ECA Update: August 9, 2012
Published: Thu, 08/09/12
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Turner Defends Nuclear Oversight Proposal Following Y-12 Break-In
Douglas P. Guarino, Global Security Newswire
August 9, 2012
Douglas P. Guarino, Global Security Newswire
August 9, 2012
WASHINGTON - Representative Michael Turner (R-Ohio) is standing by a legislative proposal to reduce the Energy Department's oversight of U.S. nuclear weapons facilities following Democratic claims that a recent security lapse underscores problems with the plan (see GSN, Aug. 8).
Drafted by the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2013 would make significant changes to the department's ability to oversee sites such the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, which an 82-year-old nun and two others were able to infiltrate on July 28.
As chairman of the panel's Strategic Forces Subcommittee, Turner has been a leading proponent of the measures, which the House approved in May. Under the bill, DOE officials would no longer be authorized "to make policy, prescribe regulations and conduct oversight of health, safety and security in the nuclear security enterprise." These authorities would shift to the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous division of the department that oversees the nation's atomic arms complex.
Earlier this week, House Democrats told Global Security Newswire that the incident at Y-12 shows that the legislation is flawed and that nuclear weapons facilities need more DOE oversight, not less.
Turner, however, argued that the Y-12 break-in proves that the current system of oversight is failing and should be overhauled as proposed in the House bill.
"The number of oversight employees has been going up steadily for almost a decade," Turner said in a statement to GSN. "It's clear that's not a solution, as simple as it appears, because we've tried it and yet this latest incident still happened."
Turner previously argued that DOE regulation and oversight of the nuclear weapons complex is too onerous, and is to blame for delays and cost overruns associated with various NNSA projects. He and other Republicans assert that excessive department regulation stifles progress at the national laboratories, which manage much of the work in maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal. They cite as examples the postponement of plans to construct the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement plutonium facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and of delays to various nuclear warhead modernization projects.
"Not one life-extension program is on track," Turner said at a June hearing his subcommittee hosted to highlight the need for the legislative changes.
The House authorization legislation would rectify the problem by increasing NNSA autonomy, according to proponents.
Prior to the security breach at Y-12 the legislation had already attracted a number of detractors, including the Obama administration, a federal advisory panel and labor groups (see GSN, July 20). Representative Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) - the top Democrat on Turner's subcommittee - co-sponsored an amendment that would have stripped much of the NNSA reform provisions. The amendment, which Republicans blocked from being debated on the House floor, was also co-sponsored by Representatives Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) and George Miller (D-Calif.).
Sanchez and a spokesman for Miller told GSN earlier this week that the Y-12 break-in showed that the Republican-backed NNSA reforms are imprudent.
The Democrat-controlled Senate Armed Services Committee did not include similar reform provisions in its version of the defense authorization bill. A spokesman for the Senate committee declined to comment on how the Y-12 incident could impact conference negotiations.
Fiscal 2013 begins on Oct. 1.
Post-Yucca Mountain bill still a work in progress
Steve Tetreault, Stephens Washington Bureau
August 2, 2012
Steve Tetreault, Stephens Washington Bureau
August 2, 2012
WASHINGTON - A new plan to manage thousands of tons of the nation's nuclear waste was unveiled this week by a senator who conceded it is very much a work in progress.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, acknowledged Congress will not take up his bill this year. But Bingaman, who is retiring at the end of the year, said months of negotiations involving a handful of key senators raised issues that might best be opened for wider discussion starting at a hearing he plans to hold in September.
"My hope is to obtain testimony on it and build a legislative record that might serve as the foundation for further consideration and ultimate enactment in the next Congress," he said.
The 56-page bill would put in place some of the recommendations of the expert commission President Barack Obama formed in January 2010 after he decided to terminate the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada as a potential nuclear waste repository.
Chief among them, the bill would establish a more cooperative approach for the government to recruit states and communities to host temporary nuclear waste storage sites and a permanent repository.
Such a "consent based" approach would contrast from the experience of finding, studying and officially designating the Yucca site, which was done over Nevada's objections.
The Bingaman bill also removes nuclear waste management from the Department of Energy and places it in a new federal agency whose workings would be overseen by a three-member board. But how much independence the new body would have remains open for discussion, Bingaman said.
Bingaman and three other senators - Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska - failed to reach agreement on whether to allow temporary storage sites to be established before a permanent burial location is found. Some fear that nuclear waste could remain forever in "interim" storage if a full repository cannot be built.
Nevada officials were studying the bill Thursday to determine whether the Bingaman legislation would repeal the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act and 1987 follow-up amendments that made Yucca Mountain the law of the land.
"It appears to put the nuclear waste policy (laws) behind us, but we need to give that further consideration before we can say for sure," said Bob Halstead, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
Brian O'Connell, nuclear waste adviser to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, said the legislation appears to be "neutral" on Yucca Mountain.
"I don't think it says one way or another," O'Connell said.
