ECA Update: September 4, 2013
Published: Wed, 09/04/13
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Budget Battles Keep Agencies Guessing
Annie Lowrey, The New York Times
September 3, 2013
Annie Lowrey, The New York Times
September 3, 2013
WASHINGTON -- The collision of the $1 trillion in budget cuts known as sequestration and the breakdown of the normal budgeting process is creating headaches not just for Washington but also for a vast web of offices dependent on federal financing. Many have been left uncertain as to how much money -- if any -- they will have to spend in the year ahead.
"I don't want to throw darts or rocks at anybody," said Gov. Neil Abercrombie, Democrat of Hawaii, at the National Governors Association convention last month in Milwaukee, venting his frustration over the budget uncertainty. "I just want to know what the hell the numbers are."
The budget woes are afflicting, among others, state governments, American Indian tribes, military contractors and cancer research laboratories. Budget experts said that the short-term concerns over next year's dollar figures were already hampering long-term planning and making government officials hesitant to commit to big projects or to hire needed employees.
"You're eating away little by little at the infrastructure and effectiveness of government," said Philip Joyce, a professor at the University of Maryland.
In an interview, Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, called 2013 the "darkest ever" year for the agency, whose budget is at its lowest inflation-adjusted appropriations level in more than a decade. The agency has been awarding grants to an increasingly smaller sliver of applicants as well.
The stopgap measures that have kept the government running have further hobbled the agency, he added. "Continuing resolutions discourage you from trying something new and bold," he said. "You're supposed to tread water. And science is very badly served by that tread-water message."
One researcher who said he had felt the impact of the budget wars is Steven Salzberg, the director of the Center for Computational Biology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a lauded biomedical researcher. Mr. Salzberg said that he had received about 20 percent less in federal funding than his peers had recommended for his work on the biological underpinnings of cancer and other diseases.
"Less science is getting done," he said. "That means cures won't emerge. Five years from now, when your aunt gets cancer and you can't do anything for her, people won't stop and think, 'Jesus, if we only hadn't had the sequester!' "
Shorter grant cycles have forced scientists to rush to get results, he said. Increasing competition for funding has left him and his peers spending more and more time on paperwork, and less and less time on laboratory work. Worst of all, he said, promising young scientists are becoming discouraged and leaving the field.
"The current budget wars are a more extreme or egregious version of what has been going on for a number of years," Mr. Salzberg said. "They're wreaking havoc on people's research plans."
A broad range of budget officials described similar headaches emanating from Washington. Sequestration has forced programs that normally expect flat or increasing financing to make sudden cuts. Many programs delayed those cuts, and are scrambling to make them now -- in some cases with reduced staffs because of furloughs or hiring freezes.
A number of budget issues lingered unresolved during Congress's long summer recess. Earlier this year, the House and the Senate passed spending bills for the 2014 fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1, that were about $90 billion apart, but never settled on a final figure.
With lawmakers returning to Washington next week, Congress is expected to pass another stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution, financing the government for a few more months, but it is unclear whether such funding will stay at current levels or shrink. And if the Republicans who control the House and the Democrats who hold sway in the Senate fail to come to a deal before October, many parts of the federal government could shut down.
The breakdown of the Congressional budgeting process this summer has compounded the problems. Officials said that they had received no word about budget figures from Congressional appropriators -- because such numbers do not yet exist.
For public housing offices, the disarray means, at a minimum, a delay in maintenance, capital projects and hiring. It also could lead to a cutback in the number of vouchers issued to low-income families to help pay for their homes.
"It's a recipe for frustration," said Sunia Zaterman of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities. "The greater uncertainty is leaving programs wondering how many vouchers to issue," she said. "And at the same time, they're laying off staff because their administrative funding level is down."
