Vol. 4, No. 23
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October 1, 2007
Nevada's Online State News Journal
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COPYWRITING
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DOE Changes Direction
One More Time
Going For Bigger,
What About Better
by Johnny Gunn
For more than 20 years the Department of Energy has been attempting to build the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository with one failure piling on top of another, with unknown science replaced by lies and deception, and now it's time to double the effort. By law, the repository was supposed to hold 70,000 tons of high level nuclear waste, most of it coming from the nuclear power industry and the rest from military and lesser sources. According to a press release during the first week of October, DOE now says they want to double the size and capacity of the repository and store as much as 135,000 tons. They were planning to seek licensing from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in June of 2008 and nobody seems to have an answer as to how this larger capacity would affect that procedure.
First, the budget
The energy department has asked congress to support legislation increasing the budget for the Yucca Mountain Project by several billion dollars to pay for these design size changes. There was immediate reaction from Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley. Berkley (D-NV) sharply criticized new figures from the head of the Yucca Mountain Project that show the total price tag for the proposed nuke waste dump will climb 35 percent to roughly $80 billion. In addition, Berkley is gearing up for a renewed fight against a Bush Administration push to double the amount of toxic radioactive waste that will be dumped at Yucca Mountain. The statements about the soaring cost of Yucca Mountain and plans to double the size of the dump were made by Ward Sproat, Director of DOE’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, during a hearing before the House Budget Committee on nuclear waste issues.
Berkley has been against the project from the beginning and believes as many do that the waste should be stored at the site of the nuclear energy plants, located in 31 states across the country. “Yucca Mountain is nothing more than radioactive pork that benefits the nuclear power industry and now the price tag for this failed project is going to top the $80 billion mark." In a press release from the congresswoman's web site, she said, "Doubling the size of Yucca Mountain will only double the danger to more than 50 million families who will be potential targets because they live along nuclear waste transportation routes." Berkley was referring to continued questions about safety from terrorists if the high level nuclear waste is transported to Nevada by way of the nation's railroads and highways.
There have been no tests conducted on the casks and transportation systems as far as terrorist weaponry is concerned. The only tests, and these were done years ago and there have been changes in design since then, gave the casks a passing grade from falling and from controlled fires. A shoulder fired missile would more than likely present a different scenario to the testing. Rail and truck transport of the casks has been at the forefront of many that oppose the concept of Yucca Mountain, and since 9/11/2001, the idea of terrorist attacks has topped the list in debates. The energy department has not involved itself in the debate.
“When it comes to Yucca Mountain, two things are certain: the price tag only grows larger and the delays only grow longer," Berkley said. "As a nation, we have already spent more than $10 billion on a hole in the Nevada desert and it is long past time we quit shoveling bundles of cash into this fiscal abyss. On-site storage of nuclear waste is safe for the next 100 years, costs a small fraction of what we could spend at Yucca Mountain and avoids the danger of an accident or terrorist incident involving shipments of radioactive waste. Let’s pull the plug on this wasteful spending and come up with a real solution to nuclear waste that does not involve turning Nevada into a toxic dump site.”
DOE released two draft environmental policy act documents dealing with the Yucca Mountain repository. The first is a supplement to the Yucca Mountain Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) according to DOE, and the second relates to transportation within Nevada. A 90-day comment period began October 12 and ends January 10. Here is the schedule for public hearings:
November 2007
• November 13, Hawthorne Convention Center, Hawthorne, NV
• November 15, Caliente Youth Center, Caliente, NV
• November 19, Reno-Sparks Convention Center, Reno, NV
• November 26, Longstreet Inn and Casino, Amargosa Valley, NV
• November 27, Goldfield School Gym, Goldfield, NV
• November 29, Statham Hall, Lone Pine, CA
December 2007
• December 3, Cashman Center, Las Vegas, NV
• December 5, Marriott at Metro Center, Washington, D.C.
According to DOE Yucca spokesman, requests for additional information may be submitted to the EIS Office, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, 1551 Hillshire Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89134 or from the Project website http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov.
