ECA Update: January 24, 2013
Published: Thu, 01/24/13
Wyden joins three senators in nuclear waste policy group
Zack Colman, The Hill January 23, 2013 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) will participate in an ad hoc Senate nuclear waste management group, signaling the topic could get attention this Congress.
Wyden will join committee ranking member Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) in the group. He replaces retired former Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.)
Murkowski had hoped Wyden would fill Bingaman's vacancy. She expressed optimism that earlier negotiations, combined with Wyden's interest, portend positively for nuclear waste management legislation. "I'm hoping that we will resume kind of where we left off at the end of last Congress, where we were having some kind of regular meetings to discuss the next set of ideas," Murkowski told reporters Wednesday.
Murkowski said the group met regularly toward the end of last Congress. That culminated with Bingaman floating a nuclear waste management bill, designed as a table setter for the new session.
The group was not completely on board with Bingaman's bill. They largely disagreed with his view that an application for a permanent waste storage site must be on file before moving waste to interim facilities.
But Wyden already has indicated he is amenable to using interim storage sites, even without a permanent destination in mind.
Committee Republicans objected to the permanent site requirement because they fear getting the application ensnared in a political battle.
They point to the fight for continuing reviews to use Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository. President Obama campaigned on shutting the Nevada site down during his first presidential run, and pulled the plug on reviews in 2010.
Murkowski said she is not ready to give up on the Yucca Mountain repository, but added the committee should explore other options.
"I don't want to give up on Yucca because of what has been invested in it, but I also don't want to waste another decade and get nowhere," Murkowski said.
She said any nuclear waste management bill should include a "consent-based approach" for establishing a new repository. That process would enable states that want a nuclear waste site to apply to host such a facility.
The recommendation comes from the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, which Obama convened in 2009 to study how the nation manages its nuclear waste.
The commission's recommendations served as a template for the Senate group's talks, and for Bingaman's bill last Congress.
"I think it is our intent along, with Sen. Wyden as the chairman now replacing Bingaman, that we move forward on some of those proposals that we were discussing," Murkowski said.
Shimkus: No interim nuclear waste deal without Yucca Darius Dixon, Politico January 23, 2013 Any legislation to set up temporary storage sites for the nation's stockpile of nuclear waste is dead in the water without explicit language resurrecting Yucca Mountain, House Environment and the Economy Subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus said Wednesday.
Senior members of the Senate have been meeting for more than a year to discuss how to deal with the nuclear waste stored across the country in light of the Obama administration's decision to dismantle the Yucca project. Some nuclear industry leaders still hope for comprehensive legislation.
But the Illinois Republican rained on that parade.
"No interim storage provision, I believe, will move without a connection to Yucca Mountain -- so whoever is writing that it is and has a chance, they're not talking to the House side," Shimkus told reporters. He said he and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) met with some of the senators working on the nuclear waste issue shortly before the Christmas recess.
By late 2012, the group of lawmakers working on the issue included outgoing Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.); the panel's top Republican, Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska); and Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) from the Appropriations Committee. In Bingaman's stead, the group now includes new Senate energy panel Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
"Sen. Alexander knows my position," Shimkus said. Yucca Mountain, he added, is the "law of the land and he knows it's the law of the land," referring to the 1987 law that designated the Nevada site as the nation's sole nuclear waste repository.
Shimkus hoped that Yucca Mountain supporters in the House might have more leverage with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a fierce opponent to the project, once a federal appeals court issues a decision on whether to force the NRC to complete its technical review of the site.
The NRC has argued that the agency doesn't have enough money set aside to complete the technical study of Yucca Mountain if its hand is forced by the court.
But Shimkus said unearthing the process would be a step in the right direction.
"We'll be happy to have them start and we'll be happy to have the fight to help them finish it," he said. Since retaking the House in the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans have repeatedly attempted to put more money into the NRC's review of the Yucca process, only to see Reid nix it.
Shimkus said the project's supporters were still able to "keep mischievous language out of these [continuing resolutions] that would've sent a signal that we're walking away [from Yucca]." Blocking such language, he added, "was a big victory for us."