A Senate aide involved with the bill said it does not explicitly repeal the nuclear waste law "but it dramatically modifies it."
"It would amend many of the (Nuclear Waste Policy Act) authorities and insert much stronger local consultation provisions and a requirement that local government and the governor consent to a site before proceeding, among other things," said the aide, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Workaround for U.S. Plutonium Facility Delay Priced at $800 Million
Global Security Newswire
August 9, 2012
Global Security Newswire
August 9, 2012
The United States would spend $800 million over 10 years to update facilities at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to conduct nuclear arms activities in place of an unfinished plutonium research complex that the Obama administration is seeking to postpone, according to site records cited on Wednesday by the Albuquerque Journal (see GSN, Aug. 8).
The administration's call six months ago for a pause in efforts to complete the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement plant prompted Los Alamos to prepare a fallback procedure for retaining means to ensure the upkeep of U.S. atomic armaments and for producing additional weapon parts if required. The suspension would extend over half a decade, according to previous reporting.
An existing plutonium research facility now carries out many of the operations, though government personnel have for more than 10 years admitted the site is significantly vulnerable to seismic tremors. Ballooning expense projections have on multiple occasions prompted officials to push back the time line for finishing the new facility.
Under the backup blueprint, personnel would conduct certain activities in a present Los Alamos plant; a facility in California would assess the composition of a quantity of plutonium shipped from Los Alamos; and crews would build a $120 million underground passage for transferring plutonium between sections of the New Mexico site with reduced risk of an accident or breach of protections.
The scheme calls for close to $200 million in alterations that would enable the Los Alamos site's Radiological Laboratory Utility Office Building to deal with greater amounts of plutonium.
The blueprint is under review at the National Nuclear Security Administration. The semiautonomous Energy Department agency said it is preparing a formal reaction on the matter.
"The revised plutonium strategy will utilize existing facilities at multiple sites," NNSA spokesman Josh McConaha said in prepared comments. "It is likely, but not certain, that we will use Superblock at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Device Assembly Facility in Nevada, and the new Radiological Laboratory Utility Office Building at Los Alamos National Laboratory. However, nothing has been settled and we are working to finalize the details at this point."
The Obama administration has publicized little about an April assessment of options by Los Alamos for deferring completion of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement plant, but its leaders provided information on the draft in June statements to an on-site monitoring panel and to Capitol Hill staffers.
The fallback procedure could hamper the laboratory's ability to manufacture additional plutonium nuclear-bomb cores, Los Alamos personnel indicated. The alternate effort would increase the facility's annual core production capacity from 10 at present to a maximum of 30 in the initial part of the next decade, according to an information statement; the quantity would fall between 20 and 50 plutonium "pits" short of the production range Los Alamos and administration sources had previously said would be necessary.
One observer, though, on Tuesday said the document exaggerates the possibility of a shortfall developing in the site's bomb core manufacturing capacity.
Los Alamos previously indicated it could generate 50 such components on an annual basis in the planned plutonium facility's continued absence, added Greg Mello, who heads the watchdog Los Alamos Study Group (John Fleck, Albuquerque Journal, Aug. 8).
Strategic Command Chief: Outlines of Plutonium Plan Taking Form
Elaine M. Grossman, Global Security Newswire
August 9, 2012
OMAHA, Neb. -- The outlines of a revamped strategy for supplying the nation's military with plutonium cores for nuclear warheads are taking shape, according to the top officer at U.S. Strategic Command (see GSN, June 5).
"I do think that we are beginning to close [in] on a way ahead here that will [give us] sufficient interim capability while we look to get the long-term solution back on track," Gen. Robert Kehler, who commands the military organization charged with overseeing any combat use of atomic arms, said during a Wednesday press conference.
The 37-year Air Force veteran was referring to Obama administration plans to impose a five-year delay, for budget-cutting reasons, on construction of a $6 billion plutonium research facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Until a Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement nuclear site is completed, the nation's atomic weapons leaders must identify workarounds to meet Kehler's annual requirement for the warhead cores, known as "pits."
The new site would help to ensure that new and existing nuclear-weapon pits would function, if needed, despite a moratorium since the early 1990s on underground explosive testing.
The administration announced in February that it planned to save $1.8 billion over the next five years, beginning in fiscal 2013, in taking the half-decade pause in construction work on the CMRR facility (see GSN, Feb. 14). Earlier plans anticipated that the new plutonium research and storage plant could be built by 2024.
The administration is also reviewing whether it would still need a long-anticipated production capacity of 50 to 80 nuclear pits each year -- samples of which would have to pass through the CMRR facility for analysis -- or if instead future reductions in the size of the nuclear arsenal might decrease the scale of facilities needed. Los Alamos today produces fewer than 10 pits annually, laboratory spokesman Kevin Roark has said.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 27, Kehler said he would ''be concerned until someone presents a [plutonium processing] plan that we can look at and be comfortable with and understand that it's being supported.''
