Event: PUBLIC SCOPING PERIOD FOR AN ENVIRONMENTAL
ASSESSMENT FOR THE PROPOSED CONVEYANCE OF LAND AT THE HANFORD SITE
Category: Public Comment Periods
Event Date: 09/19/2012 - 10/19/2012
The U.S. Department
of Energy - Richland Operation Office (DOE-RL) is preparing an Environmental
Assessment (EA) to assess the potential environmental impacts of conveying
approximately 1,641 acres of Hanford Site land to a local economic development
organization. The term “convey” means
potential transfer, lease, easement or similar actions. The land under consideration is designated
for industrial uses in the Hanford Site Comprehensive Land Use Plan. The
Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC), a DOE designated Community Reuse
Organization and 501 (c)(6) nonprofit corporation, submitted a proposal to DOE
requesting the transfer of approximately 1,641 acres of land located in the
southeastern corner of the Hanford Site near the City of Richland. The TRIDEC
proposal identifies possible uses of the land as warehousing and distribution;
research and development; technology manufacturing; food processing and
agriculture and business services. DOE invites public input on the scope of the
Hanford Site Land Conveyance EA. A
30-day public scoping period will run from September 19 through October 19,
2012. A public scoping meeting will be
October 10, 2012 at the Richland Public Library, 955 Northgate Drive, Richland,
Washington. The meeting will include an
open house from 5:30-6:30 and project overview presentation at 6:30, followed
by a question-and-answer period and opportunity for individuals to give formal
written or oral comments.
Scoping comments may
be submitted by regular mail and addressed to:
Paula Call, NEPA Document Manager, U.S. Department of Energy-Richland
Operations Office, P.O. Box 550, MSIN A2-15, Richland, WA 99352. Scoping comments may also be sent to
landconveyanceEA@rl.doe.gov
Attachment: Notice of Intent / Draft Land Conveyance Environmental Assessment
Analysis Area (PDF) / TRIDEC
proposal (PDF)
DOE study looks at industrial development at Hanford
Published: September 25, 2012 Tri-City Herald By Annette Cary
The
Department of Energy is starting an environmental study on transferring 1,641
acres of the nuclear reservation for industrial development to create new jobs.
The Tri-City Development Council, which has been designated a community reuse
organization for Hanford, has requested 1,341 acres near Richland city limits
on the northwest corner of Horn Rapids Road and Stevens Drive. It's been joined
in that request by the city of Richland, the Port of Benton and Benton County. In
addition, TRIDEC has requested 300 acres to the north of the larger parcel for
a clean energy park in conjunction with Energy Northwest. However, DOE will
look at more acreage than requested by TRIDEC, according to a Federal Register
notice. It is proposing also studying 2,772 additional acres next to the
requested parcels, with a goal of studying the environmental impacts of
transferring approximately 1,641 acres of the total of 4,413 acres evaluated. Read
more here.
C-109 Retrievals Completed (Video)
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of River Protection and
prime contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions, have finished
retrieval activities in C-109, the tenth single-shell tank completed at Hanford
and the third this year. This video clip taken inside C-109 shows the bottom of
the tank floor now visible after removing nearly 63,000 gallons of waste. See video
Retrieval of the
Tenth Single-Shell Tank Complete at Hanford
DOE Press Release September 17, 2012
Washington River
Protection Solutions (WRPS) has advised the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
that they have completed retrieval of radioactive and chemical waste from the
third single-shell tank (SST) this year. Link
F Reactor Area
Cleanup Complete
DOE Press Release September 19, 2012
RICHLAND,
Wash. – U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) contractors have cleaned up the F
Reactor Area, the first reactor area at the Hanford Site in southeastern
Washington state to be fully remediated. While six of Hanford’s nine plutonium
production reactors have been sealed up, or cocooned, the F Reactor Area is the
first to have all of its associated buildings and waste sites cleaned up in
addition to having its reactor sealed up. “The cleanup of the F Reactor Area
shows the tremendous progress workers are making along Hanford’s River
Corridor,” said Dave Huizenga, Senior Advisor for the DOE Office of
Environmental Management. “The River Corridor is the complex’s largest
environmental cleanup closure project. The F Area cleanup has substantially
reduced risk to the Columbia Link Tri
City Herald Link
Bat
cave, radioactive carcasses part of 1st reactor cleanup
Published: September 20, 2012 By
Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald
Hanford workers have finished cleaning up a Hanford
reactor site for the first time, the Department of Energy announced Wednesday. Gone
is the industrial complex with more than 100 buildings that once surrounded F
Reactor, Hanford's third plutonium production reactor along the Columbia River.
