ECA Update: August 12, 2011
Published: Fri, 08/12/11
BRC Announces Its Public Meetings for Input on Draft Report BRC Press ReleaseAugust 11, 2011
The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future (Commission), in association with state regional groups that work on high-level radioactive waste policy, will be hosting public meetings to solicit feedback on the draft commission report. The participant host groups include; the Western Governors' Association/Western Interstate Energy Board, the Southern States Energy Board, the Council of State Governments-Midwestern Office, and the Council of State Governments- Eastern Regional Conference.
Five one-day meetings will be held to present the draft Commission report (issued on July 29, 2011) and hear feedback from state, local and tribal perspectives - as well as from interested members of the public. The meetings will begin with a briefing from Commission staff on the draft report, followed by comments from elected and appointed state and regional representatives. The latter portion of the meeting will be devoted to facilitated and interactive breakout sessions open to all who attend and will conclude with a public comment period.
All public are welcome to attend. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged but not required. Information about registration will be available in the near future. The meetings will not be video webcast. Transcripts of the meetings will be available on the website, along with all written comments anyone chooses to offer. Comments can either be made directly to the website at www.brc.gov or by email to: CommissionDFO@nuclear.energy.gov.
The meetings are scheduled for the following dates and locations. We will be updating this information soon and will post agendas at least one week prior to each meeting.
Imagine a football field packed 20 feet high with highly radioactive nuclear waste. That's about the volume of the 65,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel stranded at dozens of nuclear sites across the U.S.
It isn't just a potential public health hazard, as Japan's recent nuclear disaster showed, but a growing burden on the federal government's groaning finances.
A decades-old promise to dispose of the waste has become another unfunded liability, starting with a $25 billion ratepayer fund gone astray and $16 billion or more in estimated legal judgments to compensate utilities for their storage expenses. The costs of the ultimate disposal project also are sure to rise, with no plan in sight to replace the now-canceled plan to entomb the waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
The nuclear power industry faces hard times, with tough competition from natural gas for meeting new electricity needs and a prevailing nervousness about nuclear safety after the Fukushima Daiichi accident in March. On Tuesday, the Energy Department, handing out research grants in all kinds of energy fields that are low in carbon dioxide emissions, is announcing that it will give $39 million to university programs around the country to try to solve various nuclear problems.
The money will go to a variety of projects at 31 universities in 20 states. Several focus on nuclear waste.
Project to save B Reactor receives honor
Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald August 12, 2011
The Department of Energy's project to save Hanford's B Reactor has become the first federal project to win the Chairman's Award for Achievement in Historic Preservation of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. The federal council, based in Washington, D.C., presented the award Thursday to the DOE Hanford Richland Operations Office in Seattle. It also recognized other Tri-City area groups and officials who have played key roles to preserve the reactor for use as a museum.
"The B Reactor Project spared an endangered National Historic Landmark from destruction and converted what had been a public problem into a publicly accessible national treasure," said Milford Wayne Donaldson, chairman of the advisory council, in a statement.
New acting head of DOE cleanup program plans [Hanford] visit Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald August 11, 2011 Richland David Huizenga, the Department of Energy's new acting assistant secretary for environmental management, plans to visit Hanford Monday and Tuesday.
He was named to the position July 19.
It will be his first visit to a DOE environmental management site and his first visit to Hanford in his new role.
AIKEN, S.C. -- The recent purchase of new fire engines at Savannah River Site resulted in the availability of two excess fire trucks under the SRS Community Reuse Organization's (SRS CRO) Asset Transition Program.
The primary goal of the Department of Energy's (DOE) Asset Transition Program is to utilize excess personal property derived from the Savannah River Site to enhance economic development and job opportunities within a five-county region surrounding the Site. In addition to job creation, assets may also be used to improve the "quality of life" of area residents. Such is the case in the fire truck donation.
Officials looking to break ground soon for Reach Interpretive Center Michelle Dupler, Tri-City Herald August 9, 2011 RICHLAND -- Officials from the Richland Public Facilities District are anxious to start moving dirt for the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center for a number of reasons -- not the least of which is to beef up public confidence in the project.
"We would like to schedule a ground breaking as soon as possible," project CEO Kimberly Camp told board members Monday. "We have a bit of a public relations problem."
There are positive developments on the horizon for the $40 million interpretive center, she said. The facilities district is close to having the permits in hand to start installing water and sewer lines and building a road and parking lot on the Columbia Park west site where the museum eventually will stand.
Editorial: Uncertainties should derail effort to combine Y-12, Pantex contracts KnoxNews.com August 11, 2011 The National Nuclear Safety Administration is moving forward with a request for proposals to fold the management of the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge and the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, into a single contract.
The competition for the potentially lucrative contract is going forward, despite uncertainties about how such a contract would work and the amount of cost savings, if any, that would result.
NNSA reserves the right to abandon the joint contract, and officials should seriously consider it the primary option.
Ancient Roman glass may yield clues to containing nuclear waste Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald August 12, 2011 A shipwreck 1,800 years ago in the Adriatic Sea might give scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory better information about how well modern glass might work to contain radioactive waste.
The Department of Energy is building a $12.2 billion vitrification plant at the Hanford nuclear reservation to glassify radioactive waste before it is buried deep in the ground.
The glass, formed from the waste and glass-forming materials, is planned to keep the radioactive waste secure for thousands of years. But until recently, the longest test on a piece of man-made glass holding simulated radioactive waste has been about 25 years.
Anti-nuclear groups shower federal regulators with legal challenges Andrew Restuccia, The Hill's Energy and Environment Blog August 11, 2011 More than two dozen groups will file challenges with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Thursday calling for a moratorium on reactor licensing until the agency addresses a series of safety concerns laid out by a federal task force last month.
In total, the groups - which include nuclear critics like Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy - will file 19 separate challenges with the NRC.
The filings, which might foreshadow lawsuits, signal an escalating effort by the groups to use the March disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant to slow U.S. nuclear development.
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