Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, October 29, 2009
---------------------------
Reno News & Review
October 29, 2009
Yucca debate planned
By Dennis Myers
dennism@newsreview.com
More stories by this author...
Read 1 reader submitted comment
The Reno Sparks Chamber of Commerce has scheduled an early morning debate on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project for Nov. 12 at the chamber’s board room at 1 E. First St. (Reno City Hall). It is open only to chamber members.
Dump supporter Ty Cobb, a state legislator, will argue for the project, and Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects director Bruce Breslow will argue against it.
A chamber news release on the event reads, “Please come to our Public Policy Forum with an open mind, a desire to hear both sides of the issue, and a willingness to ask questions.”
---------------------------
Reno Sparks Chamber of Commerce
October 29, 2009
11/12/09 - Public Policy Forum: Yucca Mountain - Both Sides of the Story
7:30 a.m.
Location: Chamber Board Room
1 East 1st Street #1600, Reno
Members Only
RSVP Now! Dr. Ty Cobb, Former Special Assistant to President Reagan for National Security Affairs, and Bruce Breslow, Executive Director of the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, will each present their side of the Yucca Mountain debate.
Is storing nuclear waste 90 miles from our largest metropolitan area a safe bet for the Silver State?
Are Yucca opponents exaggerating the dangers and turning a blind eye to potentially billions of federal dollars that could come along with the project?
Please come to our Public Policy Forum with an open mind, a desire to hear both sides of the issue, and a willingness to ask questions.
---------------------------
Pahrump Valley Times
October 28, 2009
Yesteryear's quotes tell a today story
Dennis Myers
There's a new book of quotations out. It's titled "They said WHAT?" and is filled with quotes from our leaders demonstrating their arrogance, deception, sexism, racism, militarism, chauvinism and lack of principle.
One chapter is called "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Some of the quotations in this section deal with U.S. use of germ weapons against Korea, injections of plutonium into unknowing U.S. citizens, efforts by federal officials to escape responsibility for the health dangers to uranium miners. But most of this chapter's quotes deal with atomic testing in Nevada.
"The radioactive casualty can be of several causes," said Manhattan Project military director Leslie Groves in 1946 congressional testimony. "He can have a smaller amount which will cause him to die rather soon and, as I understand it from the doctors, without undue suffering. In fact, they say it is a very pleasant way to die." His attempt to make radiation death palatable notwithstanding, it made clear years before the Nevada testing ground was ever established that federal officials knew the radiation risks.
When the Nevada tests began, officials found that soldiers were reluctant to expose themselves to air bursts, so they came up with a 1951 plan to march men onto ground zero immediately after an atomic test: "A tactical exercise of this nature would clearly demonstrate that persistent ionizing radiation following an air burst atomic explosion presents no hazards to personnel and would effectively dispel a fear that is dangerous and demoralizing but entirely groundless." That was Richard Meiling, head of a group that advised the secretary of defense.
After that dangerous procedure was followed, a report on the outcome said the soldiers had been "convinced that the [blast] area can be safely entered after the explosion," which if so meant the soldiers had been convinced of something that was untrue.
"It's not dangerous," Walter Cronkite told viewers during a televised 1953 atom test, apparently repeating what he'd been told by U.S. Atomic Energy Commission officials (the AEC ran the Nevada resting program).
In 1997 federal officials were jolted by the leaked results of a 14-year study by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). It indicated that the migration of fallout was far wider than had previously been believed, reaching into New England and Canada and directly north of the Nevada Test Site, with some of the hardest-hit counties being in Idaho. The group of victims living in these areas, who might be called northwinders, have very limited coverage under the 1990 congressional compensation act, which restricted compensation to 21 counties in three states.
But federal officials had known about it for decades. It was one of the best kept atomic era secrets and reduced U.S. liability sharply. Here is a quote from Air Force Col. Langdon Harrison in 1956: "There isn't anybody in the United States who isn't a downwinder. ... When we followed the clouds, we went all over the United States from east to west and covering a broad spectrum of Mexico and Canada."
There were scientists not employed by the Atomic Energy Commission who found out some of the truth and for their trouble they were all but called traitors. This was U.S. Rep. Chet Holifield, denouncing two scientists at a 1970 hearing:
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing, saying the amount of radiation we're allowing is causing cancer? I've been assured by the Atomic Energy Commission people that a dose of a hundred times what they're allowing won't hurt anybody. Listen, there have been lots of guys before you who tried to interfere with the AEC program. We got them and we'll get you."
The AEC, called "the worst agency ... mendacious" by the great journalist I.F. Stone, is now called the U.S. Department of Energy, but its prevailing ethic remains the same. Manhattan Project and AEC scientist John William Gofman has said, "But for 25 years the DOE has not shown any concern for the health of Americans. Their concern has been for the health of the DOE. Their falsehoods concerning the hazards of ionizing radiation have put not thousands of people at risk, not millions of people, but billions of people. ... Ever since its inception, the Atomic Energy Commission -- then called ERDA, then called DOE -- has had one thing in mind: 'Our program is sacrosanct.'"
History has its uses, and in this case it tells us that on the Yucca Mountain issue, the principal federal agency, the Department of Energy, is not to be trusted.
---------------------------
Reuters
October 28, 2009
FACTBOX: Obama signs energy, water spending bill into law
(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law a $33.5 billion spending bill to fund government energy and water programs for the 2010 budget year that began October 1.
Following are key provisions in the bill:
* Solar Energy: $225 million for research, development, and demonstration projects to make solar energy more affordable.
* Biofuels: $220 million for grants to improve production of alternative fuels such as cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel.
* Vehicle Technology: $311 million to improve fuel efficiency with better engines, better batteries and engines that burn clean, domestic fuel.