Contaminated soil and waste sites -- where debris was disposed of in unlined
pits and trenches -- have been dug up. What remained of Hanford's former
experimental animal farm, including buried carcasses and radioactive manure,
was hauled off. Now most of the 2-square-mile complex looks much as it did
before settlers began arriving, only to have to give up their farms and homes
during World War II to make way for the Manhattan Project. Link
Former DOE
official would abolish agency, he says in new book
Published:
September 26, 2012 By Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald
Bob Ferguson, a former Department of
Energy official, makes the case for abolishing DOE in his new book released
Tuesday. "It's an agency that basically has no focus," said Ferguson,
who splits his time between homes in Richland and Oregon. Not only is DOE too
diverse for anyone to lead effectively, it also has been politicized, and that
has become institutionalized, he said. The Cost of Deceit and Delay was not the
book he started out to write with the help of science writer Sallie Ortiz, he
said. He was writing about his nuclear experience with recommendations for
getting the nuclear renaissance back on track, when President Obama announced
the termination of the Yucca Mountain, Nev., project to develop a repository
for used commercial nuclear waste and high-level radioactive defense waste. Link
SRS
Savannah
River Remediation asks for workers willing to retire as part of workforce
reduction: No word
yet on how many positions will be cut
AUGUSTA -- For the second time in as many months,
a major Savannah River Site contractor is seeking workers willing to resign or
retire as part of a workforce reduction approved by the U.S. Department of
Energy. The contractor, Savannah River Remediation, is in charge of the site’s
liquid waste cleanup operations, including the closure of Cold War-era storage
tanks filled with radioactive waste. In a memo to employees, company President
Dave Olson said the “self-select voluntary separation program” announced Monday
is part of a “workforce management initiative to balance costs and resources.” Link
Savannah River CAB
Meeting Presentations September 24-5, 2012
- Agenda
- Presentations
- Update on H
Area Operations
- SRS Area
Completion Plan
- Yucca
Mountain Litigation - Aiken County
- South
Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control
- Legal
Requirements and Commitments for Radioactive Waste Management at the
Savannah River Site (SRS)
- NRC Role in
Monitoring U.S. Department of Energy Disposal Activities at F-Tank Farm
Savannah River Site
- Land Use and
Facilities Planning Process
- Recommendation
Status Update
- Federal
Facility Agreement Appendix E
- C-Area
Operable Unit Removal Action Status
- In-Situ
Decommissioning of Large Nuclear Facilities
- Enterprise
SRS: Update
- Enterprise
SRS: Develop & Deploy Next Generation Clean-up Technologies
NE
NEUP
FY 2012 Integrated Research Projects Announced
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $13 million in
funding for three university-led research teams to develop advanced light water
reactor designs with inherent safety features, as well as one or more advanced
materials and/or fuel-cladding concepts that would enhance the accident
tolerance of the nuclear fuel system. The Department is engaging universities
in the effort to find solutions through NEUP's Integrated Research Projects
(IRP). IRP award recipients are listed below. Link
Nuclear
Waste Technical Review Board
President Obama Announces More Key
Administration Posts
September 21, 2012 Link
to Announcement
President Obama also announced his intent to appoint the
following individuals to key Administration posts:
·
Jean Bahr – Member, Nuclear
Waste Technical Review Board
·
Steven M. Becker –
Member, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
·
Susan L. Brantley –
Member, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
·
Efi Foufoula-Georgiou – Member, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
·
Gerald S. Frankel –
Member, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
·
Kenneth Lee Peddicord – Member, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
·
Paul J. Turinsky –
Member, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
·
Mary Lou Zoback – Member, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
Misc
The Nuclear Renaissance Is Back,
Industry Panel Says
ForbesTECH | 9/27/2012 @
9:00AM |77 views
Encouraged by a new poll showing public support, industry
leaders predicted Wednesday that nuclear power will resume the “renaissance” it
was enjoying before the Fukushima accident roiled the industry 18 months ago.
“The
future of nuclear is looking pretty good,” said Jack Grobe, the executive
director of Exelon Nuclear Partners, striking a much more positive tone than
former Exelon CEO John Rowe did just six months ago.
Exelon's
'Nuclear Guy': No New Nukes Grobe was among five industry leaders
who lauded “The Future of Nuclear” Wednesday at the Great Lakes Symposium on
Smart Grid and the New Energy Economy, held at the Illinois Institute of
Technology in Chicago. The panelists’ confidence stems in
part from the nation’s fleet of aging coal plants, which are not expected to
survive increasingly stringent environmental regulations.
“We
will retire these old fossil fuel plants and have to replace them with
something,” said Scott Bond of Ameren Missouri, the utility that operates the
Callaway Nuclear Generating Station. “The question is, what do you replace them
with?” One obvious answer is a power plant that burns natural
gas, which, thanks to fracking, is now so cheap and plentiful that Rowe said in
March that it doesn’t make sense for new nuclear plants to compete.
