Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, November 16, 2009
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Irish Independent
November 15, 2009
Hold your fire: nuclear energy may keep us green and save the planet
The long-running debate is coloured by high emotion and bias on both sides of the Irish Sea, writes Colum Kenny
By Colum Kenny
ANEW nuclear power station is to be built just 70 miles from Dublin city, close to Holyhead in north Wales. Last May, an existing reactor at the same location was closed for a period following a small fire.
The planned facility at Wylfa, on Anglesey, is one of seven new nuclear power stations along the west coast of Britain. Another will be at Sellafield in Cumbria, currently home to one of the biggest and most dangerous nuclear waste dumps in the world.
Last Monday, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore criticised Taoiseach Brian Cowen for failing to respond more strongly to the British announcement. A day later, the Catholic Archbishop of Cashel Dermot Clifford claimed that "95 per cent of the bishops are against nuclear reactors".
The Republic of Ireland already buys nuclear and other energy from Britain via the underwater Moyle Interconnector to Scotland. A new connector to Wales is expected to begin operating in 2012. There is no way of knowing exactly how much of the electricity from Britain that Ireland already uses is generated there at nuclear power plants.
Nuclear energy is an effective way of generating power. It is also very clean, unless radioactive fuel or waste escapes. The British government continues to kick for touch on the thorny and expensive waste storage issue. Plans by the US to complete a storage site for their long-life nuclear waste, under Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert, have run into serious political, technical and financial trouble.
London admits that a safe underground long-term facility for nuclear waste is needed, but has yet to pick a site at which to build one. Construction of such a facility is likely to face opposition from people who live nearby and from taxpayers in the middle of a deep recession if they are asked to foot any of the bill.
With the Irish buying electricity from Britain, it is not easy for government ministers to raise strong objections to Britain's new nuclear expansion. Britain is acting in accordance with general EU policy that favours nuclear power for strategic reasons. Nuclear energy frees Europe from dependence on Arab, Russian and other oil. However, claims that nuclear energy is also a "cheap" source of energy compared with alternatives are sometimes made without reference to nuclear's hidden long-term costs.
It is not cheap to build and sustain storage for waste by-products that remain dangerous in the long-term. Comparing the cost of nuclear energy to alternatives is a complex and controversial process. Outcomes vary depending on who builds and pays for high security at the facilities that are needed to store highly radioactive waste indefinitely for hundreds of years.
At present, much of Britain's most dangerous nuclear waste ends up above ground at Sellafield, where it is stored in tanks under conditions that are far from ideal in some cases. In recent decades, Sellafield was redesigned as a facility intended to reprocess British and other European waste into forms of reusable energy, but its THORP and MOX facilities have underperformed and much waste remains.
The possible consequences for Ireland of a major terrorist attack on Sellafield or on another of the UK's planned 10 new nuclear stations could be very serious. A map published last week by the UK Department of Energy reveals that most of the sites are far from London. There are five facing Ireland on the short coastline between Cumbria and Holyhead alone.
And you will find no location marked on that map for any nuclear waste facility. Once again the UK government has deferred a decision. In its White Paper on Nuclear Power, it had stated that, before development consents for new nuclear power stations were granted, the government would need to be satisfied that effective arrangements "exist" or "will exist" to manage and dispose of the waste they would produce?
Last week, the distinction in that statement between the terms "exist" and "will exist" became clearer when Britain's Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Milliband gave a green light to 10 new nuclear stations but added weakly that, "the government is satisfied that effective arrangements will exist to manage and dispose of the waste that will be produced by new nuclear power stations".
Trawling through related documents on the department's website, one looks in vain for firm indications of how and where exactly Britain's nuclear waste is to be managed in the long-term.
However, what does appear in the new UK policy announcement is a claim that the published National Policy Statements "are a crucial part of reforms that will remove unnecessary planning delays facing large energy proposals". The old planning laws allowed proposals for an unsuitable waste site on the west coast of England to be thwarted and helped to put under scrutiny the building of any new nuclear facilities.
The debate on nuclear energy is coloured by emotion and bias on both sides. Last week's contribution by Archbishop Clifford reportedly included a reference to fallout from a fire in 1957 at Windscale (now Sellafield) that may have reached Ireland. In fact, scientific evidence does not appear to strongly support claims that it damaged people's health in Louth.
But on the other side, some public commentators have undisclosed connections with the nuclear sector. And nuclear power is sometimes represented as a more attractive option than it actually is once the long-term costs and risks of waste disposal are factored into any equation.
The most effective course of action for our Government is not to oppose all nuclear power.
Realistically, after years of futile Irish protests, the Taoiseach might be better simply to insist that the planning process be transparent and that the safest possible long-term repository for high-risk radioactive waste be completed and operational before any new nuclear power station comes on stream in Britain.
The continued failure to deal appropriately with UK nuclear waste represents a serious danger to all Ireland.
Prof Colum Kenny of DCU is author of 'Fearing Sellafield' (published by Gill & Macmillan, 2003)
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Las Vegas SUN
November 14, 2009
In Nevada, nuclear raises touchy issues
Plants’ voracious thirst, state’s Yucca stand complicate idea for Ely
By Stephanie Tavares
Nevada’s long-standing common sense argument against Yucca Mountain has been that the state doesn’t even have a nuclear plant, so it would be patently wrong to force it to be the nuke dump site for the rest of the nation.
That line might not be valid in the future, however. Ely is considering going nuclear.
The northeastern Nevada town was once slated to become home to two huge coal power plants. But as costly regulations of carbon emissions loomed large in recent years, those plants were put on the back burner. The mining town is desperate for the economic diversification and high-paying jobs a power plant would bring. Its advocates argue that nuclear energy is “green energy” to the extent that it does not emit greenhouse gases.
Plans to build at least one major transmission line from Ely to Las Vegas mean a nuclear plant up there could supply power to Southern Nevada and elsewhere, notes Gary Duarte, a Sparks resident who is the founder and director of the US Nuclear Energy Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes nuclear energy in rural areas.
A nuclear plant anywhere in Nevada, however, would not only fly in the face of the state’s lobbying against nuclear waste, it would also be a huge consumer of a resource over which epic fights are under way — water.
Yucca’s staunchest and most powerful opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, wouldn’t address the Ely situation directly, but through a spokesman said he wants to hold off on nuclear energy until scientists figure out what to do with the lethal waste the plants generate.
Reid also has concerns about the amount of water a nuclear plant would use, his spokesman, Jon Summers said.
“All Nevadans should be aware that there is no other power source that requires more water than nuclear,” he said. “In fact, it’s the only power source that requires more water than coal.”
Water is hugely politicized in Nevada — especially in Northern Nevada. Rural Nevadans are steamed about Southern Nevada’s decades-long quest for all the unused water (and even some of the used water) in their aquifers.
Ely is afraid that if it doesn’t use all the water it has, the Southern Nevada Water Authority will swoop in and take it.
The water in the Steptoe Valley basin, which covers the area of White Pine County that includes Ely and the outlying area where the nuclear plant might be located, is spoken for, according to state records. Enough water flows into the basin most years to enable farmers, miners and municipalities to pull about 70,000 acre-feet of water from beneath the ground each year. Locals have permission from the state to pump more than 96,400 acre-feet of water a year. Most water rights holders don’t use all their water every year, and the biggest users are farms, where much of the water used trickles back down into the aquifer.
That wouldn’t happen with water used at a nuclear plant. A good portion of it is lost as steam.
Modern nuclear power plants use about 25 million gallons of water a day. Annually, that comes out to about 60,000 acre-feet of water. Mike McGough, senior vice president of UniStar Nuclear Energy, which made an informational presentation on nuclear development last month in Ely, notes that most plants have recapture technology that can drop that number to 25,000 acre-feet. But that’s still 36 percent of the basin’s water — and water that is not even available, according to state records.
Ely Mayor Jon Hickman, who is advocating for the nuclear plant, said enough water for it would be available if both coal plants were officially scuttled and the companies abandoned their quest for water rights.
He said Ely residents fear that if they don’t find another use for that water, the Southern Nevada Water Authority will get it, further limiting the town’s options for economic diversification.
The authority says that won’t happen, but Northern Nevadans don’t believe it.
Hickman and others in Ely do believe in nuclear, though.
“Ely really needs something that is going to be more permanent than what we have,” Hickman says. “Like any mining community we always live in fear of the mine closing. It would destroy our economy.”
A nuclear plant would boost the Ely economy by first providing 4,000 skilled construction jobs for the six years it would take to build the plant, McGough says. During that time, the town’s population — now just over 4,000 — would boom, supporting local businesses. And locals could use that time get the education they would need to land one of the approximately 360 permanent jobs that would each would pay from $85,000 to $90,000 a year.
The economic footprint of a nuclear plant would be huge — about $20 million in state and local taxes, McGough said.
“There are a lot of positive impacts,” he said. “The jobs at the site all spawn secondary and tertiary economic impacts.”
It would take a lot more than an ideal site to get a company like his to build a $9 billion power plant, however.
“Anybody who is going to develop a nuclear energy plant would be irresponsible and asking for an uphill battle if they were trying to go build something in a place where they’re not wanted,” he says. “Our feeling is that there are lots of places where these facilities are desired and if we’re going to develop this huge endeavor, we’re only going to do it if we’ve got local, state, political support.”
But could a nuclear power plant developer get that support in a state known for its opposition to nuclear waste?
Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force Executive Director Judy Treichel said her organization is opposed to both storage of the nuclear waste and of the plants that make it. She and the anti-nuclear waste organizations that her group represents would be sure to mount strong opposition.
Even in Ely, the town’s leaders and residents have a lot of questions, Hickman said. They’ve set up a community committee to explore the pros and cons of having a nuclear plant nearby and to gauge public opinion.
That was a major hurdle for the coal plants, which were fairly popular with most Ely residents, but strongly opposed by others throughout the West. Hickman said he expects opposition to a nuclear plant would be just as strong.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
November 14, 2009
Cobb: Yucca can bring benefits
By Anjeanette Damon
Nevada should actively negotiate with the federal government for benefits in exchange for storing the nation's nuclear waste, while researching ways to reprocess it, a former adviser to President Ronald Reagan told Reno-area business leaders Thursday.
But federal law would force Nevada to relinquish rights to oppose aspects of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository-- a project fraught with safety concerns-- if it negotiated for benefits, said Bruce Breslow, a former Sparks mayor and the state's lead opponent of the project.
The debate before members of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce was an initial step by the organization to decide whether to take a position on Yucca Mountain.
Ty Cobb, a former adviser to President Reagan, has been urging the chamber to adopt a position favoring Yucca Mountain as a way to both earn money from the federal government and boost the state's scientific research industry.
"Everybody in Washington, D.C., is saying, 'What the hell is wrong with you out in Nevada,'" Cobb said of the near universal opposition to the project among the state's political leaders.
But Breslow, executive director of the state's Nuclear Projects Agency that coordinates the legal fight against the Yucca Mountain project, said politicians and others on the federal level have given no indication they would extend significant benefits to Nevada.
Under current law, the state is entitled to $10 million a year before the project is built and $20 million a year after it's completed. In order to negotiate for more money, the state would have to give up its legal challenges to the project, he said.
"I went looking for the money," Breslow said, indicating that when he started his new job, he agreed with Cobb. "But there are no millions of dollars."
Cobb also touted a bill introduced by his son, Assemblyman Ty O. Cobb, R-Reno, that would have required the state to pursue the Yucca Mountain repository as an interim nuclear waste storage site and develop it into a scientific research park.
"How much support did you get on that bill," Cobb asked his son.
"Zero," Assemblyman Cobb answered. "It's gotten no traction among politicians, just from the people."
Both Cobbs mocked Democratic U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's campaign argument that his power as senate majority leader is critical to the state's ability to keep the waste out of the state.
When Breslow said he could broker a good deal for Nevada if federal law didn't require the state to give up its rights to protest aspects of the project in exchange for negotiating rights, Assemblyman Cobb laughed.
"Gee, if only we had the most powerful senator in the United States working for Nevada," Cobb said. "You talk about these things as if they're the 10 commandments. They can be changed overnight."
Breslow, a Republican appointed by Gov. Jim Gibbons, acknowledged Reid's clout is important to the Yucca Mountain fight.
