Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, June 19, 2009
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Lincoln County Record
June 18, 2009
Commissioners Approve $700,000 in Consulting Contracts
By Dave Maxwell
Staff Writer
County Commissioners approved a new round of consultant contracts for 2009-2010 during their regular board meeting June 15.
The total amount for the five consultant contracts was $700,000. Dr. Mike Baughman of Intertech Services received $235,000. Robison/Seidler, $285,000, Resource Concepts $50,000, and Las Vegas based Attorney Brett Whipple $50.000. Jason Pitts of Geo Core Data received $80,000.
Commission Chairman Paul Mathews said the money was part of $1.2 million received directly from the Department of Energy (DOE).
Baughman presented a services contract document between the County and his firm, Intertech Services, and outlined the assignment as "to provide professional consultation and advice for a professional fee in connection with oversight, mitigation, planning and impact alleviation planning relating to the Department of Energy's radioactive waste management programs in Nevada."
No one was on hand at the Commission meeting to present contract agreement documents for Robison/Seidler, Resource Concepts or Brett Whipple.
Connie Simkins, Lincoln County Nuclear Oversight Program Coordinator, said Resource Concepts is on a "task-based contract" and do not spend any money until assigned tasks come up for them. Since the DOE has put all its focus of late on getting the licensing agreement settled, Simkins said, there have been no studies needed to help the grazing operators or private property owners who would be affected by Yucca Mountain or the proposed railroad that falls under the expertise of Resource Concepts.
The contract amounts for the coming year were lower than those for 2008-2009. For 2008-2009, Intertech Services received $250,000. Robison/Seidler received $331,000 and Resource Concepts received $100.000. Simkins reported Resource Concepts did not spend even half of the money because there were no additional projects for them to work on.
In 2007-2008, Intertech Services received $193,779 and Robison/Seidler received $265,000.
Brett Whipple has received $50,000 annually from the money given to Lincoln County by the Department of Energy.
Dr. Baughman admitted that both Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) and President Obama have said Yucca Mountain is dead, but have allowed the licensing process to go on.
At the same time, outspoken local Yucca Mountain opponent Marge Detraz, of Caliente, criticized giving out the new contracts. She has long stated Reid says he will never allow Yucca Mountain to be built. Her arguments, in part, reflect the thinking of a growing number of other Lincoln County residents as to why, in lieu of the economic recession, state school budget cuts, cut backs in County governments, as well as the slashing of the DOE Yucca Mountain budget, do the Lincoln County Commissioners want to continue spending money for these consultants? Is this course of action really necessary? Is it not time to jump off the Titanic?
In related action, Commissioners joined with the Joint City/County Impact Alleviation Committee regarding contentions Lincoln County will participate in as an Interested Governmental Participant in the upcoming Yucca Mountain Licensing Proceedings.
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Congressman Doc Hastings (WA-04)
June 18, 2009
LAWMAKERS PRESS TO KEEP YUCCA MOUNTAIN MOVING FORWARD
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Congressman Doc Hastings (WA-04) today led a letter sent to Energy Secretary Steven Chu by a bipartisan group of 25 lawmakers requesting that the Department of Energy continue the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository program. The letter highlights the ramifications of delays and urges proper funding for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing review.
“The federal government has a legal obligation to clean up nuclear waste sites like Hanford,” said Hastings. “After years of studies and billions spent, Yucca was determined to be the most suitable repository for spent fuel and high-level waste at cleanup sites. The message in our bipartisan letter is clear; we strongly support additional funding for the Yucca Mountain project so that the NRC license review can continue. Inadequate funding and more delays will have serious consequences when it comes to our nation’s defense nuclear waste.”
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Tri-City Herald
June 18, 2009
NUKE WASTE: Hastings leads efforts for Yucca Mountain money
Congressman Doc Hastings led efforts to send a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu signed by a bipartisan group of 25 lawmakers asking that the Department of Energy continue the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository program.
The letter highlights the ramifications of delays and urges proper funding for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing review.
Yucca Mountain was supposed to cap efforts that began in 1982 to build a deep repository for nuclear waste from the nation’s nuclear power plants. It also was to take some of the high-level wastes from environmental cleanup of the Hanford reservation near Richland and several other DOE nuclear weapons production sites.
However, President Obama’s proposed budget included just $197 million for the Yucca Mountain project. The budget also directed that the money be spent to “explore alternatives” to the Nevada project, and stipulated that no money would go for site access work, engineering or land purchases.
The Department of Energy has spent $13.5 billion on Yucca Mountain since 1983, but November’s election dramatically changed the political landscape. Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who’s Senate majority leader, had promised to shut Yucca Mountain down because his state doesn’t want all of the nation’s nuclear trash.
But the letter from Hastings and the other members of Congress says the decision was wrong.
“The federal government has a legal obligation to clean up nuclear waste sites like Hanford,” said Hastings.
“After years of studies and billions spent, Yucca was determined to be the most suitable repository for spent fuel and high-level waste at cleanup sites,” Hastings said in a statement. “The message in our bipartisan letter is clear; we strongly support additional funding for the Yucca Mountain project so that the NRC license review can continue. Inadequate funding and more delays will have serious consequences when it comes to our nation’s defense nuclear waste.”
The letter notes there are 121 sites in 39 states where spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive wastes are being stored. It also says any efforts to develop another repository site would “likely take an additional 20 years and upwards of $15 billion to develop.”
Other Northwest congressmen signing the letter included Washington Reps. Norm Dicks, Rick Larsen, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Jay Inslee, Brian Baird and Oregon Rep. Greg Walden.
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Power Engineering
June 17, 2009
No Yucca Should Mean ‘Yes’ Recycling
By Nancy Spring
Senior Editor
Located in northwest France, Areva’s La Hague is the largest nuclear fuel reprocessing/recycling plant in the world. Spent fuel from 90 to 100 nuclear reactors can be recycled there each year, separated into uranium, plutonium and fission products, each one bound for the next use or final storage.
Right now, 40 years of France’s nuclear waste is stored in three storage halls at La Hague—9,500 containers containing vitrified nuclear waste in pits that are 20 meters deep. The containers can be stored here for 100 years, but must be moved to a final repository eventually.
This photo, shot during a tour I made in April of some of Areva’s French nuclear facilities, was taken in one of the storage halls. I stood right on top of one of the nuclear waste pits.
Areva invited 10 journalists for the tour. We saw large component manufacturing, enrichment and mixed oxide (MOX) fabrication facilities and the new EPR construction at Flamanville, but for me the most memorable moment was standing in this room where nuclear waste is stored.
Fuel assemblies power nuclear reactors for three to five years before they have to be replaced. Ninety-six percent of each fuel assembly is re-useable, so after a year in storage ponds at the reactor site, they are shipped to La Hague to be recycled.
At La Hague, the fuel assemblies are put in “baskets” and moved to an interim storage pool for another cooling down period of three to five years. There are four pools at La Hague, each one with a maximum fuel holding capacity of about 3,000 metric tons or approximately 700 baskets.
After the second cool-down period, the spent fuel assemblies are cut into 35-mm chunks and the plutonium and uranium are separated from the fission products. The uranium is used for UOX fuel and the plutonium goes to Areva’s Melox plant to be made into MOX fuel. The other 4 percent comprises the fission products, which are highly radioactive and thermally charged. They are vitrified and poured into stainless steel containers, ready for waste storage in ventilated pits such as those in my photo.
It’s possible, if we overcome our fear of recycling in the U.S., that we will be able to solve the problem in a similar manner.
In ballpark figures, it takes approximately 30 metric tons of fuel each year to power a 1,000 MW nuclear power plant, which creates 20 tons of waste. By recycling, the volume of waste is reduced by a factor of five and plutonium is removed from the final waste stream. Radiotoxicity is reduced by a factor of 10.
The lower the volume of waste, the lower its toxicity, explained Rémi Coulon, back-end sector, strategy and international projects director, for Areva, during a conference for the journalists at Areva’s Paris headquarters. Mr. Coulon oversees downstream decommissioning and recycling for the company.
He said there is no comparison to what was done in the military and there has been an evolution of technologies for recycling. “People have the wrong image (of reprocessing). Maybe the burden is on us to educate them.”
Granted, nuclear is a way of electrical life in France. Nuclear power provides 80 percent of France’s electricity. One Areva EPR is under construction in Flamanville and the president of France just announced plans for another. And no, the French have not built a final repository yet. Mr. Coulon said there is a timetable where a license would be granted by 2015 for the repository under consideration in eastern France and it would be opened by 2025. (And he said that is “not part of Areva’s business.”)
But when it comes to spent fuel recycling and waste treatment, we could hardly find a better model. With Yucca Mountain apparently off the table and 118 operating and shut-down reactors in the U.S. with waste issues, perhaps it’s time for some of our decision makers to take a tour like I did.
--Power Engineering June, 2009
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San Luis Obispo Tribune
June 17, 2009
Diablo nuclear waste starts going into dry casks
Spent fuel that was stored in pools will now be housed above ground in steel, concrete
By David Sneed - dsneed@thetribunenews.com
Workers at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant on Monday began loading the facility’s first dry cask container for used reactor fuel storage.
Over the next several months, eight canisters will be loaded and taken to a storage pad on a hillside behind the plant, where they will remain for the foreseeable future.
Establishment of the above-ground storage facility has been years in the making. It has been the subject of considerable controversy as nuclear watchdog groups have filed lawsuits in an attempt to make it safer from terrorist attacks.
Each large steel and concrete cask will contain 32 spent reactor fuel assemblies that have been stored in below-ground pools at the plant. The pools are nearing their storage capacity.
Moving the spent fuel assemblies, which are still highly radioactive, to dry casks is a standard practice. Two-thirds of the nation’s 65 commercial nuclear plants use dry casks. Dry casks are the preferred storage method because they are low maintenance with no moving parts and more casks can be added as needed. “After years of careful planning, preparation and evaluation, we are ready to move forward on this loading project,” said Jim Becker, plant manager.
Diablo Canyon was built with the assumption that its used fuel rods would either be reprocessed into new fuel or stored in a centralized facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Neither of those options has materialized, and Diablo Canyon’s used fuel has remained in its two storage pools.
However, the storage racks in the pools do not have enough room to accommodate more spent fuel assemblies from the next planned refueling outages, said Jearl Strickland, Diablo Canyon used fuel manager.
A refueling planned next year for the plant’s Unit 1 will generate between 89 and 92 more used assemblies, but the storage racks in the unit’s spent fuel pool have only 80 slots available. Moving some of the spent assemblies to the dry cask facility will create more room in the pools.
Fuel assemblies must cool off in the storage pools for five years before they can be moved to dry casks. Another eight dry casks will be loaded next year to make room in Unit 2’s spent fuel pools. Another 12 casks are scheduled to be loaded in 2011, Strickland said.
Once loaded, the casks will be stored on a concrete pad that is seven and a half feet thick. The casks will also be bolted down to prevent them from toppling in the event of an earthquake. Diablo Canyon is the only nuclear plant in the world that employs that safety precaution, Strickland said.
Two earthquake faults are offshore of the plant.
Plant owner Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has installed foundations for 38 casks, enough for the next five years. More foundations were not installed because the utility wants to see what happens during those five years in terms of the nation’s policy for spent nuclear fuel, Strickland said.
In all, the dry cask facility could be expanded to hold 138 casks, which would be enough to accommodate all of the spent fuel the plant will generate during its initial operating license ending in 2025.
The decision to establish the dry cask facility caused a flurry of legal activity as the local activist group San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace has tried to force the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has licensed the dry cask facility, to make it safer.
The group successfully sued the agency for failing to adequately evaluate the environmental consequences of a terrorist attack on the facility. The agency produced a new eight-page analysis that did not satisfy the Mothers for Peace, and a new lawsuit was filed.
That lawsuit is still pending. Jane Swanson, Mothers for Peace spokeswoman, said the group is not trying to stop the dry cask facility from opening, only to make it safer.
The group wants the NRC to require that additional safety steps be taken such as storing the casks at multiple sites, requiring stronger casks and storing the casks underground or in facilities protected by concrete.
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Cleveland Plain Dealer
June 17, 2009
Ohio is likely home of new-generation nuclear power plant
Aaron Marshall and Stephen Koff
Columbus- Ohio could see its first new nuclear power plant in decades, built with a new generation of components and without the hulking cooling towers that symbolized Nuclear Generation 1.0 - but with all the benefits or risks that proponents and opponents have debated for years.
Plans will be announced Thursday in Piketon, a south-central Ohio community that already played a role in nuclear power, enriching uranium at USEC Inc.'s gaseous diffusion plant from 1954 to 2001 before operations were consolidated elsewhere.
Duke Power Co., a major regional utility, will announce it plans to erect a new electricity-producing nuclear reactor on the government-owned site, in conjunction with USEC and French-based reactor manufacturer AREVA, according to multiple sources.
Gov. Ted Strickland, U.S. Sen. George Voinovich and U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt plan to be there, along with numerous corporate executives. But their offices, as well as representatives from Duke, AREVA and USEC, did not want to comment before the announcement.
The project, which could employ 4,000 during construction in an area of the state beset with unemployment, would probably take about a decade to complete, starting with approval required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The plant would produce about 1,600 megawatts, creating a massive supply of energy in a state that now relies heavily on coal.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group for the industry, says 1,600 megawatts could provide power to about 1 million homes. AREVA's pressurized water reactor design is already being considered for certification by the NRC in conjunction with plans for a new Constellation Energy nuclear plant near Lusby, Md.
The Ohio site, which already has transmission lines and a water supply because of USEC's prior operations, could accommodate a second reactor later, a source said. But unless coal is ultimately banned - an unlikely prospect politically - Ohio does not need a new power plant to meet its energy demands, so it seems likely the power generated at the Piketon plant would be sold off and shipped elsewhere in the nation's energy grid.
