has stated “very clearly” his opposition to the repository where the Energy Department is seeking a license to build disposal tunnels for more than 77,000 tons of radioactive material.

But if confirmed as expected, Chu will be the Energy Department leader, and he similarly offered no endorsement of the Yucca project in answering questions about nuclear power and its byproducts.

Rather he spoke beyond the program, saying several times that finding a “solution” to the issue of nuclear waste storage would be a priority, including the possibility of joining with other nations that are exploring advanced methods to recycle nuclear waste.

Chu said those efforts should not hold up development of new nuclear power plants.

“I am very confident the Department of Energy with cooperation with other countries can get a solution to the nuclear waste problem,” he said.

“There is a lot of new science coming to the fore, and I will look to use the best possible scientific analysis to try to figure out a way to go forward with nuclear waste disposal,” said Chu, who is 60. “That will occupy a significant part of our time and energy.”

On other topics, Chu, who shared a Nobel Prize in physics in 1997, promised senators that if confirmed he will aggressively pursue policies aimed at addressing climate change and achieving greater energy independence by developing clean energy sources.

But he also told lawmakers that he views nuclear power and coal as critical parts of the nation’s energy mix and said he was optimistic that ways can be found to make coal a cleaner energy source by capturing its carbon dioxide emissions.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., the Energy Committee chairman, said he saw no serious opposition to Chu’s nomination and that a committee vote approving his selection probably would occur later this week. The full Senate could act as soon as Jan. 20, right after Obama takes office.

Chu told senators that climate change is “a growing and pressing problem” and the nation’s dependence on oil represents a threat to the U.S. economy and security.

Of the risks from global warming, Chu said: “It is now clear that if we continue on our current path, we run the risk of dramatic disruptive changes to our climate system in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren.”

Chu said nuclear energy produces a fifth of the nation’s electricity and 70 percent of the carbon-free electricity and “is going to be an important part of our energy mix.”

About domestic oil production, Chu reiterated Obama’s views that some expansion of offshore oil and gas development should be included as part of a broader energy plan.

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

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

Las Vegas SUN
January 13, 2009

Yucca mountain:

Will Obama starve the beast? Reid thinks so

By Lisa Mascaro

Washington — Barack Obama pledged during his campaign to oppose the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. Today, as his nominee for energy secretary, Steven Chu, goes to the Senate for his confirmation hearing, he is expected to begin elaborating on the future of the project.

Opponents of the dump, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, expect this is the beginning of the end for Yucca Mountain.

“Barack Obama will get rid of Yucca Mountain,” Reid said last month in an interview with the Sun.

Obama will “put his fingerprints on it fairly early,” Reid said. “I don’t think there’s too much we need to do legislatively.” Left unsaid by Reid was the reality that he might not have the votes to shut down the project outright if he tried to do so.

Rather, Reid believes the project can be severely crippled through budget cuts he and Obama will make in coming weeks.

Obama’s home state of Illinois is in dire need of a permanent storage site. It has more spent nuclear fuel stored temporarily than any other state. But Obama visited Nevada 20 times on the campaign trail and Nevada helped elect him to the White House.

Reid’s ability to curtail or kill Yucca will surely be a centerpiece of his own reelection campaign in 2010, which already uses the slogan that as majority leader, Reid can deliver for Nevada like no one else can.

As Chu appears for his confirmation hearing, lawmakers are preparing a massive spending plan that will likely contain a sizable cut to the Energy Department’s now $380 million annual budget for Yucca Mountain.

Reid has engineered 20 percent budget cuts over the past two years, and hinted he would do the same this year.

After that, Obama will put his own stamp on the project when he releases the 2010 federal budget in February — with a line item for Yucca Mountain.

Yucca Mountain’s outgoing project director in Washington, Edward Sproat, told the National Academy of Sciences last month that the repository’s projected 2020 opening is an “extreme stretch” given the dicey atmosphere in Washington.

“Politics and money — they’re the only two issues associated with making this happen,” said Sproat, a Bush appointee, who is stepping down at the end of this week.

Obama and his energy secretary-designee arrive in Washington at a time when the political players on the Hill have also changed.

Gone are Yucca Mountain’s longtime supporters — veteran lawmakers including Sen. Pete Domenici, the New Mexico Republican, and Rep. David Hobson, the veteran appropriator from Ohio, who made sure Yucca got its money.

In their place will be other pro-Yucca lawmakers, including Sen. Jim DeMint, the Republican Energy committee member from South Carolina, a state that is home to several nuclear power plants, and Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, who is also on the Senate panel.

The nuclear energy industry also just had a change of leadership when retired Navy Admiral Skip Bowman stepped down as head of the Nuclear Energy Institute. But the institute, the industry’s main lobbying arm, is urging the new administration not to change course.

Steven Kraft, the institute’s used-fuel director, suggests that if the government does strangle the project, Washington will face a large and long-running legal battle with utility companies that have contracts with the federal government to have their spent nuclear fuel removed and stored elsewhere.

Already, the government has a liability of more than $7 billion after courts ruled that Washington reneged on its promise to take the waste off the companies’ hands in 1998 — the original opening date for Yucca Mountain.

“We don’t want the legal fights,” Kraft said. The Obama administration should allow the project to continue going through the licensing process at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to determine whether the repository works as government and industry scientists believe it will, he said. The process is expected to take four years.

“We’re on the verge of answering those questions,” he said. “Then you can have all the discussions you want about if we’ll ever use it.”

In Carson City on Monday, Bruce Breslow was settling into his new job at the state Agency for Nuclear Projects. Breslow, the former Sparks mayor, was appointed by the governor to replace Robert Loux, who headed the office fighting Yucca Mountain for 25 years. Loux resigned after improperly giving himself and staff members unapproved pay increases.

The state’s pro-Yucca forces saw Loux’s departure as an opportunity to tilt state policy to a more neutral — or even positive — stance on Yucca. They see the waste dump as a potential economic engine for the state’s poorer rural communities.

But Breslow seems destined to let them down.

“They seem to think there’s a big pot of money at the end of the rainbow, but there isn’t,” Breslow said by phone.

“The state policy for the past 25 years has been to fight (Yucca Mountain) because it’s not safe and it’s a bad plan,” Breslow said. “We may have a new director, but we don’t have a new policy.”

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

Las Vegas SUN
January 13, 2009

Gibbons, AG clash over costs to defend nuclear chief

By Cy Ryan

CARSON CITY – Gov. Jim Gibbons says the attorney general’s office should be criminally prosecuting former nuclear projects director Bob Loux, rather than defending him before the state Ethics Commission.

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto told the governor her office was obligated to defend Loux if his actions were in “good faith” when he raised his own salary above the amount set in the law.

The two clashed at a meeting of the state Board of Examiners Tuesday over a $20,000 contract for Masto to hire an outside lawyer to defend Loux before the ethics commission that meets March 12 to consider the case.

Gibbons said, “We don’t have an obligation to defend him when he violates the law. I believe we should be prosecuting him and not defending him.”

Masto told Gibbons that the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office is investigating whether Loux violated the law. And the Carson City District Attorney’s Office has agreed to handle a criminal prosecution if there is one.