He said the energy bill likely would be held up until after next year's election to "see what happens in Nevada."
"The whole Nevada congressional delegation is unanimous in their opposition to Yucca Mountain," Breslow said. "We've just had no clout until recently. We lose that clout (if Reid is defeated next year.)"
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Republican Eagle
November 14, 2009
Nuclear plant expansion clears hurdle
ST. PAUL — Xcel Energy got the OK Thursday to increase electrical generating capacity and store more nuclear waste at the Prairie Island nuclear plant.
By Jen Cullen
The Republican Eagle
ST. PAUL — Xcel Energy got the OK Thursday to increase electrical generating capacity and store more nuclear waste at the Prairie Island nuclear plant.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved storage of up to 35 more dry casks and 164 additional megawatts of output, a move Xcel officials say will keep the plant open and help the company avoid using other more expensive options to meet future power demands.
The plan cannot be implemented until legislators have the chance to review it next session.
"Xcel Energy believes extending the operation of our Prairie Island nuclear plant for 20 years is in the best interests of the Red Wing community and all of our customers," said Pam Gorman, Xcel Energy's community relations manager for the Red Wing area. "We are pleased the Minnesota commission recognized the opportunity to continue operation of this important source of safe, reliable, low-cost, carbon-free power."
Attorneys representing the Prairie Island Indian Community and a local citizens group maintain the plant is a safety concern for nearby residents and the environment.
The PUC's decision did require Xcel meet several conditions outlined last month by an administrative law judge, including better monitoring of the plant's thermal discharge and its effects on Lake Pepin.
Critics argued that was not enough. They say more extensive high-tech testing is needed.
"We believe this expansion is not in the public's best interest," said Paula Maccabee, an attorney representing the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant Study Group. "We're not welcoming nuclear waste in our backyards, but we're placing it in theirs."
Attorneys said the PUC should delay its decision until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reviews Xcel's federal application to renew the plant's operating license for up to 20 more years.
"We're getting ahead of ourselves here," said David Aafedt, an attorney representing the Prairie Island Indian Community.
Red Wing Mayor John Howe said officials were disappointed the PUC did not require Xcel to make payments specifically for the city's public safety operations.
Local officials want money for the city's fire and police departments because they would be the first outside agency on scene during an emergency. They also would be responsible for evacuating the city.
"(The city) is broke and it can't support the emergency response plan anymore," said attorney Thomas Harlan, representing the city.
Harlan told commissioners the city and Xcel have a good relationship and will continue discussing payment issues.
"We need a little therapy right now ... because the situation's not working," Harlan said.
Commissioners sympathized with the city's burden but said officials must lobby legislators for more financial support from Xcel. That effort is under way; the city has hired a consultant to lobby lawmakers this session on nuclear issues.
Howe also said Xcel needs to address the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel since the future of Yucca Mountain - the proposed national nuclear waste repository in Nevada - appears dim.
"The PUC's decision conveniently pretends that today's harsh realities of nuclear waste storage don't exist," Howe said in a written statement. "The closing of Yucca Mountain is a game-changer, and now nuclear waste will be stored locally in Red Wing for decades, if not generations to come."
Kristen Eide-Tollefson, a Florence Township resident and member of the PINGP study group, said the PUC cannot ignore the fact that nuclear plants are being relicensed without long-term waste storage plans.
Eide-Tollefson urged commissioners to consider what indefinite nuclear waste storage means for the community and consider other options.
"We are depending on you not to flinch on this one," Eide-Tollefson said.
Xcel officials say the utility will spend more than $600 million so plant equipment can handle higher pressure and temperatures associated with adding more megawatts to its output.
The increase in electrical generating capacity - known as an uprate - on Unit 1 was initially scheduled for 2012 but Xcel officials said Thursday that increased uncertainty surrounding the timing of regulatory reviews of the project have forced them to delay it until 2014.
Critics argued the delay gave commissioners the perfect opportunity to wait on their decision until the NRC can determine if the plant can safely operate another 20 years.
"We seem to be here pushing through a process that should be deliberative," Harlan said.
The uprate at Unit 2 will go on as planned in 2015.
Andy Brown, an attorney representing Xcel, said there has been a push for approval because the company needs to know now if it can depend on the nuclear plant as a future power source.
He said a last-minute decision by the PUC or Legislature "would require a great amount of work in a short amount of time."
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Reno Gazette-Journal
November 13, 2009
Yucca Mountain debated Thursday before chamber of commerce
By Anjeanette Damon
adamon@rgj.com
Nevada should actively negotiate with the federal government for benefits in exchange for storing the nation’s nuclear waste, while researching ways to reprocess it, a former adviser to President Reagan told business Reno-area business leaders Thursday.
But federal law would force Nevada to relinquish rights to oppose aspects of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository— a project fraught with safety concerns— if it negotiated for benefits, Bruce Breslow, a former Sparks mayor and the state’s lead opponent of the project, said.
The debate before members of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce was an initial step by the organization to decide whether to take a position on Yucca Mountain.
Ty Cobb, a former adviser to President Reagan, has been urging the chamber to adopt a position favoring Yucca Mountain as a way to both earn money from the federal government and boost the state’s scientific research industry.
“Everybody in Washington, D.C., is saying what the hell is wrong with you out in Nevada,” Cobb said of the near universal opposition to the project among the state’s political leaders.
But Breslow, executive director of the state’s Nuclear Projects Agency that coordinates the legal fight against the Yucca Mountain project, said politicians and others on the federal level have given no indication they would extend significant benefits to Nevada.
Under current law, the state is entitled to $10 million a year before the project is built and $20 million a year after it’s completed. In order to negotiate for more money, the state would have to give up its legal challenges to the project, he said.
“I went looking for the money,” Breslow said, indicating he started his new job agreeing with Cobb. “But there are no millions of dollars.”
Cobb also touted a bill introduced by his son, Assemblyman Ty O. Cobb, R-Reno, that would have required the state to pursue the Yucca Mountain repository as an interim nuclear waste storage site and develop it into a scientific research park.
“How much support did you get on that bill,” Cobb asked his son.
“Zero,” Assemblyman Cobb answered. “It’s gotten no traction among politicians, just from the people.”
Both Cobbs mocked U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s campaign argument that his power as senate majority leader is critical to the state’s ability to keep the waste out of the state.
When Breslow said he could broker a good deal for Nevada if federal law didn’t require to give up its rights to protest aspects of the project in exchange for negotiating rights, Assemblyman Cobb laughed.
“Gee, if only we had the most powerful senator in the United States working for Nevada,” Cobb said. “You talk about these things as if they’re the 10 commandments. They can be changed overnight.”
Breslow, a Republican appointed by Gov. Jim Gibbons, acknowledged Reid’s clout is important to the Yucca Mountain fight. He said the energy bill likely would be held up until after next year’s election to “see what happens in Nevada.”
“The whole Nevada congressional delegation is unanimous in their opposition to Yucca Mountain,” Breslow said. “We’ve just had no clout until recently. We lose that clout (if Reid is defeated next year.)”
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Augusta Chronicle
November 13, 2009
A mountain of a problem
CSRA must speak out strongly on government's negligence on nuclear waste
Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff
No one signed up for this.
While the federal government does its best to get into an area it doesn't belong -- your health care -- it is retreating from one of its most solemn and necessary national security obligations: storage of nuclear waste.
Now, after the investment of more than 20 years, some $13 billion -- and study after study, expert after expert -- the Obama administration has decided the federal government won't have a national nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
Scientists long ago studied several dozen possible sites for a nuclear waste repository and decided on Yucca Mountain -- largely because it is geologically the safest site.
It is also a national security issue, in that Yucca would have provided one secure location for storage of nuclear waste, instead of dozens of sites throughout the states.
But perhaps to assuage Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada -- who is facing a tough re-election battle next year -- the Obama administration has announced it is abandoning Yucca.
There are a great number of problems with that -- not the least of which is the fact that the country has no Plan B.
The feds are forming a new panel to study what's next. But the goal isn't likely to be finding a better site; we've been through that and through that, and there is no better site.
So, it appears the Obama administration's goal is not to have a national repository at all. That would mean nuclear waste will remain at sites neither best suited nor prepared for long-term storage.
Including, of course, the Cold War-era "bomb plant" just over the border from Augusta, the Savannah River Site.
This is a huge issue for our area. We've got to come to grips with the Obama administration's decision and how to react.
No one here ever signed up for SRS being a permanent repository for nuclear waste.
"The government's about-face on this critical issue leaves state and local leaders with more questions than answers," says David Jameson, vice chairman of the Savannah River Site Community Reuse Organization, a nonprofit that exists to enhance SRS-related economic opportunities in the region. "The federal government has broken faith with communities across the nation. It has violated its promise to provide permanent storage of nuclear waste. As a result, we must come to terms with our own lingering -- perhaps permanent -- role as caretaker for a large part of the nation's highly radioactive defense waste."
A statement by the group also says, "If left unaddressed, (the administration's decision) will negatively affect the region's image, create new long-term safety concerns, slow the deployment of nuclear power plants and impact the region's ability to retain and attract business and industry and create new jobs ..."
The SRSCRO has compiled a white paper on the subject -- at www.srscro.org -- and is making speakers available to public and private groups in the area in an effort to increase awareness and begin consensus-building on the region's response.
We need to speak with one voice on this issue.
And it needs to be heard.
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Sumter Item
November 13, 2009
Obama ignores issue of growing stockpile of nuclear waste
Not surprisingly, Barack Obama has joined a long list of gutless wonders in this country who steadfastly refuse to face the serious problem of what to do with our growing stockpile of deadly nuclear waste.
Obama's decision to drastically reduce the Yucca Mountain budget for next year has for all intents and purposes killed the site location in Nevada where the 70,000 metric tons of radioactive waste, give or take a pound or two, now in temporary storage around the country was supposed to be permanently disposed.
It's been since 1982 that this country has been studying and spending money on the Yucca site as the final waste disposal site: some $13 billion to date. First it was Ronald Reagan, then Bush No. 1, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and now Barack Obama, each afraid to face the question of what to do about the possible political backlash of anything to with nuclear power; anything except run the other way, that is.
Meanwhile the nation's energy policy continues to be controlled by foreign interests. Any new nuclear power plants now being considered will face a daunting licensing process likely to take a minimum of 15 years. Offshore drilling has been banned. So what else is new, right?
One of these days a politician/president with a backbone made of steel will put his foot down and do what is right. We can only hope.
David Peek
Sumter
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Mankato Free Press
November 13, 2009
Your View: Nuclear benefits overstated
Brady Skaff
St. Peter
Regarding the guest editorial “Time to reconsider nuclear power” published Monday, there are numerous aspects to nuclear power that the author fails to mention.
Most importantly, when the Pioneer of Bemidji states that nuclear power is a clean energy source, that “today’s technological advances can produce safe, efficient power plants,” they are seriously mistaken. While coal burning is mentioned as a possibility for a continued and extensive source of energy, the level of carbon produced makes it seem like not a viable option. However, it is discovered that nuclear energy is not a very green choice, either.
A typical-sized plant still produces over 250,000 tons of carbon each year. When looking at a power plant, you are talking about mining uranium, refining fuel, construction of the plant, and operating the plant 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But it is important to realize, nuclear power plants still emit slightly less carbon than clean coal.
The editorial also mentions the problem of storing nuclear waste. At a time when the federal government is finally closing down the nation’s largest nuclear waste site, Yucca Mountain, it is growing increasingly costly to store the waste that comes with providing energy via nuclear power.
Does the environmental and financial cost of storing these harmful byproducts outweigh the benefit of utilizing nuclear power?
Perhaps other alternative sources should be reconsidered as a base for our energy use. Wind energy requires comparable levels of carbon as power plants when producing the windmills, but the long-term levels of carbon emitted are non-existent. After all, long-term consequences are at stake in addressing climate change.
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Republican Eagle
November 13, 2009
PUC approves changes at nuclear plant
ST. PAUL — Xcel Energy got the OK Thursday to increase electrical generating capacity and store more nuclear waste at the Prairie Island nuclear plant.