The proposed Piketon plant would be the third nuclear power plant built in Ohio - and the first since Lake County's Perry Nuclear Power Plant came on line in November 1987.
The announcement comes as Congress is debating ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The United States gets only about 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. Nuclear power proponents such as Voinovich point to France's heavy reliance on nuclear as a safe, carbon-free solution to energy needs and global warming.
But critics note that no state in this country has been willing to accept the risk of keeping spent nuclear fuel forever, even if stored in protective casks. The current generation of 103 nuclear plants in the United States were built with an expectation that a nuclear depository such as Nevada's Yucca Mountain would ultimately take the spent fuel rods. That hasn't happened.
Nuclear energy executives say there is no risk in keeping the spent fuel underground at existing sites. Critics don't believe it.
There's also the question of price.
Ned Ford, an energy consultant for the Sierra Club's Ohio chapter, said building a power plant capable of producing 1,600 megawatts would be "wildly expensive."
He said Ohio's pair of nuclear-powered plants have soaked ratepayers in northern Ohio as cost overruns have haunted the Perry Nuclear Power Plant and Davis-Besse in Oak Harbor over the past two decades.
"That has come out of the pockets and hides of ratepayers in northern Ohio," Ford said. "You had a brief mini-recession up there because you tried to use nuclear power instead of coal."
However, Ford acknowledged that a new generation of nuclear power is safer than the older designs already in place in northern Ohio.
"They will be safer than those [Davis-Besse and Perry] older plants, but they will still produce radioactive waste and cost many times what those plants cost," he said.
--skoff@plaind.com, 216-999-4212
--amarshall@plaind.com, 1-800-228-8272
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Miami Herald
June 17, 2009
FPL quietly seeking zoning change for nuclear storage
By John Dorschner
jdorschner@MiamiHerald.com
After more than two million pounds of nuclear waste has piled up in South Dade over 35 years, Florida Power & Light is quietly seeking a zoning change to allow six acres of its Turkey Point site to be used for new above-ground storage casks.
Environmentalists have known for a long time FPL planned to use casks but they knew little, if anything, about the need for a zoning change, which generally allows for public discussion that could lead to modifications of the utility's plans.
''It's news to me,'' said Lloyd Miller of the South Florida National Parks Trust. ''Haven't heard a thing,'' said Mark Oncavage, who follows South Florida energy issues for the Sierra Club. ``I definitely think we should have a say in this.''
''I've heard from two people that something is happening, but no details,'' Audubon's Laura Reynolds said. ``Can you share any details?''
FPL spokesman Tom Veenstra said the utility hasn't been at all secretive about dry storage. ``Information about this project has been on our website since 2006 and since 2007 we have discussed it as part of our ongoing community outreach presentations.''
The website, however, makes no mention of changes needed in zoning.
FPL's problem is that it's running out of space to store waste at Turkey Point, and there is no place in the country to send it. For more than a decade, the feds have been trying to create a national nuclear waste facility under Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert, but it's been stopped by vehement opposition from environmentalists and local residents.
Marc LaFerrier, director of the Miami-Dade Planning and Zoning Department, said he didn't know if FPL's request with the county could be dealt with through paperwork or would require a public hearing. ``This is a little different than the normal plan approval.''
Environmentalists emphatically want a hearing. ''There are very important issues here,'' said Reynolds. ``Because this site is so close to the water, we're concerned about rising water levels with global warming and storm surges from hurricanes.''
LAST CHANCE
A county hearing may be the environmentalists' last chance to stop expansion of the storage area. Last month, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection gave its approval for the site change.
For more than 30 years, FPL has stored the Turkey Point waste in stainless steel-lined covered concrete pools. Those pools will be filled in the next two years, Veenstra wrote in an e-mail, and FPL plans to switch to dry-cask storage in silo-shaped structures six feet wide and 16 feet tall, consisting of ''stainless steel containers secured inside concrete modules,'' two to four feet thick.
Around the country, dry casks have been used for more than 20 years at 55 sites, said Veenstra. They have been ``proven both secure and environmentally sound.''
The casks are designed to meet all Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirements including hurricanes, storm surges and other flooding, said Veenstra.
``The facility itself will be heavily secured and include multiple layers of protection, including perimeter fencing, radiation monitoring, a vehicle barrier system, a high-tech perimeter intrusion detection system, continuous surveillance, and regular security patrols.''
In a May 14 memo to the state, LaFerrier wrote that to get zoning approval, FPL must produce a plan showing a drainage system on the storage site would stop runoff water from going into Biscayne Bay or other surface water areas, even at times of severe flooding caused by hurricanes.
The environmentalists' main concern is protecting the water. ''You're asking for all kinds of trouble with water intrusion,'' said Oncavage of the Sierra Club. ``You could have hurricanes on top of global warming -- how high do you have to have the casks raised so they'd be safe from storm surge?''
The county memo indicates FPL has made ''reference to a finished grade elevation of 18.3 feet,'' but LaFerrier said FPL ''hasn't submitted plans yet,'' and it's unclear whether the height refers to land built up to that level or a concrete platform above the ground. FPL did not respond to a Herald inquiry about the elevation of the cask site.
''I sure would like to see what the plans are,'' Oncavage said. ``Spent fuel can be extremely dangerous.''
Reynolds, executive director of Tropical Audubon, said she's concerned because FPL is planning to build two more nuclear reactors at Turkey Point and re-zoning for more storage space will be one more step allowing the expansion.
INCREASING WASTE
At present, according to federal reports, the waste at Turkey Point increases by 40 tons each year, and that could double with two reactors in about a decade.
''I should make clear we're not opposed to nuclear power itself,'' said Reynolds, ``but we need to look through a lens about expanding at this particular site, when you can have sea level rising and storm surge between two national parks. . . . With no Yucca Mountain, this is not really a sustainable path that they're on.''
FPL's response is that there's no alternative. ''Due to planned space constraints in the pools, we expect construction on the dry storage facility to take place in 2009 and 2010 with fuel storage beginning in 2011,'' said Veenstra.
But at least it will be green. For the six-acre cask site, the county is requiring ''nine trees per acre and 10 shrubs for every tree,'' although these can be planted somewhere else if FPL chooses.
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AP Google
June 17, 2009
Funds to shut nuclear plants fall short
By Dave Gram and Frank Bass
VERNON, Vt. (AP) — The companies that own almost half the nation's nuclear reactors are not setting aside enough money to dismantle them, and many may sit idle for decades and pose safety and security risks as a result, an Associated Press investigation has found.
The shortfalls are caused not by fluctuating appetites for nuclear power but by the stock market and other investments, which have suffered huge losses over the past year and devastated the plants' savings, and by the soaring costs of decommissioning.
At 19 nuclear plants, owners have won approval to idle reactors for as long as 60 years, presumably enough time to allow investments to recover and eventually pay for dismantling the plants and removing radioactive material.
But mothballing nuclear reactors or shutting them down inadequately presents the most severe of risks. Radioactive waste could leak from abandoned plants into ground water or released into the air, and spent nuclear fuel rods could be stolen by terrorists.
During the past two years, estimates of dismantling costs have soared by more than $4.6 billion because rising energy and labor costs, while the investment funds that are supposed to pay for shutting plants down have lost $4.4 billion in the battered stock market.
The power companies have been hammered by the same declining market returns as colleges, companies and private investors. Industry critics say reactor owners weren't saving enough even before the financial collapse, and that federal regulators have not held the industry to a high enough standard.
Federal regulators are expected to release a report later this week that will describe shortfalls at 30 of the nation's 104 nuclear plants and ask operators for details about how they plan to resolve the problem.
The amount of money set aside for dismantling the plants has decreased at nearly four of every five reactors, according to an AP analysis of financial records provided every other year to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The government could force plant operators to set aside more money.
Plant owners say they have several ways to close the gap. In addition to idling the plants, the government can simply extend licenses to operate them. And investments could recover in the years to come. Industry officials say a 6 percent annual rate of return is a reasonable long-term goal.
Most nuclear plants will be operating for several more decades and will be able to recoup their fund losses, said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group.
Nuclear power critics say those plans are not enough.
"No one at the NRC wants to acknowledge what is absolutely obvious to us, that the funds are inadequate and that the industry has bare assets," said Arnold Gundersen, a retired nuclear engineer and decommissioning expert.
Those critics say the industry is making assumptions about their investments that do not account for another market collapse, political obstacles to getting the licenses renewed and unforeseen safety problems that could make nuclear power less palatable.
Last week, British officials reported on a 2007 leak in a cooling tank at the decommissioned Sizewell-A nuclear plant. If the leak had not been promptly discovered, officials said, nuclear fuel rods could have caught fire and sent airborne radioactive waste along the English coast, harming plant operators or the public.
The average cost of dismantling a nuclear reactor is now estimated now at $450 million. The average plant owner has about $300 million saved up for the job. Typically, the money is raised through a small surcharge on electric rates.
NRC records show utilities are trying to close the gaps:
_Owners at 19 plants have won approval to mothball reactors for as long as 60 years. A method called Safestor has been approved for reactors including the three Palo Verde units in the Arizona desert and the Three Mile Island 1 reactor near Harrisburg, Pa.
Under this method, radioactive fuel is removed from the reactor and the spent fuel storage pool and is stored in dry casks on plant property. Plant systems are drained of water, and the remaining radioactivity in the plant is left to decay until the facility is dismantled.
But some analysts worry the utility companies that own nuclear plants might not even exist in six decades.
"Our concern is that they'll just walk away from it," said Jim Riccio, a Greenpeace nuclear policy analyst. "It's like a sitting time bomb. The notion that you can just walk away from these sites and everything will be hunky-dory is just not true."
_The operators of 54 nuclear plants, or more than half in the U.S., have already received 20-year license extensions. Sixteen more are being reviewed, and the commission expects to receive 21 more applications in the next several years. To date, the NRC hasn't turned down any license extensions.
While companies ask for extensions for other reasons — primarily to keep producing power and making money — some companies have explicitly told shareholders they will use license extensions to meet their decommissioning obligations.
_Some plants are calculating growth projections for their investments with an annual return of 6 percent. While that is roughly what leading market indexes make over decades, the NRC found plant owners lost an average of 13 percent over the past two years.
In Texas, state rules govern utilities' investments, said Ashley Monts, a spokeswoman for Luminant Corp., which owns two nuclear plants near Glen Rose, Texas. Five years before a plant is set to close, she said, Luminant is required to have 60 percent of the cost available. Two and a half years out, the gap must be completely closed.
Luminant has about $385 million set aside to close its two plants in 2030 and 2033. Two years ago, that figure was $439 million. The cost of decommissioning the reactors is $824 million, almost $90 million than was estimated before.
_Plant operators appear to benefit from NRC rules that don't require them to set aside money to store old nuclear fuel, demolish buildings, or return the plant sites to pristine states. Although some states require a full site restoration, the federal government does not.
The Callaway Unit 1 reactor near Fulton, Mo., reported in March that meeting the NRC savings target for decommissioning would leave it far short of the real cost of cleaning up the site.
It began with a story similar to those told by other plants: The cost to meet the minimum federal requirement for decommissioning rose from $358 million to $406 million in two years. Its savings to pay for it dwindled from $268 million to $236 million.
But a detailed study of the cost of decommissioning Callaway showed something far worse: The federal savings target was about $288 million less than what it would actually cost for a full dismantling, cleanup and safe storage of spent nuclear waste.
The waste disposal problem has become especially acute since the federal government scrapped plans to store nuclear waste at a secure facility in Yucca Mountain, Nev. Instead, radioactive fuel rods are now stored in large concrete and steel canisters on plant grounds that are guarded around the clock and tested often for leaks.
The Vermont Yankee plant, in southeastern Vermont along the banks of the Connecticut River, was hailed as the future of power production for New England when it opened in 1972. Its license is set to expire in 2012, and its decommissioning fund has less than half the money expected to be needed.
As recently as December 2007, the fund held $416 million. Now it stands at about $384 million — a rebound from where it stood a few months ago but not even close to the estimated $932 million it will eventually cost to dismantle the plant.
Entergy Corp. is seeking a 20-year license extension for Vermont Yankee, and is hoping to have enough money in the fund to decommission the plant in the 2030s. Jay Thayer, the plant's vice president for operations, said that if the decommissioning fund continues to perform poorly, the company may ask for permission to idle the plant for as long as 60 years under the Safestor program. That would put off the dismantling until 2092.
--On the Net:
¦Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
¦Vermont Yankee: http://www.safecleanreliable.com/
¦Greenpeace: http://www.greenpeace.org
¦Nuclear Energy Institute: http://www.nei.org/
¦Luminant Corp.: http://www.luminant.com
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Las Vegas SUN
June 15, 2009
Nevada GOP says Sen. Reid’s online ads misleading
The Associated Press
The first online ads for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid's campaign 2010 re-election effort have quietly been posted.
But the Senate majority leader's low-profile venture into new media advertising _ placed on Google earlier this month ahead of what's expected to be a tough re-election fight for Reid _ has still drawn the usual critical response.
And the criticism has arisen, in part, because the ads stake out relatively new territory for political campaigns, testing federal disclosure rules as campaigns find new ways to communicate with voters.
Reid's ads appear as a series of sponsored links on the search engine. When a Nevada user searches for some selected key topics _ Harry Reid, campaign or gun, for example _ the ads appear on the right-hand side of the screen, a column designated for paid content.
But unlike most other sponsored links, Reid's ads link to a third-party, typically a newspaper that has posted a favorable story about the senator. And they carry no disclaimer or indication that they are paid for by the Reid campaign.
The approach is an effort to disseminate misleading information, Nevada GOP finance chair Robert Uithoven said.
"It shows me that right out of the gate the campaign is in a desperate position," he said. "I don't think it's a one-time thing. I think we'll see a lot of this throughout the campaign and this may be the first chapter."