* Hydrogen Technology: $174 million to help develop hydrogen and fuel-cell technologies.
* Energy Efficient Buildings: $200 million to research conservation technologies for buildings and industry to reduce energy demand.
* Industrial Technologies: $96 million to help businesses improve energy efficiency.
* Weatherization Grants: $210 million for insulation and energy conservation measures to reduce utility bills for low-income families.
* Electricity: $172 million to research smart-grid technologies and energy storage and defend the power system against Internet attacks.
* Fossil Fuels: $672 million for research to reduce harmful emissions from fossil fuels, including $404 million for carbon capture and sequestration for coal-based activities.
* Nuclear: $787 million for research and development, including $169 million for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant.
* Nuclear Cleanup: $6.4 billion to clean up military and civilian nuclear facilities.
* Nuclear Weapons: $2.1 billion for nonproliferation activities and $6.4 billion to maintain the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.
* Significant cuts include nuclear waste disposal. The White House scrapped the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. The bill gives $197 million, $92 million below 2009, to continue the licensing process and evaluate alternatives.
* $5.4 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers to build and maintain navigation canals and flood-control projects.
(Reporting by Andy Sullivan and Ayesha Rascoe; editing by Jim Marshall)
---------------------------
North Lake Tahoe Bonanza
October 27, 2009
Ed Gurowitz: Re-electing Harry Reid the right choice for all of Nevada
By Ed Gurowitz
Special to the Bonanza
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — The GOP, both nationally and in Nevada, has Harry Reid in its crosshairs. While I can understand that — it is desperate to break the Democrats' supposed filibuster-proof majority in the Senate — Nevada Republicans' opposition to Reid is not in the best interests of Nevada.
Before we get to the latter, let's look at the “filibuster-proof majority” fantasy. Granted, given Republicans' propensity to vote along party/ideological lines regardless of the merits of the issue, if the GOP had 60 seats, it would have a filibuster-proof majority. Getting the Democrats aligned around any issue is like the proverbial herding of cats — even with 60 seats, Reid is having trouble and will probably fail at putting together 60 votes for a robust public option in the health care reform debate.
But the Republicans aren't going to have 60 seats after the 2010 election, and probably won't even break the Democrats' 60, so that's a moot point.
What is significant is that, regardless of party considerations, Nevada has one senator now. John Ensign is so tainted by his hypocritical actions (see last week's column) that, even if he doesn't resign as he should, he has no voice in the Senate. If Nevada voters are misguided enough to defeat Reid, then in 2010 we will have an ineffective senior senator and a junior senator who is, by virtue of his newness, at the bottom of the Senate food chain. Given that, it won't matter which party he comes from — he will have as little influence as Ensign.
Whatever you think of Reid's politics on national issues, it's hard to argue that he has not represented Nevada well. He's been a wall on Yucca Mountain, had major accomplishments in energy legislation, sponsored and supported significant health care bills, without even talking about health care reform and extended the federal deduction for state and local sales taxes. The list goes on. Space doesn't permit a full list here, but his accomplishments for Nevada are a matter of record.
I'm not saying you should ignore those things he's done or he believes that you disagree with, but I think, on balance, that an objective look at the data will show that, even considering those, he's done a lot of good for Nevada, and a lot of his ability to do that good has been a function of his senior position in the Senate. It would be a mistake to trade this seniority and influence for the sake of adding one faceless name to the GOP numbers.
Nevada Republicans should take the lead among their political brethren in putting the interests of constituents — local, state, and national — above the interests of their party. Only by doing that will they take the GOP back from the domination of knee-jerk rightists like Limbaugh, Beck and Palin.
Ed Gurowitz has a doctorate in psychology and is a management consultant. He has lived in Incline Village since 1995 and is active in the Democratic Party. His columns can be found at www.egurowitz.blogspot.com, and he is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. He can be reached for comment at egurowitz@gurowitz.com.
---------------------------
AP Google
October 26, 2009
Senate Leader Harry Reid faces tough re-election
By Michael R. Blood
SEARCHLIGHT, Nev. — Along a curve of desert highway near the gated home of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, mechanic Bill Johnson is struggling to keep his checkbook balanced.
With Nevada's economy poisoned by recession and the nation's highest foreclosure and bankruptcy rates, business at Johnson's boat-repair shop has nose-dived 40 percent since last year. He cannot afford health insurance, and his sewer bill jumped to $875 a year.
"I really have to pose a question: Harry, what have you done for me lately?" asks Johnson, who vows to vote against Reid and other incumbents unless health care is made affordable.
Johnson's exasperation demonstrates the problems Reid faces as he runs for a fifth term next year in a political climate made treacherous by Nevada's economic turmoil and his high-profile role in pushing President Barack Obama's agenda.
Never a particularly beloved figure in Nevada despite a public career that dates to the 1960s, Reid has been derided as out of touch with Main Street and out of step with Nevada's moderate politics. Many Republicans consider him one of the most vulnerable incumbents on Capitol Hill.
A veteran of close elections, Reid is leaving nothing to chance. He is already airing TV ads and is about halfway to his goal of raising $25 million for the race, an unprecedented amount for Nevada. He raised $7 million in 2004.
Reid has recruited a long line of party luminaries to help raise money and polish his image, including Obama. Earlier this month, Vice President Joe Biden spoke at a $2,400-a-plate fundraiser in Reno and credited Reid with helping push through the $787 billion stimulus package.
The 69-year-old Reid, a miner's son who worked his way through law school, tells voters he has the clout to make a difference in their lives. And he has a long record of proving doubters wrong: He has been a state legislator, lieutenant governor, congressman and four-term senator. He has been majority leader since 2007.