Military spending is particularly vulnerable. Were Congress to pass a measure keeping government spending at its current level, the Defense Department would still have to make about $20 billion in new cuts because of a quirk in the sequestration law. Already, the department is making about $1 trillion in long-term reductions and contemplating laying off thousands of civilian employees to hit its numbers.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has repeatedly said that the uncertainty has hampered the military's long-term planning. He told Congress in June that uncertainty "from month to month, year to year, as to what our possibilities are for contracts for acquisitions, for technology, for research -- the technological advantage that we have in the air and the superiority we have at sea, the training, the readiness -- all of these are affected."
Both Democrats and Republicans have voiced concerns about the detrimental impact of sequestration and the faltering budget process.
"I'm hearing from so many people across Washington State that sequestration and budget uncertainty is making it hard, and in some cases impossible, to keep up with demand for crucial services," said Senator Patty Murray, the chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee. "It's terrible policy, and it's simply unacceptable."
Behind the logjam lies a deep ideological rift about how big the government should be, which persists even as the federal deficit continues to shrink rapidly.
Some House Republicans have indicated they want to push for further spending cuts beyond sequestration, and they are gearing up for fights on President Obama's health law and the debt ceiling this month as well. Senate Democrats and the White House want to repeal sequestration and replace it with a package that would make longer-term changes in entitlement programs like Medicare and include some tax increases that would help avoid the most painful spending cuts.
In the meantime, those who actually run the day-to-day operation of the federal government keep guessing and waiting.
U.S. nuclear agency seeks input to resume Yucca Mountain review
Reuters
August 30, 2013
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Friday said it will seek comments on how to restart the licensing process for the long-stalled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project.
The request is the agency's first response to a federal appeals court order issued August 13 that said the NRC can no longer delay a decision on whether to issue a permit for the project that would bury nuclear waste inside Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered the NRC to license the project or to reject the application.
Two states along with state regulators argued that the NRC must continue to work on the Energy Department's Yucca application even though the Obama administration has said it wants to abandon the project and Congress has not appropriated enough funds for it.
The NRC asked for comments to be filed by September 30, according to a news release. The commission is seeking the best way to use the remaining $11 million it has to resume the licensing process, which was suspended in September 2011, the agency said.
The commission directed its staff to gather budgeting information during the 30-day comment period. It will review the comments submitted by the parties as well as staff information to decide how to move forward with the licensing process.
Following the court ruling, the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group, said it expects the agency to take steps to resume its independent scientific evaluation of the Yucca Mountain license application.
Electricity consumers "who have contributed nearly $35 billion in fees and interest to the federal government specifically for used nuclear fuel management, deserve to know whether Yucca Mountain is a safe site for the permanent disposal of used nuclear fuel," the NEI said.
The premature shutdown of five U.S. nuclear units at sites in four states also increases the need for a repository for spent nuclear fuel.
Exelon Corp, Duke Energy and Entergy Corp are the largest operators of nuclear plants in the U.S.
Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security Nomination Hearing: September 19, 2013
Senate Armed Services Committee
Hearing Date: September 19, 2013
To consider the nominations of:
Honorable Deborah Lee James
to be Secretary of the Air Force
to be Secretary of the Air Force
Honorable Jessica Garfola Wright
to be Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness
to be Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness
Mr. Frank G. Klotz
to be Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security
to be Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security
Mr. Marcel J. Lettre II
to be Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
to be Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
Mr. Kevin A. Ohlson
to be a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
to be a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
Energy secretary visits New Mexico
Dan Mayfield, Albuquerque Business First
September 3, 2013
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz was in New Mexico Tuesday to visit the state's two Department of Energy federal labs.
On Tuesday morning, the secretary visited Los Alamos National Laboratory. He was then was to travel to Sandia National Laboratories.
"In view of the President's emphasis on nuclear security and climate change, the work at Los Alamos has never been more important," Moniz said during his visit to Los Alamos.
Moniz also addressed Los Alamos employees and received briefings on the laboratory's nuclear weapons and intelligence work. It was the first visit by an Energy secretary to Los Alamos since 2009.
Both laboratories are part of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which is run by the Energy Department.
Moniz was confirmed as Secretary of Energy in May and has made renewable energy research a major part of his agenda.