Masto said she determined in September that Loux was acting within the scope of his employment and was acting in “good faith.” In these circumstances, she is obligated to represent him at the ethics commission.

She said she hired outside attorney Karen Winters to represent Loux before the ethics commission. In that way, she would avoid a conflict of interest dilemma and be free to defend the governor and the state if Loux brings suit challenging the way he departed the state.

Gibbons challenged Masto’s finding that Loux was acting in “good faith.” Research by the governor’s office said Loux was being paid $151,342 this fiscal year when the authorized salary was $114,088

But Masto said Gibbons’ budget director Andrew Clinger knew Loux was giving himself and his employees higher than authorized salaries and approved them. But Clinger said after the meeting, he did not know about the higher than authorized salaries.

Clinger said Loux used federal grant funds to raise the pay of him and his staff. It was only when general fund money was used, was it discovered.

Masto said if Loux is found to have violated ethics or is found guilty of a lawful violation, than the state will seek to recover the money it spent in defending him.

“There is no indication he acted in bad faith,” said Masto. “That will be presented to the Ethics Commission.”

The governor said that his deputy chief of staff Mendy Elliott was under investigation while she was director of the state Department of Business and Industry and the attorney general declined to represent her.

But Masto said the investigation was conducted by her office. Elliott was cleared of any violation.

Gibbons produced a letter from Loux to Clinger dated June 19, 2008 in which he said, “It is simply not possible to further reduce the agency’s budget for the biennium.”

Masto distributed a statement dated Sept. 12, 2008, in which Loux told the attorney general’s office that the salaries in his office are not set by the Legislature but by the governor.

Loux said “Governor Guinn’s administration delegated that authority to me with respect to the employees in the Agency for Nuclear Projects.” He said Gibbons’ office never changed that procedure “nor was I provided with any rules and policies that indicated I was to proceed differently.”

Loux told the attorney general’s office he never attempted to hide the fact that he raised the salaries. “All the paperwork was submitted to the Department of Personnel and approved,” he said.

Loux also hired his own attorney when conservative spokesman Chuck Muth filed a suit seeking to remove him from office. A district judge dismissed the suit.

After a heated debate, Secretary of State Ross Miller, the third member of the state board of examiners, moved action on the contract be delayed until the next board meeting in February. And the three members agreed.

--Cy Ryan may be reached at (775) 687 5032 or cy@lasvegassun.com.

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

McClatchy Washington Bureau
January 13, 2009

Energy nominee: Coal, nuclear an 'important part' of power mix

By Les Blumenthal
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Energy-Secretary-Designate Steven Chu told a Senate Committee on Tuesday that the incoming administration would have an increased commitment to alternative energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal, but also made clear coal and nuclear would be part of the energy mix.

Chu, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1997 and is currently director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, made the comments during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Chu is expected to win confirmation easily.

The new administration is also committed to "aggressively" increasing energy efficiency in appliances and buildings; will push for more fuel-efficient vehicles including plug-in hybrids and supports a more "robust" transmission and distribution system for electricity, Chu said.

"I would not have accepted the President-elect's nomination if I had not thought it was essential to move ahead on this plan," he said.

Chu also said, however, that the Obama administration would support efforts to revitalize the nuclear power industry, including developing a long-term plan to dispose of radioactive waste from the civilian reactors; would seek the "responsible" development of domestic oil and gas supplies; and would invest in technology to capture and store carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Chu was questioned closely by Republican and Democratic committee members about the new administration's plans for nuclear and coal. Chu said in a public lecture last year, available on YouTube, that coal was his "worst nightmare."

"That quote is ricocheting around the Internet," Chu said. "The context was whether we will continue using coal as we do today . . . that is a pretty bad dream."

Burning coal is a major source of the carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere and is contributing to an increase in Earth's average temperature that experts say will lead to damaging changes in climate and sea level in the decades to come.

Chu began his comments at his confirmation hearing by warning: "It is now clear that if we continue on our current path, we run the risk of dramatic, disruptive changes to our climate system in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren."

Chu has spoken throughout the country and focused the Berkeley Lab's work on the related problems of global warming and the need for renewable energy sources that don't add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

The U.S. has immense stores of coal, and Chu said he was "hopeful and optimistic we can use those resources in a clean way."

The only way to burn coal without increasing the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to capture it and store it underground, something that's not being done at any of the nation's 450 coal-fired power plants.

As for nuclear power, Chu said that a federal loan program to provide funding to build new nuclear power plants needs to be accelerated, but he acknowledged that finding a way to safely dispose of the waste could be more difficult.

Obama said during the campaign he opposed using the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada to store the waste, which the federal government is obligated to take.

Chu said that a better system to recycle the waste would need to be developed, but non-proliferation issues would remain.

Even so, Chu said, "Nuclear power will be an important part of the energy mix."

(Renee Schoof contributed to this article.)

ON THE WEB:

For information about Energy Secretary nominee Steve Chu

Chu's lecture on April 23, 2007, at Berkeley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLr4YbStc0M

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

New York Times
January 13, 2009

Energy Nominee Shifts His Stance

By Matthew L. Wald

WASHINGTON — Physics met politics at the confirmation hearing Tuesday for Steven Chu, the Nobel laureate scientist chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to head the Department of Energy, and the physics bent a bit, as Dr. Chu backed away slightly from earlier statements he has made — that gasoline prices should be higher, and that coal was his “nightmare.”

Dr. Chu, whose last job was director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, answered an array of questions from the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources — about his position on new nuclear reactors (yes, at least for a few plants), offshore drilling (only as part of an energy package) and new coal-burning power plants (a few, until we figure out a better way). He told the lawmakers that “last year’s rapid spike in oil and gasoline prices not only contributed to the recession we are now experiencing, it also put a huge strain on the budgets of families all across America.”

Last September, though, he told The Wall Street Journal, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” At the hearing, responding to a question about that statement, he said, “What the American family does not want is to pay an increasing fraction of their budget, their precious dollars, for energy costs, both in transportation and keeping their homes warm and lit.”

The answer is efficiency, using less so that even if the price rises, the bill does not, he said.

He also said that coal, which has a wide political constituency, would continue to be used, and that the trick was to convert it to electricity cleanly.

Dr. Chu, who is 60, got a friendly welcome from the committee, but really warmed up when Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, asked him how plants could be turned into substitutes for petroleum.

“Actually, now we’re getting to science, I love this,” he said, to laughter around the room. He said he had supervised research to figure out, “How do you break those plants down into the kind of sugars these little critters, the yeast and bacteria, can actually use.” Gene-altered bacteria have been developed to turn sugar into substitutes for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, he said.

Several senators reiterated the idea that the Energy Department faced terrific scientific challenges, and that a Nobel physicist was the appropriate person to head it. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who introduced him to the committee, referred to him as “one of the great brilliant thinkers of his generation.” Around Washington, Dr. Chu draws wide approval for emphasizing energy efficiency and new technology as approaches to the problems of energy prices and global warming.

But his science-based frankness sometimes contrasts with ordinary energy politics, which are often more centered on narrower economic interests.

For example, in a presentation at Berkeley in April 2007, now preserved on YouTube, he declared, “coal is my worst nightmare,” words previous energy secretaries would be unlikely to utter.

