ECA Update: September 23, 2016 |
IN THIS UPDATE: Panel votes to extend nuclear power tax credit
Obama's Energy Secretary champions nuclear power to fight global warming
‘Interim storage’ of nuclear waste no real solution for Idaho
EM’s Idaho Site crews complete buried waste cleanup accomplishment
Vapor issues may slow emptying of Hanford tanks
Panel votes to extend nuclear power tax
credit The Hill September 21, 2016 The House Ways and Means Committee voted Wednesday to remove a key deadline for a nuclear power plant tax credit.
The legislation from Reps. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) would remove the requirement that newly-built nuclear power
plants be in service by 2020 in order to receive a tax credit for producing power.
The credit was first enacted in 2005 to spur construction of new nuclear plants, but it has gone completely unused because no new plants have come online since
then.
The bill passed 23-9, with only Democrats opposed.
It would likely benefit two reactors under construction at Southern Co.’s Vogtle Electric
Generating Plant in Georgia and another two at Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station in South Carolina. Both projects are at risk of missing the 2020 deadline.
Rice emphasized that it is not an expansion of the tax credit, because it can still be applied only to a
total of 6,000 megawatts of generating capacity, as it was written in 2005.
“This bill ensures that the 6,000-megawatt capacity authorized by Congress in 2005 is fulfilled as intended, and stops there. This is not an expansion of the program,” Rice said at the committee
meeting.
“When Congress passed the 2005 act, it could not have contemplated the effort it would take to get a nuclear plant designed and licensed.” Blumenauer said he supports the legislation because he believes it could make small modular nuclear reactors a reality.
“It’s part of our future to see if we can make nuclear
energy work in a way that’s safe and effective and manageable. Making this production credit work with this technology is an important step in that direction,” he said. Obama's Energy Secretary champions nuclear power to fight global warmingForbes September 20, 2016 Global warming does not have to divide liberals and conservatives, or Democrats and Republicans. President Obama’s Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz illustrated the point perfectly last week, championing for climate reasons the same nuclear power that conservatives have long supported. This could be the start of a more bipartisan national climate policy.
In testimony before a Senate Appropriations Committee energy and water panel, Moniz advocated resolving storage issues for spent nuclear fuel that are blocking the expansion of nuclear power. His testimony mirrors similar sentiments he expressed earlier this year.
“We are supposed to be adding zero carbon sources, not subtracting or simply replacing by building to just kind of tread water,” said Moniz according to a May 2016 Scientific American article.
Scientific American noted nuclear power provides
nearly two-thirds of the United States’ zero-emissions power. Nevertheless, five of the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors shut down in the past few years and more may follow.
“I also know we can’t get there [meeting carbon dioxide reduction goals] unless we substantially
support and even embolden the nuclear energy sector,” said Moniz. “We’ve got to support the existing fleet.”
‘Interim storage’ of nuclear waste no real solution for
Idaho The Idaho Statesman September 21, 2016 In the face of Nevada’s adamant opposition to the Yucca Mountain repository for spent nuclear fuel and the lack of needed land and water rights, in 2015 the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission declined to issue a construction permit for the disposal facility. Even if construction were to begin, working through the mountain of legal opposition would take years.
So, the Department of Energy is beginning to develop a consent-based approach for siting interim and permanent disposal facilities for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high level waste. This year the department held meetings around the country, including one in Boise. The public input has now been summarized online.
The DOE’s strategy is to build one or several pilot interim storage and consolidated interim storage facilities and at least two permanent disposal facilities for the waste, one for commercial spent nuclear fuel and one for defense waste.
The majority of spent nuclear fuel in the United States is from commercial electricity generation at nuclear power plants, enough for two Yucca Mountain repositories.
The rest of the spent nuclear fuel is from DOE research and defense reactors, including spent fuel from nuclear submarines and carriers that is stored in Idaho. The DOE’s high-level waste is in various forms ranging from liquid waste at Hanford awaiting vitrification, highly soluble powder-like calcine at Idaho and vitrified waste at other sites.
A “pilot” interim storage facility could help the Energy Department cope with its most pressing legal liabilities at commercial nuclear power plants, but could make it easier for the federal government to weasel out of the 1995 settlement agreement stipulating that naval spent nuclear fuel stored in Idaho be among the first fuel shipped to an interim
facility.
The DOE has continued to tout deep bedrock boreholes as a potential option for high-level waste disposal, including Idaho’s calcine waste. This year, both states slated for borehole research — North and South Dakota — refused to allow the research to be
conducted, fearing it would lead to nuclear waste disposal in their states.
Idaho remains the de facto storage site for roughly 325 metric tons uranium of spent nuclear fuel and high level waste including seismically vulnerable calcine. Despite the Idaho Settlement
Agreement’s scheduled dates for removal, a defense repository for this waste has yet to be identified.
EM’s Idaho Site crews complete buried waste cleanup accomplishmentDOE-EM September 22, 2016 IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – EM’s Idaho Site program and contractor Fluor Idaho have completed a significant cleanup accomplishment that further protects the underlying Snake River Plain Aquifer, the primary drinking and irrigation water source for more than 300,000
Idahoans.
Workers recently satisfied a provision of a 2008 agreement among the DOE, state of Idaho and
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by packaging a total of 7,485 cubic meters of exhumed hazardous and radioactive waste generated at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production plant near Denver and buried in Idaho in the 1950s and 1960s. The amount of waste exhumed is equivalent to nearly 36,000 55-gallon drums of material.
Per the agreement, crews will continue to remove radioactive and hazardous waste from a combined area of 5.69 acres of the unlined 97-acre landfill called the Subsurface Disposal Area (SDA) at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex. To date, Fluor Idaho and two
previous contractors have exhumed waste from 4.24 acres, and the project remains about two years ahead of schedule. Fluor Idaho will continue exhumation until all of the 5.69 acres are exhumed. Vapor issues may slow emptying of Hanford tanks Statesman Journal September 21, 2016 RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — New deadlines for emptying some Hanford nuclear waste tanks might not be met if the government takes steps to better protect workers from chemical
vapors.
The Department of Energy requested that its tanks contractor look at the potential impact of a union demand that workers use air respirators not only within the boundaries of Hanford tank farms, but also in an
expanded area of 200 feet beyond tank farm fences.
As a result, contractor Washington River Protection Solutions concluded that emptying nuclear waste from five leak-prone tanks may not be completed until 2021 instead
of in 2020.
The Tri-City Herald reported Wednesday another nine tanks in two tank farms may not be emptied until March 2026 instead of by 2024.
|
|
| October 2016 | | 6 | DOE-EM Site Specific Advisory Board Meeting in
Piketon, OH
|
|
| October 2016 | | 11-13 | Energy, Technology and Environmental Business Association's Business Opportunities Conference in Knoxville,
TN
|
|
| November
2016 | | 16-18 | INVITATION ONLY 2016 Intergovernmental Meeting with DOE in New Orleans, LA |
|
Find the most recent ECA Bulletin here |
|
