DC appeals court sets date in nuclear dump lawsuit
LAS VEGAS -- A Washington, D.C., appeals court plans oral arguments March 22 in a lawsuit aimed at keeping plans on track to bury the nation's nuclear waste in Nevada.
South Carolina, Washington state, Aiken County, S.C., and three Washington state business owners claim the Obama administration overstepped its authority in cutting funding for the Yucca Mountain project.
Plaintiffs argue the shutdown leaves states dealing with tons of radioactive material that should be buried in the proposed repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The Energy Department argues the administration has the right to change federal nuclear waste policy.
Fueling America’s nuclear renaissance by reprocessing nuclear fuel
By Dr. Bernard L. Weinstein - 12/21/10 11:43 AM ET
Earlier this year, President Barack Obama did an about-face and started voicing support for a revival of America’s nuclear power industry. To that end, he proposed a sizeable increase in federal loan guarantees to stimulate the construction of new commercial reactors. Then a few weeks ago, Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu stated that Congress should include nuclear power as part of any renewable energy mandates.
But at the same time, the president continues to insist that Yucca Mountain in Nevada — the intended repository for spent nuclear fuel — be abandoned as a disposal site even before it opens. Should this happen, some 60,000 metric tons of spent fuel will remain in temporary on-site storage at 65 plants, and the power industry’s interest in building new nuclear plants could quickly evaporate.
Since 1982, utilities have paid almost $17 billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund, an account administered by the DOE that continues to grow by $800 million annually, to cover the costs of permanent disposal. Even after spending $10 billion at Yucca Mountain, with accumulated interest the fund balance is currently around $20 billion. Not surprisingly, 16 utilities, along with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, have sued the DOE to halt further collection of fees, arguing that the country no longer has a disposal plan after ruling out Yucca Mountain.
The Obama administration now says it supports the temporary storage of spent fuel at power plants while technology paves the way for an alternative solution. In fact, that technology already exists — nuclear fuel reprocessing. Given the uncertainty over the future of Yucca Mountain, and the potential explosion of litigation that will only increase taxpayer exposure, why not rethink the decades-old ban on this technology? The ban was first imposed by President Jimmy Carter in the mid-1970s on the grounds it could lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. But that hasn’t stopped France, Britain, Russia, China and South Korea from pursuing fuel reprocessing; and no plutonium has ever been diverted from recycling facilities for weapons production in these countries.
With reprocessing, a technology that was developed in the United States, valuable plutonium and uranium in spent fuel are removed and then chemically processed into a mixed-oxide fuel that can be used again in a reactor to generate additional electricity. Up to 95 percent of the spent fuel volume can be reprocessed, leaving only about 5 percent to decay in a few centuries. Importantly, reducing the volume of spent fuel through reprocessing would simplify the challenge of storage and disposal. What’s more, squeezing more energy out of spent fuel would be beneficial both to the nation’s economy and the environment. By using reprocessed fuel, we generate more electricity for American homes and businesses while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
One reprocessing facility is already being constructed in South Carolina to recycle surplus plutonium from nuclear weapons into a mixed-oxide fuel for use in nuclear power plants. Some of the funds that have accumulated in the Nuclear Waste Fund could be used to build a similar plant for recycling used fuel from commercial nuclear facilities.
About a year ago the DOE appointed a blue ribbon commission to evaluate policy options for a safe, long-term solution to nuclear waste disposal. The 15-member Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, co-chaired by former Congressman Lee Hamilton of Indiana and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and including scientists, industry representatives, and heads of environmental research organizations, will issue its final report by January 2012.
Recycling of spent nuclear fuel should be at the top of the Commission’s agenda. Reprocessing, along with centralized interim storage, makes a lot more sense than banking used fuel at nuclear plants indefinitely. At the same time, we should be doing everything we reasonably can to advance America’s nuclear renaissance, a task made more difficult by the ongoing uncertainty regarding the final disposition of spent fuel.