“We have lots of fossil fuel,” he said in that presentation. “That’s really both good and bad news. We won’t run out of energy but there’s enough carbon in the ground to really cook us.”

And he has said frankly that some of the technologies that federal dollars are pursuing would be nice to have, but are not today ready for use, either because they are too expensive to be practical, or not demonstrated to be safe. In this category he puts sequestering the carbon dioxide from power plants, recycling nuclear fuel to reduce its volume and recover unused fuel, and making ethanol from cellulose, which is essentially woody wastes or non-crop plants.

In the course of the hearing, the main mission of the department — making, maintaining and dismantling nuclear weapons, and cleaning up from six decades of nuclear weapon production — got intermittent mention. According to a report on nuclear weapons spending by Stephen I. Schwartz and sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment, the budget for nuclear weapons in 2008 was over $52 billion. Robert Alvarez, who was a policy advisor to the energy secretary in the Clinton administration, said in an interview that the department is spending about 11 times more money on nuclear weapons than on energy conservation.

Dr. Chu’s plans for steps that would reduce consumption of oil and electricity may come at an inopportune moment, as consumption is falling anyway, taking pressure off the electric grid and other energy systems. The Energy Information Administraton, which analyzes data for the department, predicted on Tuesday that for 2009, electricity consumption would fall 0.5 percent, and oil product consumption by 2 percent. Dr. Chu faces a variety of conflicting mandates. For example, he said that using more renewable energy was a national priority and thus would require a national electric grid. To help create such a grid, a 2005 law gives the department the authority to designate high-priority corridors, to overrule local objections to new power lines. But Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat, complained that the department had designated his entire state, New Jersey, as part of a corridor. Dr. Chu promised to investigate.

Another problem is nuclear waste. Dr. Chu repeatedly said that of the carbon-free power generation in this country, 70 percent was nuclear. But Mr. Obama has expressed deep skepticism about the plan to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, the site near Las Vegas that the government has worked for 20 years to develop. A solution would have to be found, Dr. Chu said, but construction of new plants should resume now, after a hiatus of 30 years, even before the solution is developed.

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

Grist Magazine
January 13, 2009

Chu lookin' at me?

Steven Chu's stances on key energy issues: a primer for his confirmation hearing

Posted by Kate Sheppard

Steven Chu, Nobel laureate and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will go before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee for his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, where he's certain to be grilled about his positions on key energy and climate issues. Here's a guide to what Chu thinks -- or at least what he's said in the past.

"Coal is my worst nightmare"

Chu is no fan of coal. "Coal is my worst nightmare," he said repeatedly in a speech earlier this year. He says "clean coal" technologies would need to be developed in order to keep the fossil fuel in the energy portfolio in a carbon-constrained world, but notes, "It's not guaranteed we have a solution for coal."

As energy secretary, Chu will address the issue of government funding for coal research. The Department of Energy has been a major funder of projects to turn coal into liquid fuel, as well as the controversial FutureGen pilot program that was supposed to build the nation's first zero-emission, "clean coal" power plant in Illinois. The Bush administration abandoned the effort after the price tag ballooned to $1.8 billion, moving the money to other projects and aiming to get carbon-capture-and-sequestration technologies in place at other power plants. But supporters (including President-elect Barack Obama) have sought to keep it alive.

Nuclear power

Chu's comments on nuclear power have drawn fire from both nuke opponents and supporters. In a 2005 interview, he said he "absolutely" thinks the role of nuclear in the country's energy portfolio should be increased -- alarming the anti-nuke crowd.

But he's also cautious about expanding nuclear without developing better waste-disposal systems. "The waste and proliferation issues still haven't been completely solved," he has said. To make nuclear power a viable option, "we've got to recycle the waste," he says, as there is not enough capacity at Yucca Mountain, the site in Nevada currently being developed for long-term storage. "[I]f you take all the waste we have now from our civilian and military nuclear operations, we'd fill up Yucca Mountain. So we need three or four Yucca Mountains. Well, we don't have three or four Yucca Mountains."

Climate change

Chu says his realization that climate change is among the most pressing issues of our era developed over time, as did the realization that a price on carbon is needed. "In the last five or six years, I was following this as an interested citizen," he told PBS last year. "And it became more and more apparent to me that the dangers, the potential risks of climate change were looking like they were more and more likely, and that ... as a scientist, a responsible scientist, you really have to think of what you can do to help with this problem."

Chu has stressed the importance of curbing greenhouse-gas emissions. "These are serious predictions," he said in another interview last year, discussing the latest climate science. "It's prudent risk management. It's like saying, 'Your house will burn down in the next 10 years -- 50 percent probability. By the way, do you want fire insurance?'"

Chu is now a member of the Copenhagen Climate Council, an international effort to "create global awareness of the importance of the U.N. Climate Summit, in Copenhagen, in December 2009."

"We need new technologies"

In recent years, Chu has become an outspoken advocate for carbon-neutral energy sources and policies that support their development. "I think political will is absolutely necessary," he said in a speech at the National Clean Energy Summit in August 2008. "But we need new technologies."

In 2007, he formed a research collaboration between the Lawrence Berkeley lab, UC-Berkeley, and energy giant BP, through which BP agreed to fund a $500 million biofuels institute at the school. The partnership was controversial both within the scientific community and on the Berkeley campus. One student group staged a mock graduation ceremony with oil-stained diplomas. The lab also secured a $125 million grant from the Department of Energy to found the Joint BioEnergy Institute.

Chu's work at the Lawrence Berkeley lab has focused largely on advanced biofuels, artificial photosynthesis, and solar technologies. The lab has in recent years worked on creating photovoltaic cells that can be painted on to surfaces, sometimes called "solar paint," and on technology that can convert solar energy to liquid fuel by mimicking plant photosynthesis. Through its Helios Project, the lab has worked on developing methods to "store" solar energy in the form of renewable transportation fuels derived from algae and other biomass. (See this Tom Philpott post for more on Chu's ideas about cellulosic ethanol.)

Chu has frequently noted the importance of energy efficiency in weaning the country off fossil fuels. He has lobbied for the creation of an Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) at the Department of Energy to fund innovative, high-tech methods to address the energy crisis. And he has advocated for an interstate electricity transmission system, paid for by ratepayers, to address the access problems associated with many renewable energy sources.

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

Heritage Foundation
January 13, 2009

Morning Bell: Will Chu Let America Power Up?

Author: Conn Carroll

The rest of the world may talk a good game when it comes to ending their use of carbon based energy, but the reality is a completely different story. While the European Union lectures us on global warming, Germany is busy building 27 coal-fired plants by 2020 and Italy plans to increase its reliance on coal from 14% today to 33% in just five years. In all of Europe, 40 new major coal power plants are set to be built in the next five years. The same realities are dictating behavior in the rest of the world as well. In 2006 alone, China completed enough coal power plants to match all of Britain’s capacity. India plans to boost coal production by 50% by 2012 and quadruple it by 2030. Moving to oil, Brazil, whose beautiful beaches rival or surpass anything in California or Florida, recently discovered a huge underwater oil field and is moving quickly to begin drilling. In Asia, China and Japan were able to put aside centuries of mistrust to come to an agreement on how to drill and share oil in waters in between their countries.

