Vol. 3, No. 17
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July 1, 2006
Nevada's Online State News Journal
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DOE Continues To Be Inconsistent In Plans
New Mexico Senator Complains, Nevada Agency Head Complains
by Johnny Gunn
The only thing consistent about the Department of Energy (DOE) is the inconsistency of their approach to creating the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste repository in southern Nevada. One long-time supporter of the concept of Yucca Mountain is New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici (R), chairman of the Senate Energy Committee who is so befuddled by the many conflicting ideas presented by DOE that he is introducing and supporting legislation to put a hold on the entire project. Domenici is supporting a plan that includes interim waste facilities and reprocessing of waste into usable fuel.
Recently in testimony the New Mexico senator said he didn't believe that high-level waste would ever be stored at Yucca Mountain. The major thrust to get Yucca open at any cost is driven by a desire to increase the number of nuclear energy plants in this country. Although there has been some talk by current administration leaders that reprocessing is an answer to the waste problem, little money has come forward, and as with DOE no concrete plans of any kind.
One supporter of Domenici's idea for having several interim sites around the country, near current nuclear energy plants he says, and not in Nevada or Utah is Nevada Senator Harry Reid. Reid is a staunch foe of Yucca Mountain and is a supporter of the concept of storing the high level nuclear waste where it developed, and has recently supported the idea of reprocessing.
In the past the Nuclear Energy Institute representing the nuclear industry has supported only the concept of Yucca Mountain as the only repository for nuclear waste. However at least one representative of the Institute, Skip Bowman, president has said the industry is studying plans for interim storage facilities. There is no indication the organization is supporting or even studying reprocessing.
According to Domenici and Reid, the idea of using interim sites and studying reprocessing is to give all sides an opportunity to look at what is the best answer for the thousands of tons of high level nuclear waste. The two, working together on the Domenici plan say the interim facilities should plan on being used for at least 25 years.
Domenici and Reid agree that Nevada and Utah should not be considered as interim sites. In Nevada according to Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects original plans for Yucca Mountain forbade any possible interim storage facility in the state. Loux says that DOE has been attempting to compromise that situation and he wrote a letter to the DOE Yucca chief Paul Golan on June 26 reminding him of that.
According to Loux, DOE has been attempting to make Yucca into an interim site. He said, Congress appropriated funds for DOE to develop a spent nuclear feel recycling plan." In his letter he reminds Golan "The Department's (DOE) Nuclear Waste Policy Act prohibits interim storage of nuclear waste in the State of Nevada."
The DOE has been working for more than 20 years to develop a plan under which licensing procedures can make Yucca Mountain the sole geologic high level nuclear waste facility in the country. They aren't within ten years of their goal according to many. The licensing would be from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The chairman of the NRC Nils Diaz is retiring from the agency and turned more than a few heads when he recently came out in favor of interim storage at various sites around the country and continued study of reprocessing of the nuclear waste. Diaz has been with NRC since 1996.
Many believe the plans offered by Domenici and Reid are an opportunity to step back and look at the entire problem of high level nuclear waste. Cool heads might prevail if DOE stops prodding everyone in site with change after change of plans that have never been signed off by any other agency. Twenty-five years is a drop in the bucket considering DOE has foisted itself off on the industry, congress, and general public for about that amount of time already. The difference would be, this study probably won't cost a whopping $8 billion.
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