Meanwhile, Shimkus said that despite a letter from several E&C members last week airing concerns about new NRC post-Fukushima safety recommendations, he didn't foresee a major tussle with the agency.
"I think most of us are happy with the tranquility of the NRC," he said, adding that NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane has "done well" in her position after taking over for Gregory Jaczko last summer.
"I know her overall position, but at least she's being collaborative and talking," Shimkus said.
Could Yucca Mountain debate spell doom for Senate legislation? Hannah Northey, Environment and Energy Daily January 24, 2013 Key bipartisan senators are once again crafting legislation to revamp the nation's stalled nuclear waste policies, but a top House Republican yesterday warned that any measure that doesn't back the highly controversial Yucca Mountain site will fail.
Four senators on the Appropriations and Energy and Natural Resources committees are teaming up to write a bill that would move waste away from reactors to temporary holding sites.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, top Republican on the Energy panel, told reporters yesterday that she is planning to work with incoming Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) -- who lead the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee -- to draft the bill.
The senators face a delicate balance of trying to advance plans to store hot, radioactive waste while avoiding a showdown over the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, which the Obama administration abandoned two years ago to the chagrin of many Republicans. The senators are aiming to move forward with less-controversial temporary sites while seeking volunteer communities to host a permanent repository, which could include Yucca Mountain.
"I don't want to give up on Yucca because of what's been invested in it, but I also don't want to waste another decade and get nowhere," Murkowski told reporters yesterday.
The bill would be based on legislation the senators crafted last year with former Energy Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) but would remove the prohibition on recycling waste and would allow temporary sites to advance without a permanent repository, said Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Murkowski.
But the GOP-led House could once again prove to be a sticking point over Yucca. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), head of the House Environment and Economy Subcommittee, told reporters at a separate news conference yesterday that no measure will move forward without a specific reference to the Nevada site.
"No interim storage provision, I believe, will move without a connection to Yucca Mountain," Shimkus said. "So whoever is writing that ... they're not talking to anyone on the House side. And remember there is a bicameral legislature."
Shimkus said the House has repeatedly shown overwhelming support for Yucca Mountain, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has blocked the issue from surfacing in the Senate. Following through with the site's development is required under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Shimkus said, adding that he doesn't "know how you force the administration to obey the law."
Shimkus also rejected the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's argument that it doesn't have enough money to review the Energy Department's application to build the Nevada repository and vowed to work with appropriators to ensure the agency has more than enough funding. A looming court decision that could require the agency to use what money it has left could also give Yucca proponents leverage to push the project forward, he said (Greenwire, Jan. 7).
Whether disputes over Yucca Mountain -- or a lack of communication between the two chambers -- will derail a Senate bill is yet to be seen.
Murkowski acknowledged that she has met with Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but that nuclear waste issues didn't come up yet. The senator also expressed hope that both chambers can have more bipartisan cooperation this Congress, noting there wasn't much "cross body communication" last year.
"We really want to get some things done, but all you have to do is look at the landscape around here and realize that oftentimes we can make something happen in the Senate and it dies a sudden death over in the House, or vice versa," she said. "We didn't work together as I think we could have [last year], so I'm hopeful things will be different."
Both chambers are planning to turn their attention to the NRC's oversight of the industry in the coming weeks. Shimkus said he is planning an oversight hearing with NRC members and said the agency's performance has improved under the leadership of NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane. "I think most of us are fairly happy with the tranquility of the NRC," he said.
House Republicans recently launched an investigation to determine whether the nuclear industry is being too heavily regulated due to changes following the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant in March 2011 (Greenwire, Jan. 16).
Murkowski said regulatory agencies need to ensure nuclear plants are safe without stifling the industry's development. "What I don't want them to do is use their regulations to stop development and opportunity in the name of enforcing safety regulations," she said.
Putting end to Yucca Mountain project 'within reach,' state commission says
Cy Ryan, Las Vegas Sun January 21, 2013 CARSON CITY -- The state says it is close to winning its long battle to stop high-level nuclear waste from being stored at Yucca Mountain.