On Wednesday, meeting with reporters on the sidelines of a conference here on nuclear deterrence, the commander said he was now confident that his interim needs for warheads could be met in the years leading up to the replacement facility's construction.
"I don't know what form that will finally take," said Kehler, noting he had taken part in some "very good discussions" regarding the way forward. "It's still under discussion."
The Energy Department -- whose semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration oversees the atomic arms complex day to day -- is collaborating with the Defense Department to study the matter. An interagency team is expected to report out in late summer or early fall.
The issue has proved highly contentious on Capitol Hill, where some Republican lawmakers have charged that the administration has given the military's nuclear warhead requirements short shrift. They have cited Kehler's warnings and those from a national laboratory leader as evidence that the CMRR delay would be a mistake (see GSN, June 8).
"Without CMRR, there is no identified path to meet the nation's requirement of 50 to 80 pits per year," Los Alamos laboratory Director Charles McMillan told his staff in a Feb. 14 letter. "Assuming further investments in [Los Alamos] facilities, we are confident we can deliver -- but only a portion of that requirement."
On Wednesday Kehler said until a new working blueprint is complete, there could be some risk of dropping under the level of plutonium pits he sees as necessary in coming years.
"I am still concerned, because we still don't have a plan that closes" all gaps in capacity for storage, research and production during the CMRR nuclear facility construction delay, the four-star general said.
However, the five-year "slip that was put in for the plutonium piece" of the U.S. nuclear-weapon infrastructure modernization plan "I think is manageable," Kehler said. "There is increased risk doing it this way. But the more we discuss this, the more we learn, the more we comfortable I think we can get with an interim solution."
In what could be an indication of how the existing nuclear complex might accommodate the military's annual requirement for fresh pits, Kehler said not all of the 50-to-80-pit annual requirement must be brand new. Some of the need could be filled by warhead cores that have been removed from excess weapons, refurbished and returned into the active or reserve warhead arsenal.
"We don't differentiate at all" between new versus reused pits, he told reporters.
"What STRATCOM says to the NNSA is you need to provide for us is the weapons we need, when we need them," said Kehler, referring to Strategic Command and the National Nuclear Security Administration. "And then we rely on NNSA to come back with a plan to fit our need.
"It doesn't matter to us up front how they go about that, and especially during the study phases that we are in today," he added. "They are looking at a number of different alternatives to meet the need. And I believe that there are some viable alternatives there."
Kehler said it could take "another couple of years" to sort out the technical details of solutions embraced in the next few months.
The strategic commander said he continues to support the president's nuclear infrastructure budget request for the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, but "the enterprise is still in bad shape" in "a couple of places," namely in uranium processing and plutonium research. Investment in a new Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., though, "is on track," he said.
Annual budget guidance stresses performance and priority goals
Charles S. Clark, Government Executive
August 8, 2012
The 800-page policy compendium titled "Circular No. A-11" also urges federal managers to consider their agency's impact on the economy.
In an Aug. 3 memorandum to agencies heads, acting OMB Director Jeffrey Zients wrote, "your budget submission to OMB should further the president's goals of spurring job creation and job growth and putting the [nation] on a path to fiscal sustainability. You will need to take a close look at all of your programs, and together we will have to make the hard decisions necessary to create room for the most effective investments in areas critical to economic growth and job creation."
The document fleshes out instructions for agencies to comply with GPRA by offering a new performance framework and timetable for performance officers and others to set strategic goals, review progress and publicly report data on an accelerated basis. It also stresses pursuit of the crossagency "priority goals" discussed in President Obama's fiscal 2013 budget released in February, detailing uniform reporting requirements for posting on Performance.gov.
And the circular provides new guidance on the ambitious effort required by GPRA to create a full inventory of federal programs -- a project sought by lawmakers that for years that has bogged down over definitional issues.
John Kamensky, a senior fellow at the IBM Center for the Business of Government, wrote in a blog that the new guidance on performance issues "is more than double the length of last year's (82 pages). It expands on a previous OMB memo and details a multiyear, phased approach to implementing the new requirements. It does a good job of describing the integration of many 'moving parts' that need to come together in coming years."
Robert Shea, a top OMB official during the George W. Bush administration and now a principal with Grant Thornton LLP, told Government Executive that the document contains "a lot of helpful instruction for agencies struggling to leverage the requirements of GPRA modernization. It lays out a good performance management architecture for agency strategic plans and performance goals and should make it easier to compare the performance across government."
But Shea expressed concern that the implementation timeline is "less than ambitious and beyond the deadlines in the law."
It's official: White House must share sequestration specifics
Eric Katz, Government Executive
August 8, 2012
President Obama has signed a law that requires his administration to provide a report to Congress "relating to funding reductions" scheduled to take place on Jan. 2, 2013, as a result of sequestration, the White House announced Tuesday.
The law directs Obama to detail within 30 days where the spending cuts would take place, making the deadline for the report Sept. 6. The 2012 Sequestration Transparency Act passed nearly unanimously in both chambers of Congress in July.