The world’s actions, more than their words, show they understand that economic growth requires plentiful and inexpensive energy. When the Senate questions President-elect Barack Obama’s energy secretary nominee Steven Chu today, they owe it to the American people to find out if Chu understands these realities. Questions to draw Chu out include:

Gasoline Prices: Last September Chu made the statement that “somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” which at the time exceeded $8.00 a gallon. in light of the fact that high gasoline prices hurt everyone, especially those with low incomes, and weaken the overall economy, will Chu speak for or against any measures that would raise the price of gasoline?

Coal-Fired Electricity: Chu has also stated that American electricity prices are “anomalously low” and that “coal is my worst nightmare,” largely due to its contribution to global warming. Coal is the one energy source America has in overwhelming abundance, and it currently provides 50 percent of America’s electricity. Without it, electric bills would be much higher. Speaking of coal power, Obama even said, “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” As secretary of energy, will Chu support coal-fired electric generation in order to provide affordable electricity for the American people?

Alternative Energy: Despite decades of subsidies, alternative energies such as wind and solar power contribute only 1% of our nation’s energy needs. No matter how hard they wish it, the fact is it will take decades, not years, to transition to alternative energies. Furthermore, the role of the Department of Energy in trying to accelerate the process by picking winners and losers among emerging alternatives is one with a disappointing track record. Will Chu take a realistic approach toward alternative energy sources, with particular regard to the continued need for conventional energy supplies until such time as alternatives are ready to replace them?

EPA Regulation of Carbon Dioxide: Last July, the Department of Energy spoke out against the EPA’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA). As secretary of energy, will Chu continue to be a voice of economic reason and energy policy rationality on this and other problematic global warming measures?

Nuclear Energy: Chu has publicly recognized the critical role of nuclear energy in meeting our nation’s growing energy demand. He has also suggested that with nuclear fuel recycling, a permanent geologic repository at Yucca Mountain is not essential. What is Chu’s position on the scientific viability of Yucca Mountain, and does he support allowing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to complete its review of the Department of Energy’s permit application for Yucca Mountain?

This morning the Washington Post took the Senate to task for the extremely weak questioning they have given Obama’s nominees so far: “Confirmation hearings offer an opportunity for nominees to lay out, to the extent possible, their views about the policy and managerial challenges they will confront, and for lawmakers to lay down markers on issues that matter to them. This is true even — maybe even especially — when the Senate is controlled by the same party as the White House.” Considering energy’s intimate relationship with the economy, Chu’s nomination is a great opportunity for the Senate to start doing the job Americans sent them to Washington to do.

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

Las Vegas Review-Journal
January 12, 2009

Political Notebook: Yuck, A Dump

By Molly Ball and Steve Tetreault

A small but significant shift in nuclear waste politics went almost unnoticed last week in Washington. As Congress reconvened, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., took over chairmanship of the House energy and air quality subcommittee.

A long line of previous chairmen, both Republicans and Democrats, favored building a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, and the subcommittee has been a launching pad for bills to help along the project.

But Markey has a well-earned reputation as a nuclear skeptic and is decidedly and vocally against the Yucca program.

Although most House members may remain in favor of Yucca Mountain, it will now be difficult for pro-repository bills to get a running start.

--Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball @reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault @stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.

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

Heritage Foundation
January 12, 2009

Key Questions for Steven Chu, Nominee for Secretary of Energy

by Ben Lieberman and Jack Spencer

WebMemo #2203

The United States Senate will soon render its advice and consent to the nomination of Steven Chu as the new secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE).

In addition to overseeing the agency's duties conducting energy research and dealing with nuclear waste issues, a good secretary of energy also needs to stand as a secretary for energy--in favor of plentiful and affordable energy supplies for the American people and a supporter of the free market processes that work best to provide them. The federal government already has several anti-energy forces in place, particularly the Environmental Protection Agency, whose statutory duties require it to impose environmental constraints on energy production and use, especially fossil fuels, and often without regard to cost. Therefore, it is an important part of the secretary of energy's job to act as a pro-energy counterweight to EPA rather than as a redundant anti-energy voice within the executive branch.

Therefore, when considering Chu for this post, the Senate should consider asking him the following questions.

Question #1: Gasoline Prices

Last September you made the statement that "somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," which at the time exceeded $8.00 a gallon. As secretary of energy, will you speak for or against any measures that would raise the price of gasoline?

Answer: Clearly, the American people want energy that is more affordable, not less. High gasoline prices hurt everyone, especially those with low incomes, and weaken the overall economy.[1] It is the role of the secretary of energy to work for the benefit of the American people by advocating policies that keep energy as inexpensive as possible. To do otherwise would be fundamentally at odds with the very purpose of the Department of Energy.

Question #2: Coal-Fired Electricity

You have also stated that American electricity prices are "anomalously low" and that "coal is my worst nightmare," largely due to its contribution to global warming. As secretary of energy, will you support coal-fired electric generation in order to provide affordable electricity for the American people?

Answer: Coal is the one energy source America has in overwhelming abundance, and it currently provides 50 percent of America's electricity. Without it, electric bills would be much higher. The DOE will continue to conduct research into alternatives to coal as well as means to reduce its environmental impact. But major breakthroughs are a long way off from viability, and it is important for the DOE not to over-promise on them. Premature efforts to shift away from conventional coal use would do great harm to the American economy. Being anti-coal is precisely the kind of misguided approach a secretary of energy should be fighting against.

Your statements in support of both higher gasoline and electricity prices are evidence of a belief that the American people would be better off if energy (and especially fossil fuels) was deliberately made so expensive that individuals and businesses were forced to use less of it. This anti-energy, anti-consumer, and anti-economy view is popular enough among environmental activists inside and outside the federal government, but it has no place at the Department of Energy, where energy affordability should not take a back seat to an environmental agenda.

Question #3: Alternative Energy

Are you going to take a realistic approach toward alternative energy sources, with particular regard to the continued need for conventional energy supplies until such time as alternatives are ready to replace them?

Answer: DOE needs to be realistic about its research into energy alternatives, especially about the timeframes it will take for truly viable--both technologically and economically--alternatives to emerge. The process will likely take decades, not years. Furthermore, the role of the Department of Energy in trying to accelerate the process by picking winners and losers among emerging alternatives is one with a disappointing track record.[2] A realistic approach toward alternatives leads to the conclusion that the age of fossil fuels--petroleum for transportation and coal for electric generation--is not yet over, so the secretary of energy should support efforts to ensure that those time-tested energy sources are as plentiful and affordable as possible until such time as alternatives are genuinely ready to carry the load. To endorse shutting the door on conventional energy based on the wishful thinking that replacements are just around the corner would make for a very regrettable energy policy.

Question #4: EPA Regulation of Carbon Dioxide

Last July, the Department of Energy spoke out against the EPA's Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA). As secretary of energy, will you continue to be a voice of economic reason and energy policy rationality on this and other problematic global warming measures?