The Nevada Commission on Nuclear Waste has submitted its 2012 report to Gov. Brian Sandoval and the Nevada Legislature suggesting "success is within reach" regarding the fight against nuclear waste storage.
The U.S. Department of Energy has withdrawn its application for Yucca Mountain, but there is a lawsuit pending in federal court in Washington, D.C., to force the licensing to go forward.
The suit was filed by Nye County; the states of Washington and South Carolina; Aiken County, S.C.; the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners; and three individuals from Washington state.
If the petition is granted, the state would be forced to "engage in a long, complex and extremely expensive intervention" to block the license, the commission said. A decision by the court has been put on hold until Congress acts.
In September, Congress passed and the president signed a continuing budget resolution that did not contain any money for licensing Yucca Mountain.
"Nevada has never been closer to finally prevailing in the decades-long fight to stop the defective Yucca Mountain project once and for all," the commission's report said.
But former U.S. Sen. and Gov. Richard Bryan, chairman of the commission, said that "at the same time, the state remains at considerable risk due to the legal and political forces that govern the national nuclear waste program."
The federal government has spent more than $8 billion for buildings and diggings tunnels in which the waste would be stored, and alternatives must be considered for its use, the commission said.
One of the most promising alternative uses would involve defense, homeland security and information technology, which might involve data storage and emergency communications, the commission said.
Other possible uses could be a training center for first responders or a site for unmanned aerial vehicles.
House passes debt ceiling bill Jake Sherman, Politico January 23, 2013 The House overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday afternoon to allow the federal government to keep borrowing money until the middle of May, as Republicans attempt to defuse the debt ceiling as political issue.
The legislation, which was unveiled last week at a House Republican retreat in Virginia, passed on a 285-144 vote.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday the Senate will pass the House bill without changes, noting that the legislation is "clean," meaning it contains no spending cuts. Republicans spent 2011 insisting on matching the debt ceiling with trillions of dollars in spending reductions.
The White House has said it would not block the legislation from becoming law.
"The president believes that we need to, as a country, do the responsible thing and without drama or delay, pay our bills, meet our commitments," White House spokesman Jay Carney said after the vote. "It is certainly important to recognize that the bill that passed the House today, the position that House Republicans took beginning late last week, represents a fundamental change from a strategy they pursued up until that point.... We are glad to see that that strategy is not being pursued anymore, so this is a welcome development."
This all means that the nation's debt limit, once the most potent of political weapons, is off the table until May 18. Republicans hope that this focuses Washington's attention on replacing the automatic spending cuts that hit the Defense department in March, government spending which expires at the end of March and prescriptions for entitlement reform.
In theory, the bill would also pressure the Senate to pass a budget -- something it hasn't done in several years. Under the legislation, if either chamber fails to pass a budget by April 15, its members will not get paid.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said she will author the spending plan this year. Her House counterpart, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is working on a budget that would balance the nation's books in the next decade. His last budget came into balance in twice as long.
Republicans also hope that if the Senate does pass a budget, a conversation about entitlement reform and rewriting the Tax Code will organically bubble to the surface. If they can move ahead with drastic changes to mandatory spending and tax reform after a debate over each chamber's budget, lifting the debt ceiling again would be an afterthought.
This debt ceiling bill garnered widespread support from conservatives, but there were still skeptics, and Democratic support was needed to pass the measure. In all, 199 Republicans and 86 Democrats voted for the bill; 33 Republicans and 111 Democrats voted no.
Rep. Tim Huelskamp, the Kansas Republican recently benched by GOP leadership for rebelling against the party, voted no.
"I'd like to make sure members don't get paid if we don't do our job, but the idea of suspending the debt ceiling limit is something my folks would be pretty upset about," Huelskamp told POLITICO in the basement of one of the House office buildings a few hours before the vote. "For the next 120 days, we're going to have unlimited borrowing.
He said his vote was "just a statement" on principle, he said.
Democrats, meanwhile, hammered the language that would suspend lawmakers' pay, saying it violates the 27th Amendment to the Constitution.
"This is totally unconstitutional," Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) told POLITICO. "You can't just change members' salaries."
The 27th Amendment prohibits lawmakers from increasing or decreasing their own salaries until the start of a new term -- which theoretically keeps potentially corrupt politicians from padding their own pocketbooks.