By Jen Cullen
The Republican Eagle
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved the plan to add up to 35 more dry storage casks and increase output by 164 megawatts, a move Xcel officials say will keep the plant open and avoid other more expensive options to meet forecasted power demands.
“Prairie Island currently plays a critical role for Xcel’s ratepayers and the state of Minnesota,” said Andy Brown, an attorney representing Xcel.
The PUC did require Xcel to meet several conditions outlined last month by an administrative law judge, including better monitoring of the plant’s thermal discharge and its effects on Lake Pepin.
Attorneys representing the Prairie Island Indian Community and city of Red Wing argued that was not enough.
They said the PUC should delay its decision until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reviews Xcel’s federal application to renew the plant's operating license for up to 20 more years.
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves here,” said David Aafedt, an attorney representing the Prairie Island Indian Community.
Red Wing Mayor John Howe said the city was disappointed with the ruling. City officials want a fixed payment from Xcel to properly fund city police and fire operations.
Officials say Xcel should be more financially responsible for the city’s public safety departments because they would be the first outside agency on scene during an emergency. They would also be responsible for evacuating the city.
Howe also said long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel also needs to be addressed since the future of Yucca Mountain — the proposed national nuclear waste repository in Nevada — appears dim.
“The PUC’s decision conveniently pretends that today’s harsh realities of nuclear waste storage don’t exist,” Howe said. “The closing of Yucca Mountain is a game-changer, and now nuclear waste will be stored locally in Red Wing for decades, if not generations to come.”
Xcel officials say the utility will spend more than $600 million so plant equipment can handle higher pressure and temperatures associated with adding more megawatts to its output.
The PUC's decision will be stayed until next summer to allow for legislative review.
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Wall Street Journal blog
November 13, 2009
Reuse, Recycle: U.S. and Japan to Work on Nuclear Reprocessing
By Keith Johnson
Energy and climate change have already leapt to the forefront of President Obama’s Asian tour—even in countries he’s not visiting.
There was the call today by Mr. Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to cut their countries’ greenhouse-gas emissions some 80% by 2050. That’s a terribly ambitious target, and more modest climate measures already face plenty of pushback domestically in both countries, but neither man is likely to be worried about reelection by then—or much else.
And the U.S. and Japan also announced more cooperation on clean energy. There was the usual talk about “collaborative” research in new energy technology, and sharing the burden when it comes to making the smart grid and clean coal a reality.
But one bit in particular seems interesting: “Strengthened partnership on nuclear energy including on advanced fuel cycle technologies…”
That pretty much boils down to figuring out the best—and most affordable way—to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. That’s something Japan and some European countries do; the U.S. nixed such plans during the Carter administration, though it’s perennially on the Energy Department’s back burner.
The U.S. announced something similar with Italy earlier this year, but Japan is actually something of a powerhouse when it comes to reprocessing.
The appeal of nuclear fuel reprocessing is that it can reduce the amount of nuclear waste produced by nuclear power plants—no small issue at a time when the Obama administration has all but killed the Yucca Mountain waste storage facility in Nevada. Figuring out what to do with nuclear waste is one of the keys to the long-awaited nuclear revival, though for now financial hurdles loom largest.
The downside to reprocessing, aside from the high cost, is that it could increase the risk of nuclear proliferation. Depending on how fuel recycling is done, it can create plutonium, the raw material for bombs. That could be at odds with President Obama’s plans for a nuclear-free world.
In any event, the deals announced in Japan are just the first step in the president’s Asian tour. Still ahead: complicated talks with China. Finding common ground there—especially on emissions reductions—will be a lot tougher, but also a lot more important in the long run.
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Columbus Free Press
November 12, 2009
The reactor relapse takes 3 hits to the head
Harvey Wasserman
The much-hyped "Renaissance" of atomic power has taken three devastating hits with potentially fatal consequences.
The usually supine Nuclear Regulatory Commission has told Toshiba's Westinghouse Corporation that its "standardized" AP-1000 design might not withstand hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes.
Regulators in France, Finland and the UK have raised safety concerns about AREVA's flagship EPR reactor. The front group for France's national nuclear power industry, AREVA's vanguard project in Finland is at least three years behind schedule and at least $3 billion over budget.
And the Obama Administration indicates it will end efforts to license the proposed radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. After more than fifty years of trying, the nuclear industry has not a single prospective central dump site.
"If history repeats itself as farce, then the nuclear power industry represents the most incompetent jester of all time," says Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service. It "seems intent on repeating every possible mistake of its failed past—from promoting inadequate, ever-changing reactor designs to blowing through even the largest imaginable budgets. If the computer industry followed the practices of the nuclear industry, we’d still be waiting for the first digital device that could fit in a space smaller than a warehouse and cost less than a family’s annual income."
Nuclear sites throughout the world sit on or near earthquake faults. Ohio's Perry reactor was damaged by a tremor in 1986, just before it went on line. In 1991 Hurricane Andrew did $100 million in damage to Florida's Turkey Point, causing a critical loss of off-site communication. In 2007 a massive earthquake shook Japan's Kashiwazaki, shutting seven reactors ( http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2007/1573).
And radioactive waste continues to build up at sites throughout the world, including some 50,000 metric tons here in the US.
The vote of no confidence from regulators in three European countries has stunned AREVA, not to mention its potential customers, including the United Arab Emirates. "It hasn't helped at all," says one key source. (http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/ articles/djf500/200911110905DOWJONESDJONLINE000473_FORTUNE5.html ) "One of the key arguments has been that the EPR is safer than all the others."
That AREVA would sell reactors to the UAE at all has raised widespread fears that atomic Bombs will soon proliferate throughout the Middle East. Both India and Pakistan got radioactive weapons materials from their commercial reactors.
AREVA's design safety fiasco follows a Pink Panther-style stumble in October, when federal and state officials bailed on a massive media celebration planned for the Cadarache nuclear facility's 50th anniversary. As much as 39 pounds of plutonium dust is now believed to contaminate the historic research center, enough to make numerous Nagasaki-sized Bombs. According to the Financial Times ( http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fbb38bd0-bab3-11de-9dd7-00144feab49a.html) "the discovery that France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) had wildly under-estimated the quantity of plutonium dust that would accumulate - and then delayed notifying the Nuclear Safety Authority - has led the latter to hand its findings to the public prosecutor, who will decide if there should be an investigation into the CEA's management ... This is a severe blow to the credibility of the CEA, flagship of French nuclear research, and to Cadarache, soon to be the site of the world's first fusion reactor."
The uproar, writes Peggy Hollinger, has "cast a shadow over the Nuclear Safety Authority's behaviour since it became independent of the government."
Finnish regulators have also gone to virtual war with AREVA over the catastrophic Olkiluoto project. In a conversation with me in southern Ohio this summer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v43ahQHvObI) CEO Anne Lauvergeon blamed AREVA's problems on the Finns. But similar complaints are now coming from French regulators over AREVA's parallel project at Flamanville, in northern France.
AREVA has also run afoul of British regulators, who say its massive incursions into the UK's nuclear industry have raised serious safety concerns.
Meanwhile the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's critique of the Westinghouse AP-1000 reactor has shattered the industry's expensive image of a "renaissance" that is "ready to go." As the machine of apparent choice at vanguard sites throughout the US, the industry has touted the AP-1000 as a standardized "cookie-cutter" design that might make reactor construction and operations easier to manage. Regulators in Florida and Georgia have already imposed massive consumer rate hikes to pay for proposed AP-1000 reactors. An army of high-priced lobbyists is pushing hard for huge subsidies and loan guarantees to go into the Climate Bill.
Wall Street has made it clear it will not finance (or insure) new reactor construction unless backed by the federal treasury. Congressional critics warn half the reactor construction loans are likely to go into default. "This only underscores Moody’s assessment that new reactors are 'bet the farm' investments," says Michele Boyd of Physicians for Social Responsibility. "So why is the federal government going to back these projects with US taxpayer dollars?"
Now these critiques from the American NRC and regulators in Britain, France and Finland confirm that no safe standardized design exists, either here or in France, and that the industry could be years away from finalizing one that can be successfully deployed.
The same applies to radioactive waste. The Obama Administration now seems poised to finalize its promise that "all license defense activities will be terminated" on the proposed Yucca Mountain dump ( http://www.lvrj.com/news/memo-casts-doubt-on-license-for-yucca-repository-69639342.html ). Distinguished by its $10 billion price tag and the visible earthquake fault running through it (not to mention the dormant volcanoes that surround it and the water perched at its peak), Yucca is bitterly opposed by some 80% of Nevada's citizenry. After a hugely subsidized half-century of futility, the US reactor industry has not a single named prospect for a centralized commercial waste dump. The "solution," as put forth by Stewart Brand and other industry advocates (http://kpfa.org/archive/id/55967; about 32 minutes in) seems to be focussed on leaving high level radioactive waste at the sites and letting future generations deal with it. In the years since the Shippingport (PA) reactor opened in 1957, the industry's go-to device is a concrete "dry cask" with vent holes and armed guards.
Meanwhile, despite repeated industry denials, the bad news about the health impacts of reactor radiation pours in. "Downwind or near eight reactors that closed in the 1980s and 1990s," says New York-based expert Joe Mangano, "there were immediate and sharp declines in infant deaths, birth defects, and child cancer incidence age 0-4" when the reactors shut. "The highest thyroid cancer rates in the U.S. are in a 90 mile radius of eastern PA/New Jersey/southern NY, an area with 16 reactors at 7 plants, which is the greatest density in the U.S."
The near-simultaneous demise of Yucca Mountain with the regulatory credibility of the AP-1000 and AREVA EPR, along with the attacks by Moody's and other financial critics, might come as a death blow to any such technology in a sane society. But the financial reach of the atomic lobby remains powerful in Congress and the White House.
At this point, the only certainty about the future of reactor construction is that still more shoes will drop on an industry whose decomposed credibility has become legend.
--Harvey Wasserman is author of SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH (www.harveywasserman.com) and Senior Editor of www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared.
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Facing South blog
November 12, 2009
Will South Carolina become the nation's new Yucca Mountain?
By Sue Sturgis
Earlier this year President Obama canceled the federal government's plans to store high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants and weapons facilities at the controversial Yucca Mountain site in Nevada -- but now there are concerns that South Carolina could become a permanent dumping ground for the dangerous waste.
That state is home to the Savannah River Site, a nuclear materials processing center along the Savannah River 25 miles southeast of Augusta, Ga. Built during the 1950s to refine nuclear material for weapons, the site no longer has any operating nuclear reactors and is engaged in cleanup activities.
Given the demise of Yucca Mountain, business leaders in South Carolina and Georgia are expressing worries that high-level waste at the Savannah River Site may now be left there permanently. Scientists have warned about potential environmental contamination from long-term storage of such highly radioactive waste in the Savannah River watershed.
This week the SRS Community Reuse Organization -- a nonprofit group working to diversify the region's economy and a supporter of the Yucca Mountain site -- released a report [pdf] calling for a special blue-ribbon panel to study options for disposing of the waste.
As the preface states:
The government's about face on this critical issue leaves state and local leaders with more questions than answers. Those responsible for public safety, job creation, image enhancement and citizen confidence must now lead in a new reality. They must come to terms with their community's lingering -- perhaps permanent -- role as caretaker for the Nation's highly radioactive waste.
As a region, we are now left wondering what's next? How we will come together in unity to address a path forward in the wake of this broken promise -- one that has implications of the longest possible term and a potential chilling effect on the region's future growth and prosperity?
The group's report says that if and when a panel is assembled to plot a new strategy for high-level nuclear waste storage, the Savannah River Site region's leaders should get a "seat at the table."
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Minnesota Public Radio
November 12, 2009
PUC approves Prairie Island power increase
by Stephanie Hemphill
Minnesota Public Radio
St. Paul, Minn. — The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has approved a plan for Xcel Energy to increase the power it produces at its Prairie Island nuclear plant, and to store more radioactive waste on site.
The PUC approval came Thursday afternoon with a couple of conditions. The PUC wants Xcel to study impacts of the plant on ice formation on Lake Pepin, and to help the city of Red Wing with emergency response expenses.
The mayor of Red Wing, John Howe, is critical of the PUC's decision. He said he's not opposed to nuclear power, but there's no plan for dealing with the waste.
