CAMPAIGN 2010: Reid banking on Yucca's death to help win over skeptical electorate (04/30/2010)

Alex Kaplun, E&E reporter
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has spent much of his congressional career battling the construction of the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository.
Now, the Democratic leader is banking on that advocacy to pay off politically and help sway an electorate that at the moment appears unwilling to give him another term on Capitol Hill.
Faced with a tough re-election fight, Reid has again and again pointed to the slow death of the Yucca facility as a sign of his power in Washington and his ability to deliver for Nevada.

NRC HISTORIAN RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS AWARD FOR YUCCA MOUNTAIN BOOK

J. Samuel Walker, an NRC historian for more than 30 years, has been awarded the Richard W. Leopold Prize for his book “Yucca Mountain: The Development of Radioactive Waste Policy in the U.S.” The prize is given every two years by the Organization of American Historians (OAH) for the best book written by a government historian. In the book, published by University of California Press, Walker traces the U.S. government’s efforts to deal with radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project through the 1987 designation of Yucca Mountain as a high-level waste repository. According to the OAH, the book is “solidly researched and effectively written” and makes “an original and insightful contribution to understanding this important story.” The OAH also noted the book includes “perspectives beyond the government, especially interest groups and protest movements.”

Triay says Yucca decision won't delay Hanford cleanup; Murkowski differs

 Derek Sands, Elaine Hiruo /907 words/22 March 2010/Inside Energy/IE/13/ISSN: 1556-3928/English/(c) 2010 McGraw-Hill, Inc. /

The Obama administration's decision to terminate a long-planned nuclear-waste repository in Nevada will not disrupt the Energy Department's cleanup schedule at a highly contaminated Hanford Site in Washington state, a senior DOE official said last week, despite warnings from a prominent senator that delays will occur and states will file lawsuits in response."It is not slowing down the current work," Ines Triay, assistant secretary for environmental management, said at a hearing Wednesday. "We are talking about that decision not being on the critical path, not preventing the cleanup at Hanford to move forward. ... [Current] activities do not necessitate a decision for disposal, especially because we are going to be producing a very protective waste form." Waste from Hanford, a former nuclear weapons facility, was destined for the national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada until the administration decided to kill the project last year. Washington's attorney general, Rob McKenna, has expressed concern that the decision will mean delays at Hanford, one of the largest nuclear cleanup projects in the world.

Plutonium level in waste to triple

By Rob Pavey, The Augusta Chronicle, Ga. /McClatchy-Tribune Regional News/394 words/15 April 2010/The Augusta Chronicle (MCT)/KRTAG/English/Distributed by McClatchy - Tribune Information Services /

Apr. 15--The amount of plutonium in high-level waste converted to glass at Savannah River Site will nearly triple this year as a consequence of the U.S. Energy Department's decision to abandon its Yucca Mountain waste repository. The SRS-based Defense Waste Processing Facility uses a process called vitrification to convert liquid radioactive wastes into a solid glass form suitable for long-term storage and permanent disposal. Plutonium is among many dangerous materials in the 36 million gallons of waste left behind at SRS by decades of nuclear weapons production. In 2008, as the department prepared its application to license the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada -- where vitrified waste was to be buried -- SRS lowered plutonium levels in vitrified waste from 2,500 grams per cubic meter to 897 grams per cubic meter. The reduction would allow SRS waste to meet Yucca Mountain's acceptance criteria -- but would have increased the number of canisters needed to hold the remaining vitrified waste from 4,000 to 9,000, according to a 2008 memo. Once the Energy Department made the decision to stop work on Yucca Mountain, the plutonium levels were restored to the higher concentrations in hopes of reducing the need for so many canisters, according to site officials.