Dr. Weinstein is associate director of the Maguire Energy Institute in the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Between 1985 and 1995, he was with the speakers’ bureau of the Nuclear Energy Institute. His email address is bweinstein@smu.edu
End to nuclear-waste fee is sought by Arizona official Arizona Corporation Commissioner Bob Stump urged Energy Secretary Steven Chu to end a fee that would help pay for the development of a permanent nuclear-waste repository. The fee now serves no purpose because the government terminated the Yucca Mountain project, Stump added. "Why are Arizonans and our nation's ratepayers, who are working to recover from one of the harshest recessions in American history, being forced to continue to pay this fee, with no benefit in sight," he wrote in a letter to Chu. The Arizona Republic (Phoenix)
WASHINGTON -- Nevada Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval on Friday wrapped up three days of meetings with federal leaders, with the most notable episode of the week taking place during an audience with President Barack Obama.
While Obama was taking questions Thursday during a meeting with 23 new governors in the official White House guest house, incoming South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley challenged him on Yucca Mountain.
Haley, whose state is suing to revive the terminated project, asked whether Obama would reconsider his decision to shut down the proposed Nevada nuclear waste site.
"You might want to ask the Nevada governor about that," Obama quipped. At which point Sandoval jumped in. "I think I can answer that question for you, Mr. President," he piped up.
Like other elected Nevadans, Sandoval opposes the Yucca project. Obama turned to Haley and defended his decision before the new governors, saying his administration was looking for alternatives to the Nevada storage site.
"It was a fast exchange," Sandoval said afterward, but one that was welcomed by Nevada's new chief executive.
"It reaffirmed to me the president will not be supporting the long-term storage of nuclear waste in Nevada," Sandoval said. "I have the understanding the administration has not changed its position."
Beyond his comment on Yucca Mountain, Sandoval did not ask Obama questions. But he said it was clear that Nevada's concerns about the cost of Obama's signature health care reform was shared by others in the session that was held at Blair House.
Again, it was Haley who challenged Obama to repeal the health care legislation. He rejected the idea, but reportedly offered the possibility the states could opt out of some requirements under certain conditions.
During three days in Washington, Sandoval met with various Cabinet secretaries, Republican leaders in Congress and members of Nevada's delegation.
The newly elected Republican said the sessions were good first steps to establish relationships with federal leaders. He said Obama promised governors his administration would reciprocate.
"He said we can be very confident they will return our calls," Sandoval said.
In a meeting last month with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Sandoval asked the Senate majority leader about chances the government could pick up $215 million of Nevada's costs to run Medicaid, the free health care program for the poor.
Nevada has been hit hard by the recession and major cuts are expected in Sandoval's budget, which he will present to the Legislature in 2011. The state will be hit with a 17 percent drop in tax revenues over the next two years, according to this week's projection by the state Economic Forum.
Sandoval also expressed concern to Reid about Nevada owing the government $105 million in interest charges over the next two years on loans that have enabled the state to pay unemployment benefits.
Sandoval said Friday that he did not get into detail on those issues in meetings this week, including one with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. But he said he is scheduling a follow-up with her chief of staff that will get into the numbers.
"They said there may be ways that they can assist Nevada," Sandoval said. "We haven't gotten into the specifics but that was the objective of my trip, to meet with the respective Cabinet secretaries and talk about Nevada issues and to be able to follow up from there."
Sandoval also planned a follow-up meeting Friday with the chief of staff to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood after meeting with the Cabinet member on Thursday. The topic was to be high-speed rail, one of the issues Obama discussed with new governors on Thursday.
Sandoval said he wanted the government's view of competing proposals to serve the Las Vegas-Southern California corridor with magnetic levitation trains or conventional high-speed rail before deciding which plan his administration will support.
"What I want to do .... is sit down and see what there is to offer," Sandoval said. "I want to try to understand what the respective position of the Department of Transportation is in regard to the two projects.
"I think it's important we have high-speed rail in the state of Nevada but I am not going to pick one project over the other," Sandoval said. "It's a fact finding mission .... in seeing exactly where the Department of Transportation is. I did not realize how big a priority it is for the administration, and there are a lot of resources available to the states that will be participating."
A broad review of current research on nuclear power economics has been published in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy. The report concludes that nuclear power will continue to be a viable power source but that the current fuel cycle is not sustainable. Due to uncertainty about waste management, any projection of future costs must be built on basic assumptions that are not grounded in real data.