"What we're doing here today is putting the burden on our children's grandchildren. We're just not facing the reality of what's happening," said Howe.
Nuclear power plants all over the country are boosting their power, a step called an uprate. They change their equipment to produce more heat and steam, to produce more electricity.
Xcel Energy has said it will spend $600 million to refurbish the Prairie Island plant so the equipment can handle the higher temperatures and pressures that will come with adding 164 megawatts to its output.
Currently, Prairie Island puts out more than 1,000 megawatts, enough to power about one-fifth of Xcel's customers. This project will add 15 percent to that capacity.
Xcel's director of regulatory administration, Jim Alders, said the investment is cheap, compared to producing the power any other way.
"We have a unique situation, a great opportunity here to keep our overall cost of energy low and our environmental performance high," Alders said.
State law requires utilities to prove their plans are the most cost-effective way to generate power. Alders said Xcel studied wind energy combined with natural gas, hydro power from Canada, and small-scale renewable technologies. All were found to be more expensive than boosting power at Prairie Island.
But critics say Xcel is not paying enough attention to the cost of dealing with nuclear waste.
"We think it's in the public interest to move to more renewable energy, perhaps right now backed up with natural gas, rather than continuing to rely on, and expand our reliance on nuclear power, which has unsolvable waste problems," said Attorney Paula Maccabee, who represents the Prairie Island Study Group.
The federal government promised to build a permanent repository for nuclear waste, but that hasn't happened. President Obama said a planned repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada will not work, so nuclear plants around the country are storing their waste on site.
At Prairie Island, that means eventually there would be 98 casks on a concrete pad next to the plant, on an island in the Mississippi River -- the source of drinking water for many communities downstream.
The plant's nearest neighbors live about four blocks away, and many members of the Prairie Island Indian Community say they're nervous about possible health effects.
Monitors around the spent-fuel casks and the plant itself show very small amounts of radioactive contamination in the air, and in wells nearby. State and federal officials say the radioactivity is barely higher than the levels that normally are found in any water, soil or air.
But tribal attorney Philip Mahowald does not trust the current monitoring. He said it's inadequate, and he said with all the money Xcel plans to spend on the expansion, they should invest in a better system.
"When we asked how much of their uprate budget was going to be spent on enhancing and improving environmental monitoring, they said nothing," Mahowald said. "That just seems wrong."
The added power is expected to increase radioactive discharges to the air and to the Mississippi River by about 10 percent. That's still far below established standards for human exposure, according to state and federal rules. But scientists say even the smallest dose of radiation has the potential to cause a small increase in risk.
Xcel also needs to renew its operating license with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Its current license expires in 2014.
Xcel's Jim Alders said that renewal process will not include a detailed health risk assessment, because the federal agency looked at health risks in an environmental review that it did for all nuclear plants wanting to renew their licenses.
In addition to the operating license renewal, there is a process for the NRC to approve the power boost.
Some nuclear plants around the country have experienced problems when they increased power. In some plants, vibrations led to cracked pipes and severe corrosion. But Xcel said it is learning from the problems and can avoid them.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has already approved increasing power at Xcel's other nuclear plant, at Monticello. The company expects approval from the federal government.
Even though the PUC has approved Xcel's plans for the Prairie Island plant, the approval will be put on hold until the end of the coming legislative session. In Minnesota, the final say on nuclear storage at Prairie Island rests with legislators.
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KVBC
November 11, 2009
Leaked memo seems to suggest Yucca Mountain dead
Jerry Brown reporting
A leaked Energy Department memo suggests that the Yucca Mountain Project might soon be history. That news should have local opponents of the proposed nuclear waste repository celebrating.
However, as the state nuclear commission met Tuesday, some members did not radiate optimism.
It was supposed to be routine. Nevada's Commission on Nuclear Projects met Tuesday as scheduled. Though not on the agenda, many on the commission and in attendance focused on one subject: the Department of Energy budget document memo.
"The memo seems to suggest that Yucca Mountain is dead," Commission on Nuclear Projects chairman Richard Bryan tells News 3. "It's not over, as they say, until the fat lady sings, so I'm always cautious to pronounce it in fact dead, but this is certainly encouraging."
Former Nevada governor and United States Senator Richard Bryan chaired the meeting. He warned fellow Yucca Mountain opponents against complacency.
"There is considerable support in the Congress for Yucca Mountain; nobody wants it in their backyard."
All license defense activities will be terminated in December 2009 - Department of Energy Chief Financial Officer Steve Isakowitz
The memo, which was revealed in two energy industry trade papers on Monday, appears to indicate that the D.O.E. will withdraw its license application before year's end. Bruce Breslow, the executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, remains skeptical that Yucca Mountain is going away that soon.
"It's been dead so many times without being dead that it's hard, you know, it's hard to believe anything you read. It's a memo, it's from a draft," said Breslow.
Breslow told those in attendance that the memo made no sense. "While I want them to withdraw the application, it wouldn't surprise me if it was a typo."
A typo substituting "2009' for "2010" would explain a basic incongruity in the memo, Breslow says.
"Withdrawing the licence application - it would make sense for December of next year. I don't quite understand why they would pull it a week after the president funded going ahead with the licensing for another year."
The latest proposed budget for the Yucca Mountain project reflects cuts of over 75 percent with the remaining funds being used for archiving, site remediation and transitioning site workers to other employment.
"My strategy - I've been in this fight for 25 years now - is if we can starve the beast, that is if you reduce the funding, reduce the funding each year, ultimately the project simply can't go forward," said Bryan.
But bureaucracy moves slowly says Bryan, which is why Nevada's Commission on Nuclear Projects will continue to meet and plan strategy.
"We can't just simply say let's go home, it's all over and declare victory because technically it's out there," Bryan continues. "Theoretically, it could go forward, and that's why we want to be vigorous and vigilant."
The Yucca Mountain project won't be officially dead until the Energy Department withdraws its license application and declares the area - located about 90 miles from Las Vegas- unsuitable.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 11, 2009
Yucca critic wants clarity
Nevada official wonders whether memo has typo
By Keith Rogers
Las Vegas Review-Journal
A Department of Energy memo that calls for ending next month the pursuit of a license for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository has the state's leading project opponent wondering whether federal budget officers mistakenly wrote "December 2009" instead of December 2010.
"Somewhere in the memo, it did say they plan to stop licensing in December '09, which doesn't make much sense to me, considering the president just signed the legislation ... funding it until Sept. 30," said Yucca Mountain opponent Bruce Breslow, executive director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects.
"The best guess I have is it's a typo that should have said 2010," he told Nevada's Nuclear Projects Commission on Tuesday.
But typo or not, the memo remains a clear indication that the Department of Energy intends to abandon its decades-long push to obtain approval from nuclear regulators to store the nation's highly radioactive waste in the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The Oct. 23 draft memo from DOE's chief financial officer to nuclear waste program budget officers contains an attachment that slashes next fiscal year's Yucca Mountain funding down to $46.2 million from this year's level of $196.8 million. In addition, it states, "All license defense activities will be terminated in December 2009."
When asked if the December 2009 reference was a mistake, DOE spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller said in an e-mail that she's "not going to comment on the memo but the department will meet all legal obligations and deadlines."
One of those deadlines is Dec. 7 when lawyers for the DOE and Nevada must submit briefs to a licensing panel on legal questions about safe disposal, which are among 221 challenges raised by the state.
Nevada's top legal consultant, Marty Malsch, said he's eager to find out whether DOE lawyers will meet next month's deadline or default.
"If DOE doesn't file a brief on Dec. 7, it would likely kill the project," Malsch said.
Malsch cautioned, however, that it remains to be seen if DOE's termination of its effort to defend the license application will lead it to actually withdraw the application and declare the site unsuitable.
Breslow said the state needs to continue advancing its opposition.
"Unless they change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, it still has the effect of the law as Yucca Mountain is the only site that is pointed out to go forward. So what we do is duck our heads and keep working."
Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.
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Las Vegas SUN
November 11, 2009
Sun Editorial:
Life after Yucca Mountain
Report: Energy Department on verge of abandoning nuke dump application
We have cheered the Obama administration’s decision to eventually shutter the ill-conceived Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project by starving it of federal funding. Nonetheless, our optimism has been tempered because the Energy Department still has a pending license application before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a permanent dump for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
What we eagerly await is the day when the Energy Department abandons the application so that the idea of forcing a potentially deadly nuke waste dump, on a state that does not want it, is buried for good.
That day could come as early as next month, according to The Energy Daily, which frequently writes on nuclear power issues. The publication, citing internal Energy Department documents, reported Monday on its Web site that the agency plans to abandon the license request in December as part of its fiscal 2011 budget. The story also noted that the only money the agency is seeking for Yucca Mountain that year is for the purpose of closing the project.
If that is the case, we can hardly wait.
There are still plenty of pro-Yucca Mountain advocates, including some turncoat Nevadans, who cling to the idiotic belief that it is perfectly safe to transport nuclear waste on accident-prone trains through the nation’s densely populated cities — including Las Vegas — to a dump site that is surrounded by earthquake faults. Did we mention the potential for terrorist attacks along the way?
The reality is that major nuclear energy players are recognizing that they should be looking for alternative ways to dispose of nuclear waste. Writing in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Westinghouse Electric President and CEO Aris Candris said that “because of political considerations, storage at Yucca Mountain will likely never happen.”
We’re at this point because of hard work and strong advocacy by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has played the key role in convincing the Obama administration that discarding the Yucca Mountain project is the right thing to do.
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Pahrump Valley Times
November 11, 2009
Wiley swings against Reid
By Mark Waite
PVT
Mike Wiley, a Republican candidate running against U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in the 2010 election, got his start in politics as a radio talk show host, just like Rush Limbaugh.
A few days before New Year's of 1994 a friend came over to the Jacksonville, Fla., radio station where he worked, alarmed at provisions in a Florida bill restricting gun rights.
Wiley announced on the air he was going to the state capital in Tallahassee to protest and invited people to join him -- he was pleasantly surprised to see 7,500 people at the rally.
Wiley carried a picture of the rally along with a flier announcing his candidacy when he stopped by Pahrump the other day.
After the Florida rally, some Republican gun rights advocates asked him to run for the U.S. Senate, but Wiley said that would mean competing against incumbent Connie Mack. So he changed parties and ran as a conservative Democrat. He related his experience in that race to the current election campaign.
A poll released by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research last month among Republicans showed 23 percent favoring Sue Lowden, 21 percent Danny Tarkanian, 9 percent Sharron Angle, 44 percent undecided and the rest of the candidates drawing less than 1 percent. Wiley called Lowden and Tarkanian the "establishment Republicans." The field also includes State Sen. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, Robin Titus and John Chachas.
Wiley scoffed at the poll. He recalled the 1998 Democratic U.S. Senate primary in Florida where he began with only 1 percent of the vote in the polls and ended up with 25 percent, finishing second to the brother of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hugh Rodham, who remained at 32 percent throughout the campaign.
"I'm the only candidate that's actually ever run a U.S. Senate race before. I'm also the only candidate who's been a presidential campaign spokesman," Wiley said. He was the spokesman for Pat Buchanan's campaign in New England in 1996.
"The concern with people today, they're watching a group of people in Washington that they hired with their vote to represent them, and those people have become such arrogant individuals that they're not listening to the people. They really don't care what the people say, and it scares the people because they're waking up to a government that is no longer theirs and governments that are no longer those of the people.
"Socialist governments have historically taken away people's guns and have historically killed millions of people," Wiley said. "There are devout communists in [Obama's] government, people who are Marxists and socialists and are not afraid to say so."
A Boston native, Wiley moved from Florida to Las Vegas in 2006, where he worked for the Adelson Educational Institute. He now runs his own consulting firm, the Wiley Information Network.
While Reid wants to bury the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository project, Wiley is an enthusiasic supporter of nuclear power. That's part of his plan to restore the state economy.
He suggested Nevada become a leader in nuclear power by encouraging such power plants in the state, selling excess power to neighboring states, and opening up Yucca Mountain.
He also advocated not only a magnetic levitation or Maglev train from Las Vegas to Anaheim, Calif., but extending it north to Salt Lake City.