On Tuesday morning, the secretary visited Los Alamos National Laboratory. He was then was to travel to Sandia National Laboratories.
"In view of the President's emphasis on nuclear security and climate change, the work at Los Alamos has never been more important," Moniz said during his visit to Los Alamos.
Moniz also addressed Los Alamos employees and received briefings on the laboratory's nuclear weapons and intelligence work. It was the first visit by an Energy secretary to Los Alamos since 2009.
Both laboratories are part of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which is run by the Energy Department.
Moniz was confirmed as Secretary of Energy in May and has made renewable energy research a major part of his agenda.
SC DHEC could fine DOE $150M if milestones are missed
Derrek Asberry, Aiken Standard
August 30, 2013
South Carolina's Department of Health and Environmental Control has threatened to fine the Department of Energy more than $150 million if missed milestones resulting from budget cuts continue at the Savannah River Site.
Department Director Catherine Templeton addressed the issue in a letter to Energy Department Secretary Ernest Moniz.
Templeton outlined several on Site agreements that she feels the agency is in danger of violating, including starting operations of the Salt Waste Processing Facility by Oct. 31, 2015; treatment of all high-level waste by 2028; and the F-Area Industrial Wastewater General Closure Plan and the H-Area Industrial Wastewater General Closure Plan, which both contain closure schedules for 20 liquid waste tanks by 2022.
According to the letter, missing the start up date of the Salt Waste Facility will result in a fine of $105,000 per day, beginning on the past date of Sept. 30, 2011.
That total already exceeds $68 million and is scheduled to surpass $154 million if the deadline is not met.
Department Director Catherine Templeton addressed the issue in a letter to Energy Department Secretary Ernest Moniz.
Templeton outlined several on Site agreements that she feels the agency is in danger of violating, including starting operations of the Salt Waste Processing Facility by Oct. 31, 2015; treatment of all high-level waste by 2028; and the F-Area Industrial Wastewater General Closure Plan and the H-Area Industrial Wastewater General Closure Plan, which both contain closure schedules for 20 liquid waste tanks by 2022.
According to the letter, missing the start up date of the Salt Waste Facility will result in a fine of $105,000 per day, beginning on the past date of Sept. 30, 2011.
That total already exceeds $68 million and is scheduled to surpass $154 million if the deadline is not met.
"Instead of honoring its commitment, DOE submitted budget requests to Congress that reward underperforming sites in other parts of the country and make it virtually impossible for SRS to meet the milestones promised to the people of South Carolina," Templeton wrote in the letter.
The director alluded to the Department of Energy's proposed budget, which would continue slashing SRS funding.
"It simply makes more sense to invest in the site now than put off the work and pay penalties in the future," Templeton said in the letter. "DOE, however, has signaled an intention to request extensions from DHEC, rather than seeking the funding required for its commitments."
Templeton said the liquid waste tanks on Site pose the single largest environmental threat in the state.
"Whether we like it or not, the high-level waste tanks at SRS are continuing to age," she concluded in her letter. "Present action can prevent future crisis, but the time to act is now. DHEC expects DOE to honor its commitments to protect the environment and citizens of South Carolina and Georgia."
Templeton said the liquid waste tanks on Site pose the single largest environmental threat in the state.
"Whether we like it or not, the high-level waste tanks at SRS are continuing to age," she concluded in her letter. "Present action can prevent future crisis, but the time to act is now. DHEC expects DOE to honor its commitments to protect the environment and citizens of South Carolina and Georgia."
SRS completes construction of salt waste disposal units
Derrek Asberry, Aiken Standard
September 4, 2013
Another set of nonhazardous, salt waste disposal units has been constructed and completed at the Savannah River Site.
Saltstone Disposal Units - or SDU - 3 and 5 each consist of four, 2.9 million-gallon circular cells. The construction and utilization of the two units is being handled by Savannah River Remediation, SRS's liquid waste contractor.
The units were constructed to provide on-site, permanent disposal of low-level radioactive salt waste. The waste was transported from inside the Site's underground waste storage tanks.