"The goal of this study was to determine what assumptions are key to reaching conclusions about the relative costs of technologies," says author Sarah Widder, now at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. She performed the analysis as a science policy intern in Washington D.C. sponsored by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers . "The increasing world demand for uranium and political considerations such as the fate of the Yucca mountain disposal site are two major elements that drive conclusions in one direction or another."
Reprocessing and recycling of spent fuel is an alternative to the "once-through" policy mandated by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. While it would minimize high-level radioactive waste and recover additional value from the fuel, the option is controversial because of the risk of weapon proliferation and the significant cost of fuel recovery.
Analyses supporting the once-through option assume a continuation in current waste management policies, although they rely on disposal at Yucca Mountain, which has now been deemed unsuitable by the current administration. Analyses supporting a closed fuel cycle, in which unused fuel is recovered and recycled, assume progress in developing new recovery technologies and an increase in uranium costs due to international competition for resources.
Recent revelations lend credence to allegations the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been stalling on announcing its Yucca Mountain decision for political purposes. Time for the NRC to announce its decision on whether the Obama administration can cancel the project unilaterally.
Related
IT'S confirmed. Four Nuclear Regulatory Commission members cast their votes months ago on the question of whether the Obama administration can unilaterally cancel the nation's deep geological nuclear-waste repository. But the votes have been kept secret apparently for political reasons.
Attribute the holdup to NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who seems to have done everything he can to game the process and keep the question about Yucca Mountain from a more credible proceeding in federal court.
Congress designated the site 100 miles from Las Vegas as the destination for the nation's commercial nuclear waste and high-level defense waste, such as that now at Hanford in Southeastern Washington.
The NRC's own licensing board in June ruled that, no indeed, the Obama administration cannot flout the will of Congress. The question before the NRC is whether to affirm or overturn that ruling — a decision needed before the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals will take up related litigation.
Washington state, South Carolina and others have sued.
The bizarre political maneuverings at the NRC have given the agency long renowned for its straight-shooting credibility a black eye. Though the vote remains secret, Jaczko has ordered repository scientists to stop a near-complete study. The agency's inspector general says he's looking into the matter at the behest of a former commissioner.
Four of the commissioners — a fifth recused himself — voted by Sept. 15, as they each confirmed in recent letters to Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. Jaczko, who voted Aug. 26, said he withdrew his vote and revoted Oct. 29 — just days before his patron, former boss and fervent opponent of Yucca Mountain, Sen. Harry Reid, barely fended off a tough Nov. 2 challenge.
Speculation is rampant the NRC vote did not go Jaczko's way. We can't help but think that if it had, the public would have been notified by a breathless news release around Sept. 15. Heck, Reid could have touted it in his campaign brochures.
Enough stalling, Chairman Jaczko. Time to publish this opinion so this very serious national matter can be settled in a more credible venue.
Republicans are keeping the pressure on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, whose chairman directed staff last month to begin phasing out their review of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site.
Three U.S. House members on Tuesday asked the acting director of the White House budget office to clarify what authority NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko had "to shut down the Yucca review and terminate the project."
"While it is widely known the Obama administration opposes Yucca Mountain, it remains our nation's repository for spent nuclear fuel and high level defense waste under the law," according to the letter signed by Reps. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, and Paul Ryan, R-Wisc.
Jaczko has said he was acting under budget guidance approved by the NRC. The House members asked Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget for a detailed explanation of the NRC chairman's budget authority.
The proposed Yucca Mountain project in Nevada has provided rare drama at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a normally low profile agency with the job of regulating the use of nuclear power and the handling of radioactive materials.
While the state Commission on Nuclear Projects huddled at the Clark County Government Center to continue its opposition of the Yucca Mountain Project, a few miles away on the Strip more than 2,000 nuclear industry leaders, scientists and researchers converged for a conference titled "Nuclear Progress!"
Despite their differences, both sides acknowledge that the nation's high-level radioactive waste eventually will need a permanent disposal site.
Where that place is, when it will be ready and in what form the waste will be are some of the questions that remain a couple months after Congress zeroed out funding for the project and President Barack Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission for America's Nuclear Future began charting a new path forward.
"My opinion as a nuclear engineer is that the findings of that commission will not be much different than previous commissions. We know what the options are," said Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar, incoming chairwoman of the American Nuclear Society's Fuel Cycle and Waste Management Division.
The best option, whether or not it is Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, or some other site in some other state, is deep, geologic disposal, she said.