"You produce all the train materials here. You build the trains here. You build the track here," Wiley said. "Now you're putting people to work. At the same time, you begin the process of the studies to build nuclear power, and you turn and open back up Yucca Mountain and put people to work there."
"There's been like 6,000 transfers of nuclear waste. There never has been one accident. So evidently it's safe."
Wiley said Tarkanian doesn't even listen to talk radio, which shapes the opinions of the conservative wing of the party.
Since he announced his candidacy, Wiley has made a few visits to Pahrump, to address the quarterly Nye County Republican Party convention Oct. 3, then back again for the Republican Women's Fashion Show a few weeks later. Wiley said Nye County will be important to his campaign.
"As you get out of Clark County, there are what I refer to as God-and-country Democrats and Republicans. You know they're basically the same people. They just grew up in one party or the other, but they want people to tell them the truth, they want to keep their gun rights, they want government out of their wallets and out of their lives," Wiley said.
But he said there's a battle for the soul of the Republican Party, as evidenced by the result of the recent congressional election in upstate New York in which a moderate Republican endorsed by party officials, Dierdre Scozzafava, withdrew from the race under pressure from the party's right wing and threw her support to Democrat Bill Owens.
Owens ended up defeating Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman 49 percent to 46 percent in a traditional Republican district.
Wiley said Republicans lost the seat because Scozzafava still received 5 percent of the vote, the margin of victory.
"A conservative candidate who doesn't have any skeletons in the closet is going to be able to defeat Harry Reid," Wiley said.
Wiley said the economy struggled after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but former President George W. Bush fought the enemy and brought confidence back to the American people, resulting in 4.6 percent unemployment. But he said Democrats encouraged banks to loan money to people who couldn't afford it, leading to the burst of the housing bubble.
Wiley got visibly upset when talking about the war in Afghanistan. He'd like to withdraw the troops.
"If I'm sending U.S. troops to defend your nation and to free your people, you'd better damn well make sure that if my American companies are the best bidders to develop the copper in Afghanistan, we get the contract and not the Chinese," Wiley said. "Let the Chinese military fight al-Qaeda if you're going to give them the copper mine jobs."
Wiley said he'd ask Iraqi officials to get their act together and do something about their next door neighbor Iran.
"There's another element in Iran that wants freedom, and we should be supporting those people. But Obama doesn't support freedom. he supports socialist dictatorships. He's proven it in Venezuela, he's proven it in Honduras," Wiley said.
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WJBF-TV
November 11, 2009
Group Concerned High-Lever Radioactive Waste May Be Stuck At SRS
By Joy Howe
WJBF News Channel 6 Aiken County Reporter
Aiken County, SC—Nuclear materials are not new at SRS, but the idea that high-level waste could be housed there, permanently, is now getting the attention of a group of local activists.
This group is concerned, because the place this waste, was to be shipped, might be shutting down? The government is looking to halt construction at Yucca Mountain, in the Nevada desert.
Yucca Mountain was the place that was supposed to be where the nation’s high-level nuclear waste was to be stored…permanently.
Members from the group known as the SRS Community Reuse Organization, or SRS-CRO, say there is no “plan b” for the waste, which means, at this point, it stays right here at the Savannah River Site.
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) studied sites across the nation, when they searched for a place to permanently put away this radioactive waste. Yucca Mountain is about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas…but recently, an outcry from some in Congress put a stop to construction…and that currently leaves nowhere for the waste to go.
Rick McLeod, executive director, SRS-CRO: “We don’t want to be known as the dumping ground of the Southeast. That could impact our economic development from bringing in industry, don’t want to be associated with the community, in that same sense…“
SRS-CRO will hold a community meeting this Monday, in Augusta, where they will talk more, in detail, about the Yucca Mountain decision, and the impact they say, it could have on the community.
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KXNT
November 10, 2009
Report: DOE to Abandon Yucca License
A document obtained by a Washington, D.C. energy trade publication says the Department of Energy plans to cease its pursuit of a license for the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository. The item appears today at the website of "The Energy Daily." According to the internal DOE budget request, "all license defense activities will be terminated in December 2009." The agency had submitted an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license operate the repository.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 10, 2009
Nov. 10, 2009
Yucca Mountain: Memo casts doubt on license for Yucca repository
Budget documents suggest Obama administration might be ending effort
By Keith Rogers
Las Vegas Review-Journal
The Obama administration intends to stop the pursuit of a license for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in December, according to internal budget documents from the Department of Energy.
"All license defense activities will be terminated in December 2009," said a draft Program Decision Memorandum that was attached to an Oct. 23 memo from DOE Chief Financial Officer Steve Isakowitz.
The documents obtained by the Review-Journal said that decisions for a revised 2011 budget request "are draft until signed by the deputy secretary. ... We do not expect the information to change."
Pre-hearings began this year in Las Vegas on whether to build a maze of tunnels inside Yucca Mountain to store 77,000 tons of highly radioactive spent reactor fuel and defense waste. The location is about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
On Monday, DOE spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller declined to say whether the memos actually mean the federal agency is going to withdraw its Yucca Mountain license application.
Doing so without having an alternative site selected or having a commission in place to chart the future of the nuclear waste program could spur more lawsuits from the nuclear industry over the government's failure to take possession of the waste as called for in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and its amendments.
In an e-mail, Mueller said that "the administration's position on Yucca Mountain has not changed."
She wrote that "the president and Secretary (Steven) Chu have made it clear that nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain is not an option, period."
She said the budget for the current fiscal year contained in an energy appropriations bill that President Barack Obama signed last month "clearly reflects the president's commitment to moving beyond Yucca Mountain and developing a long-term waste management solution."
Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobby arm of the nuclear power industry, said he could not speculate on the legal implications alluded to in two trade publications, The Energy Daily and the Nuclear New Build Monitor. Both publications reported Monday on the memos.
"It's not even a done deal. It's a possible budget move. We really don't have a position on this at this point," Singer said Monday.
Bruce Breslow, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects and the state's lead Yucca Mountain opponent, said he would be surprised if DOE withdrew the license application without having an alternative site in place because doing so "would open up the door for further lawsuits."
"If they shut it down now, then they're in violation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act without the act being changed," Breslow said.
"We're hoping they'll withdraw the license application and declare the site unsuitable," he said.
A spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was enlightened by Monday's news in The Energy Daily.
"It's our understanding that this is still working its way through the process at the Energy Department, but it is encouraging to hear," Reid's spokesman Jon Summers wrote in an e-mail.
"The Obama administration has been very clear in its opposition to the dump at Yucca and, as majority leader of the Senate, Senator Reid will continue working with the president to ensure Nevada doesn't become the nation's nuclear dumping ground."
Funding for the proposed 2010-11 budget for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management shows $46.2 million for the Yucca Mountain Project, according to the draft decision memo. Of that, $21.2 million is for site remediation and worker transition. The remaining $25 million is for archiving data produced during more than two decades of research on the project.
If requested, the total would be less than one-fourth of the $196.8 million that was approved for the project for 2009-10. The current funding level is more than $100 million less than the 2008-09 fiscal year allocation and is the lowest funding for the program since $243.5 million was appropriated for it in 1991.
--Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.
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Las Vegas SUN
November 10, 2009
Feds to slash Yucca funds as project maintains life
By Lisa Mascaro
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department is proposing to severely reduce Yucca Mountain's budget next year, an expected move as President Barack Obama pledged to zero out funds for the proposed nuclear waste dump in fiscal 2011.
Yet it remains unclear if the administration will take the next step of withdrawing the license application, which would be the most serious action taken under the Obama administration to kill the project.
The Energy Department is seeking $46.2 million to close out the project next year, one-tenth of what has been requested for the project in recent years, the trade publication The Energy Daily reported today. The proposal would be part of the White House budget presented to Congress early next year.
Without adequate funding, the project cannot continue its license review before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The publication said the Energy Department plans to abandon the license application next month.
However, sources could not confirm today if Energy Secretary Steven Chu intends to actually withdraw the application next month or is simply proposing the reduced funds.
Nevada opponents of the dump want the license withdrawn and the site declared unsuitable – legal terms that would prevent another administration from re-starting the effort.
Obama pledged to withdraw the license application as part of his plans to kill the nuclear waste project as he campaigned in Nevada. But he has so far allowed the process to limp along on a severely reduced budget.
Foes of the dump warn that until the license is withdrawn the project could remain dormant, but alive.
Bruce Breslow, executive director of Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects, which is fighting the dump, said a withdrawal of the application is “what we have been urging.”
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San Jose Mercury News
November 10, 2009
State panel to get nuclear waste repository update
The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS—Three new Nuclear Projects Commission members are due to hear Nevada's top anti-Yucca Mountain official outline efforts to stop a national nuclear waste dump from being built in Nevada.
Nevada nuclear projects chief Bruce Breslow and commission Chairman Richard Bryan are set Tuesday to welcome Lia Roberts, Brian Scroggins and Lois Tarkanian to the commission at Las Vegas City Hall.
The three were named to the seven-member panel last month by Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons.
Breslow and the panel lead state efforts to stop the Energy Department from burying the nation's spent nuclear reactor fuel 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Officials say Nevada has to keep fighting until the government pulls its licensing application or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission denies it.
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University of Tulsa Collegian
November 10, 2009
Nuclear waste blocks growth opportunities
Philip Reiser
Staff Writer
With the growing concerns about the climate problem, the need for renewable energy sources becomes more and more pressing.
There is much talk of wind and solar power as the most innovative and important new energy sources. However, though these may truly be important parts of a new energy infrastructure, one initiative that has can no longer be disregarded is nuclear energy.
The U.S. gets about half its power from highly contaminated coal-fueled plants, compared to just less than 20 percent from nuclear power.
There is a visible need to reduce this share of coal energy, and the nuclear option could prove to be a viable one.
Though nuclear energy is an attractive alternative to coal, the U.S. has not built a new nuclear facility in 30 years. A contested debate about nuclear waste has grown from this uncertainty.
Currently, most nuclear waste is disposed of at nuclear facilities at the bottom of large pools or buried in dry casks outside.
These options may work for the next few decades, but nuclear waste remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years and will surely outlast the buildings the weapons are currently stored in.
The last thing politicians want responsibility for is a nuclear disaster like the lessons of Chernobyl in 1986. A nuclear reactor exploded and caused massive radiation poisoning and thousands died. These lessons are still cause for extreme caution.
After Chernobyl, the government designated Yucca Mountain, Nev. to become the site where all nuclear waste was to be stored deep inside the mountain rock.
This site was deemed to be fit to contain radiation completely. In 2002, construction finally began. Nevada residents were never fond of this plan and objected the idea of having all of the country’s nuclear waste stored in their state.
In 2006, with the election of Harry Reid as senator, the future of the site came into question and construction was stopped.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is still reviewing the permit to store waste at the site, but the Obama administration has recently announced that Yucca Mountain is no longer seen as an option.
More than twenty years of planning and millions of dollars of taxpayer money seem to have been flushed down the drain.
Before any new nuclear plants are built, a long-term solution to the nuclear waste problem has to be found.
The Energy Department is aware of the urgency of this issue and is currently assembling a panel to decide on how to proceed.
This means the ten websites that were previously considered alongside Yucca Mountain are no longer an option. This list includes sites in Maine, Washington, New Mexico and North Carolina.
For an issue that could be a potential danger to national security and human health, this should have long been resolved.
Let us just hope it does not take politicians another 25 years to come up with a solution.
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Augusta Chronicle
November 10, 2009
Different disposal plan may be needed
By Rob Pavey
If the nation's primary option for permanent disposal of nuclear waste doesn't materialize, communities across South Carolina and Georgia must mobilize to determine a path for its nuclear waste, according to an economic development group hoping to stir more interest in the topic.
Savannah River Site's Community Reuse Organization, in a paper unveiled Monday, calls for more dialogue and interest in a topic its vice chairman, David Jameson, believes will have lingering implications for the Aiken-Augusta community.
"The government's about-face on this critical issue leaves state and local leaders with more questions than answers," he said in a statement Monday. "The Federal government has broken faith with communities across the nation. It has violated its promise to provide permanent storage of nuclear waste. As a result, we must come to terms with our own lingering -- perhaps permanent -- role as caretaker for a large part of the nation's highly radioactive defense waste."
Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was being designed to accommodate radioactive material stored at 121 temporary sites in 39 states, including SRS, where high-level wastes are encased in glass and stored in steel cylinders that were to eventually be shipped elsewhere.
It was also destined to hold 63,000 metric tons of used commercial nuclear fuels currently scattered among 41 states, including Georgia and South Carolina.
In March, however, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu recommended that new strategies be developed for nuclear waste, and that a 27-year, $13.5 billion effort to establish the Yucca Mountain project should be abandoned.
The report warns the elimination of Yucca Mountain will mean wastes stored at SRS will remain there much longer than they were intended to and might stay in South Carolina permanently.
One alternative for dealing with spent nuclear fuel is reprocessing, according to the group's paper. Reprocessing extracts materials from spent fuel that can be used again as reactor fuel.
Although this would extend the life of the nation's nuclear fuel resources and help energy independence, commercial reprocessing is currently not practiced in the United States.
The concept of reprocessing could even be tested at Savannah River Site.
"If processing of spent nuclear fuel is authorized today, commercial-scale plants will probably use the 'PUREX' process, a proven process which results in liquid wastes and separates plutonium in its pure form," the paper said. "Improved processing methods can reduce the amount of wastes generated and provide improved security or plutonium contained in spent nuclear fuel. These are worthwhile objectives and are the type of program ideally suited for research and engineering development at SRS."
It would also be prudent to push for the re-establishment of the Yucca Mountain project, the paper suggested.
"We believe it is in the community's best interest to (1) aggressively pursue opening of Yucca Mountain and (2) establish processing as an acceptable spent nuclear fuel management option."
The group is also calling for local representation on a special Blue Ribbon Panel being established by the Department of Energy to review options for long-term nuclear waste storage.
The 27-page paper is available for review on the SRSCRO Web site, www.srscro.org.
STORAGE DEBATE
BACKGROUND:
In June 2008, the U.S. Energy Department delivered a formal application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the nation's first national repository for high-level radioactive waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The 8,600-page application represents a $13.5 billion taxpayer investment spanning two decades. If it is built, radioactive material stored at 121 temporary sites in 39 states -- including Savannah River Site -- would have a permanent resting place.
DEVELOPMENTS:
- On March 1, President Obama's new energy secretary, Steven Chu, announced intentions to scrap Yucca Mountain in favor of convening a panel of experts to explore other options.
- On Monday, the SRS Community Reuse Organization released a paper calling for more conversation about what might happen next.
THE POSSIBILITIES:
- If the Yucca Mountain project is not pursued, the waste would likely remain in South Carolina indefinitely or until alternatives are explored.
- Abolishing Yucca Mountain also leaves in limbo the fate of 63,000 metric tons of used commercial nuclear fuel stored in 41 states, including Georgia.
- One potential alternative to permanent storage is reprocessing, which extracts reusable materials from spent fuels.
--Reach Rob Pavey at (706) 868-1222, ext. 119 or rob.pavey@augustachronicle.com.
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GPB blog
November 10, 2009
Group Frets Over Nuclear Waste
By Mary Ellen Cheatham
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Business and community leaders in the Augusta area say they fear the Savannah River Site may become a dump for nuclear waste on a long-term basis. Their comments come a few months after the Obama administration announced it was scrapping plans for a proposed federal site, Yucca Mountain in Nevada, to permanently store the waste.
Members of the Savannah River Site Community Reuse Organization say SRS, a massive federal entity that once produced nuclear fuel for weapons, would itself become a "defacto permanent waste site" that might harm the area's reputation and make it difficult to recruit industry.
Thousands of canisters stored at SRS hold nuclear waste from the Cold War era. Thousands more will be produced as workers there continue to stabilize remaining waste at the site.
The community organization says government officials in the region should consider a strategy to deal with the waste. The options, they said, include possibly seeking federal approval for the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, a controversial idea. Supporters say it would be an effective way to reduce waste. Opponents worry that reprocessed fuel is largely untested, too expensive and -- with fuel potentially coming from other sites and nuclear reactors -- would actually bring more waste to the site.
Supporters of Yucca Mountain have said that deep geological disposal is the safest way to store the waste.
The decision to end most funding to study Yucca Mountain, though, follows long-term opposition from residents and government officials from Nevada -- most notably the powerful Democratic U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It means that both federal nuclear sites and commercial nuclear power plants will largely continue to store waste at their respective facilities in numerous locations across the country.
The Savannah River Site Community Reuse Organization, meanwhile, has been seeking federal approval to develop an energy park at the site, which could eventually include reprocessing activities. The plan faced delays after environmental groups accused the organization and the federal government of moving along with plans without enough notice or input from the community.
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Aiken Standard
November 10, 2009
Leaders discuss Yucca decision
By Bill Bengtson
North Augusta bureau
NORTH AUGUSTA -- Local business leaders may get an earful on Yucca Mountain and related issues in the weeks ahead from the SRS Community Reuse Organization.
J. David Jameson, president and CEO of the Greater Aiken Chamber of Commerce, was among several speakers at a press conference on Monday announcing a publicity drive that focuses on the issue of nuclear waste and whether the federal government will honor its pledge not to use the Savannah River Site as a permanent depository.
Yucca Mountain, over the past two decades, has undergone intense study en route to being assessed as America's best place for permanent storage of nuclear waste. The south-central Nevada site, however, has reportedly been removed from consideration, sparking a dispute over the future fate of the thousands of tons of waste stored at SRS and other locations spread from coast to coast.
Also speaking was Rick McLeod, executive director of SRSCRO. He gave an overview of the situation and noted that the most recent SRS Citizens Advisory Board meeting included a presentation of the material given at Monday's event. The information, he added, is available at www.srscro.org, under the "community issues" link.
"Yucca Mountain is the most studied piece of ground in the history of the earth," said Jameson, who is also co-chairman of the SRSCRO Yucca Mountain Task force. "To date, more than $7 billion and two decades have been spent on characterization of this site. Study after study have confirmed that it is more suitable for long-term storage of nuclear waste than any other site."
Jameson noted that SRS, as a huge player in the Department of Energy's network of facilities, should have a place in the table in the disposal discussion.
"The challenge of properly disposing of nuclear waste touches every man, woman and child in America, both today and in the future," he said. "If we do not act now, future generations will be called on to solve the problem. It is an unfair burden to be left to our children and grandchildren only if we fail to act now."
He noted that high-level nuclear waste is stored at 16 sites spread among 13 states, in addition to used nuclear commercial fuel being stored in 41 states. "This is a local problem and a national problem - one that we cannot ignore."
Plans are in place for the task force's representatives to make their case with elected officials, economic developers, community groups, technical organizations, business leaders and others, with a goal of educating and encouraging more public dialogue, to reach Congress and the Department of Energy.
Making similar comments about the "new reality" was the task force's other co-chairman, Sue Parr, Jameson's counterpart with the Augusta Chamber of Commerce. She noted that "the federal government has broken its promise to our community, to DOE communities across the country and to the American people."
The plan, she said, has always been to send waste to Yucca Mountain, and facilities such as SRS handled the waste with the clear understanding that it was a temporary storage situation. The situation, she said, was akin to a hotel arrangement.
"Our guests, the nuclear waste, were non-paying transients. The waste was to stay here for a while, then move on. We never envisioned building a permanent retirement home for nuclear waste, but that is exactly the prospect we face, without Yucca Mountain," she said.
The toxic residue creates, among other things, the challenge of "explaining this situation to our industrial prospects and businesses interested in our region," Parr said. "As an economic development agency, 'permanent nuclear waste storage' is not one of the descriptive terms we want on our recruiting and marketing brochures, so it is the view of the SRS Community Reuse Organization that our region cannot simply accept the government's decision. We need to talk about this issue."
A press release that was distributed Monday confirmed SRSCRO's plan to undertake "a comprehensive regional education campaign aimed at developing community consensus in responding to the federal decision to halt work on Yucca Mountain."
The issue's political angles include having Nevada as the home state of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who "led the fight to stop the nation's nuclear waste dump from being located in Nevada's Yucca Mountain," as noted in a Sunday report from the Associated Press. Reid is up for re-election in 2010.
Reid, in a letter to his constituents, noted that President Barack Obama "recognizes that the proposed dump threatens the health and safety of Nevadans and millions of Americans, and his commitment to stop this terrible project could not be more clear."
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The State
November 10, 2009
Aiken-area group wants nuclear waste study
Sammy Fretwell
Aiken-area business leaders say the Savannah River Site may become the nation's high-level nuclear waste dumping ground if the federal government drops plans for a disposal site in Nevada.
But the SRS Community Reuse Organization says shelving the Yucca Mountain site is a bad idea, and it says the nation now needs to figure out how to dispose of high-level nuclear waste. The group's mission supports job creation in the five counties around SRS, a 300-square mile nuclear weapons site.
Aiken, Augusta and surrounding communities could suffer a bad image if the waste is left at SRS, making it harder to recruit industry, the reuse organization said in a statement Monday. It is calling for a special blue-ribbon panel to study options for disposing of waste.
"The government's about-face on this critical issue leaves state and local leaders with more questions than answers," David Jameson, the reuse organization's vice chair, said. "The Federal government has broken faith with communities across the nation. It has violated its promise to provide permanent storage of nuclear waste. As a result, we must come to terms with our own lingering - perhaps permanent - role as caretaker for a large part of the nation's highly radioactive defense waste."
Congress recently cut funding for the Yucca Mountain site, signaling what could be the end of the long-running, multi-billion dollar project. Yucca is a hollowed-out mountain near Las Vegas that was to permanently store high-level waste from both nuclear power plants and atomic weapons sites, including SRS. But Nevada residents have fought the plan, saying the site wasn't safe.
Thousands of cans of high-level nuclear waste from SRS were to be disposed of at Yucca Mountain. Power companies that operate nuclear plants across the nation also planned to use Yucca Mountain, rather than storing high-level waste on site.
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Mid-Hudson News
November 10, 2009
Clearwater files new Indian Point contentions
BEACON – Environmental organization Hudson River Sloop Clearwater Monday filed new contentions with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board regarding the storage of nuclear waste on the site at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan.
Clearwater has directed those contentions at the power plants’ re-licensing case.
The group maintains that Indian Point was never supposed to store fuel waste on-site for more than five years, but because there is no federal plan for radioactive waste storage, Indian Point has become a de facto permanent nuclear waste storage site.
Clearwater also contends the spent fuel waste is densely stored in wet pools at concentrations greater than the pools were designed to hold.
Clearwater board member Ross Gould said studies should be done on the storage of the nuclear waste.
“We’re not saying it’s their fault. It’s not a matter of why it’s there; it’s the fact that it’s there. And, because it’s there, Entergy and the NRC staff are required to assess the safety impacts as well as any environmental impacts that result from the storage of waste at the facility,” he said. “And, basically because of the belief that Yucca Mountain would eventually be receiving waste, there has been no assessment of what the actual impact of keeping that waste on-site would be.”
Clearwater Executive Director Jeffrey Rumpf said that people in the area “have a right to know what dangers they may face with all of this radioactive material on site.”
“Storage of used fuel at Indian Point is done safely and in accordance with our federal licenses and regulations," said Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi. "Used fuel storage has been fully examined from an engineering and public health perspective and is closely monitored on an ongoing basis to ensure its safety and security.”
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Energy Collective blog
November 10, 2009
William Ramsey on emerging nuclear markets
by Dan Yurman
Nuclear Becomes ‘A Real Business Opportunity’ For China and India
This is the full text of an interview with William Ramsay, (right) director of the energy program at the Institut Français des Relations Internationales.
He talked Nov 9 to NucNet about emerging nuclear markets in China and India, and the future of Yucca Mountain. [Reprinted with permission.]
NucNet – Before joining the IFRI, you worked at the International Energy Agency (IEA). What are your thoughts on the major challenges to new build faced in emerging markets such as India?
Ramsay: India is a rather immature market, and you’re talking about a 10 billion dollar investment. I think this may be less in India because of manpower and other lower costs, but it’s still a very expensive proposition – into a marketplace where politicians still play with electricity prices and where you haven’t really got a national grid where you can sell it around the country. How do you assure yourself of the market conditions to make that kind of an investment? That to me is the biggest challenge.