Answer: The DOE detailed its significant concerns with the ANPR, stating that the EPA's proposal "lacks the comprehensive and balanced discussion of the impacts, costs, and possible lack of effectiveness" were fossil energy use to be regulated in this manner. Beyond the merits of DOE's comments, the very fact that the agency weighed in so strongly against the EPA and its ill-advised proposal demonstrates an important role the secretary of energy needs to continue playing in the global warming debate.

Question #5: Nuclear Energy

You have publicly recognized the critical role of nuclear energy in meeting our nation's growing energy demand. You have also suggested that with nuclear fuel recycling a permanent geologic repository at Yucca Mountain is not essential.[3] What is your position on the scientific viability of Yucca Mountain, and do you support allowing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to complete its review of the Department of Energy's permit application for Yucca Mountain?

Answer: While recycling used nuclear fuel will likely be a critical element to any comprehensive used nuclear fuel management strategy, it is unclear that such processes will alleviate the need for some permanent geologic storage. This is especially true for America's defense-related nuclear waste, which requires permanent geologic storage.

Although President-elect Obama and others have voiced opposition to Yucca based on concerns over safety, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, whose job it is to make such determinations, is currently reviewing the Department of Energy's application to build Yucca. It should be allowed to carry out its mission.[4]

Outside of defense-related activities, one of the primary jobs of the DOE is to dispose of the nation's commercial nuclear waste. The problem is that the DOE has an abysmal record in carrying out this mission. While America's energy consumers have paid the U.S. government roughly $28 billion (payments and interest) to dispose of nuclear waste, the U.S. government has collected no waste from utilities. In addition to that, there is no consensus on how to move forward.

This is in direct contrast to nuclear fuel-related activities and power plant operations. Both of these functions are privatized and operate safe and efficiently. Only so-called back-end activities (or those related to waste management) fall under the purview of the federal government, and only they remain dysfunctional. That is why it is essential to begin the process of moving responsibility of waste management to those that produce the waste.[5]

A Secretary for Energy

Even when DOE does not have regulatory authority, it can be a powerful pro-energy voice that needs to be heard. It is crucial for the secretary of energy to remain a secretary for energy as a number of energy policy initiatives, global warming-related and others, are considered in the years ahead. Beyond its role conducting research and dealing with nuclear waste issues, this pro-energy advocacy role may be the most important one that the secretary of energy oversees.

Ben Lieberman is Senior Policy Analyst in Energy and the Environment and Jack Spencer is Research Fellow in Nuclear Energy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

For More Information:

Jack Spencer and Daniella Markheim, "Protectionism Won't Fuel a Nuclear Renaissance," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2221, December 16, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/bg2221.cfm.

Jack Spencer and Nicolas Loris, "Washington Subsidies Not Necessary to Rebuild U.S. Nuclear Industry," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2207, November 10, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/bg2207.cfm.

Jack Spencer, "Time to Fast-track New Nuclear Reactors," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 2062, September 15, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2062.cfm.

Jack Spencer and Nicolas Loris, "Uranium Mining Is Important for Securing America's Energy Future," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 1866, March 25, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1866.cfm.

Jack Spencer, "Competitive Nuclear Energy Investment: Avoiding Past Policy Mistakes," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2086, November 15, 2007, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/bg2086.cfm.

Ben Lieberman, "The True Costs of EPA Global Warming Regulation," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2213, November 24, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/bg2213.cfm.

David Kreutzer, Ph.D. and Karen Campbell, Ph.D., "CO2-Emission Cuts: The Economic Costs of the EPA's ANPR Regulations," Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis Report No. 08-10, October 29, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Energyandenvironment/cda08-10.cfm.

Ben Lieberman, "Falling Oil Prices: Useful Lessons from the Slump at the Pump," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 2106, October 17, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2106.cfm.

Ben Lieberman, "Whole New World?" Heritage Foundation Commentary, September 29, 2007, at http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed092707d.cfm

[1]Karen Campbell, Ph.D., "How Rising Gas Prices Hurt American Households," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2162, July 14, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/bg2162.cfm.

[2]Ben Lieberman and Nicolas Loris, "Energy Policy: Let's Not Repeat the Mistakes of the "70s," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 2004, July 28, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2004.cfm.

[3]Bonnie Azab Powell, "Growing Energy: Berkeley Lab's Steve Chu on What Termite Guts Have to Do with Global Warming," UC Berkeley News, September 30, 2005, at http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/10/03_chu.shtml (January 10, 2009).

[4]Jack Spencer and Nicolas Loris, "Yucca Mountain Remains Critical to Spent Nuclear Fuel Management," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2131, May 1, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Energyandenvironment/bg2131.cfm.

[5]Jack Spencer, "A Free-Market Approach to Managing Used Nuclear Fuel," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2149, June 23, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/bg2149.cfm.

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

NEI Nuclear Notes
January 08, 2009

The Chamber of Commerce Makes the Case for Nuclear Energy

Posted by Mark Flanagan

One of the developing themes in the new Congress might well be a new openness in discussing nuclear energy as a way forward if the A-1 priorities in energy policy have become carbon reduction and – in terms of economic stimulus – infrastructure buildout and job creation. We credit this newfound radiance to the steady stream of positive statements that came out of the election – especially, admittedly, from John McCain – and the media’s increased attention to the benefits of our friend the atom.

But we can still be surprised. Here’s a big chunk of the written testimony given by Karen Harbert of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The topic of the hearing was energy security:

Beyond renewables, there are other critical and clean sources of electricity that the United States must expand. Chief among these is nuclear power.

Nuclear power is an emissions-free source of 20 percent of our nation’s electricity supply, despite the fact that we have not licensed the construction of a new nuclear power facility in nearly 30 years.

Nuclear power is clean. It offers a huge emissions advantage over other baseload power generation sources.

Nuclear power is cost-effective. America’s 104 operating nuclear reactors are the nation’s cheapest source of baseload electricity on a per-kilowatt-hour basis.

But as the members of this committee know, nuclear power is also capital-intensive, requiring an estimated $6 to $8 billion dollars or more for a new plant. Most companies lack the size, financing, and financial strength to fund such a project on their own.

The loan guarantee program authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was intended to help utilities finance the construction of new reactors. Unfortunately, this program has encountered significant implementation delays, and the Congressional authorization of $18.5 billion dollars in loan volume is inadequate — funding only two, or at best three, new nuclear projects.

To develop the stable financing needed for new nuclear plants, Congress should transition the function of the Loan Guarantee Program to a more permanent, stable financing platform like CEBUS, which I outlined earlier. Until such a transition occurs, Congress should increase the size of the funds available to make it more closely align with the real capital costs associated with the construction of new nuclear power facilities.

One reason financing costs are so high for nuclear power plants is the extraordinary length of time—about 8 years—it takes to from submittal of a license application to the commencement of commercial power generation. Although new plants are currently being considered, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) estimates it will take three-and-one-half years just to review the first wave of license applications for new designs.

This delay is unacceptable and must change.

Congress must ensure that NRC has the resources it needs to review and approve combined construction and operating licenses for new nuclear power facilities in a thorough and timely manner.

As the United States expands the use of nuclear power, we must also commit to a permanent solution to our nation’s nuclear waste. Our current waste policy was designed at a time when no additional nuclear power plants would be built and the existing fleet would be phased out over time. As circumstances have changed, so must our strategy.