Sequestration was included in the 2011 Budget Control Act as an incentive for a bipartisan super committee to reach an agreement on where to cut the budget, but the panel's failure to do so has left many on Capitol Hill concerned the last-resort measure will go into effect.
Congress formally adjourns until Sept. 10
Michael Catalini, National Journal
August 7, 2012
The House and Senate formally adjourned until Sept. 10 on Tuesday morning eliminating the need for pro forma sessions over the August break.
The House voted to adjourn, reversing itself after all Democrats and 78 Republicans voted last week to defeat the Senate's adjournment resolution, during a pro forma session.
As a result of the House's action, the Senate stands in adjournment until 2 p.m. on Sept. 10, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin's office said.
Court Weighs an Order on Nuclear Waste Site in Nevada
Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times
August 3, 2012
WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court indicated Friday that it would issue an order for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to resume an evaluation of a possible nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, a volcanic ridge in the Nevada desert, unless Congress acted by December to resolve the legal tangle around the project.
The commission is required by a 1987 law to determine if the site, 100 miles from Las Vegas, is suitable, but in 2010, President Obama had the government stop work on the project, making good on a campaign pledge. If Congress does not resolve the conflict by mid-December, the federal judges themselves will probably order the commission to continue its work until its money runs out, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia indicated.
Congress was at a stalemate over Yucca Mountain. Harry Reid of Nevada, the leader of the Senate's Democratic majority, has blocked financing but lacks the votes to change the law. Some Congressional Republicans insist that it go forward.
Aiken County, S.C., and the states of Washington and South Carolina, jurisdictions with extensive stores of military and civilian waste, sued, arguing that even though Mr. Obama told the Energy Department to withdraw its application to build the project, the law still required the regulatory commission to consider Yucca Mountain's suitability.
In a 2-1 ruling, the three-judge appeals panel said Friday that for the time being, it would not order the commission to follow the path laid out by the 1987 law. The panel had argued that it has only $10.4 million in hand to conduct the inquiry, far less than it would need.
The court said it would wait until Dec. 14 to see whether Congress would clarify the situation by appropriating more money or by ordering that no more be spent.
One of the judges, A. Raymond Randolph, dissented, writing that the commission was "willfully denying" a command by Congress. "Whatever might happen in the future, the fact remains that Congress has already spoken," he wrote.
And another judge, Brett M. Kavanaugh, wrote that if Congress did not clarify what the commission should do through its fiscal 2013 appropriations, he would support issuing an order to have the regulatory commission proceed on considering the license application. The third judge, Merrick B. Garland, did not issue a written opinion.
It is unclear whether Congress will do anything about Yucca Mountain by December. On Tuesday, Congressional leaders reached a tentative deal that could put off the need to finalize a budget until March.
That the commission lacks the money to do the job is partly because of Senator Reid's success in blocking further appropriations for it. On the House side, Republicans are proposing the allocation of more money to let the commission finish its licensing decision.
Whether the site would in fact receive a license is not clear. But Lake Barrett, who was the senior civil servant in charge of the Yucca project from 1992 until 2002, said on Friday that if the commission were ordered to resume its work, it could release a safety evaluation of the Nevada site by its staff, which could give Yucca Mountain new momentum. But the administrative law judges hearing the license application have accepted nearly 300 issues for litigation in the case.
Beyond the opposition from Mr. Obama, Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, has also said he does not favor establishing a waste repository over the objections of the host state.
An Uncertain Phase for Nuclear Power Licenses
Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times Green Blog
August 9, 2012
In a rare action, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acceded to a petition filed by anti-nuclear groups that it halt some licensing activities until the agency can sort out its troubled policy on nuclear waste. The groups, two dozen of them, are sounding triumphant, as if they have brought the industry to its knees.
But for now it is not clear whether the decision will force any reactors to shut down or delay the opening of any new ones.
The crux of the waste issue is that for years, the commission has licensed reactors on the assumption that the federal government would eventually establish a disposal system for spent fuel. An official policy known as the "waste confidence decision" stated, in typical commission lingo, that there was "reasonable assurance" that a burial place would eventually be available and that the fuel could in the meantime be stored in spent fuel pools or on site in dry casks without significant environmental risks.
But in June the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that in reaching this conclusion, the commission did not comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, a law that mandates that environmental impact studies be issued before such a finding is reached.
The commission is now pondering whether it can fix the problem by issuing a broad generic statement about the safety of storage in pools and dry casks or whether it will have to do a reactor-by-reactor review.
Geologic storage is off the table for the time being, with the Obama administration having told the Energy Department to kill the Yucca Mountain project on a volcanic ridge in the Nevada desert.
Pending a reassessment of the nuclear waste issue, the commission's five members voted 5-0 on Wednesday to suspend final issuance of license renewals and new operating licenses.
Opponents sounded ebullient. "We believe it is appropriate to halt reactor licensing decisions and stop creating an intergenerational debt of nuclear waste that will burden our children and grandchildren for centuries to come," Stephen Smith, executive director of one of the groups that sued, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said in a press release.