The state will have to meet this challenge, which is probably why around the world most nuclear power plants are run by states because of the huge upfront investment. If states want to go with that investment and carry the burden of that front-end capital, then perhaps private investors will also want to play a part. There is a lot of money, a lot of capital inside India. But there needs to be some degree of assurance for the investors that they will get a return. Progress here is going to be slow, which is why the state is going to have to pick up some of the burden of the nuclear power plants.
NucNet – How would you assess the Chinese nuclear expansion in the coming years?
Ramsay: In China they are hell-bent on building. They not only see an opportunity for indigenous power, so that they don’t need to depend on Russian gas, or anything coming across an open ocean where they haven’t got a deep ocean navy. An indigenous fuel cycle is wonderful for the Chinese. They also see an opportunity to export their reactors and are looking at a real business opportunity. In the medium term I think they will become a major nuclear technology power.
NucNet – With regards to nuclear new build, both the US approach to climate change and the future of the loan guarantee program have been cited as major factors during this Obama administration. What developments for the loan guarantee program are on the horizon?
Ramsay: This depends on particular legislative proposals. I know legislators who are enthusiastic about nuclear want a bigger loan guarantee program because 18.5 billion dollars [12.4 billion euro] is not going to be enough for more than three or four reactors. That particular debate isn’t visible from the outside yet, but the reactor builders are pressing the administration for expanding on that. It’s hard to do this now when there is so much budget pressure on other things, such as health care.
NucNet – Energy Secretary Stephen Chu has not formally announced a nuclear program expansion in the US, but is said to remain positive on nuclear energy. Is he sending out mixed messages about nuclear?
Ramsay: I think he is. He has a couple of reservations himself, in terms of the back-end of the fuel cycle and non-proliferation. He doesn’t view nuclear energy as the silver bullet; he views it as part of the mix. So he’s not going to want to appear as a proponent and he’s been quite careful not to do that. It’s really a portfolio approach, which is appealing to congressmen because they can pick the part of their portfolio which satisfies their constituency.
NucNet – With regards to the Yucca Mountain project, is it correct that the Obama administration cannot actually close it, because it is mandated under the terms of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act?
Ramsay: Yes, that’s right; there are some residual obligations in that Act.
It has a fair amount of bearing on some of the utilities’ attitudes to other waste disposal opportunities. Yucca Mountain has almost gone into cryogenic suspension, but it’s not dead.
NucNet – Yucca Mountain funding has been cut, but will this affect new build?
Ramsay: States that have got legal impediments to new build because the back-end is not resolved are probably not going to be building or expanding capacity. So for the short to medium term there isn’t a reason to think that Yucca will change anything.
NucNet – Energy Secretary Stephen Chu has said loan guarantees should be doubled. Is something going to happen soon?
Ramsay: I think so, yes. He’s not going to come forward with big numbers and terrorise the current debate on health care, but as soon as that is finished, we can get back to those numbers. There was an article concerning nuclear power sent by senators John Kerry and Lindsey Graham* to the ‘New York Times’ Apparently this was part of an effort by the administration to draw Republican support.
NucNet – This year’s Gallup Environment Poll put US public support for nuclear energy at 59%, an increase on 2007. Surely public acceptance must still represent a challenge in light of Yucca?
Ramsay: Well, it is surprisingly high, and I’ve seen public acceptance figures even higher than that. So you’ve got a bit of a license [for nuclear energy] there. I think there is some degree of convergence, albeit reluctant, between the environmentalists who are looking for answers to sustainability, and who are coming to recognize that it’s really pretty hard to ignore nuclear. By no means is there still a tremendous amount of resistance to nuclear out there… unless there is an accident.
NucNet – So is it premature to speak of a renaissance in the US?
Ramsay: If we get any new units it’s a renaissance. We haven’t had anything for a long time, but now we have all the applications, a smoothing of the regulatory process and much better public acceptance of nuclear power. The only thing slowing things down is the drop-off in short-term demand because of the economic crisis. But everybody knows that’s going to pass.
--William Ramsay is senior fellow and director of the energy programme at the Institut Français des Relations Internationales (www.ifri.org). He was deputy executive director of the IEA from 1999 to 2008. Prior to that he had a high profile career in international energy policy as a U.S. diplomat.
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Media Matters for America
November 09, 2009
Fox News' La Jeunesse attacks Obama for not spending billions more on Yucca Mountain
During a report about President Obama's decision to stop funding a nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Fox News' William La Jeunesse referred to Obama's decision as "$13 billion of your money down the drain" and said that the facility is, "from an engineering standpoint," "complete" but "just waiting for a license" -- suggesting that Obama's decision cost taxpayers billions of dollars for no reason. However, even if Yucca Mountain were to receive a license -- which could be several years -- experts say it may not be safe, would not be able to receive radioactive fuel for a "long time," and the costs to build, operate, and receive the fuel have reportedly ballooned to more than $96 billion.
La Jeunesse suggested because of Obama, Yucca may be "single biggest waste of your money ever"
From the November 4 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom:
MARTHA MacCALLUM (anchor): Well, it is a tax waste the size of a mountain, and a White House about-face causing problems for America's nuclear industry. William La Jeunesse is tracking your taxes. William, what's coming up?
LA JEUNESSE: Well, Martha, $13 billion and still nowhere to put America's nuclear waste. Now, coming up, I will show you what may be the single biggest waste of your money ever, and it's getting worse every day.
La Jeunesse: Yucca is "complete, from an engineering standpoint. It's just waiting for a license"
From the November 4 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
STEVE DOOCY (co-host): It has been called the biggest waste of taxpayer dollars in history, billions of our money sunk into a hole that's supposed to be used for nuclear waste, but now, Yucca Mountain, out West, will probably never ever be used.
BRIAN KILMEADE (co-host): William La Jeunesse is tracking your taxes live right near the San --
DOOCY: Onofre.
KILMEADE: -- Onofre nuclear power plant out in California. How much is this going to cost?
LA JEUNESSE: Well, I mean, how much of your money is gone? About $13 billion. Now, San Onofre -- you can't see it, it's a little dark here still -- is one of about 100 nuclear plants around the country. Each one, of course, generates tons of nuclear waste. Now, for 25 years, the federal government has been taxing consumers and ratepayers to pay for a place to put it. That is Yucca Mountain. It is complete, from an engineering standpoint. It's just waiting for a license. But the president says it is dead and will never be used. That is $13 billion of your money down the drain.
[...]
LA JEUNESSE: The federal government imposed a tax on your power bill for 25 years to pay for Yucca Mountain and promised America's nuclear industry it would have a place to store its waste by 1998. Since then, however, the feds have paid out almost 600 million in legal settlements for failing to live up to that commitment and expect another 11 billion on top of that. And with no plan for all this waste, America's cleanest, most dependable source of energy is in jeopardy.
But Yucca may not get a license, and if it does, experts say it may not be used for years
University of Illinois report: "[N]o particular reason" to expect that Yucca will accept spent fuel any time soon. According to a June 2009 University of Illinois report written by nuclear engineering experts, "[i]t may be difficult to license Yucca Mountain at all," and "even if licensed, Yucca Mountain will not start accepting spent fuel for a long time." From the report:
An underlying problem is that the legal requirement that the Department of Energy (DOE) take title to spent nuclear fuel has not been met for twenty-seven years since passage of the NWPA in 1982. And there is no particular reason to expect this approach will change in the foreseeable future. It appears, then, that spent nuclear fuel is destined to remain at about seventy U.S. nuclear reactor sites for several reasons. First, even if licensed, Yucca Mountain will not start accepting spent fuel for a long time. Second, nuclear reactors will soon produce more spent fuel than Yucca Mountain would be licensed to receive. And, third, it may be difficult to license Yucca Mountain at all, much less to amend the license for it to take more spent fuel. Thus a lot of spent nuclear fuel will continue to accumulate at reactor sites around the country, leaving those sites to manage this material. There is no question but that this management will remain subject to oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The question raised here is how or even whether the federal government should take title to spent nuclear fuel, especially as long as the spent fuel remains in the state in which it was generated. This question, in turn, raises the one of how funds for spent fuel management will be administered.
Licensing process itself takes years. According to a March 5 Associated Press article, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency responsible for reviewing the Energy Department's application for a license to begin construction on the facility, has four years to complete the review process. The Energy Department submitted its application in June 2008. According to the article, "There appear to be no immediate plans by the Energy Department to withdraw the Yucca Mountain license application before the NRC because to do so could trigger lawsuits from the nuclear industry. The NRC has up to four years to consider the application."
Unresolved concerns about facility's safety are keeping it from coming online
NRC is considering at least 299 "contentions" to Yucca's license. In a September 15 article, the Las Vegas Review-Journal noted that the NRC is considering nearly 300 "contentions" from multiple petitioners against the license. A "contention," from a legal or technical standpoint, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is "a specific concern or issue material to the licensing of Yucca Mountain." The article reported that the state of Nevada recently filed five more contentions, in addition to the nearly 300 that the NRC has already agreed to review.
"Contentions" are mostly safety concerns about facility, and some needed technology is not ready. When Nevada originally filed the contentions, the Review-Journal reported in a December 20, 2008, article that "[o]f the 229 contentions presented to nuclear regulators, most -- 180 -- pertain to safety." From the article:
State scientists believe geologic conditions of the mountain coupled with under-estimated corrosion rates of waste containers could result in deadly radioactive materials escaping the repository sometime before the hundreds of thousands of years that the remnants reach peak doses. Some of the equipment described in DOE's application for emplacing containers by remote control and other elements such as drip shields to divert water either don't exist or haven't been tested.
[...]
"They have not accurately estimated ground water flows in the mountain," [Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency Director Bob] Loux said Friday as he continued to head the State Nuclear Projects Agency until his replacement is chosen in the wake of controversy over his approval of unauthorized salary hikes in the office.
In addition, Loux noted, DOE's license application doesn't address the possibility that the ridge top could erode and climate change could impact the integrity of the site.
New contentions address volcanoes, corrosion as well. The September 15 Review-Journal article reported that a "key concern is the state's assertion that the DOE used 'improper techniques' in a safety assessment of how fast a metal known as Alloy-22 will corrode if it is used for waste containers," and that "[t]he state also repeatedly has questioned the DOE's logic behind its plan to wait 75 years to install titanium drip shields to prevent water from trickling onto waste containers entombed in a maze of tunnels inside the volcanic-rock ridge, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas." From the article:
[Executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects Bruce] Breslow said the Alloy-22 corrosion study challenge comes in addition to new safety contentions about water infiltrating the planned repository from 10,000 years to 1 million years and effects from erosion during the same time period.
Also, two challenges are related to future volcanoes affecting Yucca Mountain.
Despite uncertainty about viability, the project is expected to cost taxpayers more than $96 billion
Las Vegas Review-Journal: Cost jumped from $57 billion to more than $96 billion. According to a July 16, 2008, Review-Journal article, "The projected costs to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, ship used radioactive fuel to Nevada from around the country and operate the site for 100 years have grown to more than $90 billion, an energy department official said Tuesday." The article added: "The department's previous 'total system life cycle' cost estimate for the repository was $57.6 billion, set in 2001. Since that time, the project schedule repeatedly has been pushed back and some of its key elements are being redesigned."
Reid: "Flawed plan" and a "bloated budget." According to a statement posted on Sen. Harry Reid's (D-NV) website, the Yucca Mountain plan was "flawed" and had a "bloated budget." From the statement:
In 2008, the DOE announced that it was raising Yucca Mountain's estimated price tag from $57.5 billion to over $96 billion. Beyond its bloated budget, the Yucca Mountain project faced a laundry list of scientific, technical, public health, legal, and safety problems. The skyrocketing price tag, the steadfast opposition of Nevadans and their congressional delegation, and the growing understanding that Yucca was a mortally flawed proposal have led to the project's demise.
While the Obama administration's budget cut funding for the Yucca Mountain program, it provided almost $197 million for the Department of Energy to explore alternative ways to store energy.
— D.C.P.