Industry observers are looking at how the Obama administration plans to handle permanent nuclear-waste storage after it decided to abandon the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, set up by the administration, is heading discussions on future nuclear-waste policy. "It's certainly [going to be] a starting point for whatever happens," said Rod McCullum, director of the Nuclear Energy Institute's used-fuel program. Engineering News-Record
Yucca Mountain's fate could be decided in midterm election Should Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., lose his re-election bid next month, Nevada's congressional opposition to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository would be significantly weakened, according to Bruce Breslow, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. "Our entire Nevada delegation has opposed Yucca, but we had no clout until Senator Reid became majority leader," said Breslow. "Without a majority leader from Nevada, other states would have built an expressway to Yucca Mountain." Reno Gazette-Journal (Nev.)/Gannett News Service
Attempts to kill Yucca Mountain have become "downright brazen" The tactics used by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to force a shutdown of the Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste-repository project "have gone beyond suspicious to downright brazen," according to The Seattle Times. Chairman Gregory Jaczko's directive to stop a project evaluation contradicts a ruling of the NRC's own licensing board, ignores ongoing litigation in federal court and makes light of the opinion of more than 90 members of Congress, the newspaper adds. The Seattle Times
In March of 2009 I wrote a post in which I argued Barack Obama deserved an F for his energy policy. This continues to be the case with the Obama administration continuing to make poorly thought out energy related decisions. Virtually every Obana administration energy related decision over the last 18 months, has been poorly thought out and has wasted opportunities.
Obama has used the stimulus package to offer further subsidies to the renewable energy industry, even though renewable energy is unreliable and is not cost effective when compared to nuclear energy.
Obama has avoided a heads up comparison of renewables and and nuclear energy by failing to appoint a commission on the national energy future.
The Obama administration has mismanaged nuclear loan guarantees.
The Obama administration probably acted improperly in its decision to shut down the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste project. I am no big fan of Yucca Mountain, but the Yucca shut down decision was political and not a response to the national energy need. Thus while the national energy situation is existential, the Obama administration continues to engage in political games over energy
Concerns raised over NRC's review of Yucca Mountain license Republican congressmen raised concerns about reports that Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko is stopping the agency's review of the Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste project. "This is a level of arrogance and disregard for the law that I've rarely encountered, but when it comes to Yucca Mountain, the Obama administration seems content to simply make up its own rules," said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Wash.)
Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., has criticized a Nuclear Regulatory Commission directive to halt the agency's review of a license application for the Yucca Mountain waste-disposal project in Nevada. In a letter to NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, Spratt said, "I remain strongly opposed to the administration's actions to terminate the Yucca Mountain project and urge the NRC to move forward in fulfilling its duty to review the license application." The State (Columbia, S.C.)
Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday defended Chairman Gregory Jaczko's directive issued to agency scientists to abandon their review of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository in Nevada. The directive is "consistent with budget and commission policy" and is not being questioned by commissioners, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Hayden. Las Vegas Review-Journal/Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Officials from states that are storing millions of gallons of nuclear waste urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday to put its scientists back to work evaluating Yucca Mountain as a potential disposal site.
Attorneys for Washington state and South Carolina filed a formal motion with the agency alleging that Chairman Gregory Jaczko acted improperly in directing the staff to "begin an orderly closure of high level waste activities." The states were joined by Aiken County, S.C., where the federal government stores 36 million gallons of highly radioactive waste at its Savannah River complex. In Washington state, more than 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste are at the Hanford site.
The parties argue that the NRC commissioners have yet to rule on an Obama administration request to close out the license application for Yucca Mountain. And until they do, the evaluation cannot be ended, they argued.
The NRC confirmed receipt of the motion. Spokesman David McIntyre said the agency, as its usual practice, would not comment. Neither Jaczko nor any of the four other commissioners has commented on the guidance, which staff said came in the context of a budget memo for the new fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
Amid the silence, unconfirmed rumors swirled of palace intrigue at the top levels of the agency that otherwise has a reputation as a by-the-book body whose focus is on regulating the safety and security of nuclear power plants and the handling of nuclear materials.
Agency spokesmen moved Thursday to dispel whispers among attorneys and lobbyists of some significant and impending development in the commission's handling of Yucca Mountain, perhaps an announcement in some form of a vote.