To finally move forward on a sensible nuclear waste strategy, the Institute recommends establishing a government corporation to manage the entire back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. This entity could help efficiently meld used fuel recycling with ultimate disposal of nuclear waste.

On the issue of nuclear waste, it is clear that under any scenario, the United States will need a high-level nuclear waste repository. Yucca Mountain has been designated by law, and has been ratified by both executive and legislative branches as that repository, yet Congress has consistently underfunded efforts to build the site’s infrastructure and transportation needs.

If the President and Congress will not fully commit to Yucca Mountain, then we believe they owe it to the American public and utilities that have paid fees and interest in excess of $27 billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund, to develop and pursue a parallel path of centralized interim storage, industrial deployment of advanced recycling technology, and accelerated governmental research and development to more quickly place the United States government into compliance with United States law.

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves. You can read her complete testimony here.

http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Testimony&Hearing_ID=a7191f17-ce69-0588-430b-afe1a28d41b8&Witness_ID=bc66aa94-185f-486c-836f-285b020a9a0e

--Ms. Harbert herself. We suspect she does a lot of this testifying stuff.

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

Houston Chronicle
January 11, 2009

Nuclear power's core of support gains strength

By Eric Berger

After a decadeslong winter of discontent, a confluence of favorable events during the last 10 years has provided a spark to America's nuclear industry.

With no major U.S. accidents during that period, public opinion has slowly swung in favor of splitting atoms to meet the country’s voracious power demands. The cost of natural gas — a competitor to nuclear — spiked to $13 per thousand cubic feet last year, although it has since fallen. And in a world worried about carbon dioxide, nuclear energy stands out, because it produces virtually no greenhouse gases.

Finally, during a Bush administration friendly to nuclear power, the federal government has begun providing generous loan guarantees for new reactor construction.

Because of these trends, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the last two years has received 17 applications for 26 new nuclear reactors, most of them at existing facilities. And during this year something will likely happen that hasn’t in three decades: A U.S. power provider is expected to receive a license to begin clearing land for a new reactor.

“There’s clearly momentum building in favor of nuclear energy,” said Sean McDeavitt, a Texas A&M University assistant professor of nuclear engineering.

Among the first to apply for a license was NRG Texas, which seeks to expand its existing South Texas Project near Bay City. The two proposed units, which the company expects would begin operations by 2016, would produce an additional 2,660 megawatts, enough electricity to supply 2.1 million homes.

“We think nuclear energy plays an important role in the near future,” said Kevin Howell, president of NRG Texas.

Two other power providers also submitted license applications last year. Exelon wants to build two reactors in Victoria County, and Luminant wants to add two reactors to its Comanche Peak facility near Glen Rose in North Texas. Amarillo Power is expected to apply this year to license a two-reactor plant in the Panhandle, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Even most advocates of nuclear energy worry, however, that the present nuclear resurgence is transitory.

As part of a 2005 energy law, billions of dollars in subsidies were offered to the first few energy companies that built plants. It’s possible that after a few reactors are constructed and exhaust these benefits, new construction will cease.

President-elect Barack Obama, too, has signaled a more cautious approach than President George W. Bush, saying the technology should proceed only if proved “safe and clean.”

The waste issue

And the issue of nuclear waste disposal remains a quagmire, with no imminent agreement to move forward on building a waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, where the project is widely opposed. Obama’s choice for energy secretary, Steven Chu, has previously expressed doubts about Yucca Mountain.

“I just don’t think there will be a big renaissance,” said Peter Hartley, an energy expert at Rice University. “I believe the new administration will be much tougher on nuclear energy. Even if they implement carbon dioxide controls, I think the result will be primarily more natural gas plants, rather than wind.”

Coal dominates

Nuclear energy and natural gas now provide about 20??percent each of the country’s electricity needs. Coal, by far the dirtiest energy source in terms of carbon dioxide, generates almost half the nation’s electricity. In Texas, natural gas is the leading generation fuel at about 45 percent.

Carbon dioxide emission from natural gas is about half that of coal.

But as consumers discovered last summer, the price of natural gas generally is tied to the price of oil and can rise quickly. Also, there remains a wide range of uncertainty about the total amount of recoverable natural gas in the world, and whether these reserves could sustain a natural gas economy for more than a few decades.

Uranium aplenty

So here’s where nuclear energy has key advantages: There’s enough uranium to power much of the world for decades, and the price is more stable than for fossil fuels. Once nuclear plants are built, operating costs are considerably cheaper than for any fossil fuel, including coal.

But nuclear plants are expensive to build, costing billions, and prone to overruns, delays and environmental lawsuits.

Add in capital costs, Rice’s Hartley said, and nuclear energy becomes more expensive than coal or natural gas.

Critics point to price

This is a point seized upon by environmental groups — many of which haven’t rallied behind nuclear energy despite its near-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

“Nuclear power is the most expensive way anybody has ever figured out how to boil water,” Josh Dorner of the Sierra Club said. “Ignoring the waste problem, you just can’t justify the costs.”

Two paths

All this leads to a question: At this moment of opportunity for nuclear energy, when the outlook is more favorable than at any time since the 1960s, is there a path by which the United States might significantly increase its reliance on nuclear energy, address its waste issues and increase energy security?

Experts see two paths: One comes through policy, the other new technologies.

The policy path is straightforward, though not easy, energy experts say: Further simplify regulatory approval for plants; pick a design like Japan and France have done to standardize the construction of plants; develop legislation to dissuade environmental lawsuits; and, finally, solve the nuclear waste issue.

“It would certainly take a Manhattan Project-type commitment to get that done,” said McDeavitt, the A&M nuclear engineer, referring to the effort during World War II to develop the atomic bomb.

Technological solutions

A recognition of these policy hurdles has led to numerous technological approaches that circumvent some of the existing problems with nuclear energy and that one day may lead to a wider adoption of fission power.

The broadest is an international effort by more than a dozen nations, including the U.S., to develop a new generation of reactors, called the Generation IV International Forum.

One goal of this new reactor design is to use nearly all of the available natural uranium in a reaction. Most of today’s reactors can use only a small fraction of the uranium fuel in nuclear reactions, typically less than 1 percent. Using a larger fraction and developing reprocessing techniques would greatly extend the lifetime of the world’s supply of uranium and significantly cut waste.

Those involved in the initiative hope to deliver a design for commercial construction by 2030.

A second technological approach is to develop reactors that use thorium, a radioactive element that can be transformed into a uranium-based fuel. The reason for the interest in thorium is simple: There are enough thorium reserves to power the world for centuries.

The United States has generally not supported research of thorium, because it transforms into uranium-233, which has the potential to be used for weapons. However, some countries with abundant thorium reserves but low amounts of uranium, such as India, have pushed the technology forward.

Now, the United States’ position on thorium may be softening. In October, Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Harry Reid, D-Nev., sponsored legislation that would provide $250 million over five years to spur the development of thorium reactors.

“All I can do is put forward a technically feasible way to create all of the energy this planet needs for the next thousand years,” said Peter McIntyre, a Texas A&M physicist who has worked on thorium reactors. “To move forward, it’s up to the government to change its policy toward thorium power.”