But even here, where Reid is both a celebrity and neighbor, there are complaints about his politics and his often dour and prickly personality, confirming polls showing that the most powerful Democrat in the Senate is not necessarily a hero at home.
The risks he faces were demonstrated all too clearly in 2004, when Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, was defeated for re-election.
Across Route 95 in a dimly lighted casino, Jeff Collins sips a long-neck beer and talks about friends still jobless despite billions in stimulus spending. The ticket-splitting Democrat, one of 400,000 voters who have flooded into Nevada since Reid's last race in 2004, considers the majority leader far removed from the anxiety in the state.
Would he send Reid back for a fifth term?
"It's kind of like voting for the lesser of two evils," says Collins, who is eager to consider new faces.
A field of Republican rivals is emerging, though party leaders in Washington failed to enlist their favored pick, Rep. Dean Heller. Among the potential GOP nominees: Sue Lowden, a former Miss America contestant and one-time leader of the state Republican Party, and Danny Tarkanian, son of former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian.
Earlier this month, a voter survey published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., found Reid trailing both Republicans in potential matchups.
Reid dismisses the unfavorable polling with trademark brevity: "All my polling numbers are fine."
Reid takes credit for bringing jobs and development to Nevada, a claim even some Republicans concede. At the same time, he acknowledges it hasn't been enough. The state's unemployment rate is at a record 13.3 percent.
"I know that people in Nevada are struggling," Reid says in one TV ad.
There's little doubt Reid's political standing is being undercut partly by the nation's sour mood. Surveys show voters are dissatisfied with incumbents of all stripes.
Reid, a Mormon, is conservative on gun control, opposes abortion rights and is a friend of mining and casino interests. But he also has strong ties to unions and a green streak that has made him unpopular with ranchers and farmers.
Reid's stewardship of Obama's agenda, including the stimulus legislation, environmental protection and health care reform, will inevitably test his ties with those who disagree with the president's direction.
"Any time you have to be the face and voice of national issues when they are fairly controversial, there is obviously the possibility of alienating some people who would otherwise support you," says Frank Schreck, a Nevada lawyer who was a fundraiser for Bill Clinton. "It's a problem any leader in Congress has."
Still, Nevada's Republicans have their own problems. The Democratic Party holds a registration edge of 110,000 — a gap that is growing. Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons has been dogged by scandal, and Republican Sen. John Ensign is fending off calls for his resignation following disclosure of a 2008 affair with former campaign aide.
Reid has lined up a list of prominent Republican supporters, including casino mogul Steve Wynn and influential political consultant Sig Rogich.
Reid's supporters point out he led the fight to stop the nation's nuclear waste dump from being located in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, and pushed through a bill that resulted in the state receiving more than $3 billion since 1998 from the sale of federal land.
"To think about losing Harry Reid at this time, with his ability to help the state, is just ludicrous," Rogich says.
There's almost no sign that the challenges of re-election are undermining Reid's work as leader of the Senate's 58 Democrats and two independents.
His prospects of winning re-election are intertwined with getting a health care bill through Congress, the most complex political task he has ever undertaken.
The long slog involves nightly meetings with White House officials and endless conversations with recalcitrant senators. Reid is careful in public remarks to note he supports a public option — a bow to Nevadans who favor a government-run insurance alternative. On Monday, he said the bill he will bring to the Senate floor will include an option for government-run insurance, but states will be allowed to opt out of it.
Rodger Hinds, 51, whose family has roots in Searchlight dating to the 1950s, credits the senator with bringing jobs to Las Vegas. But Hinds, a Republican who knows Reid, also blames him for environmental rules that he says pushed ranchers out of work.
"I believe he failed the town he grew up in," says Hinds, who is undecided in the 2010 contest. "I thought he was a regular guy. He talked to everybody. He had time for everybody. But he doesn't anymore."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
---------------------------
The Oregonian
October 25, 2009
'Hot' nuclear waste could still be shipped to Hanford under proposed settlement
By Scott Learn
The Oregonian
When Oregon and Washington's governors announced a settlement with the U.S. Department of Energy in August for cleanup of radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, they said it included a "moratorium" on shipping new radioactive waste to Hanford until a plant to treat the tank wastes was up and running.
But in fact a big chunk of radioactive waste -- including contaminated metal from decommissioned U.S. nuclear plants -- isn't included in that proposed moratorium, Oregon officials confirmed Friday.
Ken Niles, assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy, said Oregon continues to oppose importing the waste, formally known as "Greater than Class C" or GTCC waste.
But Washington and the U.S. Department of Energy already had negotiated exempting GTCC waste from the moratorium before Oregon was brought into settlement discussions, Niles said. The settlement resolves a lawsuit that Washington filed in 2008 against the U.S. Department of Energy. Oregon joined the suit in early 2009.
The deal on GTCC "was pretty much in effect" by the time Oregon came to the table, Niles said. "We certainly don't want that waste to come to Hanford, and we will continue to oppose that."
The issue is likely to be one of the hot points in public hearings this week on the proposed tank waste settlement.
The amount of radiation in the inventory of current and projected GTCC waste is 140 million curies, or about three-quarters of the radiation contained in 177 leak-prone underground tanks at Hanford, the nation's largest nuclear cleanup site.
Under the settlement, "the hottest waste that could be sent to Hanford is excluded" from the moratorium, said Gerry Pollet, executive director of the Hanford watchdog group Heart of America Northwest. "It's not a little oversight."
Hanford covers 586 square miles, straddling the Columbia River near Richland, Wash. It opened in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb, and ran nine nuclear reactors during the Cold War years to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
The settlement announced in August extended the cleanup deadline for radioactive sludge from the tanks, some of which is already leaking, from 2028 to 2047. It also would boost state and court oversight, allow for accelerating deadlines if feasible and set a 2022 deadline for full operation of the tank waste treatment plant.