McIntyre said the commission has no meetings scheduled on the topic, and two of its five members are out of town this week.
The Yucca issue is seen as politically sensitive among policymakers as it touches on Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate majority leader who is up for re-election.
Reid contends the nuclear waste burial in Nevada is unsafe and unsound, and has made its termination a part of his career and his campaign. Through the Obama administration, he has engineered the shutdown of project offices and all but buried decades of government drive to locate a nuclear waste site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Before he joined the NRC in 2005, Jazcko was a top aide to Reid handling appropriations and nuclear matters. An NRC ruling that allows the Yucca Mountain construction application to be withdrawn "with prejudice," meaning it could not be refiled, could amount to a final nail in the coffin.
Nevada leaders who have opposed the program say they are hopeful of a final ruling to kill the program for good, although some unconfirmed reports suggest the commission is split and could come down either way.
Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said Thursday Jaczko's decision to halt the staff review in the meantime was "a sound decision."
"I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure that this misguided project never sees the light of day," Titus said.
NRC's Jaczko Orders End to Review of Yucca Mountain Application
NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko has issued an order for agency scientists to cease reviewing DOE's application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported today. NRC said the order followed a previously established commission policy "that directs a transition to begin an orderly closure of high level waste activities" at Yucca.
NRC spokesman David McIntyre said commissioners planned no comments on the instructions. The Nuclear Energy Institute contended that the NRC was obligated to review DOE's petition to withdraw its application for Yucca before commissioners voted on the petition. The group noted the "general principle, that as long as an application is pending, which it is, the agency is under an obligation."
Nevada politicians applauded Jaczko's order, with Meredith MacKenzie, spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid quoted as saying: "Why would anybody want the federal government to continue wasting time and valuable resources working on a license application for a project that has no money, no staff, and no chance of ever being built?"
The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently voted to double the length of time radioactive waste can be stored at nuclear power plants. Earlier this month, the Lacey Planning Board, in a 5-2 vote, approved allowing the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant to add another 28 dry casks used to store spent nuclear fuel to the 18 casks already on the plant property.
The two developments aren't unrelated. Oyster Creek needs more space to store its toxic waste for the same reason the federal government needs to extend the time spent fuel can remain in casks from 30 years to 60 years after a plant permanently ceases operation: Because the facility that was to have stored the nuclear waste from the nation's 104 commercial plants at Yucca Mountain in Nevada may never be built. In essence, Oyster Creek will become the Yucca Mountain of the Jersey Shore.
The NRC didn't decide to double the number of years radioactive waste could be stored onsite at nuclear power plants because of any safety improvements in the casks or any technological breakthroughs that reduced the toxicity or half-lives of the spent fuel rods. It was simply the latest acknowledgement that Yucca Mountain, authorized by Congress in 1982 to be the sole depository for the nation's nuclear waste, apparently has no future. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama pulled the funding for Yucca Mountain, which already has cost more than $13 billion.The good news at Oyster Creek is that it is far safer to store the plant's spent fuel in dry casks than in its dangerously overcrowded spent fuel pool, where the number of fuel rods packed into the pool long ago exceeded the design capacity. That creates a far greater risk of a massive fire and meltdown. But it's doubtful enough of the estimated 2,300, 12-foot steel rods will be moved into casks quickly enough to substantially reduce the risk.
Spent fuel stored at nuclear power plants will remain dangerous to humans for at least 10,000 years and harmful to the environment for 1 million years more. At the planning board hearing on the dry casks, an Exelon representative said the casks are good for 50 years.Elaborating on the NRC decision to extend the time frame for on-site storage of nuclear waste, agency spokesman Neil Sheehan said, "There are currently no other clear options for the storage of U.S. spent nuclear fuel. As such, on-site storage remains the only alternative as of now." Sheehan added that the decision also directed NRC staff to undertake a rule-making process on the continued storage of spent fuel at nuclear plants for up to 300 years.
Maybe by then a better solution will have been found for dealing with radioactive waste. Better yet, maybe we will have finally resorted to more sensible technologies for generating power — ones that don't threaten the planet's health for 1 million years or more. http://www.app.com/article/20101001/OPINION01/10020304/Yucca-Mountain-of-Jersey-Shore