‘Backyard’ reactors

Another new approach involves making small “backyard” reactors. The most aggressive proponent is Santa Fe, N.M.-based Hyperion Power, which seeks to build hot-tub-size reactors that can generate 25 megawatts of electricity, or enough juice to power 20,000 homes.

The company is already negotiating with several entities for the sale of 200 reactors, each at a cost of about $30 million. The idea is to deliver power at a cost of less than 10 cents a kilowatt-hour to locations — say remote areas of Alaska, military installations or industrial locations in Canada’s tar sands — where it’s difficult to obtain conventional power, said John Deal, Hyperion’s chief executive officer.

Hyperion is still finishing its manufacturing design and hopes to obtain federal licensing from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other bodies within a few years. Deal expects to deliver the first units to customers in less than five years.

Much of the demand has come from overseas. The United States, where much antipathy remains toward nuclear energy despite public surveys showing falling opposition, will have to wait.

“Honestly,” Deal said, “right now, I’m not really interested in fighting American ignorance about nuclear power.”

--eric.berger@chron.com

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

Albert Lea Tribune
January 10, 2009

Letter: Cheap nuclear power is faulty accounting

Your utility bills have carried a surcharge of $27 billion for nuclear power. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 required nuclear power providers to contribute to the Nuclear Waste Fund, which funds were to build a Nuclear Waste Repository by 1998. This repository is yet to open, leaving our government open to lawsuits. Our government has spend $94 million defending itself against breach of contract resulting in a $420 million judgment for the plaintiffs.

Outstanding liabilities are in the billions. Should the repository at Yucca Mountain become operational it could hold existing and future wastes from the nukes already built. Yucca Mountain could not hold the wastes from an expanded nuclear power industry. Wait! That’s not all folks!

A railroad connection must be built to transport the wastes to the repository. Who will pay for that? How will the wastes be secured in transit? Who will pay for that?

What must we conclude? The argument for building more nukes is based on large increases in electricity consumption, which are suspect. “Cheap Nuclear Energy” is a product of faulty accounting. Building more nukes may benefit industry but licensing of these plants should not be done until it is proven that reprocessing of nuclear wastes can be done safely, economically and effectively. We must stop this industry before the Nuclear Waste Policy Act builds a Nuclear Waste Suppository for us tax and rate payers.

No more nukes! Phase out those that exist. Conserve electricity. Research energy storage technologies that will insulate solar and wind power from the vagaries of nature making them manageable sources of electricity.

John E. Gibson
Blooming Prairie

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

New Republic
January 10, 2009

Plenty More Coal Sludge To Go Around

Compared to, say, the pitched battles over Yucca mountain, the storage of toxic fly ash produced by coal-fired plants has gotten virtually no coverage, even though it's arguably a far, far bigger health and safety risk. So I suppose one upside—if you can even call it that—of the recent (and massive) ash-spill disasters in Tennessee and Alabama is that we're starting to see more investigations like this one, by Shaila Dewan of The New York Times:

The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps across the United States—most of them unregulated and unmonitored—that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal.

Like the one in Tennessee, most of these dumps, which reach up to 1,500 acres, contain heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, which are considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be a threat to water supplies and human health. Yet they are not subject to any federal regulation, which experts say could have prevented the spill, and there is little monitoring of their effects on the surrounding environment.

In fact, coal ash is used throughout the country for construction fill, mine reclamation and other “beneficial uses.” In 2007, according to a coal industry estimate, 50 tons of fly ash even went to agricultural uses, like improving soil’s ability to hold water, despite a 1999 E.P.A. warning about high levels of arsenic. The industry has promoted the reuse of coal combustion products because of the growing amount of them being produced each year—131 million tons in 2007, up from less than 90 million tons in 1990.

The amount of coal ash has ballooned in part because of increased demand for electricity, but more because air pollution controls have improved. Contaminants and waste products that once spewed through the coal plants’ smokestacks are increasingly captured in the form of solid waste, held in huge piles in 46 states, near cities like Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Tampa, Fla., and on the shores of Lake Erie, Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River.

I do believe the industry term of art here is "clean coal." Maybe some rebranding is in order? Anyway, here's a little more backstory, which has a familiar ring to it: "The Environmental Protection Agency eight years ago said it wanted to set a national standard for ponds or landfills used to dispose of wastes produced from burning coal. The agency has yet to act."

--Bradford Plumer

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

KTNV
January 09, 2009

License Review at Yucca Mountain

Federal officials are warning that budget cuts could delay a license review for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

So far the review is on schedule to be completed this fall.

But officials say there are already signs that tight spending could have an impact on when the review will actually take place.

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

Pahrump Valley Times
January 09, 2009

International nuclear fuel program set for Monday

PVT

A public hearing to gather comments on the problematic environmental impact statement for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP -- which could determine if the U.S. Department of Energy will pursue recycling nuclear waste -- will be held at 7 p.m. Monday at the Bob Ruud Community Center.

The public hearing will follow an open house at 6 p.m.

The GNEP is a program of the U.S. Department of Energy designed to provide a safe, secure and sustainable expansion of nuclear energy both domestically and internationally.

The program seeks to promote technologies that support atomic energy while reducing the affects of spent nuclear fuel disposal and nuclear proliferation.

The DOE, through the program, envisions transforming the disposal of spent nuclear fuel from disposal in a repository like Yucca Mountain to recycling. The environmental impact statement provides an analysis of the environmental affects of expanding nuclear power in the U.S. by both disposing of the wastes in repositories or recycling it.

The EIS concludes recycling offers a greater opportunity to reduce the requirements of storing nuclear waste in a repository and will reduce hazards associated with disposal. However, recycling will require more capacity for other radioactive wastes, the study concludes, and could result in higher transportation and health affects during the operation.

The GNEP Infrastructure Development Working Group held its third meeting in Vienna, Austria, Dec. 8-9, 2008, involving 70 participants from 22 countries. A workshop was held to discuss how to manage radioactive waste in ways to meet the common concerns of the partners.

Part of the goal of GNEP is to remove the need for countries to develop their own nuclear enrichment or reprocessing facilities.

Comments on the draft EIS can be sent up until March 16 to Frank Schwartz at the following address:

GNEP EIS Document Manager, Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave. S.W., Washington, D.C., 20585-0119. They may also be sent by fax to 1-866-489-1891 or online at www.regulations.gov.

--The Web site for more information is www.gnep.energy.gov.

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

Pahrump Valley Times
January 09, 2009

County approves Yucca contracts despite uncertainty about funding

By Mark Waite
PVT

While U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., says Yucca Mountain will bleed really hard in the coming year, $2.9 million worth of oversight contracts were routinely renewed by Nye County commissioners last month.

President-elect Barack Obama, who voiced opposition to the Yucca Mountain Project in his campaign, is said to be an ally of Reid, who has been a harsh critic of the project. Reid said Monday the budget will be cut significantly for the rest of 2009 and in 2010 the White House spending request will contain "little if anything at all."

The Yucca Mountain budget this year was $386 million, the lowest in seven years.

The Nye County nuclear waste oversight contracts were approved under the county commission consent agenda, in which the 20 contracts were just one agenda item of many approved under one motion with no discussion.