"The SDU design has been proven in other industrial applications and is proving successful for us," said Mark Schmitz in a press release. Schmitz is Savannah River Remediation's salt waste disposition project director.
"We look forward to continuing the disposition of low-level salt waste by utilizing this technology," he added.
Before their usage, a readiness assessment was conducted on the units by an independent review team.
The team checked for various qualifiers, including preparations for the units, that the necessary resources were available, that people involved were properly trained and that hazards were identified and alleviated before the process began.
In addition to the readiness assessment, the liquid waste contractor also received disposal operations authorization from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
The organization submitted a letter to the Department of Energy outlining several on-site agreements that the department is in danger of violating, including starting operations of a Salt Waste Processing Facility by Oct. 31, 2015.
"Since 1990, when the Saltstone Disposal Facility became operational, we have learned a great deal about salt waste disposal," said Terrel Spears, assistant manager for the project, in the press release. "This new storage capacity adds further steps to enhance the safety of the environment, workers and the public."
The organization submitted a letter to the Department of Energy outlining several on-site agreements that the department is in danger of violating, including starting operations of a Salt Waste Processing Facility by Oct. 31, 2015.
"Since 1990, when the Saltstone Disposal Facility became operational, we have learned a great deal about salt waste disposal," said Terrel Spears, assistant manager for the project, in the press release. "This new storage capacity adds further steps to enhance the safety of the environment, workers and the public."
Saltstone Disposal Unit 2, cells A and B, were successfully constructed before units 3 and 5, and are expected to be completely filled this fall.
SRS is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Derrek Asberry is a beat reporter with the Aiken Standard news team and joined the paper in June. He is originally from Vidalia, Ga., and graduated from Georgia Southern University with a journalism degree in May 2012.
Despite budget cuts, MOX reactor fuel stirs new interest
Rob Pavey, The Augusta Chronicle
September 3, 2013
Broader marketing and lower natural gas prices are luring potential new clients interested in mixed oxide reactor fuel, even as federal budget cuts threaten to stall a MOX plant.
"We expect, actually, there to be more demand than the plant has capacity for," said Kelly Trice, the president of Shaw AREVA MOX Services, which is building the facility at Savannah River Site.
During a briefing last week before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Trice told NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane his company's nuclear technology subsidiary, AREVA NP, has been employed to become a wholesaler for mixed oxide fuel.
The MOX facility, about 60 percent complete, is the cornerstone of the National Nuclear Security Administration's plan to dispose of surplus plutonium by blending it into commercial nuclear fuel.
However, the plant has become increasingly expensive and behind schedule, with construction costs recently revised from $4.9 billion to $7.7 billion.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Energy proposed cutting $132.7 million, or 29.3 percent, from the project's 2014 construction budget, citing rising costs that might have rendered the plant "unaffordable."
Despite cuts that could reduce the project workforce from 1,900 to 1,400 this fall, company officials and the department are continuing to seek clients for MOX fuel, Trice said.
"I can't put a signed piece of paper on the table at this point, but I would tell you we've been negotiating with the department for some time on a master fuel contract," he said. "That is at the point of ready-to-sign subject to these other (budget) decisions being made."
DOE would pay for modifications that would enable commercial nuclear plants to use the MOX fuel, which further adds incentive for utilities, he said.
Other available incentives could include assistance with shipping and the transport containers and licensing to use the fuel.
One of the biggest drivers of new interest in MOX is the lower price of natural gas, he said.
"AREVA actually would tell you that they have several utilities who have come to the table and are interested," he said.
Trice also gave a status report on construction and cited some examples of the size and scope of the MOX plant and its unique components.
"We moved about 2.5 million yards of earth to dig that hole," he said. "The overall plant is about 25 feet underground. The base mat is 6.5 feet thick and the roof itself stands about 75 feet above ground. The roof itself is about six feet thick, to give you a feel."