But Republicans argue that the provision doesn't necessary expand nor scale back member pay; it just freezes it for a bit -- making the provision constitutional.
Next up: Sequester, budget resolution Manu Raju and John Bresnahan, Politico January 23, 2013 Now that the debt ceiling fight has been delayed until May, the next big fiscal drama deadline is March 1, when the spending cuts of the sequester take effect.
Or not.
There's a growing number of senior Republicans, such as Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn, who are prepared to allow the billions of dollars of automatic spending cuts to military and other domestic agencies take effect without intervention.
Privately, some top Republicans in the House believe the threat of an economy-shaking debt default is off the table -- at least for now -- as a political weapon for Republicans to extract spending and entitlement cuts from President Barack Obama. That is certain to anger tea party conservatives who want to renew their demands for dollar-for-dollar spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling again.
If that line of thinking holds, the GOP will focus squarely on two major deadlines to push their demands: funding the government past March 27 and adopting a new budget blueprint by April 15.
"This doesn't go away," Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said of the GOP's decision to accept a three-month debt ceiling hike after demanding dollar-for-dollar cuts. "This is a temporary thing."
But the battle lines aren't that simple; both parties have internal struggles ahead to determine their priorities and when and how to fight.
Senate Democrats, for instance, now boxed into advancing a budget resolution for the first time in four years if they want to receive paychecks after April 15, need to decide what they want to do on tax reform and entitlements.
A split is emerging between powerful Democrats, such as New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Montana Sen. Max Baucus, over whether to employ controversial fast-track procedures to pave the way for a sweeping overhaul of the Tax Code that would presumably raise revenue to help slash future deficits. How the dispute is resolved will have dramatic implications for the contents of a final fiscal package.
The dueling House and Senate budget resolutions could force the two parties into a serious policy debate over cuts to Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid -- as well as whether to raise new taxes through a reform of the Tax Code -- something that was largely avoided in the previous Congress.
How this is resolved will define Obama's second term in office and whether Capitol Hill can finally get a handle on its finances -- or fall into yet another crisis.
Many are skeptical much will happen.
"They're just changing the order of the hostages they will shoot first," said Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee.
First off is sequestration, with the $1.2 trillion over 10 years in domestic and defense spending cuts.
For much of the past year, Republicans have railed against the cuts because half them would come from defense programs, reiterating Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's warnings that the Pentagon would be decimated if Congress did not reverse the sequester.
If the sequester isn't replaced, federal agencies are already warning employees across the government about possible layoffs or furloughs, possibly lasting several weeks. Deeper reductions could mean the end to dozens of national parks, termination of federal infrastructure or building programs or the layoffs of more sensitive employees, like air traffic controllers.
Republicans have sought to replace the cuts -- which would also be spread across to virtually every federal agency -- with spending reductions to an array of domestic programs. But Democrats have rebuffed that idea and are now saying that any plan to reverse the sequester must have new taxes, an idea Republicans are loath to consider.
The two sides could still agree to delay the cuts from taking effect, but top lawmakers in both parties now sense it is inevitable that the cuts are bound to take place.
"I think it should," Cornyn said when asked if he believed the sequester would take effect in March. "It's the one sure cuts we know we can bank."
"With all due respect to people who want to save federal employees," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, "the fact is that making cuts in the number of employees is what we should be doing."
Thune, the Senate Republican Conference chairman, said reversing the sequester would be difficult to accomplish in the current political climate.
"I think there will be a lot of pushback against trying to unwind it," Thune said. "If we can't come up with a better plan to find the same level of savings, I don't think there's any interest in delaying or eliminating it."
That's what Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois is hearing as well. "Most Republican senators I spoke with said, 'We're for spending cuts -- we want sequestration to go forward,'" he said. "If there is that sentiment on the Republican side ... I think we're committed to some form of sequestration spending cuts."
But those Republicans won't be the final word on the matter. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other defense hawks said Wednesday they're prepared to renew their case to reverse the sequestration cuts. And some top Democrats believe that the matter could be swept into larger talks over the budget blueprint the Senate is poised to advance.