The contracts last until Dec. 31.

A memo from Nye County Nuclear Waste Project Office Director Darrell Lacy said 2009 will be a year of dramatic and rapidly changing events associated with the Yucca Mountain project.

"Political contentions in Washington have resulted once again in an uncertain budget for DOE. It is important that NWRPO maintain the professional expertise we have developed over the past many years, especially now that DOE has submitted their license application," Lacy wrote.

Lacy advised commissioners DOE is encouraging Nye County to become more involved in outreach, on-site public safety initiatives, municipal services and community planning. He wrote, the nuclear waste project office "will require the expertise of a broad range of contractors to assist in developing policy and programs to protect Nye County interests."

He proposed issuing the contracts without competition, in the usual fashion. He said the contractors have worked on the project on average over eight years "facilitating continuity, stability and the accumulation of a large body of interdisciplinary knowledge regarding Yucca Mountain."

Seven of the contracts under the Independent Scientific Investigations Program will be up for renewal March 31. Congress has been operating under a continuing resolution; Nye County was awarded 43 percent of its 2009 oversight funding to last for the period from Oct. 1, 2008 through March 31, 2009.

"There's a five-month continuing resolution. The rest of the year will be dependent based on when the new administration comes in," Lacy said in a recent interview. "If they were to cut our funding, we can cut back the money on our contracts."

The contracts were renewed based on the assumption the county will get full funding for the remainder of 2009, he said.

The list of consultants and the maximum amount they will be funded includes:

* Attorney Jeffrey Van Niel, regulatory and licensing advisor, $600,000.

* Former DOE licensing engineer Joseph Ziegler, environmental assessment, land management support, NRC licensing and other duties, $210,000.

* Cash Jaczczak will continue developing county strategy, policy and plans on Yucca Mountain, $210,000;

* Michael Voegele, with a doctorate in geological engineering, will be the team leader in the county's public information and outreach program, $210,000;

* Nevada Environmental Research and Monitoring Institute (NERMI),will develop a business plan that includes training residents to collect samples of baseline radiation and develop a plan for an environmental measurements laboratory in Nye County, $200,000;

* Eileen Christensen, with BEC Environmental Inc., an OSHA licensed instructor, will work on the Nye County public safety project report and other duties, $200,000;

* TerraSpectra Geomatics, Web master services for the repository project office Web site, $170,000;

* Hydrogeologist Tom Buqo, will support hydrogeology, groundwater studies and study repository impacts on water resources, $150,000;

* Richard Reinke, Norwest Corp., principal investigator for tracer tests, $150,000;

* Jamie Walker with Jamieson Geological Inc., the managing geologist of the project since 2001, $135,000;

* John Walton, a professor of civil engineering and environmental science at the University of Texas, El Paso, water chemistry and repository ventilation studies, $100,000;

* Kathy Gilmore, a geoscientist with the program for six years, will provide quality assurance, $85,000;

* Mary Ellen Giampaoli, environmental compliance and land use contractor, $80,000;

* Great Basin Drilling Co., well construction, aquifer and tracer testing when needed, $70,000;

* Contract field technician Ryan Lee, geologic sampling and testing, well drilling, aquifer testing, groundwater monitoring and tracer testing, $60,000;

* Thomas Anderson, University of Pittsburgh, will provide support on tectonic activity, volcanism and other geological studies, $55,000;

* Anita Johnson, president of HydroGeoLogica, will perform hydrogeological quality assurance, water resources planning and management, $50,000.

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

Pahrump Valley Times
January 09, 2009

Former mayor to head nuke office

Breslow Says He Won't be Friend of Yucca Project

The Associated Press

RENO -- Bruce Breslow, a former Sparks mayor and television sportscaster, said Tuesday that in his new job as head of the state Nuclear Projects Office he'll continue Nevada's fight against federal plans to open the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.

"The state policy is not changing toward a new direction," said Breslow, who works in commercial real estate and serves on the Sparks Planning Commission.

"My primary goal is to protect the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Nevada as it relates to the Yucca Mountain project."

Gov. Jim Gibbons, who grew up in Sparks, appointed Breslow late Monday to replace longtime nuclear projects director Bob Loux, who is resigning after disclosures that he gave himself and his staff unauthorized pay raises.

"I know Bruce to be a good and a fair man," Gibbons stated. "I trust his leadership of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects will bring new ideas and a renewed level of tenacity to the fight against locating the nation's nuclear dump in Nevada."

Loux faces a hearing in early January before the Nevada Ethics Commission. He spent 23 years as the top state official working to block federal plans for building a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

Breslow, 52, was among three finalists recommended for the job by the Nuclear Projects Commission, chaired by former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan.

The other finalists, Tim Hay and Keith Tierney -- both lawyers with experience in utility or environmental law -- received unanimous recommendations from the six commission members present when finalists were chosen. Breslow received four.

Bryan on Tuesday said he felt Hay was most qualified but added that Breslow was highly motivated.

"Bruce's background is less extensive than the other two, but Bruce had demonstrated a real enthusiasm for the job," Bryan said. "In his oral presentation he had a grasp of the issues, and I think that was impressive."

Hay, former state consumer advocate, declined comment on Breslow's appointment.

Tierney, an economist and Reno lawyer who worked with state and local governments on other proposed federal programs in Nevada, including the MX Missile project in the late 1970s, said he was disappointed in the outcome.

"I wish Mr. Breslow a lot of luck," he said.

Breslow, who hasn't been to the Yucca Mountain site, dismissed any suggestion he was unqualified for the job.

"I've done this a few times before," he said of his transition. "People questioned whether I could make the leap from sportscaster to mayor."

During his eight years as mayor, the city developed Victorian Square, now a hub for special events, and successfully sued to clean up the former Helms pit, now the site of Sparks Marina and a big retail and entertainment development.

Under his tenure, he said, the city embraced master planned communities and lower property taxes by refinancing debt.

"I had to learn how to do union negotiations, police, fire, public works ... and I left Sparks in good hands," he said.

Breslow also served on the Nevada Transportation Services Authority and as chairman of the Nevada State Employee Management Committee, appointed to those posts by former Gov. Kenny Guinn.

"They've all been great opportunities to quickly grow," Breslow said of his experiences, adding that he will do the same in his new job.

"I will immediately immerse myself in this, work with the attorney general's office, agency staff, a myriad of expert witnesses and attorneys to get up to speed as quickly as possible and help them develop strategies going into the most important phase of the Yucca Mountain fight -- the DOE's application hearing," he said.

Breslow said he had the opportunity to tour Yucca Mountain when he was mayor, but "chose not to at the time."

"After I catch up, get up to speed as quickly as possible, it would obviously be an important trip to take," he said. "First I need to set up an office and immerse myself in knowledge."

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

Pahrump Valley Times
January 09, 2009

Back Then: 20 years ago

Nevada's Nuclear Waste Project office has sent a preliminary report on the valuation of a Yucca Mountain repository to the Legislature's Committee on High Level Radioactive Waste, listing the 1988-89 market value as almost $411 million.

County repository consultant Steve Bradhurst told Nye County commissioners the county's property tax share could be over $7 million annually.

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