Transportation in-state
Along with the changes in the size of the Yucca Project, DOE is also working to build at least one railroad in the Silver State to handle the waste after it is transported through thousands of communities across the country on commercial rail systems. There are several projects that DOE has listed in their EIS for rail transport including the Mina route that many people thought was a dead issue when the Schurz, Nevada Paiute Tribe said they would not allow nuclear waste to travel through tribal land. The Mina route connects with Union Pacific near Wabuska and travels south through Fallon, Schurz, Hawthorne, Mina, Luning, Tonopah, Goldfield, and Beatty before reaching Yucca Mountain.
In order to reach the Mina connection, the high level nuclear waste would travel through every community along the Interstate 80 corridor from the California border in the west to the Utah border in the east. The EIS does not include any of those major Nevada communities. DOE has said at various scoping and other public meetings that their interests are only on what they need to build in Nevada. Environmental impact statements are not needed to transport the high level nuclear waste on commercial rail systems in the country, they say.
Some waste may also be transported by trucks on existing highways, but there are standards for that and the roads that exist into Yucca Mountain do not meet those standards. If truck traffic would be used, it would probably have to meet a rail line for the final transport into the Yucca Mountain Repository.
The route most favored at this time by DOE is what is described as the Caliente Route but the almost 3,000 page EIS goes into great detail on routes that many felt had been abandoned by DOE including what they call a Carlin, Jean route, and the Mina route. The Caliente Route involves building a 300 mile railroad from a railhead at Caliente and around other federally controlled lands.
Why should the federal government build a railroad on public land that skirts existing federally controlled land? Parts of that controlled land is on the Nellis AFB bombing range, part is on the Nuclear Testing Grounds, and part probably is very close to Area 51. The agencies involved have said they do not want trainloads of high level nuclear waste moving through their property.
The Caliente Route then would travel north through Lincoln County, traverse west through parts of Nye County, venture south through Esmeralda County and back into Nye County, before finally reaching Yucca Mountain, which is in Nye County. A rail corridor about one quarter of a mile wide and more than 300 miles in length is included in the plans and the EIS. The major Nevada cities and towns the line would come near include of course, Caliente, the railhead, Tonopah, Goldfield, and Beatty. Pioche, Silver Peak, and Pahrump would be well outside the main corridor.
The Commission on Nuclear Projects, a Nevada State Agency held a meeting in Las Vegas on October 12 to give the agency's executive director an opportunity to brief the chairman and other members of the agency. Bob Loux indicated he would be discussing these newest developments along with other potential problems DOE is facing in attempting to get the Yucca Project licensed. The Chairman of the agency, former senator and governor Richard Bryan was in attendance.
Among the subjects under discussion will be the discovery of earthquake fault lines directly under where DOE planned to build a pad on which tons of waste would be cooled before being taken underground. The fault, believed to be part of the old volcano that created Yucca Mountain and is just 200 feet below the surface. Loux has said the concept of DOE not knowing it was there is a perfect example of their brand of "good science."
More costs
In the 1980s nuclear energy was coming on line, the cold war was hot, and the fear of high level nuclear waste moving into the hands of the USSR, China, or another communist entity was high. The nuclear power industry in conjunction with the Department of Energy convinced Congress that the best idea was to bury the waste, and since those along the beltway only knew Nevada as being a desert, the concept of Yucca Mountain came into being.
Contracts between DOE and the nuclear power industry were written and the federal government became responsible for the waste although taxes on the energy were written into the law. Those taxes were designed to help pay the way for DOE creating the depository and transporting the waste. The only waste that has been transported is hundreds of millions of pages of government talk, with no repository in sight for at least another 20-years, if ever, and frustration from the nuclear power industry. They have a valid contract regardless of how out of date it might be in today's world.
Click on image to enlarge.
One nuclear power company, Xcel Energy, formerly Northern States Power Company of Minneapolis, MN, was just awarded $116.5 million because of the government's failure to create an underground repository. The contract between the government and industry dates from 1982, the repository was to be on line by 1998, and the lawsuit is designed to get some of the taxes that have been paid, returned. Ratepayers have been paying that tax ever since the DOE created the idea of Yucca Mountain.
At this time, no one is willing to discuss the possible fallout from the lawsuit, but if precedence has been set, there are numerous nuclear power companies, numerous taxpayers organizations, and many more nuclear watchdog groups that could file civil actions as well. The State of Nevada has many lawsuits moving through federal courts at this time as well. In the following article, there is a discussion of energy sources and a look at how the nuclear power industry intends to ramp up the use of nuclear power in the nation's grid.
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