No major Republican opponent has yet to enter the race against Reid, a Democrat. But the senator is a target for national Republicans who see him as vulnerable, and polls show Reid's disapproval rating in Nevada has risen along with his profile as a partisan leader.
His campaign contends the ads are both accurate and compliant with federal election rules.
"Reid encouraged Obama to run for president when others thought it was impossible," reads one of the ads, written like a headline, which was accompanied by a link to the Las Vegas Sun newspaper.
The link directs readers to an article on the paper's Web site. The story is about the epilogue to Reid's autobiography in which the senator claims to have urged then-Sen. Barack Obama to launch a bid for the White House.
"Somebody just casually browsing the Web could easily be misled by this," said Brooks Jackson, director of the nonpartisan Web site Factcheck.org. "It seems to say that the Las Vegas Sun reported that Reid was partly responsible for getting Obama, whose popularity is still very high, to run. And it's not at all clear that it's a paid ad from Reid."
Reid campaign manager Brandon Hall defended the approach, saying the ads linked to objective news reporting.
"We're actually encouraging people to go read the articles as they were reported," he said.
But the fractured text in the ads can leave a different impression than the articles. Several ads give Reid credit for blocking the construction of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest from Las Vegas.
One highlights the quote, "No way the dump will be built" and seems to attribute it to the Las Vegas Sun. The quote, however, was not written as fact by the newspaper but was said by Reid's own spokesman and reported in the newspaper.
The ads are revealing of how he hopes to boost his image with Nevadans. At least two note that Reid has won the support of a well-known Republican operative. Another notes his support for gun owner's rights, according to the campaign. A handful tout Reid's close relationship to President Obama.
Hall said the ads are intended to highlight Reid's key accomplishments and reach voters where they spend their time _ on the Internet.
"They are 100 percent accurate and 100 percent compliant with the law," he said.
The campaign believes the ads are exempt from Federal Election Commission rules requiring political ads to carry disclaimers identifying who paid for them.
They fall under an exemption initially intended to apply to small items, such as bumper stickers or pens, Hall said. He added that the FEC has ruled that the exemption also applies to text messages.
FEC spokesman Christian Hilland said the commission hasn't ruled on any cases that involved search engine advertising.
"Every advisory opinion is very specific," Hilland said, referring to the text message decision. "This case seems a little different."
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Scitizen
June 15, 2009
Interview with Dr. Matthew Bunn "Cancelling the Yucca Mountain repository will throw the entire nuclear waste management program into doubt"
Clementine Fullias
Following the Obama administration's decision to end the planning for Yucca Mountain, Nev., as the final repository for high-level radioactive material from all of the nation's nuclear power plants, a panel of nuclear power experts met in May at MIT to discuss how to address nuclear waste recycling or disposal, which many analysts consider the biggest obstacle to building a new generation of nuclear power plants across America. Dr. Matthew Bunn, who took part in the debate, answers Scitizen's questions.
Do you agree with the Obama administration's decision to cancel the Yucca Mountain repository?
No, I think that was a mistake. Yucca Mountain, if properly designed and operated, could provide a safe place for permament disposal of nuclear waste. Cancelling it will throw the entire nuclear waste management program into doubt, and it is likely to be decades before the United States can settle on another site.
In your testimony, you declared that using today's reprocessing technologies presents greater risks for nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Do you include new reprocessing technologies that are being developed to be deployed in conjunction with fast neutron reactors so that they end up as short-lived fission products?
Those are not today's technologies. None of them will be ready for commercial deployment for something like 20 years, if not more. Moreover, I have not yet seen a convincing end-to-end systems analysis that would indicate that these technologies, judged overall (including cost, waste management, safety, security against terrorism, proliferation risks, public acceptance, and use of resources) are superior to the once-through approaches that are likely to be available several decades hence.
What are your recommendations regarding America's next generation of nuclear power plants?
For better or for worse, the next generation of nuclear power plants in the United States will be the designs already on offer from the major reactor vendors. Whether they will be built in any substantial numbers will depend in substantial part on whether they end up being economically competitive with other low-carbon alternatives. The costs of nuclear power plants have skyrocketed in recent years, but the costs of coal and gas plants have risen substantially as well. The costs of sources such as wind and solar depends in part on what allowance is made for their intermittent nature. The outcome of the competition is not yet clear. I believe the U.S. government should move forward with a carefully structured program of loan guarantees for the first few nuclear power plants and with similar guarantees for other new low-carbon energy sources but should structure the effort with the explicit goal of getting to a situation after the first few plants where they no longer need government support.
Interview by Clementine Fullias
--Matthew Bunn is an Associate Professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. His research interests include nuclear theft and terrorism; nuclear proliferation and measures to control it; and the future of nuclear energy and its fuel cycle.
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Lower Hudson Journal
June 15, 2009
Nuclear plant seeks OK to move uranium
By Greg Clary
BUCHANAN - Indian Point officials want to shuffle some of their used uranium fuels rods between nuclear reactors to create storage space, but federal regulators say they'll need to see a lot more details before they'll approve such a plan.
"This has not been done with any frequency in the United States," NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said. "So a lot of questions need to be answered. It is unusual and that's why it is going to take a great deal of study."
A meeting is set at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Maryland headquarters today to go over details of the proposal, which hasn't officially been submitted, Sheehan said.
Indian Point technically would be seeking a license amendment, which can take two years to complete and could involve public hearings, but the plant's owner, Entergy Nuclear, wants a fast-track version that would allow the move to be completed before a refueling outage in early 2011.
Local emergency officials say they're always wary about moving radioactive uranium, regardless of the regulations in place.
"We're concerned about the number of times the fuel's being handled," said Anthony Sutton, Westchester County's commissioner of emergency services. "We want to know in detail what they're proposing."
Sutton said he expected that Westchester County would push for a hearing on the amendment.
Sheehan said the industry's history of moving fuel is "very good" but there have been problems.
He said a year ago at an Entergy plant in Vermont, neglected maintenance on the brakes of a refueling crane caused it to fail as it was lowering fuel a few inches from the floor of a spent fuel pool. No fuel was damaged and there were no injuries, Sheehan said, but the agency required a complete investigation of the incident.
Handling spent uranium rods has become a discipline in its own right since the federal government failed to deliver a national depository for the still volatile material at the end of 1998 and the plan for a storage location at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is all but dead.
Sheehan said the industry has moved to store fuel at individual plants, saying officials expect to be able to do so for 100 years.
Indian Point has been aggressively moving spent fuel rods from its defunct Unit 1 and its Unit 2 storage pools to permanent storage containers that sit on a cement pad at the Buchanan site.
The canisters, however, weigh about 200 tons and a crane that is in use at Unit 3 is insufficient to handle such weight. Plant engineers want to offload smaller canisters of uranium rods to Unit 2, which has a crane big enough to handle the 200-ton permanent containers.
Industry officials say creating storage space in spent fuel pools is important because it allows for the most efficient use of fuel and provides flexibility in case of emergency.
Indian Point 3 no longer has adequate space to empty its reactor completely, according to Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi.
During fueling outages, for example, workers could empty the reactor like a homeowner cleaning a closet and then put the rods back according to a specific plan that maximizes fuel efficiency.
Shuffling materials around within the reactor takes more orchestration and time, valuable commodities when a plant can make $1 million a day hooked up to the electrical grid.
Nappi said the company plans to submit its application soon and basically wants to be able to work with canisters that contain 12 fuel-rod assemblies rather than the 32-assembly permanent canisters.
"It's just a smaller version, made by the same company that we been using," Nappi said. "They have a lot of experience in the industry. We're eager to work with the NRC to make sure they have what they need."
Sheehan said the regulatory agency would be proceeding on this issue in its normal, thorough way.
"You're talking about moving fuel between buildings," Sheehan said. "It would be in the protected area, but it would still be outside."
Riverkeeper, which opposes the continued operation of Indian Point, said nuclear plant officials were choosing profits over safety.
"This convoluted (fuel-shuffling) process may make financial sense, but it defies common sense and may increase the likelihood of an accident while moving the waste," said Phillip Musegaas, Riverkeeper's Indian Point specialist.
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ABCmoney
June 15, 2009
Angels Lending Group supports Secretary Bodman Report to the President and Congress
(1888PressRelease) June 11, 2009 - Secretary of Energy - Samuel W. Bodman transmitted a Report to the President and the Congress by the Secretary of Energy on the Need for a Second Repository to the President and the Congress.
The report was submitted in accordance with section 161 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended (NWPA). Section 161 requires the Secretary to report to the resident and to Congress on or after January 1, 2007, but not later than January 1, 2010, on the need for a second repository for the Nation’s spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).
“Unless Congress raises or eliminates the current statutory capacity limit of 70,000 metric tons of heavy metal, a second repository will be needed,” Secretary Bodman said. "The statutory limit is not based on any technical considerations, and the repository layout at Yucca Mountain can be expanded to accommodate three times the amount of fuel allowed under the current arbitrary cap."
Angels Lending Group recognized and identified with the former secretary. ALG affirmed the need for responsible levels to be set in order to protect our environment.
The NWPA establishes a process for the siting, construction and operation of one or more national repositories for permanent disposal of the Nation’s SNF and HLW.
Angels Lending Group Officials cited the possibilities of other possible site locations and the need for the government not to over maximize capacities of current sites.
In 1987, after the Department of Energy (DOE) had conducted studies of nine potential repository sites located throughout the United States, Congress amended the NWPA and selected the Yucca Mountain site in Nye County, Nevada as the only site for further study for the first national repository. In 1987, Congress also terminated all second repository program activities.
The NWPA currently sets a statutory capacity limit of 70,000 metric tons of heavy metal (MTHM) for the Nation’s first repository, until a second repository is in operation. The inventories of commercial and Federal Government SNF and HLW in the United States are currently projected to exceed 70,000 MTHM by 2010. Assuming all existing operating commercial nuclear reactors in the United States request license extensions from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate for 60 years, the projected amount of SNF from these reactors requiring disposal is estimated to be approximately 130,000 MTHM.
Angels Lending Group Corporation is a Private Lending Institution that works with Federal Governing Regulatory Bodies to utilize the Institutional Side of Banking with company funds to facilitate Green & Humanitarian Based Loans to Borrowers.
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Cutting Edge
June 15, 2009
Five Free Market Priorities for a Nuclear Energy Renaissance
Jack Spencer and Nicolas Loris
Energy policy, especially targets for lower carbon dioxide emissions, has emerged as a priority for Congress and the Obama Administration. Unfortunately, nuclear energy seems to have been forgotten by leadership in both the legislative and executive branches of government.
First, the President's budget had almost nothing related to advancing nuclear energy. Then Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) released their American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, which would enact numerous misguided environmental provisions, including a costly carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program, but offers virtually nothing regarding nuclear energy. This is extremely problematic given the fact that emissions-free nuclear energy could help meet both congressional and Administration energy policy objectives for clean, affordable, domestic energy.
This could be a blessing in disguise, given the heavy-handed approach that the President's budget and Waxman-Markey take in promoting politically correct energy sources like wind and solar. When it comes to nuclear energy, policymakers should reject the subsidies-first mentality that permeates most current thinking and instead focus on the following five free market priorities.
1. Return to the Original Intent of Energy Policy Act (EPACT) of 2005
EPACT 2005 provided loan guarantees, standby support, and production tax credits to mitigate the effect of decades of regulatory risk for approximately the first six nuclear reactors built in the U.S.
Congress and the nuclear industry believed these provisions would provide predictability after years of erratic regulatory hurdles through targeted and limited temporary assistance. More importantly, EPACT 2005 displayed broad, bipartisan support for clean, affordable nuclear energy.
This has devolved, however, into nuclear subsidy creep, with expansion of tax credits, standby support, and unlimited loan guarantees under consideration. While many were willing to accept some limited subsidies for nuclear energy, this call for more taxpayer support is splitting what was largely a consensus that accepted nuclear energy's place in America's energy mix.
Even more concerning, however, is that subsidies will prevent the nuclear industry from ever realizing its full potential. Government interference will result in inefficiencies and politically-driven business decisions that will stifle technological development and drive up costs.
To restore broad support and to ensure a market-competitive nuclear industry, direct and indirect taxpayer support established by EPACT 2005 should not be extended beyond what is currently authorized.
2. Avoid Creating a Government-Dependent Nuclear Industry
Expanded and unlimited subsidies will not create a sustainable nuclear industry; in fact, it will do just the opposite. Relying on continual handouts from Washington will create a dependent, vulnerable industry that is not likely to be viable in the long term.
Not only should loan guarantees be limited, but congressional attempts to reinvigorate the nuclear industry through taxpayer-subsidized workforce and manufacturing-expansion programs are not needed.
Confidence among private investors in the nuclear industry is being demonstrated today. Private companies are expanding their workforce, enrichment and manufacturing facilities are expanding capacity, universities are increasing the size of their nuclear engineering programs, and the private sector is implementing craft-labor workforce programs. This is all being done without additional taxpayer largesse and before ground has even broken on a new nuclear plant in the U.S. Creating dependence where a sustainable industry is emerging is simply bad policy.
3. Remain Committed to Scientific Conclusion on Yucca Mountain
Under any realistic waste management scenario, there will be a need for long-term geologic storage. President Obama has publicly supported nuclear power with the caveat that waste storage and management be based on sound science.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is currently reviewing the Department of Energy's application for a permit to construct the repository at Yucca Mountain. President Obama should fully support this process.
To ensure that its conclusions are legitimate, the NRC must have the freedom to pursue a transparent, fact-based process in a non-adversarial environment. While inputs from local stakeholders must be accommodated, the NRC must be allowed to make decisions based on good science and engineering in a timely manner. This requires a process that allows valid concerns to be heard and resolved without being hijacked by outside, agenda-driven interests.
4. Introduce Market Principles into Nuclear Waste Management Reform
While the private sector efficiently manages front-end (fuel-related) activities and plant operations, the government remains in control of America's dysfunctional regime for waste management. The time has come to reform America's approach to nuclear waste management.