The plant will eventually house about 350 "glove boxes" that are used to store and handle nuclear material, including plutonium from dismantled warheads.
"The larger ones weigh 110,000 pounds and are 250 feet long, so about the size of a small airplane - I guess large jet in that case," he said.
MacFarlane asked Trice about the plant's newest projected completion date.
Trice replied that the newest date, based on funding levels, is 2019.
"The new (Energy) secretary is weighing different options, and we believe in the near term he's going to make a decision on the path forward, and we'll know then," he said. "And I'm sorry I can't give you much more than that."
During a briefing last week before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Trice told NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane his company's nuclear technology subsidiary, AREVA NP, has been employed to become a wholesaler for mixed oxide fuel.
The MOX facility, about 60 percent complete, is the cornerstone of the National Nuclear Security Administration's plan to dispose of surplus plutonium by blending it into commercial nuclear fuel.
However, the plant has become increasingly expensive and behind schedule, with construction costs recently revised from $4.9 billion to $7.7 billion.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Energy proposed cutting $132.7 million, or 29.3 percent, from the project's 2014 construction budget, citing rising costs that might have rendered the plant "unaffordable."
Despite cuts that could reduce the project workforce from 1,900 to 1,400 this fall, company officials and the department are continuing to seek clients for MOX fuel, Trice said.
"I can't put a signed piece of paper on the table at this point, but I would tell you we've been negotiating with the department for some time on a master fuel contract," he said. "That is at the point of ready-to-sign subject to these other (budget) decisions being made."
DOE would pay for modifications that would enable commercial nuclear plants to use the MOX fuel, which further adds incentive for utilities, he said.
Other available incentives could include assistance with shipping and the transport containers and licensing to use the fuel.
One of the biggest drivers of new interest in MOX is the lower price of natural gas, he said.
"AREVA actually would tell you that they have several utilities who have come to the table and are interested," he said.
Trice also gave a status report on construction and cited some examples of the size and scope of the MOX plant and its unique components.
"We moved about 2.5 million yards of earth to dig that hole," he said. "The overall plant is about 25 feet underground. The base mat is 6.5 feet thick and the roof itself stands about 75 feet above ground. The roof itself is about six feet thick, to give you a feel."
The plant will eventually house about 350 "glove boxes" that are used to store and handle nuclear material, including plutonium from dismantled warheads.
"The larger ones weigh 110,000 pounds and are 250 feet long, so about the size of a small airplane - I guess large jet in that case," he said.
MacFarlane asked Trice about the plant's newest projected completion date.
Trice replied that the newest date, based on funding levels, is 2019.
"The new (Energy) secretary is weighing different options, and we believe in the near term he's going to make a decision on the path forward, and we'll know then," he said. "And I'm sorry I can't give you much more than that."
Our Voice: New vit project manager piques our optimism
Tri-City Herald Editorial
September 3, 2013
Peggy McCullough is the new project manager at Bechtel's vit plant.
She has a big job.
The project is high stakes and plagued with variables.
While vitrification is a proven science, figuring out exactly type of radioactive surprise is in those leaky tanks is nothing short of mystic.
How exactly does one process "sludge?"
And funding -- for any budget -- is a crap shoot from year to year.
Despite those two huge questions marks strung out on the welcome mat, McCullough is optimistic.
And rightly so.
She is bringing an arsenal of experience that will undoubtedly prove useful.
She's been with Bechtel since 1988. Before that she was with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Two assignments ago, from 2003-06, she was deputy general manager of Bechtel SAIC, the management and operations contractor for the Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain, Nev., nuclear repository project. While there, her team dragged a 20-year project over the completion line.
She then moved to Bechtel Systems and Infrastructure.
Her most recent assignment was in Australia at the Daunia Coking Cole Project, where she brought her project to 95 percent of completion -- under budget and ahead of schedule.
She is rightly proud of her accomplishment at Yucca, although she only was there for three years and it was 20 years in the making. And while 95 percent completion of anything is impressive, there still is more work on the Australian project.