Cornyn noted that Congress can always revisit any of the changes. "I think under the circumstances, we can always deal with the defense appropriation later."
And he added that the real leverage points for Republicans to demand spending cuts will be in March over the government funding resolution, known as the continuing resolution, or CR, which expires on March 27.
"This is fundamentally a prioritization of these issues," Cornyn said. "And I think the House wisely decided to put off the debt ceiling fight until after the sequester and the CR -- where they think we have significant leverage. And I agree."
But there are other avenues where defense cuts might become a political football -- including during the budget process.
Schumer, the No. 3 Democrat, is publicly advocating using a process known in the Capitol as "reconciliation" to fast-track a tax reform plan through the budget process. Employing that process would allow the Democrats to avert a filibuster over a tax reform plan, paving the way for such a measure to advance by 51 votes. They would need buy-in from the House to do so, but Schumer believes that Republicans would ultimately be forced to back the process -- which could produce higher tax revenues -- in exchange for reversing the sequestration cuts.
But Baucus is skeptical of the process, believing the budget rules would limit his options in pushing forward a sweeping tax reform plan, sources say. And Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) was noncommittal when asked about it Wednesday.
They're bound to get major pushback from Senate Republicans if they pursue that course.
"I don't think procedural games should be played -- frankly, I don't see much good happening on reconciliation -- nor do I have people telling the committee as important as ours what we have to do," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the ranking member on the Finance Committee.
More waste disposal units under way at Savannah River Site The Augusta Chronicle January 23, 2013 Savannah River Site contractors who successfully opened a new disposal unit for low-level radioactive, non-hazardous salt waste have been authorized to add two similar units now under construction.
The units built by Savannah River Remediation are used to hold decontaminated salt solution taken from salt waste inside SRS underground waste storage tanks.
The new Saltstone Disposal Unit 2 has two cells that are circular in design. Each cell will hold about 2.9 million gallons of nonhazardous cement grout, which is a mixture of the decontaminated salt solution with Portland, fly ash and slag cement powders. The first cell put into service is nearly full.
The disposal unit cells have a watertight design and a cylindrical shape, unlike the site's current disposal unit, which has a rectangular shape. The cylindrical design reduces wall stresses found in the rectangular units. It also includes an engineered concrete and steel shell, a wall-to-floor joint design, and high-density polyethylene and geosynthetic-clay barriers below the unit.
Unit 2 began accepting low-level, nonhazardous cement grout in one of its two cells in October 2012. Once filled, the second cell will continue accepting the cement mix.
Construction is continuing on two additional units, each with two individual disposal cells. Together, these four cells will hold about 11.6 million gallons of the cement grout, which will provide enough disposal capacity until mid-2015.
GAO Report: Hanford Waste Treatment Plant: DOE Needs to Take Action to Resolve Technical and Management Challenges GAO Report January 18, 2013
The Department of Energy (DOE) faces significant technical challenges in successfully constructing and operating the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) project that is to treat millions of gallons of highly radioactive liquid waste resulting from the production of nuclear weapons. DOE and Bechtel National, Inc. identified hundreds of technical challenges that vary in significance and potential negative impact and have resolved many of them. Remaining challenges include (1) developing a viable technology to keep the waste mixed uniformly in WTP mix tanks to both avoid explosions and so that it can be properly prepared for further processing; (2) ensuring that the erosion and corrosion of components, such as tanks and piping systems, is effectively mitigated; (3) preventing the buildup of flammable hydrogen gas in tanks, vessels, and piping systems; and (4) understanding better the waste that will be processed at the WTP. Until these and other technical challenges are resolved, DOE will continue to be uncertain whether the WTP can be completed on schedule and whether it will operate safely and effectively.
Since its inception in 2000, DOE's estimated cost to construct the WTP has tripled and the scheduled completion date has slipped by nearly a decade to 2019. GAO's analysis shows that, as of May 2012, the project's total estimated cost had increased to $13.4 billion, and significant additional cost increases and schedule delays are likely to occur because DOE has not fully resolved the technical challenges faced by the project. DOE has directed Bechtel to develop a new cost and schedule baseline for the project and to begin a study of alternatives that include potential changes to the WTP's design and operational plans. These alternatives could add billions of dollars to the cost of treating the waste and prolong the overall waste treatment mission.