The federal government's inability to fulfill its legal obligations under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act has often been cited as a significant obstacle to building additional nuclear power plants. Given nuclear power's potential to help solve many of the nation's energy problems, now is the time to break the impasse over managing the nation's used nuclear fuel.
The current system is driven by government programs and politics. There is little connection between used-fuel management programs, economics, and the needs of the nuclear industry. Any successful plan must grow out of the private sector, be driven by sound economics, and provide access to the funds that have been set aside for nuclear waste management activities.
5. Focus the Government on Key Responsibilities
The federal government has several extremely important roles to play when it comes to nuclear energy.
Rather than micromanaging the industry, government should limit itself to:
• Allowing the industry to operate under free market principles,
• Establishing predictable and effective regulation that will ensure safety and security,
• Supporting critical basic research and development, and
• Opening Yucca Mountain.
A Different Approach on Energy
Despite early promise, the nuclear industry proved unsustainable largely due to government intervention. Now the U.S. has the opportunity to restart its nuclear industry.
However, the industry's future should be in the hands of the private sector--not government bureaucrats. This not only ensures that decisions are made based more on a project's value than its politics, but it also frees government resources to focus on the critical role of providing efficient regulations that allow business to flourish while protecting public health and safety.
Government might be able to give the United States a handful of reactors, but only the private sector can provide a true nuclear renaissance.
--Jack Spencer is Research Fellow in Nuclear Energy and Nicolas D. Loris is a Research Assistant in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.
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National Journal
June 15, 2009
Is Nuclear The Green Solution?
Should America turn to nuclear power to cut greenhouse gases?
Senate Republicans want to build 100 new commercial nuclear power plants over the next 20 years. Over the last two years the industry has applied for licenses to build 30 new reactors, and Babcock & Wilcox Co. recently unveiled a new mini-nuke plant aimed at supplying power to small electricity users, such as municipal districts or individual industrial customers. But critics say nuclear power is too expensive and so risky that Wall Street won't finance the new plants. Opponents are critical of proposals for a federal loan guarantee program for low-carbon energy projects that could help finance the new nuclear plants.
Should we embrace nuclear power as a solution to climate change? What role should the federal government play in building new nuclear plants?
-- Margaret Kriz, NationalJournal.com
10 Responses
--Responded on June 17, 2009 3:32 PM
Thomas Gibson, President & CEO, American Iron and Steel Institute
America’s domestic energy security is a critical issue facing the nation today. At the foundation of our energy security is a reliable, abundant, affordable and sustainable – and increasingly “green” – energy supply. A truly sustainable national energy policy must embrace: clean coal technologies – to take advantage of our most abundant resource in a sustainable manner; carbon sequestration technologies; off-shore oil and gas exploration; wind and other renewables; bio-gas technologies; and nuclear power.
The latest generation nuclear power technologies have been deployed ubiquitously around the world, especially in Europe. They have proven to be safe and reliable sources of green power. What do they know that we do not? The steel industry supports the widespread deployment of nuclear power—it is essential to transforming our energy infrastructure to among the world’s greenest.
--Responded on June 16, 2009 8:47 PM
Joseph T. Kelliher, FPL Group Executive Vice President for Federal Regulatory Affairs
Nuclear energy is not the solution to climate change, but it is part of the solution. The United States and the rest of the world will need additional electricity supply going forward, and nuclear energy is a proven technology that provides large amounts of electricity supply additions without associated carbon emissions. For example, each year, FPL Group’s nuclear fleet offsets emissions equal to taking more than 7 million vehicles off of the road. This is one reason FPL has much lower carbon emissions than other electricity companies.
On a policy level, expanding the use of clean, safe nuclear power helps provide a balance between sound energy policy and sound environmental policy. But clearly, it is not the only solution. Ours must be a balanced effort that encourages the adoption of a broad portfolio of carbon abatement policies.
Without policies that further encourage the expansion of nuclear energy, it will be much harder to achieve large carbon reductions, and any future reductions will likely come at a higher cost. In essence, the smaller the portfolio of carbon abatement policies that we adopt as a nation, the more reliant we become on a narrow set of potential solutions, and the greater will be the consequences of failure of those individual policies. For example, if the United States were to forgo continued development of nuclear energy, the failure to maximize U.S. wind energy potential will make it that much harder to assure adequate electricity supplies at a reasonable cost while achieving significant carbon reductions.
In reality, expanding the role of proven, safe, reliable nuclear energy presents less risk than adopting carbon policies that are built on an assumption that technologies will be developed on an ideal timetable at desirable costs. History tells us that technology development does not often work this way.
So while developing new nuclear generation is a logical step, there are still unique challenges associated with developing new nuclear plants.
The licensing process used for the last generation of nuclear energy plants in the United States was a major factor in the suspension of nuclear energy development in this country for many years. The old licensing process involved two steps and postponed critical decisions on design safety and site suitability until after construction. It resulted in prolonged licensing hearings, some of which lasted nearly a generation. The length of the licensing process was a critical factor in increasing the construction cost of nuclear energy plants.
Today’s licensing process frontloads decisions and promises to be a vast improvement over the previous two-step process. However, no matter how elegant the new licensing process appears on paper, the real test will be in its application. A number of licensing applications have been filed, and if the process works well, others will likely follow. But if the initial licensing proceedings under the new process do not result in timely decisions, the harsh reality is companies may pull back from nuclear energy development.
In terms of federal involvement, there are different roles the federal government can and should play. First, as indicated above, the government will license new nuclear plants. Licensing is an inherently governmental role, and effective administration of the revised licensing process is will be critical to continued U.S. nuclear energy development. Second, the federal government should honor its commitment to provide a permanent solution to the problem of high level radioactive spent fuel. This commitment was made more than 30 years ago but has not yet been honored. Third, the federal government could jump start nuclear energy development through the loan guarantee program authorized by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. So far, that program has been a disappointment.
--Responded on June 16, 2009 5:18 PM
Thomas J. Pyle, President, Institute for Energy Research (IER)
If the goal of federal cap and trade proposals is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, one might reasonably assume that the policymakers behind such proposals would support more nuclear energy. After all, nuclear accounts for nearly 75 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide-free electricity. But the lawmakers who are currently shepherding cap and trade through the legislative process do not promote nuclear energy, nor do they support hydroelectric power, our second largest source of carbon dioxide-free electricity. Neither of these proven, reliable carbon-free sources of electricity qualify as green solutions under the Waxman-Markey cap and trade plan House leaders hope to pass. And what about the electricity we generate from renewable biomass? Roughly 25 percent of that type of energy doesn’t count either. All told, more than 90 percent of the electricity currently provided by renewable, carbon-free sources fails to meet the definition of “green” under the electricity mandate in the Waxman-Markey plan.
Residents of President Obama’s home state of Illinois currently enjoy below average electricity prices. They also get 49 percent of their electricity from carbon-free nuclear energy. But nuclear power isn’t green enough for the Waxman-Markey crowd. The 1.4 percent of the electricity Illinois generates from wind, solar and other uneconomic, politically correct sources, on the other hand, is good enough. Good thing, too, because now they’ll only have to increase their renewable output by a mere 1,000% over the next decade. Their neighbor to the east won’t have it quite so easy. Indianans will have to boost their government-approved, taxpayer-funded green electricity by more than 4,300%.
So, it seems the only energy solution Washington lawmakers are interested in is taxing the vast majority of the energy that currently fuels America, sweeping nuclear and hydro under the rug, and mandating the use of the most expensive, least reliable, and government subsidy-dependent sources of emission-free energy in its place. Such proposals, it seems, will do little more than generate a lot of greenbacks for bigger government. The Congressional Budget Office confirmed this in a recent analysis, in which they estimate that the Waxman-Markey tax and mandate scheme currently making its way through Congress would reduce cumulative emissions by just 0.5% between 2012 and 2020.
--Responded on June 16, 2009 5:00 PM
Kevin Knobloch, President, Union of Concerned Scientists
A key goal of the Senate Republicans’ American Energy Act is to foster the construction of 100 new nuclear reactors over the next 20 years. Is that a good idea?
The short answer is no. It is true that the operation of nuclear power plants generally does not release heat-trapping emissions that cause global warming. But it is also true that from a financial and environmental standpoint, nuclear plants are among the most costly and highest risk options to meet our future energy needs and address climate change. They also continue to have significant safety, security and long-term radioactive waste disposal problems. Lower cost, lower risk technologies, such as energy efficiency and solar, wind and other renewable energy sources, are safer, more secure, do not have long-term waste disposal issues, and could be deployed much more quickly.
No new nuclear reactors have been ordered since 1978, and it is important that we understand why. The first generation of nuclear power plants built in the 1970s and 1980s were plagued by massive cost overruns and cancellations. In 1980, even Forbes magazine, an industry booster, observed: “The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.” Ratepayers and taxpayers were forced to cover as much as $300 billion (in 2006 dollars) in industry cost overruns. Consumer outrage sounded the death knell for additional nuclear plants.
Since then, the projected price tag of new nuclear plants has jumped dramatically, increasing much faster than the cost of any other electric power technology. The estimate for construction costs in the United States has soared from about $2 billion to $3 billion per reactor in 2001 to more than $9 billion per reactor today. If this trend continues, the cost of 100 new reactors could exceed $1 trillion.
Construction costs of this magnitude likely would raise electric rates and threaten the financial viability of reactor owners. As a result, neither Wall Street nor the industry is willing to finance an expansion of nuclear power if taxpayers do not shield the companies from the economic risks through federal loan guarantees.
In 2005, Congress authorized $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for the next generation of nuclear plants, and it is expected that four new plants will receive guarantees under this program. However, given the rapidly escalating cost projections and the unwillingness of Wall Street to finance nuclear plants without federal guarantees, the industry is now demanding that the federal government underwrite its entire expansion.
We need to reduce carbon emissions 80 percent or more by mid-century to avoid the worst effects of global warming, so the nuclear power option should not be taken off the table. But rather than prematurely deploying dozens of new plants through massive public subsidies and loan guarantees, the nuclear industry and the federal government should resolve critical economic as well as technical, safety, security and waste issues before committing the nation to a large-scale nuclear resurgence.
--Responded on June 15, 2009 9:39 PM
David Holt, President, Consumer Energy Alliance
Climate change is real, and we must combat this issue now.
Nuclear energy is not only the most readily available form of clean-air electricity, but it is also the most sustainable and cost-effective. Of all forms of clean-air electricity, nuclear energy has the smallest impact on the environment. If we invest in this form of power now, we will see benefits for years to come.
Just like other major sources of clean-air electricity, such as hydroelectric power, wind energy and solar energy, nuclear power plants do not emit any carbon or greenhouse gases. And nuclear energy is the only large-scale, clean-air electricity source that can be expanded widely to produce large amounts of energy. In fact, it makes up nearly 74 percent of the nation’s clean-air electricity.
Average nuclear production costs have already declined more than 30 percent in the past 10 years to 1.87 cents per kilowatt-hours, and new and more complex forms of technology are continually being explored to make this cost even lower. Currently, it is the lowest-cost producer of baseload electricity.
It makes sense for consumers by providing them with a low and highly stable cost, and if we continue growing this industry, it makes sense for the country -- the number of jobs created would be substantial and widespread.
Greater use of nuclear energy is absolutely a necessary step to becoming a more environmentally responsible and energy independent nation.
--Responded on June 15, 2009 3:54 PM
Chuck Gray, Executive Director, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners
If the electricity sector is to achieve the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, new nuclear generation must be part of the discussion. While uncertainty in waste-disposal policy remains a critical question, proposals for new central generating stations in the 1,000 to 1,600 MW range are now under consideration with 17 applications to construct and operate 26 reactors now pending at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with more expected.
Obtaining a license for a new reactor is not necessarily a commitment to build, as financing and other permits will be required. Clearly, new reactors will require major capital investments that may become barriers to those utilities where access to capital markets is an issue. However, the loan guarantees provided by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 were designed to help provide assistance for “first movers” to resurrect the nuclear industry supply chain.
Some have argued that nuclear power is “too expensive,” but it is very likely that the cost of producing power by other means will continue to increase when and if new restrictions on carbon emissions are implemented. In its 2009 Update of the MIT 2003 Future of Nuclear Power study, MIT analysts noted that construction costs of all types of large-scale engineered projects have escalated dramatically. Compared with other fuels, nuclear is forecast to have higher capital costs but lower fuel costs. The MIT update provides some comparisons of levelized costs with and without a carbon charge.
It is difficult to forecast what operating expenses for nuclear reactors will be over an expected service life of 60 years or more and how that will compare with other fuel types. Investors are likely to be attracted to the 91.5 percent industry-wide capacity factor for nuclear plants.
Once the first reactors are approved and in operation, after three years of licensing and five or so for construction, the rest of the industry will take stock of their circumstances and perhaps have greater confidence in a commitment of resources. To reach a level of 100 units will require developing greenfield sites, which may take longer than the first batch of applications which are co-located with existing reactors and transmission infrastructure.
It is interesting to learn of possible development of smaller-scale nuclear reactors. The nuclear industry will need to work with the NRC in developing regulatory certification standards. There may be technology advances that can be brought to market that can meet economic, environmental and safety requirements.
--Responded on June 15, 2009 8:44 AM
Paul Sullivan, Professor of Economics, National Defense University
A very curious thing has been happening in the US. Even with the decline in the number of reactors in the US production of nuclear energy has increased over the years due mostly to increases in capacity factors and efficiency. Nuclear power is a very efficient and, under certain circumstances, a competitive way of making electric power compared to coal, oil, and gas.
There have been many studies of the relative costs and benefits of nuclear power. Some are mostly scientifically based. Others take on almost a religious tone either supporting of rejecting nuclear power. (I have read dozens of these cost-benefits analyses, competitiveness reports and the like and am so far not convinced of their comprehensiveness. Most do not consider ALL alternative power sources, which is the way a proper opportunity costs comparison should be made. Much more needs to be done, and without the advocacy tone that most of these reports have for one side or the other.)