STATEMENT OF DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY PRESS SECRETARY STEPHANIE MUELLER ABOUT YUCCA MOUNTAIN

139 words/14 April 2010/States News Service/SNS(c) 2010 States News Service

The following information was released by the U.S. Department of Energy:Statement of Department of Energy Press Secretary Stephanie Mueller about Yucca Mountain
"We are confident that we have the legal authority to withdraw the application for the Yucca Mountain repository. However, the parties need some time to prepare and the Court needs time to consider the issues. We are proposing to halt temporarily any actions to shut down Yucca Mountain simply to provide that time. As the Secretary has said consistently, Yucca Mountain is not an option and he looks forward to receiving the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission for the long term management of our spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste."

Washington state sues to stop federal government from abandoning Yucca Mountain waste site

By SHANNON DININNY Associated Press Writer509 words13 April 201018:27
Associated Press NewswiresAPRSEnglish(c) 2010. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - Washington state filed suit Tuesday to stop the federal government from permanently abandoning the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, marking the latest clash in a long-standing dispute over where the nation's nastiest radioactive waste should be stored.
Waste and spent nuclear fuel from south-central Washington's Tri-Cities, site of the highly contaminated Hanford nuclear reservation and the Northwest's only commercial nuclear plant, had long been intended to go to Yucca Mountain.Opponents in Nevada for years have been fighting the proposed desert mountain repository 90 miles from Las Vegas.The U.S. Department of Energy has said the site is no longer considered an option for radioactive waste storage. It has a motion pending to withdraw its license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "with prejudice," which would permanently remove it from consideration as the nation's radioactive waste repository.

State considers Yucca Mountain legal options

Annette Cary;Herald staff writer Cary Annette447 words8 April 2010Tri-City HeraldTRICB6English(c) 2010 The Tri-City Herald. All Rights Reserved.

The state of Washington is considering its options after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided to see what happens in federal court regarding the Yucca Mountain, Nev., nuclear repository.
Last month the Department of Energy filed to permanently withdraw its license application with the NRC for Yucca Mountain. The state of Washington filed to become a party to the NRC proceedings in order to have legal standing to oppose the withdrawal.

Government waste on nuclear waste

Jack Spencer and Nicolas Loris, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES 824 wordsThe Washington TimesWATI02English© 2010 Washington Times Library. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights reserved. 8 April 2010

A waste of taxpayer dollars. That's what those who oppose using Yucca Mountain as a nuclear materials repository say.They point to the roughly $10 billion that already has been spent on Yucca, which they say was doomed to fail from the start. Recognizing this, so the argument goes, President Obama is demanding that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) cease its work on the Yucca project - killing it for good.
Seems reasonable. No sense wasting more money on a project with no future. Look closer, though, and it becomes clear that closing Yucca Mountain is the real waste. The real story here is about government ineptitude, not wasteful spending.

DOE plan to use FY-10 funds to begin Yucca shutdown challenged

Elaine Hiruo and Derek Sands, Washington 437 words5 April 2010Nuclear FuelNUF14, Volume 35, Issue 7English(c) 2010 McGraw-Hill, Inc.



DOE's plan to reprogram $115 million in fiscal 2010 funds to begin the close-out of the Yucca Mountain repository this year wasn't well received by the top Republican on a House Appropriations subcommittee March 24.



Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, the senior Republican on the panel's energy and water subcommittee, criticized DOE's action during a hearing on DOE's FY-11 budget request. "What is your authority for doing it?" Frelinghuysen asked Energy Secretary Steven Chu.



The money was part of the $197 million allocation the Yucca Mountain program this fiscal year to continue activities associated with NRC's licensing review of DOE's repository license application. The FY-10 appropriations bill report for energy and water funding states that a DOE reprogramming request must be submitted to House and Senate appropriators and approved before any funds are shifted to different programs or activities.



"You are using fiscal 2010 funds to restructure the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management," Frelinghuysen said. "I think we need some clarity. I know that determination has been made, but quite honestly, I don't think you have the statutory authority to do it."