DOE is taking steps to improve its management and oversight of Bechtel's activities but continues to face challenges to completing the WTP project within budget and on schedule. DOE's Office of Health, Safety, and Security has conducted investigations of Bechtel's activities that have resulted in penalties for design deficiencies and for multiple violations of DOE safety requirements. In January 2012, the office reported that some aspects of the WTP design may not comply with DOE safety standards. As a result, DOE ordered Bechtel to suspend work on several major WTP systems, including the pretreatment facility and parts of the high-level waste facility, until Bechtel can demonstrate that activities align with DOE nuclear safety requirements. While DOE has taken actions to improve performance, the ongoing use of an accelerated approach to design and construction--an approach best suited for well-defined and less-complex projects--continues to result in cost and schedule problems, allowing construction and fabrication of components that may not work and may not meet nuclear safety standards. While guidelines used in the civilian nuclear industry call for designs to be at least 90 percent complete before construction of nuclear facilities, DOE estimates that WTP is more than 55 percent complete though the design is only 80 percent complete. In addition, DOE has experienced continuing problems overseeing its contractor's activities. For example, DOE's incentives and management controls are inadequate for ensuring effective project management, and GAO found instances where DOE prematurely rewarded the contractor for resolving technical issues and completing work.
GAO slams Hanford vit plant project Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald January 19, 2013 The Hanford vitrification plant has not been well planned, well managed or well executed, according to a Government Accountability Office review requested by Congress and released Friday.
"Daunting technical challenges that will take significant effort and years to resolve combined with a near tripling of project costs and a decade of schedule delays raise troubling questions as to whether this project can be constructed and operated successfully," the GAO said.
"Additional cost increases amounting to billions of dollars and schedule delays of years are almost certain to occur," it said.
Among GAO's recommendations to improve management of the project is determining if incentive payments were made by DOE to its contractor, Bechtel National, for project milestones that were not met. Erroneous payments should be recovered, the report said.
DOE will perform a review of all milestones and incentive fee payments between January 2009 and now, said David Huizenga, senior advisor for the DOE Office of Environmental Management, in a written response to the GAO.
"The department is supportive of clawback of fees paid to its contractors where appropriate, for instance when the quality of an item has been subsequently determined not to have met requirements," he said.
Since 2009, DOE has paid Bechtel about $24.2 million or 63 percent of its $38.6 million incentive fee based, in part, on Bechtel meeting cost and schedule targets and resolving technical challenges with waste mixing, the GAO report said.
However, the vitrification plant project now is at serious risk of missing major future cost and schedule targets, and it has been determined by DOE "that the waste mixing technical challenges were not resolved at all," the report said.
At least three more years of testing and analysis will be needed for project scientists and engineers to fully resolve mixing issues, the report said.
But the current Bechtel contract has no mechanism for recovering an incentive fee paid for work subsequently determined to be insufficient, DOE officials told the GAO.DOE has improved the process and documentation for contract milestone payments, but more improvement is needed, Huizenga said.
DOE could consider modifying contracts to withhold payment until technical challenges are independently verified to be resolved, the GAO report said.
Bechtel and DOE have said that the most recent contract delays are the result of, among other things, Congress not providing the required funding to resolve technical issues, the report said.
But the GAO believes the more credible explanation is DOE's decision more than a decade ago to proceed with construction as the design for the plant is being developed is at the root of problems, the report said. Nuclear industry guidelines suggest completing 90 percent of design prior to beginning construction, the report said.
"DOE instead began construction when design of the facility was in the early stages and insisted on developing new technologies and completing design efforts while construction was ongoing," the report said.
Construction of the plant is more than 55 percent complete though the design is only about 80 percent complete, it said. Concrete began to be poured for the plant in 2002, and it's legally required to start operating in 2019.The plan was to start construction early on the plant to allow the plant to begin treating 56 million gallons of radioactive waste for disposal as soon as possible. The waste, some of it stored in leak-prone underground tanks, is left from past production of weapons plutonium.