One fact is clear in all of them: nuclear power is one of the slowest technologies to deploy for electricity generation historically. Nuclear power is also the most expensive technology to build in terms of upfront capital costs to get the plant in operating shape from scratch. Some of these plants can be in the $10-15 billion range after interest payments, delays, and more are built in. However, there are many smaller, modular nuclear technologies being developed and perfected that could be much cheaper, even less capable of being a proliferation problem, and could be used for desalinization as well as electricity production. Much cheaper plants are possible. It is also possible to spread the costs of the plants over many activities and outputs of the plants.
Co-generation of many outputs may be the key to making the future of nuclear power more viable than it might otherwise be. Nuclear power could be used to make hydrogen from water. It could be used to clean up and desalinate water. It could also be used for municipal and other heating. There are numerous uses for the massive power that could be produced from nuclear. Many developing countries have been looking at these options. Also some developed countries and developing countries could turn themselves from being net energy importers into net energy exporters if they develop the right sorts of mixes of energy systems. Such financial and other security concerns need to be brought into the cost-benefit mix.
Nuclear power is a very complex and potentially dangerous technology. One of the most complex machines on earth is likely a nuclear power plant in its totality. The dangers come when such a complex plant it not properly managed and maintained, and when the fuels supply chains are not secure and closed-loop. Wherever nuclear power is going in the future industry, governments, and international organizations need to make sure that along with providing the massive benefits that nuclear power can accrue, that its potential costs and drawbacks, especially in safety, security and proliferation issues are minimized. My experience with nuclear power plants in the US is that they are very well run and safety is a big focus of the people at the plants. The people are well-trained and focused. However, there is a public perception problem that still exists. There are also some issues with nuclear power that are not found in solar, wind, geothermal, and the like. Hence, we are facing many great choices for energy production, and we need to be logical and clear-headed about making those choices.
One of the complexities and costs of nuclear power is involved in the decommissioning of old plants when their lifetimes are over, or when politics requires that they shut down. Decommissioning costs are, according to the World Nuclear Association and the IAEA, about 10-15% of the total cost of the plant. Most plants that now exist have originally registered and calculated lifetimes of about 40 years, but many plants’ lives are being extended through refitting and other technological and management upgrades to as much as 60 years. There will be lots of decommissioning costs coming around the bend, and fairly soon.
One of the biggest problems the nuclear industry faces is the combination of the required decommissioning of the older plants and the long times it often takes to get new plants online, and up to full power. Sometimes, given political, plant siting, and other reasons, this could take 5-20 years (or even more).
If new plants are not built to replace the old ones than the nuclear industry will simply fade into the sunset of energy technologies. Some would like to see this happen, but for the overall energy needs of the US, given the energy import vulnerabilities of the US, and given the relatively carbon-free nature of nuclear power (as well as solar, wind, etc) compared to coal, oil and gas, the US would be ill-served to allow nuclear power to fade away.
Again, and this is very important: if we don't start building new nuclear plants in the US soon then nuclear electric energy as an option will begin to fade away. It takes a long time to get new plants on line, and many of our plants will reach their lifetimes fairly soon.
Then there is the giant nuclear elephant in the room. What do we do with all of the waste from nuclear plants? The US, for example, has had great difficulty getting the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository online. Almost all the nuclear waste from nuclear electricity plants in the US is stored in dry casks on the properties of the nuclear facilities. The nuclear industry and electricity customers have been charged over $28 billion for this facility’s development. Yet it is not allowed to fulfill its purpose and the waste pods are gradually filling up the backyards of many nuclear plants.
There are ways of reducing the nuclear waste stockpiles in the US and elsewhere via reprocessing of the nuclear fuel. This is part of the program of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). However, there can be proliferation issues associated with reprocessing. Most nuclear energy facilities produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) as part of the fission process in the plants. These are by-products of producing energy through many of the nuclear technologies that exist, but not all. The US stopped its reprocessing during the time of Presidents Carter and Ford.
There are also nuclear technologies that use non-enriched uranium, such as the CANDU reactors developed by Canada and the thorium-based reactors being used and developed by India. (India has huge thorium reserves found in its south and southeast, mostly in minerals sands deposits.) There are also other technologies, such as fast-breeder and accelerator reactors that can reduce the amount of waste produced per kilowatt hour by having a much larger burn percentage of the uranium or other fuels used. This can reduce the amount of waste produced, and can also lead to less fuel being used for each unit of electricity produced.
Dealing with the nuclear waste is a huge issue that could keep the industry back for years. However, in many ways the nuclear industry is sui generis when it comes to the way its waste is treated, and for good reason: this waste, especially the high-level waste, is dangerous and unhealthy. However, the nuclear power industry is the only industry that has to keep control over its waste fully in the entire energy system of the world.
Imagine how different the world would be if the oil, gas and coal industries, and their associated electricity industries had to keep full control over their waste products. Consider how costly that would have been. Consider how much fewer billions of tons of CO2 would not be in the atmosphere warming the planet. Consider the massive health effects that have occurred from present-day coal mining in China and India, coal mining in the earlier days in the UK and the US, and more. Consider the health, quality of life and other costs that the world’s population has carried for the coal, gas, and oil industries as part of their external costs that were never “paid for” by the industry and its consumers directly, and you get a clearer sense of why nuclear seems to be more expensive per MWh when one looks at the costs of the entire nuclear fuel cycle.
In retrospect, and after some more thought on this, it might seem to some that the nuclear industry has done a very good job of controlling its waste and the results of those wastes in comparison to many other industries inside and outside of the overall energy industry. Still, it is imperative that if there is to be a future for the nuclear industry that the waste issues be dealt with properly. That, however, is also the case for the oil, gas and coal industries, but world politics and civil society are only just starting to get a handle on that issue.
Related to the internalizing of the external costs of oil, gas, and coal we have the growing potential for the further developments of cap-and-trade systems for CO2. Once the costs of C02 and the overall storage costs of C02 are calculated into the production and use of fossil fuels for generation of electricity and transportation then nuclear energy and its smaller energy cousins, such as solar, wind, ocean energy, tidal energy, geothermal, and more look even better.
One of the biggest missing elements in the overall energy security strategies of countries, and of the world, is the incorporation of the true costs of the use of energy sources and energy systems into the overall costs and benefits that are used to decide how to set up energy mixes in the future.
For the US and others who have oil-intensive transport systems (99% of US transport is fueled by oil-based products) and who also import most of their oil, and this includes the US, the EU, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, China, and many others, electric cars are an alternative to the oil-fueled internal combustion engine of today. In order to shift to many more electric cars we need more electricity. Nuclear power is but one of the options available to produce that energy in the whole framework or future smart-grid systems.
There will be a portfolio of new and presently-known energy technologies incorporated into the smart grids. Nuclear, being mostly carbon free is a potential alternative to consider.
One of the major debates and discussions about transport futures is about how the electricity industry can be merged with the transport industry. If this happens, and there is a good chance it will to some extent, there will be huge increases in demand for electricity production. That will require increased investments in a mix of nuclear power, gas-fired electricity generation, coal-fired electricity generation, renewable energy technologies (such as solar, wind, geothermal, etc.) to ensure that we can keep up with the needs. Over time the coal and gas generation, and the oil generation you find in some countries, will have to pay much higher costs for dealing with their externalities via carbon sequestration, the development of more efficient and “super-critical” technologies and more. If they don’t keep up with the new external costs game they will loose out as sources of electricity in many places.
One also needs to consider the historical variability in the prices of hydrocarbons in some areas. When the price of gas doubles the cost of producing that gas-fired electricity goes up 70%. When the price of uranium doubles the cost of producing that nuclear electricity goes up only about 10%. When the price of carbon goes up the electricity produced by the most carbon intensive fuels, such as lignite and other types of coal, could increase dramatically. Carbon sequestration is not cheap. “Clean coal” electricity plants are much more expensive to build per MW of capacity than the coal-fired plants normally used today. We need to take a look at all of these options in order to figure out better energy strategies in the future.
For the US coal is very abundant. It will likely remain the biggest fuel to produce electricity for decades to come. Natural gas will be second. So far nuclear is third. How the politics, economics, business and other decisions will work out in the next decades will determine whether nuclear keeps its third-place position, or whether it falls behind others in the coming decades as plants close down, and new ones may or my not be built.
In the very long run there will be peak gas. Already the US has been increasing its imports of LNG. It will be interesting to see how the import dependency of the US on natural gas works itself out. There is lots of coal-bed methane. Coal can be converted to gas. Waste can be converted to gas. But there are economic and technical uncertainties there that many seem to disregard.
The geopolitical risks of oil importation are well known. The geopolitical risks of relying on outside sources of natural gas are also well known, especially for the EU with its reliance on natural gas from Russia and North Africa. Uranium is more geographically and strategically securable than oil and gas. Canada, Australia, the US and Brazil are hardly unstable countries with chokepoints around them, like the Straits of Hormuz, etc. Uranium sources in Niger, Kazakhstan, Russia and the like could be problematic in the future, but nowhere near as problematic as the major oil transport chokepoints and other oil supply-chain insecurities.
The present use, and potentially increased use, of former nuclear weapons as a source of uranium and other nuclear fuels should not be dismissed as a benefit to society. It is a classic case of turning swords into ploughshares. If the world turns even more so against nuclear weapons, and this seems to be the case in the public statements of many world leaders, then there could even be a glut of nuclear fuel from weapons on the world markets.
So far in places like China and some other countries renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind are growing faster in generating capacity than nuclear, the “other carbon-free source of energy”. However, nuclear power stations are lumpy investments and take longer times to get on line than these other renewable energy sources. Getting one of two 1500MW nuclear stations up to full power could soon dwarf many of these other renewable sources. We shall have to see how this all works out. The future of energy in China could be very interesting indeed.
But this is not just a race amongst energy sources. It is really a race against the ticking clocks of energy security and global climate change. We need to think as systematically, logically and objectively as possible. Far too much is at stake to make mistakes that could cost future generations more than we could ever imagine today.
However, even if the world were to build another 400 reactors in the next 30 years we would likely not even dent the global warming issues. Nor would many countries have their energy security situations in much better control if this is seen as the only solution. But we will still need the electricity, and the most probable alternatives to nuclear will be gas and coal for some time to come at the high-MW plant ranges.
Building 100 new nuclear facilities in the US in the next 20 years seems like a very big stretch given the problems with siting, litigation, etc. that would be expected to occur. A more reasonable expectation might be 30-40 new reactors in those 20 years. For many ant-nuclear activists and others this may be 30-40 too many, but then what are the alternatives to these potentially 36,000-48,000 MW of power generating capacity.
On the other hand, where is all of the financing going to come from given the potentials that the credit tightness of today may continue for some time?
It may prove to be easier to get financing for cheaper projects, and projects that come on line faster, such as solar, wind, coal, and gas generating plants.
The future of nuclear power, the future of energy security, the future of global climate change will require much more than the myopic focus on one set of technologies or another as some do, or the myopic focus on one set of policy options or another as some do, but on a full-scale, multi-pronged, multi-technology, wise and thoughtful approach to many systematic changes that need to occur in our energy systems, our treatment of the environment, and in our societies. There needs to be a more comprehensive approach to measuring one set of technologies and policies against another that goes way beyond the parochial approaches that seem to dominate such studies, debates and discussions.
There must also be a huge focus on energy, other resource, and environmental efficiencies, wherein we might find some of the most effective solutions to the many problems we face.It may also mean that the solar, wind, gas, oil, coal, nuclear , electricity, transport, and other industries will need to compete as well as cooperate in order to develop the technologies, infrastructure and policies (both public and private) that we will need to have a more energy and environmentally secure future.
--Responded on June 15, 2009 7:50 AM
Elizabeth Moler, Executive Vice President for Government & Environmental Affairs & Public Policy, Exelon
The Role of Nuclear Power in America’s Future
America's 104 nuclear plants provide 19 percent of the nation's electricity and account for over 70 percent of our emissions-free power generation.
While operational improvements and capacity additions at existing plants have allowed nuclear to maintain its share of the generation portfolio, no new plants have been ordered in the United States since 1978.
U.S. nuclear plants are operating more efficiently and more safely than at other time in history. The nation’s fleet of nuclear plants is operating at roughly 90 percent of its capacity (our own fleet has operated at more than 93% capacity for the last 7 years). And according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, it is safer to work at a nuclear plant than to work in the real estate or financial services sectors.
What role should nuclear power play in America’s future?
The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) has estimated that electric demand in the United States will increase 26 percent by 2030, even factoring in gains in conservation and energy efficiency.
And while we can greatly expand the role of renewables in many regions of the country (and will if proposed renewable electricity standards are enacted), we will need additional baseload power plants to maintain our highly reliable electric system.
In a carbon-constrained economy, it will be more imperative than ever that nuclear play an increasing role in meeting America’s energy needs. Modeling of proposed climate legislation by the Environmental Protection Agency and EIA shows that meeting our environmental goals can be done more quickly and more cheaply with the rapid deployment of 150 new nuclear plants.
In fact, EPA had to constrain their model to limit the amount of nuclear plants that would be built to meet our greenhouse gas goals. Why? EPA recognized the uncertainty surrounding how quickly new nuclear plants could be deployed given the lack of construction experience in the U.S. in recent years.
The federal government can and should play an important role in the deployment of the first several nuclear power plants by providing loan guarantees to companies building new reactors in the U.S. The economic downturn has largely frozen capital markets for large scale energy projects – even a solar facility that DOE has approved for a loan guarantee has been unable to secure the necessary private financing to fund 20 percent of the project. And Wall Street remains reluctant to put billions of dollars on the line for the first wave of plants given the lack of recent construction experience and the risks associated with the Federal regulatory process.