Under the settlement, other significant categories of radioactive waste would be excluded from being brought to Hanford until at least 2022, Niles said, including nuclear weapons waste.
The U.S. Department of Energy is still studying where to put the GTCC waste, and Congress would have to approve a final disposal site.
The waste is the most radioactive in the low-level category. Federal officials concede that some of it is as radioactive as high-level waste, which includes spent nuclear fuel. Seven other sites are in the running, including the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada, not yet open, and the Idaho National Lab, a research site undergoing its own cleanup.
The amount to be disposed of before 2022 would be relatively small, because most nuclear plants would not have been decommissioned by then, Niles said. He added that he doesn't believe Hanford "is a real high candidate" for GTCC waste disposal.
Pollet and other critics disagree. They say it appears the federal government is targeting Hanford or the Nevada Test Site north of Las Vegas for the disposal, given obstacles and environmental challenges at other sites on U.S. DOE's list.
---------------------------
Tri-City Herald
October 25, 2009
Doc to Obama: What about Yucca Mountain for waste?
Doc Hastings has sent a timely and important question to President Obama:
What about Yucca Mountain?
Rep. Hastings, R-Wash., was more delicate, more diplomatic than we phrased it above, but the substance was there.
In a carefully worded letter, Hastings asked Obama to share with Congress his plans for disposing of nuclear waste.
"I write to inquire about the status of your plan to develop a new option for our nation's defense waste and commercial high-level nuclear spent fuel," Hastings wrote.
Twice in the one letter he mentions the need for scientific justification for whichever site is chosen.
Yucca Mountain was the spot chosen after just such a scientific search, and it was written into law by Congress.
But Obama campaigned against using Yucca Mountain as a repository for spent nuclear materials and has said his administration will not be sending material there.
Then where?
The administration says it will name a blue ribbon panel to look into it.
Being in the minority party could work to Doc's disadvantage in this, but his letter is eminently justified and deserves an answer.
As we noted in our editorial recommending Obama for president last year:
"We wish he were more enthusiastic on nuclear energy. It is a definite plus for (Sen. John) McCain that he is a strong supporter of that clean technology as one of the tools out of our dependence upon Middle Eastern oil."
Undoubtedly it is Sen. Harry Reid's position as Senate majority leader that influenced the president's decision. Reid represents Nevada, the home of Yucca Mountain, in the Senate. He is adamantly opposed to opening the Yucca Mountain site.
Most Nevadans, according to polls, don't want the site opened either.
But Reid is in deep trouble at home from other causes.
If liberals do not support Reid when he comes up for re-election next year, he could be on his way out. Some groups threaten to withhold support for him in 2010 if he doesn't get a public option for the health care plan to the Senate floor.
Even as things stand now, one recent poll (Mason-Dixon) showed Reid trailing two possible, relatively unknown, Republican challengers. It found that real estate developer Danny Tarkanian led Reid 48 percent to 43 percent while former GOP party official Sue Lowden led Reid by 49 percent to 39 percent.
"Clearly, any decision about the disposition of commercial nuclear spent fuel and weapons complex high level waste will directly impact the communities I represent in Congress," Hastings wrote the president.
"I would appreciate an update on your efforts to address the federal government's nuclear waste storage obligations. Specifically: 1) what are the scientific reasons why Yucca Mountain is not a feasible option, 2) how long will the new studies take and how much will they cost, 3) what will be studied, 4) will the blue ribbon commission have the freedom to study any option they deem appropriate -- including Yucca Mountain, 5) will sites that were previously considered, such as Hanford, be studied, and 6) how and when will members of the blue ribbon panel be selected?"
Excellent questions.
We're glad Rep. Hastings put them to the president, and we, like him, look forward to the president's response.
---------------------------
Springfield News-Leader
October 25, 2009
Reid wrong to interfere with nuclear waste storage project
Max Roper
At this time there are 16 storage sites in 13 different states securing a total of 7,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste, the generation of which dates back to 1943. After 50 years of research and at a cost of billions of dollars, Yucca Mountain in Nevada was finally determined to be the most ideal location in our country to build a longtime storage facility for our nuclear waste. This site received widespread and overwhelming bipartisan support in Washington and across the country.
Construction of the facility began in 2002 with great local community support for the jobs created and economic impact from $10B in taxpayer-funded project support. Over 50 comprehensive scientific studies provide confidence this future facility will be safe for all concerned. Now that all the work is well under way or complete, along comes Sen. Harry Reid, who knew full well (along with all of Congress) the reason this was being built! Now that he holds the reins of power in the Senate, one of his first actions was to push through legislation to prevent further funding in an attempt to kill the project. Did the people of Nevada think they were building that facility just for "exercise"?
This money, from our hard-earned taxes, is an enormous amount! However, it is not the most important reason about which every citizen needs to be aware. Time and opportunity are what will have been wasted if this facility is not put to use immediately. More than 50 non-recoverable years will have been wasted in developing this state-of-the-art best-in-class facility if it is not used starting now. To start over and build a replacement facility would be among the most ridiculous failures-to-act in Congressional annals. And should the decision be to reinstate funding and resume operation, the longer the delay, the more costly the process to revalidate operability and associated safety systems. We must have a place to store this extremely hazardous, radioactive waste, and we have it now.
In June 2008, the application was submitted for a license to operate the Yucca Mountain Facility. Even though geological repositories, similar to Yucca Mountain, are employed throughout the world by many countries for the disposal of nuclear waste, this effort was stopped cold by Senator Reid of Nevada.