Others happily cited plants with licenses that are due to expire soon, including Indian Point in Buchanan, N.Y. The license on its Unit 2 reactor expires in 2013, and the one for Unit 3 in 2015.
But as with many disputes in the nuclear industry, it's complicated. The reactors, it turns out, do not need a license renewal to keep running.
The commission has a "timely renewal doctrine," not unlike what some other federal agencies practice, that allows the status quo to remain while the agency deliberates. "If you are already in the queue, when you cross the end of your license and renewal is under consideration, you can continue operating,'' said Eliot Brenner, a spokesman. The plant's operator, Entergy, had to apply for a renewal five years before the license was due to expire, and did so in 2007.
The licensing moratorium is less forgiving, though, for two other categories. One is new reactors. Two twin-unit plants in the South, Vogtle 3 and 4 in Georgia and Summer 2 and 3 in South Carolina, have combined construction and operating licenses, and those cannot be finalized unless the waste confidence problem is resolved.
Vogtle 3 and Summer 2 are both scheduled to begin commercial operation in 2016.
Many plants have applied for permission to raise their power output, and some of those approvals may be delayed as well.
Mitt Romney Tries to Neutralize Yucca Mountain Issue in Quest for Nevada
Humberto Sanchez, Roll Call
August 9, 2012
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney is taking no chances in what is expected to be a close contest for Nevada's six electoral votes by neither opposing nor endorsing the controversial proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, though the issue will not likely be as prominent as in the past.
"I think [Romney] has hemmed and hawed" on whether he backs the project, said Jon Ralston, the Las Vegas Sun's political columnist. "He is certainly going to try to play that issue to a draw."
David Damore, a political science professor at University of Nevada at Las Vegas, said Romney has been "pretty agnostic" on the project in an effort not to get pinned down. For decades, politicians seeking to curry favor with Nevada voters have tried to outdo each other in opposing sending the nation's nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain.
Romney's move will likely keep what is expected to be a tight race very tight, the pundits said. Supporting the waste repository hasn't necessarily been political death in the state, but it has made contests closers. President George W. Bush, who vocally supported the project, won Nevada in 2000 and 2004, but only by about 30,000 votes. Romney's position on the Yucca Mountain site calls for the people of Nevada to decide whether they want the nuclear waste and to determine what they should get if they do want it, according to a spokesman for the campaign.
Congress designated Yucca Mountain as the site in 1987 in part because Nevada had no political clout, the pundits said.
The Romney spokesman pointed to the former Massachusetts governor's comments on the issue in last October's primary debate in Las Vegas.
"The idea that 49 states can tell Nevada, 'We want to give you our nuclear waste,' doesn't make a lot of sense," Romney said. "I think the people of Nevada ought to have the final say as to whether they want that, and my guess is that for them to say yes to something like that, someone's going to have to offer them a pretty good deal, as opposed to having the federal government jam it down their throat."
"And by the way, if Nevada says, 'Look, we don't want it,' then let other states make bids and say, 'Hey, look, we'll take it,'" Romney continued. "'Here's a geological site that we've evaluated. Here's the compensation we want for taking it. We want you electric companies around the country that are using nuclear fuel to compensate us a certain amount per kilowatt hour, a certain amount per ton of this stuff that comes.'"
His comments come after President Barack Obama has joined with most members of the state's Congressional delegation to oppose the project. Obama has gone further by zeroing out funding for construction of the repository in his budgets for the past few years, and federal officials have been looking for other ways to use the unfinished site.
Both Nevada pundits stressed that the issue is not expected to be as prominent as it has been because Nevada's economic woes will trump the nuclear waste site project.
That is partly because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) and other members of the state's Congressional delegation have helped to starve it of funding.
Last week, Reid praised a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to delay ruling until December on whether to compel the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to continue licensing work on Yucca Mountain. Reid also moved recently to ensure that any new NRC chairman would continue to oppose giving Yucca a license to operate. Allison MacFarlane, who was confirmed as chairwoman by the Senate in June along with a pro-Yucca commissioner, has said Yucca Mountain is not geologically sound enough to be a permanent waste repository.
Ralston said there may be some sparring over Yucca with Obama's camp seeking to paint Romney as a supporter of the project, but too not much. He also sees a possible similar effort in the race between Rep. Shelley Berkley (D) and Sen. Dean Heller (R) for the state's second Senate seat.
"They will likely try to make it an issue in the presidential race because Obama committed to stop it and essentially has," Ralston said. "They may try to find things that Romney has said to try to make him look like he favors Yucca Mountain. They may try something like that in the U.S. Senate race as well."
Yucca Mountain was a more high-profile issue when Reid was running for re-election in 2010 and when Bush was seeking office.
Both pundits also noted that there is a Yucca fatigue with voters because it has been an issue for 25 years.