Chu told the subcommittee that DOE's general counsel had advised him that he could take such action. Chu repeated that assertion in a March 26 letter to subcommittee chairman Peter Visclosky, an Indian Democrat. "My general counsel has studied this matter very closely, and has advised me that we do have the authority within the law to take the reprogramming actions that we have planned," Chu said. "As you know, the Department of Energy sent you a letter on February 17, notifying you of our intent to reprogram funding for FY 2010 for the Office of Civilian and Radioactive Waste Management."



Chu also said in the letter that he does not believe money should be spent on a licensing process that has been suspended, especially in light of the Obama administration's intent to pursue alternatives to a Yucca Mountain repository. "We need to begin actions now to ensure that the shutdown occurs in an orderly fashion that takes into account the impacts on our employees and their families," Chu wrote. He said the department is trying to help affected employees find other jobs within the government for which they are qualified. He added that "an integral part of our plan is to proceed in a manner that preserves all relevant documents and all relevant learning so that no scientific knowledge is lost."
Document NUF0000020100419e6450000i

Blue ribbon panel might consider lessons learned from Yucca project

Elaine Hiruo, Washington /908 words/5 April 2010/Nuclear Fuel///NUF/13/Volume 35, Issue 7/English/
(c) 2010 McGraw-Hill, Inc.
/
The blue ribbon commission on nuclear waste might be willing to consider lessons learned from the process used by the Yucca Mountain repository project in Nevada, but it will not look at decisions about the site itself, co-chairmen Lee Hamilton and Brent Scowcroft said March 26 after the panel's first two-day meeting ended./
The 15-member commission was established by President Barack Obama's administration to conduct a comprehensive review of waste management alternatives to a Yucca Mountain repository and to make recommendations for a new national policy for managing utility spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste.



The charter of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future is broad, but it doesn't require the commission to recommend specific sites, Scowcroft told reporters after the commission meeting. But Hamilton said there is value in learning from past experiences.



"This is an independent commission," Hamilton said, "and we will draw our own conclusions, develop our own alternatives, make our own recommendations."



Hamilton's comment came a day after Energy Secretary Steven Chu, in his opening remarks to the commission, said the panel should keep its focus on the future and not spend time looking at the past and at the now-scuttled Yucca Mountain project.



Chu called for a broad, integrated review of factors early in the fuel cycle, such as advanced reactor technologies, saying they could affect the waste stream at the back end of the fuel cycle. "One really cannot predict what technologies will be available 50 to 150 years from now," Chu said. But, he added, the commission should review all possible ways to reduce the volume of nuclear waste slated for disposal. The task before the panel, according to Hamilton, is "daunting."



The administration intends to scrap the country's existing policy on nuclear waste that would have required utility spent fuel and DOE highly radioactive defense waste to be disposed of in a repository at Yucca Mountain, some 95 miles outside Las Vegas. DOE filed a motion with an NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board on March 3 to withdraw its Yucca Mountain repository license application with prejudice, a move that if approved could prevent the department from ever resubmitting that application to NRC. That action comes after DOE has spent more than two decades and $10 billion on work associated with a Yucca Mountain repository. It also comes nearly two years after DOE rushed to submit a repository license application to NRC and to move the program forward.



It could be June, however, before the ASLB takes up the DOE motion to withdraw the application. The licensing board has said that it will deal first with the petitions filed with the board seeking intervenor status in the licensing proceeding before considering the DOE motion.



Chu told the panel to review an assortment of waste streams, including low-level waste and highly radioactive defense waste, both of which are on DOE nuclear defense sites around the country. Chu asked that the commission make recommendations on how the department can effectively and efficiently meet its obligations to manage and cleanup this waste.



But he also told the panel it will review the Nuclear Waste Fund, a federal trust fund that now contains $21 billion in ratepayer payments and interest. Congress established the fund in 1982 to bankroll the DOE civilian nuclear waste program. Based on a 1 mill, or one-tenth of a cent, fee charged nuclear utility customers for every kilowatt-hour of nuclear-generated electricity sold, waste fee collections currently total more than $770 million a year.