No one person in these United States should have the power to interfere with a vital national security program, such as this, which has been in the works so long. This includes Senator Reid or the president. Billions of dollars went into research and several decades were expended even before construction ever started. They might claim they have to run another study before approval. Don't forget, more than 50 studies have already been conducted! For that reason, each citizen needs to make a determined effort to contact every member of Congress, in both houses, to not let the sun set until this facility is released for use as intended.
--Max Roper is a retired registered professional engineer and lives in Springfield.
---------------------------
Post-Bulletin
October 24, 2009
Prairie Island expansion plan moves forward
By John Weiss
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN
RED WING -- A state administrative law judge ruled Wednesday in Xcel Energy's favor, letting it take another major step in its plan to expand the amount of energy it produces at the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant and to store more spent fuel there.
Curtis Luis concluded that Xcel should get a certificate of need for the two projects at the plant on the north side of Red Wing.
"There are no reasonable and feasible alternatives to the expansion and operation of the existing ISFSI (spent fuel) for on-site spent nuclear fuel storage at the Prairie Island Plant," he wrote.
He recommends that the state Public Utilities Commission issue a certificate of need for adding 35 more dry casks and increasing the plant's capacity by 164 megawatts.
"No more reasonable and prudent alternative to the extended power uprate of the Prairie Island Plant has been demonstrated to exist," the judge wrote.
The next step will be for the commission to examine his recommendation and make a ruling. Xcel believes that could be done in the next few months.
Then the Minnesota Legislature might also want to examine the PUC's ruling.
The company is pleased with judge's ruling. "We appreciate the administrative law judge's thorough and careful review of the issues and arguments presented to him during these lengthy proceedings about the continued and expanded operation of the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant," it wrote.
The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission also needs to approve the plans and a request to renew licenses for the two reactors for 20 more years. That could happen next year, according to Xcel.
The company needs the extra casks to store spent fuel if it wants to continue operating the plant because there is no other place the fuel can go. It will run out of places to store it when the licenses for the two reactors expire in 2013 and 2014.
The 164-megawatt expansion is being proposed because the nuclear plants are the most cost-effective baseload plants for generating electricity. Prairie Island and Xcel's other nuclear plant in Monticello, Minn., make up 15 percent of its production capacity but produce about 28 percent of its power.
Nuclear power costs about $9 per megawatt hour compared with $17-19 for coal
The company can expand the production without expanding the plant with newer equipment and technology that has become available since the plants opened in the 1970s.
In the hearings before the judge, opponents said that the plant is hurting the health of nearby residents and the Mississippi River that the plant uses for cooling.
The judge, however, wrote: "There has been no demonstration that the operation of the Prairie Island Plant raises significant risk of adverse impacts to the health of the residents living in the vicinity."
Paula Maccabee, attorney for the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant Study Group that opposes the expansion and more dry cask storage, said she isn't sure what her group will do next.
But she did say that while the judge did make some recommendations to protect the air and water, "the administrative law judge's report is inadequate to provide protection for the adverse impacts of the plant."
There is still thermal pollution of the river as well as direct gamma ray and radioactive air emissions, she said.
Her group wanted more comprehensive monitoring. The judge took a small step in that direction "but it's nowhere near the step that's needed," she said.
And her group worries about how to provide security for the long-term storage of the waste once the plant is closed. "We feel that's a very important issue that needs to be addressed," Maccabee said.
However, the City of Red Wing is deeply disappointed in the judge's decision, according to a statement issued by Lisa Bayley, Red Wing City Council member on behalf of the city of Red Wing.
"The ALJ's recommendation doesn't adequately address the public safety concerns we expressed relating to 20 years of continued operations of the PINGP, and more significantly, it fails to address community concerns related to the permanent storage of highly radioactive nuclear waste within the City," the statement said.
"The City has all of the responsibility of being the first responder to an incident at the plant but limited fiscal means to ensure that this response will be effective in the future."
The recommendation would have a private corporation, rather than the community, dictate the level of public safety services necessary to support the plant, the statement said.
"Incredibly, the Recommendation accepted the Minnesota Department of Commerce's arguments that long-term waste storage has zero state costs because the federal government will take the waste at an unknown point in the future, ignoring the recent closure of Yucca Mountain by the Obama Administration," it said.
---------------------------
Des Moines Register
October 24, 2009
Letter: No place for nuclear power in the world
Regarding Carolyn D. Heising's Oct. 13 guest opinion: The more urgent question should have been: What is the future for nuclear power?
I would agree with Heising on just two points: The United States needs an aggressive program of energy efficiency, and the stakes are too high for vital (energy) decisions to be made on the basis of hope and faith.
Not one of her 10 paragraphs even hints at the horrendous problems and worries of nuclear-power generation. Nuclear power has to be perfect, lest a Chernobyl-type accident once again spiels radioactive waste capable of destroying surrounding countryside for generations to come.
In the United States, we already have at least 77,000 tons of radioactive waste and no place to put it since the hopes for Yucca Mountain storage have recently died.
Over 20 years ago already, nuclear could not compete economically, bringing a complete halt to new nuclear-power plants in the United States.
The United States said no to nuclear in the 1980s. The same problems still exist.
For the security of ourselves and our children, there must be no future for nuclear power.
Jane E. Magers
Des Moines
---------------------------
Nevada Appeal
October 23, 2009
Chuck Muth: Rory Reid says Dad wrong; Yucca Mountain is safe?
Harry Reid has made a political career out of playing the earthquake card over and over again in his non-stop efforts to kill the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project and every high-paying, tax-generating job that comes with it.
On July 30, 2008, for example, KRNV-News 4 in Reno reported that “Nevada Sen. Harry Reid spoke today about the potential for grave consequences at Yucca Mountain if an earthquake ever struck in the area of the proposed nuclear dump site.”