The result of the early start of construction has been significant rework of parts of the design, and some equipment that already has been installed may need to be removed and remade, the report said. Among alternatives being considered for waste mixing issues is scrapping five to 10 already completed tanks to be used within the plant and replacing them with vessels with more easily verifiable designs, the report said.
Technical challenges are especially acute within the Pretreatment Facility and High Level Waste Facility, both of which will handle high-level waste. Technologies require "perfect reliability" over 40 years because parts of the plant will be too radioactive for workers to enter once processing begins, the report said.
Estimates for costs and time needed to resolve technical issues have not been made, but the cost of the plant could increase by billions of dollars if technical challenges cannot be easily and quickly resolved, the report said. In 2000, the plant was estimated to cost $4.3 billion and begin operating in 2007. The last in-depth estimate, completed in 2006, put the price at $12.2 billion, and an estimate in May raised the cost to $13.4 billion.
One alternative being considered is to "precondition" waste before it comes to the vitrification plant to remove the largest solid particles, which would make the waste easier to keep mixed. If plutonium particles build up in tanks in the plant, they pose a small risk of a criticality.
Preconditioning the waste could add $2 billion to $3 billion to the cost of the project, the report said.
Other alternatives being considered include reducing the amount of waste the plant treats or operating it at a slower pace for a longer period of time, significantly increasing the cost of treating all waste, the report said.
Further construction delays also would result in significant cost increases. DOE has estimated that a four-year delay in the startup date could increase the cost of waste treatment by $6 billion to $8 billion.
Resolving technical issues is a top priority and Energy Secretary Steven Chu and a team of experts have devoted five to 10 hours a week to the issue for the past four months, Huizenga said.
Earlier this week DOE announced that it would begin to ramp up construction on the High Level Waste Facility after stopping most building until more was known about technical concerns. Technical concerns have been confined to an area of the building with two tanks with possible mixing issues and construction can resume elsewhere, DOE said.
However, at the Pretreatment Facility, construction will remain limited to work to keep it in a useable condition until technical issues are further resolved.
The GAO report recommended that construction on the two facilities at the plant continue only on a limited approved plan until technical and management issues are resolved.
Oak Ridge EM Program Completes K-25 North End Demolition EM Press Release January 23, 2013 OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - News cameras today captured one of the final stages of DOE's largest-ever demolition project.
In addition, employees from Oak Ridge's Office of EM and its prime cleanup contractor, URS | CH2 Oak Ridge (UCOR), were on hand to witness the completion of demolition to the north end of the 44-acre Manhattan Project-era K-25 Building.
"Completing demolition of the K-25 building is our highest priority, and this is another significant step towards that goal," said Mark Whitney, Oak Ridge's EM manager.
K-25's demolition began in 2008, and it is expected to be complete next year. Demolition of the north and west wings are complete, and what remains is a section of the east wing that requires further deactivation due to the presence of technetium-99 (Tc-99), a slow-decaying radioactive isotope. That section is small compared to the entire K-25 superstructure that existed before demolition began. In all, K-25 was comprised of 54 units: 27 on the west wing, three on the north end, and 24 on the east wing. With the completion of the north end, there are only six units remaining on the east end. Workers are continuing pre-demolition activities in the remaining portion of the east wing.
The K-25 building, located at the East Tennessee Technology Park, was composed of three major sections -- the east and west wings and the north end -- which were aligned in a "U" shape that was more than a mile in length. The north end forms the base of the "U" and is the smallest of the three sections.
Previous plans called for the north end to be preserved for historic purposes. But in July 2012, federal, state and local historic preservation groups signed an agreement establishing an alternative plan that allows the north end to be demolished, while still recognizing the historic significance of the site.
With the north end demolition complete, attention is now focused on debris disposal. Waste disposition work has kept pace with demolition work under the project's "pack as you go" philosophy, meaning waste isn't allowed to pile up in the wake of demolition. Rather, waste is shipped within weeks after demolition is complete. In all, workers have safely finished more than 15,000 waste shipments since the UCOR contract began.
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