ECA Update: October 16, 2014 - NRC Report OK's Yucca Mountain for Long-Term Storage
Published: Thu, 10/16/14
National Journal is reporting that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has released the third volume of its safety evaluation report on the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository. The report says that the Energy Department has shown compliance with NRC's post-closure requirements and contains the right limits for human intrusion and standards for protection of groundwater.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton hailed the report as a "critical milestone" that would provide "confidence" to the public about the safety of the project. "I am pleased that this important work has finally come to light so we can move forward with a permanent repository and get our nation's nuclear future back on track," he added.
Yucca Mountain could safely store nuclear waste, regulators say
The Washington Examiner
October 16, 2014
Members of a pro-Yucca Mountain group rally in Reno, Nev. (AP/Scott Sonner)
The proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada could safely store spent fuel long after its doors close, federal nuclear regulators said.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined that Yucca "meets the requirements" for long-term storage.
However, the finding does not amount to authorizing licensing and construction. That would come only after the NRC reviews an Energy Department safety evaluation report, but the commission says it doesn't have enough money to complete that process.
House Republicans, who have tried to send more money to the NRC to finish the review, cheered the report Thursday.
"Science, not politics, should determine Yucca's course, and this report confirms that Yucca Mountain has met the safety requirements," said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich.
President Obama, with the backing of Yucca opponent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pulled the plug on NRC reviews of the Energy Department application in 2010. House Republicans called the move illegal, as federal law requires the NRC to evaluate whether Yucca can be used as a permanent dump. A federal appeals court agreed in August 2013 when it ordered NRC to resume reviewing the application.
But Yucca is controversial for Nevada politicians. Even Dean Heller, the state's Republican senator, vowed to block Yucca.
"Wasting more taxpayer dollars on additional studies to conclude what Nevadans already know: Storing our country's nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site is wrong and fiscally irresponsible," he said.
House Republicans could try once again to send more money to NRC to finish Yucca if the Senate flips to Republican control in November. But a GOP majority would be slim and unlikely to secure enough votes to quash a Democratic minority led by Reid, who has made killing Yucca one of his primary political goals.
"Yucca Mountain is all through," Reid told reporters last month. "As long as I'm around, there's no Yucca Mountain."
NRC staff: Yucca Mountain could meet safety needs
Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 16, 2014
WASHINGTON -- A long-awaited report issued Thursday by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found key aspects of the Yucca Mountain site once considered by the government but halted by the Obama administration could meet safety requirements to store nuclear waste.
The federal agency released a staff analysis of a plan that the Department of Energy submitted in 2008 but later disavowed. The 800-page document concluded the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas "with reasonable expectation" could satisfy licensing rules.
The report is expected to be seized by lawmakers on Capitol Hill and elements of the nuclear industry as evidence the Yucca Mountain program largely dismantled by the Obama administration should be reassembled.
Officials from the state of Nevada, which has fought against the program, challenged the report.
Robert Halstead, director of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the NRC staff did not fully consider all the circumstances that could affect safety.
"It's a pretty meek endorsement," Halstead said.
The report analyzed the most far-reaching aspects of the repository plan: Whether the natural geology of Yucca Mountain coupled with a system of man-made barriers that would be built within the mountain could keep radioactive particles from leaking into groundwater over periods of up to a million years.
Other aspects of the plan are still being dissected by the NRC staff, and are expected to be discussed in other evaluation reports scheduled to be released before the end of the year. The report issued Thursday was Volume 3 of what is envisioned to be a five-volume study.
"It creates a false impression that the safety review has been completed," said Halstead. |
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