While DOE’s loan guarantee project office has made great strides recently in its efforts to review potential nuclear projects for Federal assistance, the program must be more robust given the large capital costs associated with nuclear projects.
There has been much talk about “green jobs” recently and the benefits of transitioning to a green economy. Yet, policymakers have paid little attention to the numbers behind the claims. In fact, nuclear plants provide the most “bang for the buck” of any clean generation source. Nuclear plants produce over 1,400 full-time construction jobs during the four or five year construction period and another 500 to 700 high-paying, permanent jobs during their 40, and likely 60, year operating lives. Even better, jobs at nuclear power plants pay, on average, 36 percent more than salaries in the surrounding community.
How does that compare to other clean energy sources? A study by the Ventyx Group estimates that for every 1,000 megawatts of capacity, a nuclear plant provides 500 direct jobs, while a coal plant provides 220 full time positions. A wind facility provides 90 jobs, while a natural gas plant supports 60 jobs. Solar facilities provide even fewer full time jobs.
If we are going to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050, we simply must embrace nuclear power. The sooner we get started, the better off we will be from an economic, environmental, and national security perspective.
--Responded on June 15, 2009 7:50 AM
Bill Johnson, CEO, Progress Energy
Meeting the challenges of growth reliably and responsibly requires a balanced energy strategy that combines aggressive energy efficiency, investments in renewable and alternative energy sources and state-of-the-art power plants, including new nuclear plants. We can't rely exclusively on any single element. We must pursue all three components in tandem.
Nuclear energy has been a key part of the energy mix that meets our customers' needs since the 1970s. We operate five reactors at four sites in the Carolinas and Florida.
We have filed license applications for potential new reactors in Levy County, Fla., on a new site, and at the existing Harris Nuclear Plant in Wake County, N.C. We have not made a decision to build new plants, but we are taking the necessary steps to ensure that nuclear power remains a viable option for the future to meet customer demand. We can't wait till the electric system is overloaded to begin planning for responsible expansion. We have to keep the process moving even as we aggressively pursue efficiency and alternative energy.
Nuclear energy must continue to be a key part of a diverse and reliable resource mix. It is the safest, most economical, carbon-free way to generate large-scale energy, and it is our best option for new baseload plants. If our country and our states are serious about addressing global climate change, nuclear energy must be part of the solution.
--Responded on June 15, 2009 7:49 AM
Marvin Fertel, President and CEO, Nuclear Energy Institute
Nuclear energy is a low-carbon source of electricity and a vital part of a comprehensive solution to climate change, but is no more “the” solution than any other energy technology. Our nation should continue to employ a diverse mix of electricity sources to meet its energy and environmental challenges.
Given the reality -- namely that nuclear power plants constitute nearly 75 percent of the nation’s carbon-free electricity supply -- it is important to recognize that efforts to achieve substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the electric sector will not be successful without continued reliance on and expansion of nuclear energy.
This fact is borne out in a myriad of analyses done in recent years by entities ranging from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to the Electric Power Research Institute to the Environmental Protection Administration in its evaluation of pending climate change legislation. Even in cases where the reports’ authors see the path to nuclear energy’s expansion as more daunting than the industry does, the conclusion remains the same: there has to be a larger role for nuclear energy going forward.
The federal government should encourage nuclear plant construction as a means of undergirding the nation’s economy with reliable baseload electricity, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating hundreds of thousands of high-paying green jobs.
It can do this in four ways:
1. near-term actions to ensure that 2005 Energy Policy Act’s loan guarantee program is working as intended, and creation of a broader, permanent financing platform to ensure access to capital for the large-scale deployment of advanced energy technologies, including nuclear facilities, that will reduce carbon emissions;
2. a sustainable strategy for the management and ultimate disposal of used nuclear fuel;
3. an effective and predictable licensing process for new nuclear facilities; and
4. a research, development and deployment program that will allow the nation to meet environmental goals and provide leadership on issues related to expansion of nuclear technology and non-proliferation.
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Bellingham Herald
June 14, 2009
'Whoops' looking to get back in nuclear power game
Les Blumenthal
The utility synonymous with the collapse of the nuclear power industry, a consortium of utilities in the Pacific Northwest once known as "Whoops," wants back in the game.
Though many blame the demise of the industry on the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, the financial meltdown of the Washington Public Power Supply System - WPPSS - became the poster child for all that went wrong. At first the power was going to be too cheap to meter, but cost overruns, schedule delays, nagging licensing problems and safety issues in the late 1970s and 1980s brought construction of commercial nuclear power plants to a halt. Nationwide, nearly 120 nuclear power plants were cancelled.
WPPSS' once ambitious plan to build five nuclear power plants in Washington state collapsed into what was then the largest municipal bond default in history - $2.25 billion. A ratepayers revolt swept across the region as the $25 billion price tag for the plants skyrocketed. Only one of the five plants was ever finished. The others were abandoned. Ratepayers are still paying for the unfinished ones.
Since renamed Energy Northwest, the supply system has now asked its 25 utility members to contribute up to $25,000 each for a preliminary study of constructing small, modular, commercial nuclear reactors at the Hanford reservation.
"We recognize the value of the lessons learned, but we need to pay adequate attention to the future," said Rochelle Olson, an Energy Northwest spokeswoman. "This is clearly in the early stages and it's too soon to tell whether it will move forward."
Energy Northwest's only Whatcom County member is the Whatcom County Public Utility District, which supplies power to the ConocoPhillips refinery.
In his letter to the member utilities, Jack Baker, Energy Northwest's vice president, said the key would be building political and public support.
"It can be done but it will require an effort," he said. "I remain optimistic about this option and believe it should be seriously considered as a future power supply option."
Energy Northwest hopes to raise $250,000 to $500,000 from its member utilities to proceed with pre-development work. It set a deadline of June 23 to hear from the utilities.
Two of the largest public utilities in Washington state, Seattle City Light and Snohomish County Public Utility District, are reportedly cool to the idea. Others haven't made up their minds.
The fallout from WPPSS lingers.
"I don't think the region is ready," said Bill Gaines, superintendent of Tacoma Power. "I wish we were. Nuclear power has to be part of any carbon solution."
Tacoma Power will have enough electricity to meet its needs for 10 years without participating in a nuclear plant. Gaines said he didn't think the Northwest would be in the forefront of the next wave of nuclear power plant construction.
Whatcom County PUD may not make a decision until the deadline, said Steve Jilk, the utility's manager.
"We are still studying it and haven't decided whether to join in or not," Jilk said.
With looming restrictions on electricity plants that produce greenhouse gases and an emphasis on alternative energy, the nuclear industry is undergoing a rebirth.
The nation's 103 nuclear power plants generate about 20 percent of America's electricity. Maintaining that 20 percent level as demand grows would require the construction of three nuclear plants every two years, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
So far, there are 17 license applications involving 26 reactors pending before the Nuclear Regulator Commission. Three or four more applications are expected in the next 12 to 15 months. Some licenses involve multiple reactors.
"Not all of them will be built" said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group,
If approved, the plants would be located in 16 states, most of them in the South and Southeast. Many of the plants would be adjacent to existing ones.
Even with a streamlined licensing process, Kerekes said, it could take three to four years for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to act and four to five years to actually build a nuclear power plant. The first group of four to eight reactors could be operational in 2016 to 2018, he said.
While in the 1970s and 1980s there were dozens of designs for nuclear power plants, Kerekes said there are now fewer than half a dozen. The plants would still be large, roughly capable of producing about 1,200 megawatts of electricity - enough to power Seattle - and would cost $6 billion to $8 billion to construct.
No one is thinking on a scale like the five nuclear plants WPPSS sought to build, Kerekes said.
"We've learned," he said.
The federal government is already investing in the nuclear industry, with Congress providing $18.5 billion in loan guarantees in the 2005 version of the energy bill. That would provide enough to build three or four plants.
Democrats are generally supportive of nuclear energy development, while the Republican version of this year's energy bill calls for construction of 100 additional nuclear plants in the next 20 years.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks is what to do with the highly radioactive fuel used in the reactors. The Obama administration said it doesn't intend to finish a permanent dump for the fuel at Yucca Mountain, Nev., even though billions of dollars have been spent on it already. Used nuclear fuel from the plants is now stored at each individual site.
Energy Northwest's lone completed nuclear plant, the Columbia Generating Station at the Hanford nuclear reservation, has been operating for nearly 25 years without major incident. The plant supplies enough electricity for roughly 1 million homes.
Energy Northwest has studied but rejected building a similar-sized plant and instead is interested in the 40 megawatt reactors being developed by an Oregon-based firm, NuScale Power. One of the small reactors, which can fit on a railroad car, could be used in a rural or remote site, and eight, 12 or even 24 units could be linked together for large projects.
NuScale said the reactor design has been tested, and the company will apply for design certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year. The company believes the first of its reactors could be operational by 2015 or 2016.
"We shouldn't forget history," said Olson, the Energy Northwest spokeswoman, "but this is a chance to do things differently and much better."
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Reuters
June 14, 2009
International Agreement on Climate Treaty Seems Unlikely in 2009
By Mridul Chadha
It seems unlikely that an agreement on the terms of the next climate treaty could be reached at the December-scheduled Copenhagen talks. The United States, not a member of the Kyoto Protocol and one of the major players in the international negotiations tussle over the climate treaty, has not yet reached a consensus over how to reduce carbon emissions and a bill successfully passing through the Senate in 2009 seems quite difficult.
The major issues that US lawmakers need to look into are, first, how to make the transition from carbon-intensive fossil fuels to clean renewable energy sources and, second, how to finance this transition without burdening the people with any significant monetary load.
The proposed carbon trading scheme has attracted criticism from the environmentalists since it allows the government to distribute emission permits to the industries free of cost. A bill proposing a nationwide carbon tax was also introduced in the US Congress but experts fear that, if implemented, the bill would put a financial burden of more than $1000 per year on the US households.
Power plants generating electricity through coal will have to be replaced with plants using renewable energy resources but that would again come at a significantly high cost given the infrastructure costs related to setting up large scale solar and wind energy farms. In addition, transforming, upgrading and getting the existing grid ready for these new power plants will demand enormous amounts of monetary influx.
Many lawmakers are pushing for nuclear power to be included in the climate bill since it is one of the most economical sources of energy. However, they are at conflict of ideas with the environmentalists who argue that the nuclear waste that would be generated from these nuclear plants will pose serious management issues given the fact that President Obama wants to close the Yucca Mountain storage facility. Furthermore, the increase in number of nuclear power plants would also poses national security issues.
Lawmakers coming from states where fossil fuels are a major part of the state economy are hesitant in giving their support to a bill which, to them, seems biased in favor of renewable energy. The there is the issue of biofuels. The Obama administration has clearly stated that biofuels will be part of the new energy plans of the country but there have been consistent international calls from scientists and environmentalists that biofuels can severely damage the ecosystem.
All these issues are making it difficult for the officials to come up with a definite goal for reducing carbon emissions by 2020. While President Obama has declared the target of 14 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, the world seeks a more ambitious target from the United States, something close to the target issued by UNFCCC in its guidelines - 25 to 40 percent.
Without the United States' the new climate treaty would be impossible, and even if it does happen it would prove largely ineffective since the developing countries wouldn't be a part of it. The US Energy Secretary has stated that in order to tackle the problem of climate change his country needs to work as a leader. But that seems unlikely until the lawmakers get together.
Reprinted with permission from Red Green and Blue
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Senator Harry Reid
June 13, 2009
Reid Discusses Federal PILT Funds for Nevada
June 11, 2009
Nevada Senator Harry Reid discussed today’s announcement that Nevada will receive more than $23 million for the Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program. The funds come as a result of federal ownership of large amounts of Nevada land. This record-high funding level is $650,000 more than last year and nearly $10 million more than 2007.
Last year, Reid delivered on his promise to Nevada counties that he would lead Congress in fully funding the PILT program. Reid’s legislation ensures that the PILT program will be fully funded every year through 2012. As the federal government owns more than 87 percent of Nevada’s land – making it non-taxable – counties rely on PILT money for essential services and improvements in areas such as education, law enforcement and infrastructure.
For more information about the PILT funds and a county-by-county list of funding:
Reid Brings Record-High PILT Funding To Rural Nevada
Senator passed landmark legislation, providing counties with important boost
June 11, 2009
Washington, D.C. – Nevada counties will receive this year more than $23 million in federal Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) payments – a record-high funding level. This record level of funding is made possible through legislation crafted and passed by Nevada Senator Harry Reid. The Department of the Interior announced today the funding levels for the current year.
Last year, Reid delivered on a promise to Nevada’s rural counties that he would lead Congress to fully fund the PILT program. Reid’s legislation makes sure that the PILT program will be fully funded every year through 2012. As the federal government owns more than 87 percent of Nevada’s land – making it non-taxable – counties rely on PILT money for essential services and improvements.
“I am committed to making sure Nevada gets its fair share,” Reid said. “For too long, PILT did not receive the funding it should have, and many rural Nevada’s counties suffered because of that. Despite the opposition we faced to right this wrong, last year we did just that and we are seeing the benefits today.”
“The vast expanses of public lands in Nevada sharply limit county property tax revenues and create demands for public safety, public health and natural-disaster response,” said Jeff Fontaine, Executive Director of the Nevada Association of Counties. “Obtaining full funding for PILT, which is crucial for providing essential services, has been a top priority of the Nevada Association of Counties for many years. Through Senator Reid’s leadership and commitment, Nevada’s counties, after more than 30 years, will receive the fully authorized amount of payment-in-lieu-of-taxes through 2012.”