Chu has said the department will continue collecting the waste fee during the development of a new national policy on radioactive waste, noting that money will be needed to implement the commission's recommendations.



Under its charter, the commission is to submit its final report and recommendations to Chu within 24 months. "We would like to finish before the two years expire, but we don't know at this time if we can make it," Hamilton told reporters.



The commission must now develop a work plan that will map out what it will evaluate and how it will do that. Commission member Richard Meserve suggested subcommittees be established and staffed to help the commission gather and digest information. Spent fuel reprocessing, long-term storage, and disposal could be the focus of three separate subcommittees, he said. The number of subcommittees will not necessarily be limited to three.
Others suggestions offered by subcommittee members included having an energy economist on staff and making use of the expertise of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent panel Congress established to provide technical oversight to the DOE civilian nuclear waste program.
During the public comment period March 26, Jack Spencer, a nuclear energy research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, urged the commission to put the Yucca Mountain project back in play, saying the panel should use this time to "recalibrate" DOE's approach.
Nevada, which has fought the Yucca Mountain project for decades, should have more control over the project, Spencer said. He also said that the repository program "has to be rooted in the market place" to be successful. More control should be placed in the hands of the companies that produce the waste, he said. That, according to Spencer, should "highly incentivize" them to find a solution.
Document NUF0000020100419e6450000h

Aiken County says U.S. can't close Yucca

By Julia Sellers, The Augusta Chronicle, Ga. /McClatchy-Tribune Regional News//////390 words/5 April 2010/The Augusta Chronicle (MCT)KRTAG/EnglishDistributed by McClatchy - Tribune Information Services
/Apr. 5--AIKEN -- Aiken County stands by its petition against the closing of Yucca Mountain, saying the Department of Energy can't back out of its agreement to ship nuclear waste to the Nevada repository unless Congress amends the law or its license is turned down for scientific reasons.
The county filed its 15-page response Friday with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Last week the Department of Energy and a handful of regulatory agencies said Aiken County was premature in filing a suit against the Obama's administration's plans to terminate the site.
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 stored in steel cylinders that were to be shipped elsewhere. It also would have housed 70,000 tons of waste from the nation's 104 commercial reactors, which are generating about 2,000 additional tons of spent fuel each year. President Obama's 2011 budget does not include funding for the facility, which has been in the works for more than 25 years.

NUCLEAR WASTE; State regulators sue DOE over repository fees

Katherine Ling, E&E reporter //573 words/5 April 2010GreenwireGRWREnglish© 2010 E&E Publishing, LLC. All Rights Reserved

The nation's state utility regulators are taking legal action against the Energy Department to stop the government from collecting fees to manage spent nuclear fuel.
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners filed a lawsuit Friday in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia seeking to overturn DOE's decision in October not to suspend payments into the Nuclear Waste Fund.
NARUC asked DOE last July to suspend the one-tenth-cent-per-kilowatt-hour fee paid by customers of nuclear-powered electricity because the Obama administration planned to cancel the waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., and establish a "blue ribbon" commission to consider alternative waste disposal options.
"There is no clearly defined program for disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Therefore, there is no basis to assess the adequacy of fees that continue to be paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund," the NARUC letter said. "If we are going to pause to reconsider disposal options, we feel it is also appropriate to pause the fee payments."

GOP Seeks DOE Legal Justification For Plan To Close Nuclear Waste Office

832 words/5 April 2010/Superfund Report/SUFR/Vol. 24, No. 7/English/Copyright (c) 2010 Inside Washington Publishers. All Rights Reserved. Also available in print and online as part of www.InsideEPA.com.

Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee's energy panel are pushing the Energy Department (DOE) to provide a legal justification for its proposed closure of its civilian nuclear waste office that manages the Yucca Mountain repository program, warning that the department first needs congressional approval to scrap the office.But DOE, which outlined the closure plan in its fiscal year 2011 budget request, claims that its general counsel believes the department has existing authority to restructure and shut down the office.
The Republicans are now trying to form a bipartisan group of lawmakers to meet with the department's general counsel to resolve the issue ideally before they consider DOE's pending FY11 funding bill, though congressional sources say that the GOP lawmakers are not looking to block DOE's budget bill over the issue.DOE is proposing to close its Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) and fold some of its duties into the nuclear energy office run by Assistant Secretary Warren Miller.

Obama panel examines nation's nuclear waste issues

Judy Fahys By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune881 words4 April 2010The Salt Lake Tribune
SLTREnglish© 2010 The Salt Lake Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.


Two recent announcements from the Obama administration have energized nuclear power advocates. The first is his plan to offer $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for new nuclear plants; the other, a task force to look at the dangerously radioactive waste often blamed for delaying what some anticipate will be a nuclear renaissance.
More than a few Utahns are keeping an eye on the new Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. Tooele County includes the nation's largest low-level radioactive waste disposal site, the mile- square EnergySolutions landfill, and the nation's only high-level nuclear site licensed in the past three decades, the derailed Private Fuel Storage facility on the Goshute reservation in Skull Valley.

YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Bipartisan group of House members float plan to block closure (03/24/2010)

Katherine Ling, E&E reporter

A group of House Democrats and Republicans introduced a resolution yesterday to stop the Obama administration from ending the nuclear waste repository program at Yucca Mountain, Nev., and to save important project data.
The resolution of disapproval aims to stop the Energy Department from using appropriated funds to end the project and to preserve "all scientific and site specific file and data related to Yucca Mountain," said a statement from Rep. Doc Hastings' (R-Wash.) office.
Joining Hastings on the measure are Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), James Clyburn (D-S.C.), Norm Dicks (D-Wash), John Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Gresham Barrett (R-S.C.), all of whom represent districts and states that currently store spent commercial or defense nuclear waste.
"This resolution sends a clear message that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle will continue actively working to keep the Yucca Mountain license moving forward," Hastings said.
Earlier this month DOE officially filed to withdraw its license application for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, with prejudice -- meaning the site could never again be considered for a repository (E&ENews PM, March 3).
Instead a 15-member Blue Ribbon Commission will review and consider alternative means to manage U.S. nuclear waste including interim storage, reprocessing and different geologic formations for a final repository. That commission will hold its first meeting tomorrow and must produce a draft report in about 18 months.
But that timeline is not acceptable for states with nuclear waste sitting on-site, Inslee said.
"Taxpayers have already spent more than $10 billion on Yucca Mountain, compiling 20 years of data that inform us that this is the best choice to securely store tons of nuclear waste," Inslee said. "Keeping waste scattered across the country, or in the case of Washington state at Hanford, is no longer an option. We have a solution to this problem and we must move forward."
Spratt, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said he would do "all I can to make sure some funding goes to defend the Yucca Mountain license application this year."
Upton noted that despite the administration's decision to withdraw from the Yucca project, taxpayers are still paying about $750 million in fees per year on electricity generated by nuclear power for the project. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the Nuclear Energy Institute are currently exploring their legal options to address this issue, the groups announced recently.
The resolution of disapproval and comments by the bill sponsors echo many questions directed at Energy Secretary Steven Chu and other members of the administration in multiple hearings on the DOE budget in the past few months both in the House and the Senate. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, dedicated a floor speech on the matter last week.
Chu argues that the science does not support a repository at Yucca and the United States should reconsider its waste management policy based on advances in technology and science. Chu will appear before the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee this afternoon to defend DOE's $28.4 billion proposed 2011 spending budget, which includes no appropriation for Yucca.