Indeed, Harry even features an online petition on his U.S. Senate Web site that states “DOE does not even have complete plans to transport nuclear waste or to build the dump at Yucca Mountain, which is in an earthquake-prone environment.”
Hmm. I guess his son must have missed a memo.
In announcing his candidacy for governor last week, Democrat Rory Reid released a 30-page campaign document outlining his “new economic vision for Nevada.” Most of it is nothing more than political pap and platitudes, but there is one section calling for making Nevada “A Technology Hub.” And get a load of this:
“Since the 1990s, IT (Information Technology) has been the principal driver of increasing economic growth. Nevada is now a unique crossroads of the IT world and has a competitive advantage in the data storage business. These are companies that save and warehouse electronic data. There is no safer place in the country to store data: No hurricanes, no tornadoes, and no active fault lines.”
What?!
There is no safer place for critical storage facilities than Nevada because there are no hurricanes, tornadoes or ACTIVE FAULT LINES? Does Sen. Daddy Dearest know about this?
Then again, Nevada is a pretty big state geographically, so Rory's probably talking about safe storage areas somewhere up north around Elko or Winnemucca, right? Well, let's see:
“Our secure environment makes us a logical choice to serve as the back-up headquarters for corporations based on the West Coast. After 9/11, corporations started planning for disasters. We could store a company's electronic records and systems so that, in case of an emergency, the business could relocate here and with one flip of a switch be fully operational again. The vast potential for security and solar energy in Nye County, for instance — between Yucca Mountain and the Nevada Test Site — along with their proximity to the IT resources in Las Vegas, could support such data centers and back-up operations.”
What?!
The environmentally safest place in the United States to store critical, irreplaceable electronic records is at ... Yucca Mountain?
I've known for a while now that most of what Harry Reid says about safety concerns over the Yucca Mountain project is pure, unadulterated political flapdoodle, but it's interesting to discover that his son apparently feels the same way.
• Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, a non-profit public policy grassroots advocacy organization. He may be reached at chuck@citizenoutreach.com.
---------------------------
Pahrump Valley Times
October 23, 2009
Rory Reid visits Pahrump
Gubernatorial Candidate Makes Swing for Votes
By Mark Waite
PVT
Rory Reid, Clark County Commission chairman and son of the U.S. senator, said what motivated him to run for governor was a comment from a woman he met at a neighborhood gathering like the one at the home of Nye County Democratic Party Chairman Bonnie Swadling Wednesday night.
While at a house party in Reno, a woman told him she wanted to live in Reno and raise her children there, but asked, "Why should l stay in Nevada and what future is there for me here?"
"That was the moment I decided I wanted this campaign to be an answer to her question," Reid told about 20 Democratic Party faithful.
Reid handed out copies of his 30 page campaign booklet entitled: "The Virtual Crossroads, Rory Reid's Vision for the Future of Nevada."
Reid said in publishing the booklet he's disobeying a credo followed by most politicians, don't say anything so they can't be held accountable for it later.
Like most politicians, Reid talked about the potential for renewable energy as a way to diversify the economy.
"For the most part we sell tourism right now. We should sell other things and one of the things we should sell is energy and we can do it. We have more sun than we know what to do with, vast expanses of empty land, most of it owned by the federal government," Reid said.
His book talks about a Nevada Energy Independence Fund to attract public and private investment.
Reid said a non-partisan study prepared by a bipartisan Western Governor's Conference said if Nevada developed 2,000 megawatts of solar energy it would generate $13 billion in economic activity in Nevada and $1.3 billion in new revenues that would have plugged the budget hole in the last session.
"We have a state that has a lot of things other states don't. We have a 24/7 culture, we have people who are willing to work any time day or night. We have an unusually computer literate work force. We have connectivity in terms of transportation and technology and we have renewable resources. So we need to use that to have a new economy," Reid said.
Transportation connectivity should be used to make Nevada a hub for transportation and warehousing, he said. Stimulus money should be used to develop broadband access in rural areas, he said.
"Nevada is a primary producer in the world of lithium carbonate which is a primary component of the batteries that are going to power the automobiles in the future. So we have the ability to be right smack in the middle of everything that happens in this new economy," Reid said. A lithium mine is located in Silver Peak in Esmeralda County.
Reid said rather than look forward to the start of the next Legislature in February 2011, he wants to talk about what can be done now.
Gov. Jim Gibbons took a ruler and a red pen and cut the budget across the board, Reid said. Instead, he should have done what families do, prioritize what is necessary and what can be deferred another day, he said.
When asked about his proudest accomplishment on the Clark County Commission, Reid said it was the steps he took after the stimulus money was announced. Reid said he gathered department heads to draw up priorities. Leaders of various communities were gathered to work together on priorities.
"As a result of that, Clark County will receive, by the end of the year I believe, almost $400 million in stimulus money. Compare that to the state's effort which has been a partisan quagmire, with everybody pointing at everybody else," Reid said. "Nevada needs to go get that money in a systematic way because if we don't, somebody else will."
Nevada is one of five places in the country designated a high priority for a high-speed train, an opportunity the state shouldn't squander, he said.
But Reid told one questioner Yucca Mountain isn't a solution to the employment problem. It would create some construction jobs, but in the long run if there was a bad incident, it would have a devastating effect on the state's primary industry, tourism.
Instead Reid said renewable energy offers spin-off potential to attract manufacturers producing systems to sell to solar producers along with research and development at Nevada universities.
Besides his action on the stimulus money, Reid said to the Pahrump Valley Times:
"I'm proud of what I did to change the culture and policies of the commission. I had no idea when I was running that by the first anniversary of my election there would be four current or four commissioners in or on their way to federal prison. So I inherited a big mess. The next governor will inherit a big mess and I'm experienced at inheriting big messes."