Following is a breakdown of funding by county:
Carson City $115,700
Churchill $2,062,250
Clark $3,171,990
Douglas $607,532
Elko $3,115,992
Esmeralda $110,630
Eureka $248,162
Humboldt $1,641,060
Lander $795,900
Lincoln $757,538
Lyon $2,045,405
Mineral $736,665
Nye $2,896,639
Pershing $894,360
Storey $34,389
Washoe $3,179,737
White Pine $1,093,950
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Nevada Appeal
June 13, 2009
Commentary: There's reality ... and there's our senators
By Randi Thompson
Two weeks ago this paper ran a column on Yucca Mountain by Senators Reid and Ensign that stated “there are no waiting millions or billions of dollars in benefits for us to grab.”
We've received $500 million without even asking. Imagine if we had asked!
They argued that funding for Yucca was “blood money” that should not be used “for mortgaging our safety and our future.”
These and other erroneous emotional appeals are an affront to the over 60 percent of registered voters in Nevada who say the state should advocate for a research, recycling, and interim storage facility at Yucca.
There is not enough room here to correct the many fabrications in the editorial, but here a just a few of the blaring ones.
The Senators claim that “the project is dangerous.”
Currently, 161 million Americans live within 5 miles of a nuclear power plant that has on-site storage pools or cement casks holding spent fuel. There have been no reports of safety issues or radiation leakage at any of these 121 sites.
In a March 2009 article in Forbes Magazine, UC Berkeley physics professor Richard Mueller said that the radiation levels in Denver, which occur naturally, are higher than the levels that would be present at Yucca Mountain when it is operational.
Sorry, where's the danger?
“The dump would not be a sustainable job creator,” they claim.
The project as currently planned would provide about 2,000 jobs until 2033. If we negotiated for a research and recycling facility we could likely add another 500 jobs for 10 years in construction and manufacturing; and another 500 in the operating of a recycling facility that would generate about 500 megawatts of power. Sounds pretty sustainable to me.
“The project is going away,” they pronounce.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act is still the law of the land. Congress will have to adopt changes to that law. Considering 39 states have nuclear power plants, I'm betting we'd lose that fight. There is also no alternative to Yucca, and the government has a a legal obligation to take and dispose of used nuclear fuel. Failure to do so will result in over $11 billion in lawsuits from energy companies.
America needs nuclear power to meet growing energy demands, but until we address the spent fuel issue, we can't build another power plant.
Nevada can play a prime role to meet our nation's energy needs by building a regional fuel recycling facility. We are being offered a multibillion-dollar project in the most researched, arid, desolate region of the U.S. More than 30 years of studies have shown storage would be safe.
What other economic development opportunity is available that can bring $1.5 billion a year to Nevada?
• Randi Thompson owns As You Wish, a government and media relations firm.
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Dallas Morning News
June 13, 2009
Comanche Peak hearing includes debate on future role of nuclear power
By Randy Lee Loftis
GRANBURY, Texas – The subject at hand this week was new nuclear reactors – the safety and security of a proposed major expansion of North Texas' only nuclear power plant. The undercurrent, however, was how to craft a whole new energy future for the nation.
Should the country move away from coal, blamed for global warming, smog and lung disease? Is nuclear power, which has drawn new interest, a good option?
And should the nation build a new fleet of reactors before it has a tomb for their highly radioactive waste, which must remain sealed off for thousands of years?
Those broad questions underlie the tightly focused legal arguments before a panel of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is considering Dallas-based Luminant's request to expand its Comanche Peak nuclear plant.
As the nation seeks alternatives to fossil fuels, Comanche Peak is part of the proposed biggest nuclear expansion in 40 years. The industry promises safe, reliable electricity without coal's soot or carbon dioxide.
Nuclear power is controversial, however. Opponents cite highly radioactive waste, possible radiation releases and the cost and time of reactor construction.
Comanche Peak, near Glen Rose in Somervell County, is 66 miles southwest of downtown Dallas. It has two reactors and would add two more under Luminant's September 2008 application.
The NRC panel's three administrative judges, who heard arguments Wednesday and Thursday, have a narrow and technical job: to determine whether opponents have raised issues that merit a full, trial-like hearing. The judges are not expected to rule for several weeks.
The NRC commissioners will make the final decision on Comanche Peak's expansion. That decision is years away.
Plant opponents, including new and veteran anti-nuclear groups, want to derail the expansion and stimulate a wider discussion of nuclear power.
Their attorney, Robert V. Eye, urged the judges to consider what he called deficiencies of Luminant's application in a broader national context.
"Safety is always germane," Eye told the judges.
Luminant, created under the private equity buyout of TXU in 2007, hopes to limit the review to whether it has met NRC rules.
Beyond the scope?
The company and the NRC staff argued that the objections – which concern adequacy of environmental reviews and nuclear power's long-term safety issues – already have been addressed in thousands of documents or are beyond the scope of a license proceeding.
"We think it's all there," said Mitchell L. Lucas, Luminant's vice president at Comanche Peak.
Panel chair Ann Marshall Young told Eye that some objections "sound in some sense more like policy issues – challenges, you say, to the adequacy of a rule," rather than concerns unique to Comanche Peak.
Eye told the judge he wanted to air as much information as possible. "We're trying to create a good record," he said.
The former Texas Utilities started building Comanche Peak in 1975. Finishing the two units took until 1990 and 1993, respectively, as the first wave of new plants came to a close.
After decades with no new reactors, since 2007 companies have applied to build 26 at 17 sites, with five more at five locations possible. None has been approved.
Besides Comanche Peak, NRG Energy plans two new reactors at its two-reactor South Texas Project in Matagorda County.
Amarillo Power has said it might build two reactors at an undetermined site. In February, Entergy suspended plans for two reactors in Victoria County.
Waste disposal is among nuclear power's most contentious issues, a problem certain to remain through the lifetime of any new plant. Reactors create highly radioactive spent fuel that requires safe, permanent disposal.
The 104 operating reactors store their spent fuel on site. Critics say that increases the risk of accidents or terrorist attacks.
Yucca's demise
For decades, the U.S. Energy Department has studied Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository for spent fuel, spending $400 million annually on planning alone in recent years. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in March, however, that Yucca Mountain is "off the table." Updated technology, Chu said, could keep the waste safe at reactors during the decades it might take to devise a permanent solution.
The demise of Yucca Mountain – which would have cost $96 billion through 2133, according to the Energy Department – leaves nuclear plants with no clear option but to keep their most dangerous waste on site. Opponents say Luminant's application falsely assumes safe, permanent storage will be available.
"That's an assumption that we frankly think is something that should be challenged," Eye told the judges.
Luminant attorney Steven P. Frantz said Comanche Peak does not need to wait for a federal facility. "Nowhere [in the application] does it say that we're relying on Yucca Mountain to be available," he told the judges.
New reactors around the U.S. face similar challenges. In February, the Congressional Research Service predicted "intensified public scrutiny" of new reactors that have no permanent place for high-level waste.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 12, 2009
Yucca rejection would prompt repeat, board told
Lawsuits possible if law not changed, energy policy expert says
By Keith Rogers
Las Vegas Review-Journal
With the Obama adminstration's stance that Yucca Mountain is not an option for disposing the nation's highly radioactive waste, Congress will revisit the process for choosing another repository site, one that probably will draw opposition similar to Nevada's wherever it is.
That was the upshot Thursday of a presentation to an independent review board by Mark Holt, a specialist in energy policy for the Congressional Research Service.
During his talk to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, Holt stressed that his agency, a branch of the Library of Congress, doesn't make policy recommendations.
But given the direction from Energy Secretary Steven Chu to find alternatives to entombing 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and defense waste in Yucca Mountain, Holt predicts Congress will have to change the nuclear waste law, especially if the Energy Department permanently withdraws its license application from review by nuclear safety regulators.
If the Yucca Mountain Project were halted without a change in law, the federal government probably would face more lawsuits from nuclear utilities that could trigger repayment of funds for the project from the ratepayers' account.
Since 1983, the fund has raised $29.7 billion in fees and investment interest, of which $7.1 billion has been spent.
In all, counting waste fund money and funding from government agencies, more than $10 billion has been spent on the Yucca Mountain Project over more than two decades.
Rescinding the license application could trigger repayment of the ratepayers' nuclear waste money -- "either funds that haven't been spent, or all funds including those that have been spent plus interest and penalties," Holt said.
With more years of disposal delays, the nuclear waste program's impetus is expected to shift toward long-term, above-ground storage and development of reprocessing to reduce the amount of waste and the duration that it is dangerous.
Chu is enlisting a panel to explore alternatives, including long-term storage.
"At what point does it become an unacceptable risk?" Holt asked.
Industry experts later said they think spent fuel assemblies could be stored in dry storage casks at reactor sites for up to 120 years.
Regardless, the Department of Energy is compelled by law to pursue a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct and operate a repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
A Nevada consultant, Victor Gilinsky, who served as a Nuclear Regulatory Commission member from 1975 to 1984, argued that plans by DOE to install expensive, titanium drip shields to prevent water from corroding waste containers inside the mountain is a flawed idea.
What's more, DOE does not intend to install drip shields until after the repository has operated for a century.
He views the drip shields as the project's "Achilles' heel" and "show-stopper."
"Their own calculations show they couldn't meet the (radiation safety) standard without the drip shields," Gilinsky said during a break in the meeting.
"Where in the world do we rely on the government to fulfill a promise in 100 years? It seems to me to be an unreasonable basis for handing out a license," he said.
--Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.
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Lahontan Valley News
June 12, 2009
Churchill County Fairgrounds to receive ADA improvements
By Christy Lattin
LVN Community News Editor
FALLON - Access to the Churchill County Fairgrounds for people with disabilities will soon be improved.
Churchill County Commission recently approved a motion to advertise for bids to complete improvements in line with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The base bid includes improvements at the fairground's main ticket entrance, parking along the fence line and ADA access to the main stage.
Jorge Guerrero, parks and recreation director, said additional improvements will be included as add-ons to the base bid. Those alternatives include ADA access to the ball fields located west of the county pool. Guerrero said the project was separated into a base project with alternatives in order to maximize Community Development Block Grant Funding, which is covering a majority of the cost.
Guerrero estimates the base bid will total $130,000. Grant funding through CDBG totals $139,650 with a county match of $5,000 for a total of $144,650.
A contractor will be chosen at an upcoming commission meeting, and the project is estimated to take 90 days to complete.
Steve Johnson's Advanced Placement science class briefed the commission on its recent tour of the Idaho National Lab. The class, whose trip was partly sponsored by the county, also shared results of a community survey students performed to gauge public opinion of the Yucca Mountain project.
Johnson said survey results were consistent with previous years' results, adding residents feel more comfortable with the idea of a nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada after they learn more about it.
The county paid the students $6,500 to conduct the survey, that reached 355 people.
Other items addressed at the commission meeting:
• A first reading was held for two ordinances for development agreements and a public hearing date of June 17 was set. The agreements are with the county and PCCPLBVI-II and Verner Homes for the Willow Park planned unit development on the south side of Birch Lane, and with Truckee River Ranch for the Sage Springs planned unit development located between Moody and Wade lanes.
• A parcel map for Gary Imelli was approved. Imelli wants to parcel his land before a conservation easement is placed on the land.
• Commissioners approved a sending site application filed by Richard and Claudia Hutchings for property on Pasture Road. The Hutchings will receive 173 transferable development rights.
• The National Association of Counties' annual conference will be held in July in Tennessee, and commissioners selected three people to represent the county. Those selected are Bonnie Weber, Jeffrey Fontaine and Doug Johnson, all from the Nevada Association of Counties.
• Deputy District Attorney Rusty Jardine, CC Communications General Counsel Mark Feest and Commission Chairwoman Gwen were selected as members of the audit committee.
• Kafoury Armstrong was selected to conduct an independent audit of fiscal year 2009.
• Linda Bridges was selected as the public guardian. She will be paid approximately $8,400 per year during her four-year term. The public guardian is appointed as a guardian of residents or their estates if no family is available to handle those duties.
Bridges is expected to have two people under her guardianship each year.
• Pay tables for fiscal year 2010 were approved. The Public Employees Retirement Systems contribution will increase one percent on July 1, with the increase shared equally by the employee and employer.
The increases in pay results an overall increase of 2.5 to 3 percent in total payroll from the previous fiscal year, which was included in next year's budget.
The commission meets Wednesday at 1:15 p.m. in the chambers at the County Administration Building, 155 N. Taylor St. For information or to view the agenda, visit www.churchillcounty.org.
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Pahrump Valley Times
June 12, 2009
Goedhart rips county plans for solar pacts
By Mark Waite
PVT
Nevada Assemblyman Ed Goedhart, R-Amargosa Valley, said legislation passed this session granting 55 percent abatements on real and personal property tax to solar power projects will still generate ample revenue for Nye County, countering the concerns of officials like Commissioner Joni Eastley.
Goedhart used the figures to argue against requiring solar power companies to negotiate development agreements with the county.
Eastley told fellow commissioners last month she would like to sign development agreements with solar power producers. She noted 35 right-of-way applications have been submitted for renewable energy projects on public land in Nye County, most of them in Amargosa Valley.
Assembly Bill 522 states of the remaining 45 percent in taxes after the abatements, 55 percent will go to local governments, the rest to the state general fund. The taxes are payable on the actual plant, the mirrors and other infrastructure.
Goedhart said if a company like Solar Millenium built two 250-megawatt concentrated solar power plants in Amargosa Valley, enough to power roughly 180,000 homes, using a cost of $2.4 billion, the project would be taxed at 35 percent of its value or $840 million.
After the 55 percent tax abatement, the project would still generate $13 million in tax, of which $7.2 million would go to local governments and $5.9 million to the state general fund, Goedhart said, citing figures from the state Legislative Counsel Bureau. That's based on the property tax rate in Amargosa Valley which is at the maximum cap of $3.66 per $100 of valuation.
Goedhart showed figures detailing how the local government revenues would break down: $2.8 million per year for Nye County, $2.75 milion for the Nye County school District, just over $1 million for the Town of Amargosa Valley and $652,396 for the tiny Amargosa Valley Library District.
Goedhart said such a solar project would generate more revenue than the $5.8 million in tax paid by eight traditional power plants producing 6,000 megawatts for NV Energy.