WSJ: Outgoing Regulator Slams Obama's Handling Of Yucca

By Stephen Power
Of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL404 words
9 March 201018:20Dow Jones News ServiceDJEnglish
(c) 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The Obama administration's decision to terminate a proposed nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., "does not seem to rest on factual findings" and is likely to complicate efforts to find a solution for managing nuclear waste "for years to come," a federal regulator said Tuesday.

The comments by Dale Klein--a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission --represent an unusual public rebuke to the Obama administration from a commission whose members tend to refrain from publicly weighing in on matters before them. The NRC is weighing a request by the Obama administration to withdraw a license application in favor of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. That application was submitted by the George W. Bush administration in 2008, over the fierce objections of Nevada lawmakers--most prominently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.).

(This story and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal Web site, WSJ.com.)

Klein's comments are of limited significance because he has announced plans to step down from the commission once the U.S. Senate confirms his successor. But his remarks could give ammunition to Republicans in Congress who support the proposed repository.

"In my personal view ... I have found the handling of this matter from a national policy perspective ... unfortunate," Klein said in a speech before a conference of nuclear industry officials in Rockville, Md. "The administration's handling of the matter has already led to the filing of a number of lawsuits and clouded the path forward in a number of significant ways for years to come ... In my opinion, the administration's stated rationale for changing course does not seem to rest on factual findings and thus does not bolster the credibility of our government to handle this matter competently."

Klein was appointed to the NRC in 2006 by then-President George W. Bush and served as its chairman for several years.

Spokespersons at the White House and Department of Energy didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The administration has said it believes there are better options for disposing of nuclear waste than Yucca. It has cited improvements in scientists' understanding of some technical issues surrounding nuclear-waste disposal since the 1980s, when the Yucca was initially identified as a possible repository site. [ 03-09-10 1920ET ]

Yucca Mountain foe: Work paid off: DOE move surprises former state official

By Keith Rogers, Las Vegas Review-Journal
McClatchy-Tribune Regional News591 words March 9, 2010
Las Vegas Review-Journal (MCT)
KRTLVEnglish
Distributed by McClatchy - Tribune Information Services

Mar. 9--The man who led Nevada's charge against the Yucca Mountain Project for more than 20 years says he's surprised that the Department of Energy took action on its own to withdraw its license request to build a nuclear waste repository in the ridge, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.



"I have to admit that side of it is kind of a surprise," Bob Loux, former executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said after DOE filed a motion last week to withdraw its construction application from a nuclear licensing board.



"I could see DOE getting defeated in the licensing proceedings given the number of contentions that Nevada submitted and were accepted. I never thought they'd come from a licensing proceeding with a license."



After working for the state for 32 years, including 23 at the helm of the Nuclear Projects Agency, Loux resigned in September 2008 amid controversy over giving himself and his staff unauthorized pay raises.



He later offered to pay the state more than $29,000 in salary overpayments in exchange for the withdrawal of an ethics complaint against him, but the Ethics Commission rejected the proposal.



Then in March 2009, the Ethics Commission decided in a 3-2 vote to drop the charges, ruling that he didn't break state ethics laws because the governor, not the Legislature, determines his salary and those of his staff. Since then, Loux said, he has been working on a book and playing golf.



In a telephone interview Thursday, Loux said he is "gratified to know that the work we've done over the years has really paid off."



"There is a real lessen for people facing large government projects," he said. "Commitment will pay off in the end, and you really can fight city hall."



Though the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Construction Authorization Board has not decided yet on accepting DOE's motion to withdraw the license application , Loux noted that the Yucca Mountain Project is similar to two other multibillion-dollar government projects that were canceled. Congress terminated the Clinch River Breeder Reactor in Tennessee in 1983 and the Superconducting Super Collider in Texas in 1993.



"Once they head down the path of no funding, they never recover," Loux said.



He said he thinks that nuclear regulators will accept DOE's motion to kill the Yucca Mountain Project and that the federal government, with the help of the Obama administration's commission, will look outside Nevada to solve the nation's nuclear waste disposal problem.