Damore thinks Romney's stance on Yucca is emblematic of his cautious political strategy where he seems to be unwilling to take definitive positions on specific issues for fear of alienating voters.
Damore added that Sharron Angle, who ran against Reid in 2010, used the same strategy and came up short in a state where voters are yearning for specific solutions. Nevada has the highest unemployment rate and is first in home foreclosures.
"He's falling into the trap that Sharron Angle fell into," Damore said. "Everybody knows what the problems are; you don't have to point out the problems. It's what are your solutions, and he hasn't articulated anything."
State urged to take tough stance on Hanford tank waste
Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald
August 9, 2012
The state of Washington needs to take a hard line with the Department of Energy on the 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste held in underground tanks at Hanford, said speakers at a public hearing in the Tri-Cities this week.
The Washington State Department of Ecology heard comments on the newly released section of its draft Hanford Facility Dangerous Waste Permit that covers Hanford's leak-prone, single-shell tanks. About 20 people attended the Richland meeting, with additional people on a call-in line.
The state needs a schedule from DOE on how it will empty 149 single-shell tanks by a 2040 legal deadline, said John Howieson of Portland. Fewer than 10 of the tanks have been emptied so far and work is not progressing at a rate that will come close to having the remainder emptied by 2040, he said.
Not enough personnel and equipment are available and probably not enough budget either, he said.
There are alternatives to the current system, which has allowed radioactive waste to leak into the soil starting as early as 1944, said Dirk Dunning, who works for the state of Oregon but spoke as a member of the public.
More double-shell tanks could be built or DOE could consider a previously proposed technology that would inject salt water down a series of wells to freeze the soil solid and prevent the spread of leaked waste, he said.
Tom Carpenter, the executive director for Hanford Challenge, urged the state to use the new permit to better protect tank farm workers from hazards, including chemical vapors.
The state could make provisions for supplied air for workers and better monitoring of vapors and could require more information be provided to workers, he said.
"So far, the state has not chosen to exercise its authority on this," he said.
He also said the state needs rigorous contingency plans in case new tank leaks are discovered.
Other speakers, mostly from the Seattle area, called for prohibitions on more waste being brought to Hanford until tank and other waste is cleaned up.
Public comments on the draft permit may be emailed to the state at Hanford@ecy.wa.gov or mailed to Andrea Prignano, Department of Ecology, 3100 Port of Benton Blvd., Richland, WA, 99354. The deadline is Sept. 30.
Additional public hearings are planned Sept. 13 in Portland and Sept. 19 in Seattle.
SRS reaches cleanup milestone as SRNS completes Lower Three Runs project
Aiken Standard
August 8, 2012
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions has confirmed that 85 percent of the Savannah River Site has been cleaned up with the recent completion of the Lower Three Runs Project.
Twenty miles long, Lower Three Runs leaves the main body of the site and runs through areas of Barnwell and Allendale Counties until it flows into the Savannah River.
"We excavated and disposed of more than five million pounds of contaminated soil from three specific sites along the stream, erected miles of fence and placed over 2,000 signs in order to make Lower Three Runs safe and to reduce our site's footprint by another 10 percent," said Chris Bergren, manager of the Area Completion Projects. "Cost efficiencies obtained through the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act Project at SRS provided the funding necessary to accelerate this cleanup of Lower Three Runs."
According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lead Project Manager Robert Pope, "The EPA is pleased with the cleanup of hot spots of contaminated soil and sediment along Lower Three Runs. EPA worked closely with the Department of Energy, South Carolina DHEC and SRNS cleanup crews, engineers and members of management to ensure all cleanup goals and expectations were met on an accelerated schedule," said Pope. "The cleanup actions, along with the installation of miles of fencing and warning signs, demonstrate SRS's commitment to protect human health and act as a good neighbor to residents living in the area."
Because low levels of contaminants remain in soils and sediments, fishing or trespassing on DOE property is not allowed."However, testing of the water in Lower Three Runs has shown it to be safe, with contaminant levels below EPA standards," added Pope.
In addition to completing this project on budget and ahead of schedule, the work has provided an economic stimulus to area small businesses.
Landowners near the stream were pleased with the results of the project, reported SRNS. "We greatly appreciate that SRNS was willing to invest the time and money into making the stream safe," said Jason Houck, who owns property adjacent to Lower Three Runs.
"The removal of the contaminated soils and sediments helps ensure that the valuable water resources of the State of South Carolina remain protected. Further, the placement of upgraded fencing and signage will help ensure that no one inadvertently wanders onto property owned by DOE, further enhancing DOE's commitment to protect human health," said Van Keisler of the Federal Remediation Section, Bureau of Land and Waste Management and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Nuclear Waste and the States Briefing
Brydon Ross, The Council of State Governments
August 1, 2012
The electric ratepayers in dozens of states have been charged billions to build a site to store nuclear waste. As waste continues to be generated and stored on-site at power plants, the President's Blue Ribbon Panel on America's Nuclear Future has suggested new strategies to manage spent fuel and create sites for interim storage for waste.