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Northwest Arkansas News
November 09, 2009
Guest Commentary: Spent Fuel Valuable Resource
By Cecil O. Cogburn
FAYETTEVILLE — President Barack Obama and Congress should act forthwith to re-establish nuclear recycling in the United States so that valuable uranium and plutonium in spent fuel can be used again to produce electricity.
Contrary to myths about nuclear energy, spent, or used, fuel is not waste that should be disposed of. It can be chemically reprocessed to produce a benign mixed-oxide fuel for use in a reactor to generate more electricity. More than 60,000 metric tons of spent fuel is now stored at nuclear power plant sites around the country. The Arkansas Nuclear One plant alone has about 1,200 metric tons. This is, in fact, a huge energy resource.
What to do with spent fuel - which is a byproduct of generating electricity - has been a subject of debate in energy policy circles ever since President Jimmy Carter banned recycling in the mid-1970s. Carter was concerned that rogue governments or terrorists might get their hands on plutonium and use it to fabricate “dirty” nuclear weapons. But France and Great Britain never followed his lead and have continued to recycle spent fuel. Currently just about every country with a nuclear energy program in Europe and Asia is engaged in nuclear recycling. The process is safe and monitored closely by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Now, as a result of President Obama’s decision earlier this year to terminate the Yucca Mountain repository project, the question of whether the UnitedStates should revive recycling is back in the public arena. Since no geologic repository is being built, electricity companies are preparing to continue storing spent fuel at nuclear plant sites indefinitely. Even if the Government were to finally comply with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and take possession of the spent fuel, there still are no regional storage sites or a national facility for the material. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said that recycling ought to be considered.
With money that had been set aside in a government trust fund for the Yucca Mountain project now available for other uses, the Administration and Congress are in a position to reconstitute recycling. Such a step would send a message to the rest of the world that the United States once again intends to sit at the head of the nuclear table. Recycling would give the Government and the U.S.
nuclear industry greater influence in the development of nuclear energy.
Financing for recycling is not the intractable issue that it once was. Since 1982, users of nucleargenerated electricity have paid $16.6 billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund. Of that amount, $295 million has come from Arkansas ratepayers. With interest, the national total has reached $33.2 billion - and the sum is growing by $200 million a year. About $10 billion has been spent on the Yucca Mountainproject, but that still would leave enough money to build a recycling facility.
To cut costs and avoid a potentially difficult site selection process, the recycling plant ought to be situated on a government nuclear installation. An ideal location would be the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, where the processing of military spent fuel is already under way.
Construction of a recycling plant would provide several thousand jobs and revenue for state and local governments in a region that’s friendly toward nuclear energy.
Spent-fuel recycling, however, alone can’t ensure nuclear power’s comeback in the United States. But it can help resolve the waste issue and remove a major stumbling block standing in the way of nuclear plant construction in some states.
Recycling fits the Administration’s philosophy of pursuing a sustainable energy future and expanding the use of emission-free nuclear power as part of a balanced mix of energy sources. But anti-nuclear groups claim - wrongly, I think - that nuclear recycling is dangerous and unaffordable.
Will President Obama and Congress embrace a controversial proposal fully consistent with their energy initiatives at the risk of some heat from the public whose views of nuclear recycling have been distorted by myth and misinformation?
--Cecil O. Cogburn is Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering at The University of Arkansas.
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Augusta Chronicle
November 09, 2009
Ga., SC urged to act after nuclear waste disposal plan falters
By Rob Pavey
Staff Writer
If the nation’s primary option for permanent disposal of nuclear waste doesn’t materialize, communities across South Carolina and Georgia must mobilize to determine a path for its nuclear waste, according to an economic development group hoping to stir more interest in the topic.
Savannah River Site’s Community Reuse Organization, in a paper unveiled today, calls for more dialogue and interest in a topic its vice chair—David Jameson—believes will have lingering implications for the Aiken-Augusta community.
“The government’s about-face on this critical issue leaves state and local leaders with more questions than answers,” he said in a statement today. “The Federal government has broken faith with communities across the nation. It has violated its promise to provide permanent storage of nuclear waste. As a result, we must come to terms with our own lingering – perhaps permanent—role as caretaker for a large part of the nation’s highly radioactive defense waste.”
Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was being designed to accommodate radioactive material stored at 121 temporary sites in 39 states, including SRS, where high-level wastes are encased in glass and stored in steel cylinders that were to eventually be shipped elsewhere. It was also destined to hold 63,000 metric tons of used commercial nuclear fuels currently scattered among 41 states, including Georgia and South Carolina.
In March, however, U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu recommended that new strategies be developed for nuclear waste, and that a 27-year, $13.5 billion effort to establish the Yucca Mountain project should be abandoned.
The SRS CRO report warns that the elimination of Yucca Mountain will mean wastes stored at SRS will remain there much longer than they were intended, and may stay in South Carolina permanently.
One alternative for dealing with spent nuclear fuel is reprocessing, according to the group’s paper. Reprocessing extracts materials from spent fuel that can be used again as reactor fuel. Although this would extend the life of the nation’s nuclear fuel resources and help create a greater degree of energy independence, commercial reprocessing is currently not practiced in the United States.
The concept of reprocessing could even be tested at Savannah River Site.
“If processing of spent nuclear fuel is authorized today, commercial-scale plants will probably use the‘PUREX’ process, a proven process which results in liquid wastes and separates plutonium in its pure form,” the paper said. “Improved processing methods can reduce the amount of wastes generated and provide improved security or plutonium contained in spent nuclear fuel. These are worthwhile objectives, and are the type of program ideally suited for research and engineering development at SRS.”
It would also be prudent to push for the re-establishment of the Yucca Mountain project, the paper suggested.
“We believe it is in the community’s best interest to (1) aggressively pursue opening of Yucca Mountain and (2) establish processing as an acceptable spent nuclear fuel management option.”
The group is also calling for local representation on a special Blue Ribbon Panel being established by the Department of Energy to review options for long-term nuclear waste storage.
The 27-page paper is available for review on the SRSCRO web site, www.srscro.org.
Yucca Mountain and Savannah River Site: THE BACK STORY
- In June 2008, the U.S. Energy Department delivered a formal application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the nation’s first national repository for high-level radioactive waste at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.
- The 8,600-page application represents a $13.5 billion taxpayer investment spanning two decades.
- If the site is built, radioactive material stored at 121 temporary sites in 39 states -- including Savannah River Site -- would have a permanent resting place.
- Nationwide, there are about 7,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste from the U. S. nuclear weapons production.
- SRS has two glass waste storage buildings, where radioactive waste encased in glass is stored in steel cylinders that were supposed be shipped to Yucca Mountain.
- On March 1, President Obama’s new energy secretary, Steven Chu, announced intentions to scrap Yucca Mountain in favor of convening a panel of experts to explore other options.
- If the Yucca Mountain project is not pursued, the waste would likely remain in South Carolina indefinitely or until alternatives are explored.
- Abolishing Yucca Mountain also leaves in limbo the fate of 63,000 metric tons of used commercial nuclear fuel stored in 41 states , including Georgia.
- One potential alternative to permanent storage is reprocessing, which extracts reusable materials from spent fuels.
--Reach Rob Pavey at (706) 868-1222 or rob.pavey@augustachronicle.com
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UW Badger Herald
November 09, 2009
Bradford: costs of nuclear power too much for state
Speaker says ban on new plants is a smart, safe choice
By Alicia Yager
Wisconsin could be in for higher costs if it lifts it’s ban on new nuclear energy plants, a former commissioner for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday at the State Capitol.
Peter Bradford, who served on the NRC from 1977 to 1982, outlined the apparent and hidden costs associated with using nuclear energy if Wisconsin lifted its moratorium on building new nuclear plants.
“Obviously, it’s not my place to tell you what to do in terms of Wisconsin law and policy, so what I’ll try to do is to give … a sense of the backdrop and the effect that new nuclear power is having,” Bradford said.
Bradford said nuclear production comes with serious financial risks for companies, taxpayers and consumers because of their uncertain returns on investments and their high costs to build and operate.
“This is not just speculation on my part,” Bradford said. “It really is playing out in states that are further down this road.”
Instead of solving the country’s energy problems with nuclear options, Bradford said energy efficiency measures can lower demand for new nuclear plants and other energy sources, ultimately leading to more savings for the state’s consumers.
According to Bradford, the capacity for nuclear energy production has been constant both nationally and worldwide for many years. These numbers, he said, are not indicative of a “nuclear renaissance,” but the interest in using nuclear energy has arisen due to climate concerns.
Bradford said the United States Department of Energy announced a plan in 2002 that would build new nuclear plants by 2010, but the plan has since been modified to approve plans by 2010 to build facilities over the next decade.
“Congress passed a number of incentives to get new plants built … and the result was that the NRC does now have 17 pending applications to build 24 plants,” Bradford said.
Bradford added, however, this is a “paper renaissance” because those companies have been careful to say they have not made a firm decision to implement those plans.
Rep. Mark Honadel, R-South Milwaukee, a member of the Committee on Energy and Utilities, however, said he does not understand why nuclear power is not put to use when the country already built a storage facility for the byproducts.
“I am one of the representatives [who] have been to Yucca Mountain, and it’s heart-wrenching that they spent millions for that hole and we can’t use it to store waste,” Honadel said.
Honadel said nuclear energy should be used because it is a good baseload energy source and it does not create a lot of carbon emissions.
Senate President Fred Risser, D-Madison, welcomed Bradford to the Capitol, the last stop on a three-city tour hosted by the Wisconsin branch of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which included the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and the Urban Ecology Center of Milwaukee.
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The Hill
November 09, 2009
Nuclear initiatives needed for climate change goals
By Marvin Fertel
President and CEO, Nuclear Energy Institute
There’s a growing consensus in Congress across party lines that significant expansion of nuclear energy is needed to meet our electricity demand while achieving the country’s ambitious climate change goals. The nuclear industry is moving forward with 13 applications for a potential 22 new reactors under active review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The industry also has identified federal policies necessary to facilitate the expansion of the nuclear component of our energy portfolio to the scale that numerous independent analyses have concluded are necessary.
Financing of new plants is one of the toughest challenges facing the entire electricity sector – a challenge that can be met in large part by establishing a vehicle for new plant financing through the creation of a Clean Energy Deployment Administration that would act as a permanent financing platform to provide loans, loan guarantees and other credit support for clean-energy technologies, including new nuclear power plants, and new facilities that manufacture nuclear equipment. Other financial incentives that would re-establish our manufacturing infrastructure and create tens of thousands of jobs include tax incentives for nuclear energy manufacturing and production facilities as well as work force development. Consumers of the electricity generated by new nuclear plants will benefit because the loan guarantee program allows lower-cost financing and greater leverage of debt, so the nuclear plant delivers lower-cost electricity.
The potential construction of new nuclear plants has already begun to pay economic dividends. Over the past several years, the nuclear industry has invested more than $4 billion in new nuclear plant development and has created more than 15,000 jobs. The industry plans to invest approximately $8 billion more to be in a position to start construction in 2011-2012.
Regulatory efficiencies inherent in the NRC new plant licensing process also need to be implemented for the second wave of standardized plants. These efficiencies, coupled with efficiencies in constructing the plants, will benefit consumers by reducing the time-to-market for a new plant from a decade to around six years, with commensurate cost reductions in the price of electricity. The efficiencies will in no way compromise safety nor diminish the effectiveness of public participation.
The nuclear industry has safely and securely managed used fuel on its plant sites for more than 50 years and can continue to do so well into the future under the scrutiny of the NRC. However, the decision by the Administration to discontinue the Yucca Mountain repository project will require the Administration and the Congress to define the new long-term disposal program and to make appropriate changes to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. As part of the new program direction, the industry would like to see limited financial incentives for the development of voluntary interim storage facilities for used uranium fuels and further research and development into advanced reprocessing and recycling technologies.
These programs will allow the world to take advantage of the residual energy in each fuel rod to be used again and again to provide the 70 percent of carbon-free electricity in the United States.
Addressing climate change while producing the quantity of electricity needed to sustain economic growth and maintain a high quality of life necessitates a significant contribution from nuclear energy as part of our diversified portfolio. Inclusion of a meaningful nuclear energy title by itself doesn’t get you to an agreement in Congress on climate change legislation. But at the same time, you can’t get there without it.
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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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