"There is no reason to believe there are any more suitable sites in Nevada. This is the third-most earthquake-prone state," Loux said.



He said there were too many obstacles with at Yucca Mountain. Besides earthquake faults and volcanic activity, there were problems with transportation such as securing water rights to build a railroad from Caliente to the mountain and potential problems with decaying waste seeping into the water table.



Finding another nuclear waste site and gaining acceptance in another state is going to be difficult.



"You may experience a lot of these things where ever you go," he said. "Unless everybody agrees the site is good ... you're just being a guinea pig for the nuclear industry."Copyright (c) 2010, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Thank Reid for death of Yucca Clout as majority leader was the difference From Our Readers

Thank Reid for death of Yucca Clout as majority leader was the difference From Our Readers

Richard Bryan 508 words
7 March 2010The Las Vegas Review-Journal

To the editor:For more than a quarter of a century, Nevadans have been fighting the ill-conceived nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. The nuclear energy lobby and its supporters repeatedly told Nevadans to give up the fight because the dump is "inevitable."



But Nevada hung tough, and recently we received the news that the great majority of Nevadans had long waited to hear - the federal government is abandoning the Yucca Mountain Project. The president's new budget contains no funding for further development, and last week the Department of Energy filed a motion to withdraw its application to license Yucca Mountain. To be sure - we will need to be vigilant and follow through - but the end is in sight.



Many Nevadans - Republicans and Democrats alike - have played key roles in the fight against Yucca. As a newly elected governor in the 1980s, and with my Republican Attorney General, Brian McKay, by my side, we began the fight. It was Sen. Harry Reid, however, as the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, who persuaded President Obama to eliminate funding for Yucca Mountain and abandon the project. He deserves the credit for ultimately driving a silver stake into the heart of the project.



There are many Nevadans who do not support all of Sen. Reid's legislative proposals. As his friend for more than 40 years and his former colleague in the U.S. Senate for a decade, I would be among them. As the election season heats up, I hear some Nevadans asking what Sen. Reid has done for Nevada. Some wonder what Nevada gains because of Sen. Reid's role as majority leader.



Well, Yucca Mountain is a classic case in point. It does not denigrate the role of our congressional delegation and others who have been part of the fight for decades to point out that the power Sen. Reid wields as the majority leader was the key.



Having escaped the nuclear bullet on Yucca, I am now hearing a troubling new proposal: Let's be the host state for nuclear reprocessing. Embracing reprocessing is like jumping out of the nuclear frying pan and into the fire. Our concerns about transportation-related accidents or terrorist activities apply to shipment of high-level waste to Nevada for reprocessing as well. At the end of the reprocessing cycle, there is still high-level nuclear waste. If it's already here in our state, the slippery slope effect would inevitably lead to the argument, "Well, if Nevada accepts some nuclear waste shipments to the state and is prepared to store some nuclear waste, doesn't it make sense for Nevada to take it all?"

We need to be careful what we ask for: We might get it.

Richard H. Bryan
Las Vegas

Yucca abandonment panned


Steve Tetreault
553 words
5 March 2010The Las Vegas Review-JournalLVGS2BEnglish© 2010 The Las Vegas Review-Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU



WASHINGTON - Energy Secretary Steven Chu came under more criticism Thursday for moving to terminate work at Yucca Mountain, but he said the government was "pouring good money after bad" by pursuing what he called an outdated nuclear waste project.
At a Senate hearing, Chu got his latest earful from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. She demanded to know "who was consulted in making the decision that Yucca Mountain was not viable."
"You say that Yucca Mountain is not a workable option, but what seems to be missing is why," she told Chu, asking him repeatedly what science was used to back up the Obama administration's decision to end plans for the underground waste repository.
Murray said billions of dollars have been spent at the Hanford nuclear reservation in her state to clean up and begin packaging liquid nuclear waste for eventual disposal at the proposed Yucca site, but no consideration was given to residents there and other places where highly radioactive waste awaits removal.
"This is really disturbing to me," Murray said. "This leaves everybody just in complete limbo after 30 years of working on this."
Chu was at the hearing to discuss the DOE budget, a day after department attorneys filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a move to withdraw a construction application for the waste site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
On Wednesday, Chu faced similar criticism from several House members at a science hearing.
Most of the Capitol Hill complaints have come from Republicans. Murray became the first Senate Democrat to challenge the president and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., an engineer of the administration's policy.
Despite the scattered criticism, no groundswell has risen to reverse the decision to scrap Yucca and put future policy in the hands of a panel that begins work this month.For instance, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said Thursday that he opposed shutting down the Nevada repository effort, but the Obama administration overall has made strides by supporting new loan guarantees for reactors and making quality appointments to federal boards dealing with nuclear energy.
It could not be learned whether Murray was taking her frustration to Reid, or giving him a heads-up that she was going to air her criticism.
Reid understands that "people need to do what they need to do for their home states," said his spokesman, Jon Summers. On the other hand, everyone knows where Reid stands on Yucca Mountain, and "the dump is not going to be built, period."
Previous administrations pressed on with Yucca Mountain, adapting the program when it encountered technical challenges. Chu told Murray that President Barack Obama wants a fresh start.
For instance, he said, when Yucca Mountain was found to have more fractures than expected, which might enable moisture to work its way into waste tunnels, managers came up with a fix that was a "multi-, multibillion-dollar titanium shield that's installed under the ground."
"As these things go on, you are beginning to think, 'Are you pouring good money after bad?' " he said. "I don't believe science is willing to say that Yucca Mountain is the ideal site given what we know today and what we believe we can develop in the next 50 years."

NUCLEAR WASTE; Salt domes better than Yucca for long-term storage -- Chu

NUCLEAR WASTE; Salt domes better than Yucca for long-term storage -- Chu

Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter 418 words
4 March 2010
GreenwireGRWR© 2010 E&E Publishing, LLC. All Rights Reserved

Under fire from lawmakers for abandoning an effort to develop a nuclear-waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nev., Energy Secretary Steven Chu told Senate appropriators today that salt domes might make better long-term storage sites.
The domes, Chu said, "have been stable for tens of millions, hundreds of millions of years."
"People ask, 'Why were these sites excluded in the first place?" from consideration as possible storage sites, he said.
Yucca Mountain, he said, has fissures and could be saturated with water if the climate shifts in the distant future.
"So you say we could maybe add a titanium shield," Chu said. "Then you wonder if you're throwing good money after bad."
Chu faced hostile questioning from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who had harsh words for the Obama administration's decision on Yucca. She said the decision to pull the plug on Yucca could slow the progress of the cleanup at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state and other former nuclear weapons sites.
"I think it's irresponsible for DOE to abandon completely the Yucca site," Murray said. "These sites and the communities that support them have been left in limbo."
Murray also asked Chu for an "impact statement" about how shuttering Yucca will affect nuclear cleanups around the country.
Yesterday, the Energy Department filed its motion to withdraw the license at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the spent nuclear waste repository at Yucca (E&ENews PM, March 3).
Chu reiterated today the administration's plan to convene a commission to review and recommend policies to manage U.S. nuclear waste, and he stressed such a move would not affect future nuclear energy expansion in the United States. Murray said the panels should not have excluded restarting Yucca as an option.
Murray also questioned whether the basis for shutting down the facility was based on science or politics. Chu did not pinpoint a specific scientific study that recommended shutting down the site, but he cited the 25 years of experience working at Yucca as the basis for the decision.
At a hearing last week, John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told the House Science Committee that the years of experience at Yucca had not been wasted as they led to a better understanding of the characteristics of nuclear waste and the changes necessary to best store it.