In 1982 Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which directed the Department of Energy to initiate development and construction of a permanent repository to store the nation's nuclear waste. The legislation established a one-tenth of one-cent per kilowatt hour fee on electricity produced from nuclear power that would be deposited into a Nuclear Waste Fund to help pay for the construction of a repository.1 Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act again in 1987 and selected Yucca Mountain, Nev., as the permanent storage site. It established a timetable for shipments of nuclear waste to begin arriving in 1998--a timetable that has clearly lapsed, generating lawsuits from states and utilities because of the delay.
The politically charged debate surrounding Yucca Mountain, intense opposition from the state of Nevada, and the complex issues surrounding the transportation, storage and disposal of nuclear waste at the site culminated in the Obama administration's decision to formally withdraw the license application for the repository in 2009.
The politically charged debate surrounding Yucca Mountain, intense opposition from the state of Nevada, and the complex issues surrounding the transportation, storage and disposal of nuclear waste at the site culminated in the Obama administration's decision to formally withdraw the license application for the repository in 2009.
Closed Siberian nuclear city prepares to build permanent nuclear waste repository
Anna Kireeva, The Bellona Foundation
August 2, 2012
MURMANSK - Residents of the closed Russian nuclear city of Zheleznogorsk have approved at a public environmental hearing Monday a project to construct an underground research laboratory, which will study the possibility of constructing a long term subterranean radioactive waste repository.
But some environmentalists have raise concerns that access to information about the facility, which was only viewable in paper form at the Zheleznogorsk city administration, was intentionally restricted by Russia's state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, to avoid criticism of the project.
Still others are unconvinced by the safety of the proposed repository, saying that safety assurances are hyped propaganda from Russia's nuclear industry.
The laboratory, near the Siberia city of Krasnoyarsk will be built in the area's Yeniseisky District and will conduct a minimum of nine years of study of mountainous and geological layers in accord with international recommendations and on the basis of experience from other similar international laboratories attempting to perfect the fragile science of safely storing radioactive waste for dozens if not hundreds of thousands of years underground.
Lab before repository
The aim of the years of study, which will be conducted at the exact underground depth of the future repository, is to confirm the fitness of the local geology for safe storage of long-lived high- and medium-level radioactive waste, and the development of technology to handle waste. This will encompass the development of building chambers and shafts for radioactive waste storage, as well as the creation of engineering barriers against radiation. Comprehensive studies of the isolating characteristics of engineering barriers will be carried out, as well as studies on the thermodynamics of the chambers and shafts and geological layers.
The studies will form the backbone of a technical report that will be submitted for expert analysis by the State Commission on Useful Mineral Supplies, which will form the basis for whether the project can enter its first phase of construction of permanently isolating facilities, or if further study is required.
The organizational and technical decisions adopted for the laboratory's planned activities will not result in a deterioration of the radiation and sanitary conditions in the area of the site's operations provided that rules and standards are observed as set by the bodies of technological and sanitary and epidemiological oversight and that radiation conditions are properly monitored, Nuclear.ru reported.
No decision on whether the repository can be put to use can be taken until the underground laboratory has reasonably proved that the repository will be safe.
Other countries operating such laboratories for their own repositories include Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and the US.
Limited access to the State Environmental Impact Study
Public hearings are a necessary component of a State Environmental Impact Study of planned economic or other activities. The aim of the Environmental Impact Study is to avert or minimize negative environmental, societal, and economic consequences.
Public hearings are a necessary component of a State Environmental Impact Study of planned economic or other activities. The aim of the Environmental Impact Study is to avert or minimize negative environmental, societal, and economic consequences.
According to the Zheleznogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine, a mere 50 people from the 100,000 strong region participated in reviewing the environmental impact report before the hearing, including a number of official inquiries from authorities.
Information about the hearing was posted, as required by law, 30 days before it took place in official media. The State Environmental Impact Study was accessible for review, and preparations of remarks and suggestions of interested parties were addressed in the public reception of the Zheleznogorsk city administration, which was staffed by consultants who answered questions from citizens on the voluminous technical text and who noted their opinions on the planned facility.
Environmental groups from Krasnoyarsk and Zheleznogorsk, representatives of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology, scientists and specialists in various fields were invited to attend Monday's hearing.
But there were complaints that access to the impact study was extremely limited.
"It was only possible to view the environmental impact study material by traveling personally to Zheleznogorsk," said Valery Komissarov, chief engineer of the isotope and chemical factory of the Zheleznogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine.
"Paper and electronic copies were forbidden, three copies of the document were available in the public reception of the city administration, where you could copy some information by hand," he said.
Because of Zheleznogorsk's militarily closed status, special passes are required to visit, and without being able to visit, many interested citizens were unable to view the Environmental Impact Study.
According to Vladimir Mikheyev, director of the Citizens' Center For Nuclear Nonproliferation, the closed nature of the impact study shows that Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom is hardly ready to cooperate with the public, specifically with critical observations by ecological groups.