So will it be a hindrance to his father U.S. Sen. Harry Reid's tough campaign for reelection next year having two Reids on the ballot?
"People want to know what I can do to make their life better and they're going to compare that to whatever my opponent says. At the end of the day my family tree isn't going to be an issue," Reid said. "I wouldn't want people to vote for me because of who my father is and they shouldn't vote against me because of it."
---------------------------
Pahrump Valley Times
October 23, 2009
Back then: 20 years ago
Sen. Harry Reid said the shock waves from the Loma Prieta quake in the Bay Area had been felt at Yucca Mountain and needed to be analyzed.
---------------------------
Reuters
October 23, 2009
Analysis: Costly new nuclear system may cut waste, arms risk
By Nao Nakanishi
LONDON (Reuters) - A new nuclear fuel recycling system could cut radioactive waste and remove the possibility of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel being used to make weapons, but it won't come cheap.
Nuclear experts say the proposed Advanced Recycling Center (ARC) could help to solve some of the biggest worries as the world looks to build more than 100 nuclear reactors to curb greenhouse gas emissions while ensuring energy supply.
"It's very clever," said Tim Stone, KPMG's Corporate Finance Partner.
"The principles have been known for a long time but the overall package is very neat ... A positive part of this is burning the worst radioactive waste," said Stone, who advises the British government on nuclear matters.
The drawbacks of the system by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy are that the fast reactors involved are very costly and the reprocessing technology involves handling highly radioactive material yet to be proven on industrial scale.
The ARC would include GE Hitachi's fourth generation PRISM sodium-cooled fast reactors and an electrometallurgical separation process that would make a new form of fuel from spent fuel rods without separating plutonium.
GE Hitachi says the ARC will cut radioactive waste as it can extract by up to 90 percent of the energy in uranium, instead of the 2-3 percent that widely-used light water reactors do.
"It allows you to think about different designs for long-term waste storage and disposal," said Lisa Price, a senior executive of GE Hitachi unit Nuclear Fuel Cycle.
"As you are able to unlock the energy, you reduce the amount of storage time and disposal time. And you have much less high-level waste," she told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in London.
Experts say it could be of particular interest for countries like the United States, which is home to the world's biggest fleet of nuclear reactors but where the government put on hold a plan to build the Yucca Mountain repository.
Price said the ARC would have the additional advantage of not extracting plutonium, which can be used for nuclear weapons.
Current reprocessing methods, deployed in countries like France, Britain or Japan, extract uranium, plutonium and fission products separately from spent fuel rods.
"Recycling does not need to separate plutonium at all. So it does not ever come out in a form that could be used for ill gain. And that's a major advantage from a non-proliferation point of view," Price said.
COSTS, SAFETY, GOVERNMENT
Experts say there are no customers yet for fourth generation reactors such as GE Hitachi's PRISM, but there has been enough experience to prove most of the technology since the 1950s.
The challenge lies in the high costs of building fast reactors, they say, particularly as utilities generally do not include nuclear waste disposal costs in their investment decisions as, in most countries, governments take on the burden.
Companies are therefore less likely to be persuaded by the cost savings on waste storage.
More research and development is required for fabricating new fast reactor fuel from feedstocks that contain highly radioactive fission products. Any such processes would need very strict safety measures, which would increase costs.
World Nuclear Association (WNA) data shows about 50 reactors are under construction, with most belonging to the second generation of reactors and a few -- like GE Hitachi's ABWR, Areva's EPR, and Toshiba-Westinghouse's AP-1000 -- to the third.
The new fast reactors would belong to a fourth generation.
"A lot of the technology on which sodium fast reactors are based has already been demonstrated in the past," said Tim Abram, professor of nuclear fuel technology at Manchester University in Britain.
"The big challenge is: can we make it economic? Today, the answer is no, so this remains one of the main goals of the Generation IV initiative," he said, adding a European study in the 1990s showed fast reactors would cost about 20 percent more than conventional reactors.
But Ian Hore-Lacy of the WNA said there was increasing interest in fast reactors because they could recycle elements that normally became high level waste.
Fuel reprocessing, like GE Hitachi's electrometallurgical process, was the area of the technology that was least well proven, Hore-Lacy said.
Abram agreed, saying: "On a relatively small scale, the electrometallurgical reprocessing technology has been shown to work."
"It's conceptually relatively easy to describe. But because the fuel is very radioactive, all of the fuel manufacturing operations would have to be done in very heavily shielded facilities, and remotely, using robotic manipulation. Nobody has demonstrated it at industrial scales yet."
GE Hitachi says it could develop the technology in 10-15 years as it has been working on it since the 1980s, partly funded by the U.S. government.
It would be also economic, particularly if the disposal costs of nuclear waste from other existing technologies are taken into account.
"If you factor in long term storage, then the economics support recycling, and even reprocessing," GE Hitachi's Price said. "The long term disposal is going to be very expensive."
--(Editing by Daniel Fineren and Anthony Barker)
---------------------------
Penn State Daily Collegian
October 23, 2009
Letter: Nuclear energy debate swirls among PSU faculty members
In Prof. Andy Lau's Oct. 20 letter "Nuclear energy not portrayed accurately by former Pa. gov.," he calls into question the comments that former Gov. Tom Ridge made on nuclear power. The context was nuclear weapons and environmental effects. The logic of Prof. Lau's comments is specious.
Nuclear power is not "inherently tied to" the "nuclear weapons industry." They both have a common historical origin, namely, nuclear fission. However, the modern, nuclear power plant evolved from the nuclear-propelled submarine, developed in the early 1950s. Likewise, commercial, jet aircraft evolved from post WWII military aircraft. However, we do not associate passenger aircraft with airborne weapons of war. Although commonly confused with it, nuclear power is not an instrument of war or terrorism.