Wednesday’s
panel touted the stable price of nuclear fuel as insurance against the vagaries
of most other fuel prices including, over the long term, natural gas.
“It’s
not just an economic question,” said Exelon’s Jack Grobe. “It’s an energy
diversity question.” “There’s a lot of focus on gas right
now,” Bond said. But “fuel diversity is the only safe place to be for a
utility.” Nuclear power may have stable fuel prices, but it faces an
unstable regulatory environment subject to public doubts and political winds.
That’s
why the Nuclear Energy Institute is touting the results of a poll it released
this week. “We just did a survey, and we had a strong majority of
Americans–81 percent–who believe that nuclear energy is important for the
nation’s future energy needs,” said Alex Marion, NEI’s vice president for
nuclear operations. Link
Americans' Support for Nuclear Energy
Solidifies, New National Survey Shows
NEI
story September 19, 2012
Newest member of DNFSB
Sean Sullivan, whose appointment to the Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board was confirmed by Congress last month, is now on board
literally. His term expires Oct. 18, 2015.
According to his bio, Sullivan is a graduate of the
U.S. Naval Academy and served as a submarine officer for 26 years before
retiring as a Captain in 2006. He has technical training in operation,
maintenance and oversight of nuclear reactors and nucleaer weapons. Link
Uranium Substitute Is No Longer
Needed, but Its Disposal May Pose Security Risk
By MATTHEW L. WALD September
23, 2012 New York Times
WASHINGTON
— At the dawn of the civilian nuclear age in the 1950s, one of the pressing
questions was how to find enough fuel for reactors and bombs. The government
and the private sector seized on a man-made substitute for natural uranium,
producing about 3,400 pounds of an exotic and expensive material called uranium
233. Today,
the problem is how to safely get rid of it. “We do consider this to be waste,” said David G.
Huizenga, the senior administrator for environmental management at
the Energy Department. “There’s no further need for it.” Uranium 233 looked attractive because it could be
made in a reactor from thorium, a cheap and abundant radioactive metal, and,
almost magically, the reactor would produce more fuel than it consumed.
Utilities manufactured some of it at the Indian Point I reactor in Westchester
County, N.Y., which is now retired, and at reactors in Colorado, Illinois and
Pennsylvania. But
in the end, ordinary uranium was cheaper, and 233 was not needed. “Nuclear physicists weren’t geologists and didn’t
understand the supply of uranium,” said Frank N. Von
Hippel, a physicist and public policy specialist at Princeton. “It
turned out there was more uranium than people thought and less nuclear power
than people thought there would be.” Ordinary
uranium also proved to be much easier to work with than 233. But the government assembled a
few bombs with the 233 version, and a research reactor in
Tennessee briefly switched to it as fuel in 1968. But very little was used, so
the material sat for decades in government laboratories and weapons plants. Link
Twenty-Three Nuclear Power Plants
Found to Be in Tsunami Risk Areas
ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2012) —
Tsunamis are synonymous with the destruction of cities and homes and since the
Japanese coast was devastated in March 2011 we now know that they cause nuclear
disaster, endanger the safety of the population and pollute the environment. As
such phenomena are still difficult to predict, a team of scientists has
assessed "potentially dangerous" areas that are home to completed
nuclear plants or those under construction. In the study published in the journalNatural
Hazards, the researchers drew a map of the world's geographic zones that
are more at risk of large tsunamis. Based on this data, 23 nuclear power plants
with 74 reactors have been identified in high risk areas. One of them includes
Fukushima I. Out of them, 13 plants with 29 reactors are active; another four,
that now have 20 reactors, are being expanded to house nine more; and there are
seven new plants under construction with 16 reactors. Link
Congress
H.J.Res. 117: Continuing
Appropriations Resolution, 2013
Joint
Resolution Passed 62/30, simple majority required. This resolution was passed
by Congress on September 22, 2012 and goes to the President next.
Nuclear group likes
chances for waste management progress next Congress
By Zack Colman - 09/17/12 04:35 PM ET The HIll
A nuclear energy industry group said Monday that it is
“optimistic” Congress would move forward on nuclear waste management
legislation next session. Alex Flint, senior vice president of government
relations with the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), said the tenor of a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
hearing last week raised hopes for congressional progress on storing spent
nuclear fuel. That hearing discussed a nuclear waste management bill(S. 3469)
that was designed as a table setter for more
substantive talks next session. The bill is sponsored by
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the retiring committee chairman. “I think there’s
more overlap between the two parties on energy policy than there was a decade
ago, and I definitely think nuclear is part of that overlap,” Flint said. Link