"They only invited organizations that confirm the position of the corporation to their event," Mikheyev told the Russian Press Line news agency.
The public hearing
Alexander Porosov, main activities director for the state-owned National Radioactive Waste Management Operator said that materials presented at a public hearing should help public hearing participants "understand and be assured of the necessity of the decision to permanently isolate accrued radioactive waste stored at the moment in open air facilities."
The hearing also provided information on all possible radiation defense barriers under consideration in the project.
Yet the hearing took place in the middle of a workday - something the press service of the Zheleznogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine said was not intended to drive away participants.
"Traditionally, our public hearings take place on Monday or Tuesday and turnout is always normal," a spokesman for the combine told Bellona.
Two hundred seventy six people took part in the public hearing on the "Environmental Impact Study for the Construction of High-Priority Facilities of Permanent Isolation of Radioactive Waste, Including Planning and Surveying (Krasnoyarsk Region, Nizhne-Kansk Range)." The project was supported by 179 people, with 12 voting against it and 13 abstaining.
But local environmentalists were concerned over whether the hearing had had any effect. Artem Kardanets, leader of the local "Krasnoyarsk is Against" movement, small towns formed by the mining and chemical combine are dependent on its enterprises.
"There is across-the-board opinion that standing up against the project to entomb radioactive waste means standing up against prospective jobs. I don't think we should undertake this project in the Krasnoyarsk region - the area has already been turned into a world class industrial dump," said Kardants.
"For some reason, the Russian government has considers that Krasnoyarsk also needs radioactive waste," he said.
The mining and chemical combine itself already houses wet storage for spent nuclear fuel, and has also launched a dry storage facility, which this year received its first load of spent RBMK reactor fuel.
Those who were unable to attend Tuesday's hearing still have the possibility of including their remarks and suggestions on project documentation for the next 30 days. After this period, all remarks and suggestions will be included in a report that will be an indispensible component of the environmental impact study, which will, in its turn, be reviewed by the State Ecological Expertise on which conclusions on the environmental safety of the project will be based.
The installation's safety
According to the National Radioactive Waste Management Operator's Porosov, safety of the permanent isolation of radioactive waste is exhaustively guaranteed during normal operation of the facility by the engineered safety barriers that prevent radionuclides and chemical contamination from entering the environment.
Porosov noted that in the emergency circumstances envisioned in the blueprints, the safety of permanent isolation of radioactive waste is guaranteed by a geological safety barrier, which prevents possible spread of contamination to the surface and throughout underground water tables beyond the sanitary defense zone.
"In this way, the zone of radionuclide and chemical contamination as well as possible rises in the radiation background during project accidents is limited to the territory of the radioactive waste repository," he said. "As per engineering documents, the establishment of a sanitary defense zone of the installation, which will be under constant observation, is planned."
Nonetheless, questions about the repository's safety have raised the biggest concerns among local experts, environmentalists and activists.
"However they try to convince us that their repository can withstand earthquakes and floods is all rubbish," said Kardanets. "They told us the same thing about the Sayano-Shushenk Hydro-Electric Plant, that it was the most contemporary and reliable in Russia," he said, referring to the Yenesei River dam, which suffered a catastrophic accident in August 2009 that caused flooding of the engine and turbine rooms and a transformer explosion.
"We are seeing only the tip of the iceberg of what is going on in this industry," Kardanets added.
Zheleznogorsk - the first fruits
"To the familiar slogans about the nuclear industry - the energy of the future and cheap energy - we must add the terms 'burial' and 'repository,'" said Bellona Murmansk director Andrei Zolotkov. "And the further they are from populated areas the better. This cannot be avoided.
Temporary storage, longer term storage and permanent repositories are an integral part of the nuclear industry's activities. Yet, questions about the necessity of such installations have long stood on the sidelines of society's attention and efforts at implementation.
According to Zolokov, this, until recently, is what we knew of storing liquid and solid radioactive waste: dumping it in open water bodies, injecting it in underground aquifers, storing it in special areas about a given nuclear installation without any special precautions, and dumping it into the sea.
"The Krasnoyarsk Region is likely the first fruit-bearing notion in this direction. Siberia has many large enterprises of Russia's nuclear fuel cycle. More may appear in the future," said Zolotkov. "Geologists will study suitable sites for repositories and they will apparently be located at a manageable distance from the concentration of facilities using nuclear energy."
Zolotkov said that scientists from the Kola Scientific Center conducted similar work in the Murmansk Region and found many places that are suitable for long-term storage of nuclear waste. Each region that hosts a large-scale nuclear facilities should - if they have not already - be prepared to build either waste storage facilities or full scale repositories.
Hauling loads of radioactive waste over long distances is expensive and fraught with risks. The Kola Peninsula already has a long term facility for storing reactor vessels and radioactive waste, and another such site is underway near Sosnovy Bor, home to Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, some 45 kilometers west of St. Petersburg.
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