To say that we are not disposing of nuclear waste is deceptive. The accepted practice is to store spent nuclear fuel on the sites of nuclear reactors, where it is safe and secure. Although executing long-term storage in, for example, Yucca Mountain, has been politically problematic, the current method of storage is sufficient. Moreover, this spent fuel that contains fissile plutonium will be readily available for reprocessing to produce new fuel, when, in several decades, uranium becomes scarce and expensive.
To say that "nuclear power generates less carbon dioxide than coal" is an egregious understatement. Essentially no carbon dioxide arises directly from the consumption of nuclear fuel. Whereas, coal-fired plants produce amounts of carbon dioxide proportional to the amount of coal burned. Typically, a conventional coal-fired plant consumes a trainload of coal per day, from which it produces about 10 percent of a trainload of ash and a commensurate amount of carbon dioxide.
Gary Catchen
Professor of Nuclear Engineering
---------------------------
Investor's Business Daily
October 23, 2009
Congress Mulls Nuclear Power As A Way To Reduce Emissions
By Sean Higgins
Investor's Business Daily
The push for cap-and-trade climate change legislation is giving nuclear power a new half-life. As an air-pollution-free energy source, nuclear could solve a lot of problems — if it can get past the ones that sidelined it decades ago.
The accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl in Russia turned many against nuclear. No new plants have been opened in the U.S. in more than two decades. The proposed nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain may have its funding cut off by Washington.
But there are signs the opposition is waning thanks to cap-and-trade. The Environmental Protection Agency says that since nuclear creates no carbon emissions, expanding it would make it easier to meet carbon-reduction goals.
Nuke Expansion Assumed
In Oct. 14 testimony before the Senate Energy Committee, Reid Harvey, chief of the EPA's climate economics branch, said his agency included substantial increases in nuclear power in its analysis of climate change bills in Congress.
"The availability of nuclear power has a significant impact on our results," Harvey said.
Without it, he says, the cost of cap-and-trade allowances — the permits business would have to buy to release carbon emissions — would rise by as much as 15%.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., co-author of the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill, now backs nuclear. He co-authored with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an Oct. 11 op-ed that laid out his position.
"Nuclear power needs to be a core component of electricity generation if we are to meet our emission reduction targets," the two wrote in the New York Times.
They called for jettisoning "cumbersome regulations" in favor of a "streamlined permit system" to create new nuke plants. Kerry again touted nuclear in a separate Wednesday press release.
At a town hall in New Orleans on Oct. 15, President Obama touted nuclear, saying there was "no reason" why we couldn't use nuclear power safely. "Japan does it and France does it," he said.
Whether there is a filibuster-proof Senate majority for this approach is unclear.
"Nuclear has my vote," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. "The question is whether it has 60 votes."
A nuclear glow might warm some Republicans to a cap-and-trade bill.
Greens Still Opposed
But green groups remain wary. On Oct. 8, a coalition including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and others sent senators a letter urging them to "reject any provisions" that streamline licensing for nuke plants.
"(A)ny further acceleration would fatally undermine public confidence in the safety of U.S. reactors," they wrote.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., is leading a behind-the-scenes effort to build a bipartisan coalition tying nuclear and cap-and-trade together. It will be added as a floor amendment to the bill during the Senate debate, according a Senate source.
Those involved in crafting the amendment describe it as a tough balancing act. Even Graham may not be on board.
"Keep in mind that Senator Graham has not signed on to the Kerry-Boxer (cap-and-trade) bill. As our op-ed said, this is about a fresh start," Graham spokesman Kevin Bishop said. Nor is he backing Waxman-Markey or any other related bill.
Anything that brings aboard more Republicans could alienate Democrats. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, a cap-and-trade critic, has said she could nevertheless back it if it included expansions of nuclear and oil drilling.
"Nuclear power must be part of the solution," Murkowski told C-SPAN.
But legislation is just one of the roadblocks to expanding nuclear, Murkowski's spokesman Robert Dillon says. The last energy bill, he notes, included loan guarantees for nuclear but the Bush administration never implemented them.
"It takes more than 60 votes. Whatever passes Congress has to be implemented by the administration. So that is your bigger question," Dillon said.
Many Regulatory Hurdles
Other problems include an uncertain financial climate. The plants are risky investments without loan guarantees. Regulatory hurdles, such as where to put spent nuclear fuel, can also be daunting. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pushed hard to have the nation's main proposed repository — which was to be located in his state — closed down.
"The end of the Yucca Mountain project is a victory for every Nevadan, every American, and all who work so hard to keep our state and our country as safe and clean as they deserve to be," he declared in a May press release after the administration zeroed out funding for it.
Such complications caused Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., himself a fan of nuclear power, to ask why the EPA and other agencies are counting on expansions of nuclear in estimating climate change bills.
After the EPA's Harvey testified last week, McCain pointed out that none of the climate bills under debate guarantee an expansion of nuclear power.
"Unless there are significant changes, we are looking at a stagnant industry," McCain said.
The industry itself is a little more optimistic. Mitchell Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, notes that while nothing in any current bill specifically advances nuclear, under the House bill at least nuclear could qualify for clean energy loans.
"The bottom line is that when you see this support from Kerry and that in Waxman-Markey there is an acknowledgement of nuclear, when (the bill's authors) have never been friends of this industry, it definitely bodes well for the future," Singer said.
Democrats might feel pressure to make concessions on nuclear and drilling so President Obama has some legislation in hand when he heads to Copenhagen next month for global climate talks.
---------------------------
State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
---------------------------