ECA Update: January 25, 2012
Published: Wed, 01/25/12
Wanted: Parking Space for Nuclear Waste Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times Green Blog January 24, 2012 When the Obama administration killed a plan to create a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, the government established a "blue-ribbon commission" to study what to do next. Its final report is due on Sunday, and this week three organizations began a public lobbying campaign for several of the recommendations that they assume the commission will make.
Yucca was supposed to store nuclear waste, but the emphasis now is on "managing" it, especially the waste at scattered locations where reactors no longer operate. At places like Maine Yankee, Connecticut Yankee and Rancho Seco in California, reactors have been torn down, but the fuel remains in small concrete-and-steel silos that require maintenance and monitoring by a guard force. Sometimes the presence of nuclear waste prevents re-use of the sites by industry.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the trade association of the reactor operators, joined with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, another utility group, to endorse the idea of centralizing such wastes.
The NRC staff is seeking to engage the public regarding the Agency's plans to develop a draft environmental impact statement for an update of the NRC's Waste Confidence decision and rule. The NRC is holding this webinar [on January 31] to walk through and answer questions about the draft report "Background and Preliminary Assumptions for an Environmental Impact Statement--Long-Term Waste Confidence Update." The public comment period for this report ends February 17, 2012.
Oak Ridge is a big deal within the U.S. Department of Energy, playing host to a diverse mix of facilities and programs that range from nuclear weapons to science research and environmental cleanup. Because of its importance to DOE, the community has -- and expects to have -- a certain amount of influence with the federal agency when it comes to local needs and wishes.
That's one of the reasons why there was opposition to the plan to combine the management contract at Y-12 with the one for the Pantex warhead assembly plant near Amarillo, Texas. There were concerns that the package deal would dilute Oak Ridge's importance and minimize the clout that has evolved since the World War II Manhattan Project took root in East Tennessee.
Anyway, the procurement is under way by the National Nuclear Security Administration, with bids on the new combined management contract due in March, and the NNSA -- a semi-independent part of DOE -- is already making preparation for the change.
Mission Support Alliance and its key subcontractors are laying off 36 Hanford employees after expecting to cut up to 50 jobs early this year.
The layoffs include 12 previously approved voluntary layoffs, plus 11 involuntary union workers and 13 involuntary nonunion workers. However, eight of the union employees have seniority to take other positions at Hanford, bumping the employees who now hold those jobs.
The layoffs will leave Mission Support Alliance, which provides support services across Hanford, at 1,695 employees.
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