Managers for projects of this caliber tend to move around. It keeps them from getting burned out and brings a fresh perspective to complex problems.
It's hard to guess whether she will be here when this project comes on line.
But her presence here now helps us to share her sense of optimism. Couple the new project manager with a new Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz, who impressed McCullough with his timely visit to Hanford soon after his appointment.
Moniz is expected to announces a plan by fall to address some technical issues that are in limbo.
We've long been supportive of the vit plant. The current storage system at the tank farm is working, but it has serious problems.
It won't work longterm.
The new vit plant must work. It must be completed, but it must be done right. It cannot fail.
If we wait until we have all the answers, the plant never will process a single glass log. We can't wait until the technology is "perfect," but we must make sure it is "good enough."
Like we said in the beginning, it's a big job.
Welcome, Peggy McCullough, to the Tri-Cities.
A Post-Yucca Plan for Spent Fuel
Bloomberg Editors
August 29, 2013
During the half century that nuclear energy has been in use, U.S. reactors have produced some 70,000 tons of spent fuel, most of which lies cooling in pools of water at power plants across the country.
This is far from the end of the road for the used fuel rods, which will remain radioactive for thousands of years. The plan is to put them into enormous steel-and-concrete casks that can eventually be entombed in a deep, sturdy repository -- specifically, as Congress decreed in 1987, Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
That plan has long been delayed, however, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has led Nevadans in a fight against having the burial site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. In 2009, President Barack Obama lent them a hand by halting the project, then cutting funding for it. Yucca Mountain is "not a workable option," Obama declared, despite taxpayers having already invested $15 billion in it, and despite the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's safety review being incomplete.
A federal court has now ordered the NRC to finish that review. Good idea. However, it's hardly a guarantee that Yucca Mountain will be developed into a nuclear-waste repository. There's a chance that the review will find the site unsafe. Plus, Nevada will no doubt maintain its intransigence. And even if it's approved, Yucca wouldn't open for 15 more years. The problem will remain, with stores of spent fuel continuing to soak in water at U.S. power plants.
Fortunately, bipartisan legislation just introduced in the Senate by Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska addresses these issues. Based on the work of a White House panel, it would create a better, more coherent strategy for handling spent nuclear fuel. For one, it would build one or more short-term storage facilities for "priority waste" -- the fuel still left at plants that have closed or are about to, such as the Vermont Yankee facility -- and start the search for another permanent disposal site. This is critical regardless of whether Yucca Mountain is developed: The growing inventory of spent fuel will soon amount to more than could fit inside Yucca.
What's more, it would make site selection follow a "consent-based" approach. Communities would be encouraged to volunteer to host a site, perhaps in return for generous federal funding for local public works and public services related to nuclear waste storage. Such a voluntary approach has worked in Europe, and also in Carlsbad, New Mexico, home to a storage place for largely low-level radioactive waste from nuclear weapons. Suffice it to say that this was not the approach taken with the Yucca development.
The legislation would also ensure that funding be set aside for fuel storage. Right now, the $750 million a year that the Department of Energy collects from nuclear-plant operators for the purpose of dealing with spent fuel gets tossed into the federal pot, where politicians can direct how it is spent. (Reid has used this tactic to stall work on Yucca Mountain.) The Senate bill would create a separate fund in the Treasury for the money -- as well as a separate agency for overseeing the management of nuclear waste.
There is room for improvement. Three-fourths of all spent fuel rods are still in water. The legislation could do more to specify their care and treatment. In an ideal world, most of the fuel would be placed in 20-foot-tall casks that are protected from fire and easily transported. This is an expensive job -- each cask costs about $1 million -- but it's one that the federal government should undertake, particularly because it has already collected $35 billion from the nuclear industry to deal with spent fuel.
It's a good thing that the Yucca Mountain saga appears to be inching toward resolution. For those who believe, as we do, that nuclear power is an essential component of America's energy future, this chapter's close will be wasted if it doesn't mark the beginning of a wider effort to devise a sound strategy for nuclear waste.
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