"Yucca Mountain this year is going to pay Nye County about $5.9 million. So you're telling me you want to take all this nuclear waste for $5.9 million or have a solar field for $13.8 million? Tell me what the better deal is," Goedhart said.
He was referring to the proposed payment equal to taxes to Nye County from the U.S. Department of Energy, which have been declining as the government cuts the funding for that project.
Goedhart said he researched the property taxes paid by Round Mountain Gold Co. Their average property tax payment is $2.4 million per year, along with a few million more in net proceeds tax paid to Nye County, he said.
"Depending on the price of gold, depending upon the market place, Round Mountain Gold is going to come up with somewhere between $4 million to $5 million per year," Goedhart said.
"I don't mind gold mining, but they have enormous slag piles and you have cyanide leach pads, you have mercury emissions and all the rest. What I find is interesting is Round Mountain Gold wants to do a massive, multi-thousand acre expansion. Has anyone in Nye County talked about making Round Mountain Gold sign a GDA (general development agreement) for their proposed expansion?"
Eastley said she was envisioning something more like a memorandum of understanding with solar power companies outlining things like providing ambulances for industrial areas and building their own roads to their project.
"I have to anticipate impacts before there is development. It's not fair to the residents who live there or residents who live elsewhere in the county to pay for the impacts of that development." Eastley said. "I do not see anything with the level of detail with what we have for residential subdivisions."
Eastley said language allowing counties to negotiate development agreements with solar power companies wasn't written into the bill but she was assured by author Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas, that it was made part of the legislative record the legislature supports counties having that ability.
"My issue remains that the state can grant an abatement on county revenue without the county agreeing with that abatement. That's my concern," Eastley said.
"I am absolutely against killing any goose before they have a chance to lay an economic golden egg in the county," she said. "However if the state is going to eliminate our authority or our input relative to the granting of any of those abatements, then we have to be able to have some means, if it is necessary, to pay for what we would be losing through that revenue stream."
Goedhart said he wanted to do an analysis of the impacts based on facts and figures, but up to now, no one has had them.
"Solar Millenium is also looking at a site in Blythe, Calif. They don't have the money to do both, so they basically have two separate teams looking at the project working independently. Whiever project comes together the quickest is the one that they're going to do," Goedhart said.
The assemblyman revised Eastley's analogy in describing his opposition to the development agreement proposal.
"We want to pluck every feather out of that goose," he said, "before it has a chance to lay the golden egg."
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Pahrump Valley Times
June 12, 2009
Air Force, Front Sight agreement are on agenda
PVT
A development agreement for a condominium timeshare project at Front Sight Firearms Institute is up for approval when the Nye County Commission meets beginning at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Bob Ruud Community Center.
The agreement is part of the planning agenda scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Another planning item involves a request to repeal a minimum 1,500-foot separation between check cashing and payday loan businesses; the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission recommended against the repeal.
During an 11 a.m. timed item, Nellis Air Force Base officials are scheduled to make a presentation on public partnerships and describe their mission as it relates to development in Nye County.
Commissioners will consider a request for a grant/loan of $1.8 million from the Education Endowment Fund, which was built up from the payment equal to taxes provided by the U.S. Department of Energy for Yucca Mountain.
Numerous resolutions are up for approval finalizing the budget before the end of the fiscal year June 30.
A $1.1 million contract with Wulfenstein Construction for the Pahrump chip seal program is up for approval and a $150,051 contract with Intermountain Slurry Seal Inc. to reconstruct Florence Avenue in Tonopah.
An $11,190 contract with Nevada Geo-Tech to draw up mechanical, plumbing and electrical plans along with the architectural drawings for a new Tonopah Fire and Ambulance Station is up for approval. The company was hired at the last meeting to draw up plans for a new county administration building on the Calvada Eye in Pahrump.
Commissioners will consider applying for a $185,700 grant to prepare a countywide energy efficiency and conservation strategy.
One member is up for appointment to the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission. Dan Schinhofen's term is expiring and he has asked not to be reappointed.
Commissioners will consider paying the costs of the swine flu infection prevention program implemented by the Nye County Emergency Services Department.
A $136,556 bid to construct septage drying beds at the Tonopah Airport is up for approval.
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Earthtimes
June 12, 2009
Getting the Nuclear Story Straight: What a Reporter Needs
Sue Havlish
Vanderbilt University Press
(Nashville, TN, April 1, 2009) — Chernobyl. Three Mile Island. Yucca Mountain. When faced with covering the complex and frequently disputed issues of the nuclear age, a reporter knows there is nothing simple about preparing an accurate, balanced, objective, and responsible story about the benefits and risks of radiation and radioactivity.
Writers and editors (not to mention libaries, activists, government regulators, and the nuclear industry itself) now have a guide to help them report on these issues: The Reporter's Handbook on Nuclear Materials, Energy, and Waste Management by Michael R. Greenberg, Bernadette M. West, Karen W. Lowrie, and Henry J. Mayer recently published by Vanderbilt University Press).
An essential reference, this book presents scientifically accurate and accessible overviews of twenty-four of the most important issues in the nuclear realm, including health effects, nuclear medicine, transport of nuclear materials, spent fuel, nuclear weapons, and global warming. Each “brief” is based on interviews with named scientists, engineers, or administrators in a nuclear specialty, and each has been reviewed by a team of independent experts.
Other features of the book include a glossary; an introduction to risk assessment, environmental and economic impacts, and public perceptions; an article by an experienced reporter with recommendations about how to cover nuclear issues; quick guides to the history of nuclear power in the United States, important federal legislation and regulations, nuclear position statements, and key organizations lists of references for print and electronic resources.
The way the book came about is a story in itself (see following piece by Michael Greenberg). In the Introduction, the authors address the need for this book and continue: "World events require stories that tie together nuclear power, nuclear waste, nuclear weapons, global warming, economic development, and public health."
And in their closing to the Introduction, the authors note, "The media too frequently are blamed for bad public policy decisions, and the media probably do not receive enough credit for good policy decisions. But no one denies the importance of their efforts to communicate accurate, balanced, objective, and responsible stories."
The Making of the Book
By Michael Greenberg
I have written about two dozen books, yet none quite like this one. The degree of expertise brought to bear on this book is unprecedented in my experience, and the effort by the CRESP* organization to obtain independent peer review in order to build credibility for the effort was also unprecedented. Only the committees of the National Academy of Sciences have a comparable process.
Nuclear power and nuclear waste management are controversial topics, so journalists need to trust the information they use. We needed a process that would minimize bias for or against nuclear power generation and specific waste management techniques.
Let me be specific about how the book evolved. The authors designed the book and reached out to independent experts for commentary on what should be included and in what format. The briefs themselves emerged from another set of interviews, typically more than one, regarding each of the briefs. The authors and their colleagues, in other words, had control over what was written and who should be interviewed.
Step two—the reviews—was an equally complex process. CRESP Co-PI’s Charles Powers and David Kosson asked Bernard Goldstein and Arthur Upton—themselves respected scientific peer reviewers—to find reviewers for every section of the volume; the four authors had nothing to do with the selection of these reviewers. After a section was written, the authors sent it to Drs. Powers and Kosson who in turn forwarded it to Drs. Goldstein and Upton—and they independently identified reviewers who then made numerous constructive suggestions for clarifying the science, and typically for ways to improve the balance of each section. Initial reviewers focused on one or more of the individual briefs; several reviewers then read larger sections. Finally, four reviewers read the entire volume. At each stage, the review comments were incorporated. It took many months to complete the review processes. No one can say, certainly not me, that the resulting book has no biases; all of the people interviewed and the authors have their own perspectives on each subject covered in the volume. Yet, by having extensive and detailed reviews, we are confident that this is a uniquely thorough effort designed to achieve a most objective and balanced set of writing on this subject.
-*Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (U.S. Dept. of Energy) www.cresp.org
The Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation is a Vanderbilt University-led, multi-university consortium supported as a cooperative agreement by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management. David Kosson and Charles Powers, both professors in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Vanderbilt are the co-principal investigators for CRESP. Rutgers is one of the CRESP participating universities and Michael Greenberg is a member of the management board for CRESP. CRESP supported the development of the Reporter’s Handbook throughout the initial conceptualization, implementation and external review processes, as well as providing financial support for the authors work on the Handbook.
The mission of CRESP is to support safe, effective, publicly-credible, risk informed management of existing and future nuclear waste from government and civilian sources through independent strategic analysis, review, applied research and education.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Three of the authors (Greenberg, Lowrie, and Mayer) have for more than a decade done nuclear waste research and review work as part of their association with the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation. The authors are also associated with the National Center for Neighborhood and Brownfield Redevelopment at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers. Greenberg also serves as associate editor for environmental health for the American Journal of Public Health and as editor-in-chief of Risk Analysis, where Lowrie serves as managing editor. West is Co-Chair of the Health Systems and Policy Department at UMDNJ School of Public Health.
BOOK INFORMATION
The Reporter’s Handbook on Nuclear Materials, Energy, and Waste Management
By Michael R. Greenberg, Bernadette M. West, Karen W. Lowrie, and Henry J. Mayer
320 pages, 6 x 9 ISBN 978-0-8265-1660-2
trade paper $29.95 (also available in cloth library binding) VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Grist Magazine
June 12, 2009
From No Nukes to Pro Nukes
This White House science adviser thinks America should embrace nuclear power 6
by Emily Gertz
There are 104 commercial nuclear power stations in the United States today, supplying about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity. No new commercial reactors have been licensed here since 1973. And the last commercial plant to come online, Watts Bar in Tennessee, powered up more than a decade ago, in 1996.
That all needs to change, says Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, an M.I.T.-trained theoretical physicist. And her opinions matter, because President Obama recently named Jackson to the newly revived President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Jackson was a researcher in the prestigious Bell Laboratories earlier in her career. She chaired the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Clinton administration, and now heads Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
If the United States is serious about realizing an energy supply that’s invulnerable to geopolitics or price shocks, and also wants to stop global warming, says Jackson, “then you’re talking about having to look at sources of energy that have less of an effect in terms of carbon growth, carbon dioxide emissions.” She believes part of that energy mix must be nuclear power.
“However well we do on energy efficiency, there’s going to be a need for a lot more electricity,” agrees Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace U.K. from 2001 to 2008. Nuclear power “is a bridge technology” for the next 30 to 40 years, he says. Going nuclear in the medium term would give the world time to build out the capacity of clean energy technologies, while also slashing greenhouse-gas pollution.
Jackson expresses optimism that scientific and technological innovation can help reduce the risks of nuclear power (although she doesn’t suggest when that will be achieved).
Tindale does not: “In the short term, I don’t think there are technological improvements in the performance of nuclear power stations,” he says. “And the spent fuel from the new generation will be as dangerous, and some would argue even more dangerous, than the spent fuel from existing power stations.”
But “there is a case for another generation of nuclear power stations,” he says, “solely based on mitigating climate change.”
Jackson and Tindale will be part of an evening panel this Saturday at the World Science Festival in New York City, exploring whether or not nuclear power can be part of the solution to an ever-hotter planet.
***
Thirty years ago, memories of the oil shocks of the early 1970s were fading, and an anti-nuclear power movement was gaining ground. Then three things happened that dealt U.S. nuclear power a near-TKO.
First, in early March 1979, the movie “The China Syndrome” offered up a gritty, post-Watergate vision of a corporate cover-up of a near-accident at a California nuclear power plant, featuring heroic TV journalists, a Deep Throat-type whistleblower, and corrupt, cynical government regulators.
Less than two weeks later, on March 28, a partial core meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power facility terrified the nation.
And in September 1979, a powerhouse array of American rock stars—including The Doobie Brothers, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, and Bruce Springsteen—united to perform before capacity crowds at the “No Nukes” concerts in New York City. An album and concert documentary followed within a year.
All these factors united to effectively kibosh America’s nuclear power industry. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) put nuclear power plant approvals on ice for over a year after the Three Mile Island accident. By the time it was possible once again to propose new nukes, it no longer made economic or public relations sense to try.
Cut to 2009: Even with the economic meltdown, electricity demand is expected to increase over the next four decades in the United States, where around 50 percent of the electricity is generated by coal-fired plants. But burning coal pours millions of tons of climate-disrupting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and we now have a president who has put coping with the dangers of climate change high on his list of policy priorities.
With legislation to cap and charge for carbon emissions wending its way through Congress, supported by a popular president and his dream team of green advisers, the business case for coal-fired power is weakening almost by the day. So, should virtually carbon-free nuclear replace coal power?
Jackson professes disinterest in these kinds of politicized scenarios, instead stressing the need to deal with the bigger picture. “What we need is a comprehensive energy security roadmap, a comprehensive strategy. There is no one silver bullet; there has to be a combination of options for addressing our energy needs.”
Jackson, who’s long been an educator, embraces events like the World Science Festival to help solve these energy questions. “We need to build public understanding and support for the range of energy and environmental actions that must be taken,” she says. “[P]rograms like the World Science Festival ... contribute to advancing this kind of agenda, because it expands by definition the public dialogue on the issues.”
Tindale has founded a project called Climate Answers, which aims to shift the energy debate “onto what we should be in favor of, rather than what we should be against,” he says. “[It’s] based on the premise that controlling climate change will make us happier, healthier and richer.”
When activists oppose projects like the Yucca Mountain storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, he believes they ought to take a hard look at their priorities. “If they’re doing it on the grounds that they think there’s a better way for storing nuclear fuel, that is reasonable.”
“But if they’re doing it simply because ... they don’t want any more nuclear power stations,” says Tindale, “then they have to think very seriously whether it’s better in their view to have spent nuclear fuel, or massive greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-fired power stations?”
Emily Gertz is a New York City-based freelance journalist and editor who has written on business, design, health, and other facets of the environment for Grist, Dwell, Plenty, Worldchanging, and other publications.
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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