ECA Update: March 7, 2013
Published: Thu, 03/07/13
|
DOE sends sequestration impact letters to governors
ECA
ECA
March 7, 2013
DOE sent letters to governors of states with DOE sites on Tuesday, March 5 regarding the potential impact of sequestration.
As a result of sequestration, DOE's overall budget has been reduced by nearly $1.9 billion for the remainder of the fiscal year (FY 2013), the letters say.
"The Department is reallocating money from long-term efforts to limit sequestration's near-term impact," DOE says. "The impact of prolonged or permanent sequestration, then, would be greater than described here."
Each letter lists unique impacts for the DOE sites in that state, such as:
-
The estimated amount of direct reductions to DOE's contractors;
-
The estimated number of contractor furloughs and/or layoffs, beginning as early as April 1, 2013;
-
Subcontractor impacts "may be significant," but many are not included in this estimate; and
-
Other local impacts.
Letters were sent to the governors of:
-
California
-
Idaho
-
Illinois
-
Nevada
-
New Mexico
-
South Carolina
-
Tennessee
-
Texas
-
Virginia
-
Washington
If you would like to see a copy of the letters, please contact ECA.
House passes bill to avert government shutdown in March
Pete Kasperowicz, The Hill
March 6, 2013
Pete Kasperowicz, The Hill
March 6, 2013
The House on Wednesday approved legislation that would avert a government shutdown in a 267-151 vote, despite opposition from Democrats who complained that the measure locks in the $85 billion sequester.
Fifty-three Democrats supported the bill, likely because it will help avoid a shutdown. Fourteen Republicans voted against it.
The bill now goes to the Senate, which is expected to make additions to the bill and try to send it back to the House before March 27, when funding for the government runs out. The bill would keep the government running through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
The vote came after a 212-197 vote on the rule for the bill, which 16 Republicans opposed. That 15-vote margin was extremely narrow; 17 Democrats didn't vote on the rule and might have tipped that result if they had.
The debate and vote show that Democrats will continue to argue for an immediate solution to the sequester.
However, Republicans argued that the Democratic Senate has failed to pass any bill at all to replace the spending cuts and that President Obama has not put forward any solution other than one that includes new tax increases.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said that, in the meantime, Congress must deal with the reality of the sequester. He and other Republicans cast the bill as one that would keep the government running while this debate plays out.
"While we're waiting for the Senate to send us a bill relieving us of sequestration, while we're waiting for the president to send us something to relieve us of sequestration, we have no choice but to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government operating," Rogers said.
Senate Democrats are still planning to discuss their approach to the continuing resolution at a Thursday caucus meeting, a Senate Democratic aide said Wednesday.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and ranking member Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) continued negotiation Wednesday on what could be added to the bill.
Mikulski is looking at least to add several entire appropriations bills, already worked out behind the scenes with House Republicans.
Those bills would cover the departments of Commerce, Justice, Transportation, Housing, Homeland Security and the science agencies, the aide said.
Earlier in the House debate, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) made it clear that while Republicans are open to talks about shifting the cuts around, they have no interest in replacing them with new taxes.
"These are cuts, and they are going to occur," Cole said. "But we've repeatedly told our friends and the president and the Senate that we would be more than happy to redistribute where the cuts are going to occur."
Democrats ignored these arguments and said that by passing the bill, Republicans seemed to be favoring the sequester.
They even made a procedural motion to strike language locking sequestration into place, but that was rejected in a partisan vote.
Several Democrats, like Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), reiterated that by locking in the sequester, the bill would cut billions of dollars in programs and lead to possible delays in implementation of the 2010 healthcare law.
"This bill will delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act, scheduled to begin enrolling participants in October," she said. "Without IT [information technology] infrastructure to process enrollments and payments, verify eligibility and establish call-in centers, health insurance for million of Americans would be further delayed."
Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) went further, saying that by including language requiring the sequester, the bill violates the bargain struck in 2011 between Republicans and Democrats to set specific discretionary spending caps.
That cap was set at $1.043 trillion, but Hoyer said: "That is not what this bill does. It breaks the deal."
The Congressional Budget Office scored the bill as providing $984 billion in discretionary spending, because it takes into account the sequester by calling for across-the-board reductions to most programs.
The bill is a continuing resolution for most federal agencies, but for the Defense Department (DOD) and Department of Veterans Affairs, it includes a full appropriations bill. That language gives the DOD some flexibility in dealing with the sequester, by shifting $10.4 billion to the operations and maintenance budget.
The bill tries to cushion the effects of sequestration in some non-military areas.
It adds $2 billion for embassy security in the wake of last September's attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and provides $363 million more for nuclear security and $129 million more for FBI salaries, among other things.
It also includes other policy mandates, including a prohibition on the use of funds to move Guantánamo Bay detainees to the United States and a freeze on federal worker pay.
DOE Announces Preference for Disposal of Hanford Transuranic Tank Waste at WIPP
DOE Press Release
March 6, 2013
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced its preferred alternative to retrieve, treat, package, characterize and certify certain Hanford tank waste for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico, if such waste is properly classified in the future as defense-related mixed transuranic tank waste (mixed TRU waste).
This preferred alternative, which may cover up to approximately 3.1 million gallons of tank waste contained in up to 20 tanks, will provide DOE with an option to deal with recent information about possible tank leaks and to expedite the overall tank waste retrieval effort at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington State.
"This alternative, if selected for implementation in a record of decision, could enable the Department to reduce potential health and environmental risk in Washington State," said Dave Huizenga, head of the EM program. "WIPP is a national resource for the disposal of mixed TRU waste generated from defense activities, and this alternative, if implemented, would not impact the continued safe operations and performance of the WIPP facility in New Mexico."
Retrieving and processing candidate mixed TRU waste was evaluated in the Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement issued for the Hanford Site in December 2012. Initiating retrieval of tank waste that has been properly classified as defense-related mixed TRU waste would be contingent on DOE's obtaining the applicable and necessary permits, ensuring that the WIPP Waste Acceptance Criteria and all other applicable regulatory requirements have been met. Further, retrieval of waste would not commence until a Record of Decision (ROD) had been issued. DOE may issue such a ROD regarding the candidate mixed TRU wastes no sooner than 30 days from the date of publication of this notice in the Federal Register.
Feds Look To Ship Wash. Radioactive Waste To NM
The Associated Press
March 7, 2013
RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) -- Removing radioactive waste from underground tanks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site has proven to be technologically vexing for years, and recent word that six tanks are leaking has only added pressure to the efforts to empty them.
A proposal to ship some of that waste to New Mexico to ultimately stem the leaks earned approval from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who called it the right step for south-central Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the state and the nation.
The proposal still requires approval from the two states, and Congress still must approve funding -- likely pushing any shipments of waste two to four years into the future. But Inslee said he will push lawmakers to fully pay for the proposal, saying "every single dollar of it is justified."
Federal officials on Wednesday announced a proposal to ship some 3 million gallons of radioactive waste from Hanford for disposal in a massive repository -- called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant -- near Carlsbad, N.M., where radioactive materials are buried in rooms excavated in vast salt beds nearly a half-mile underground.
The waste near Carlsbad includes such things as clothing, tools and other debris.
The Hanford site sent the equivalent of about 25,000 drums of such so-called transuranic waste, which is radioactive but less deadly than the worst, high-level waste, to WIPP between 2000 and 2011.
The latest proposal would target transuranic waste in underground tanks that hold a toxic, radioactive stew of liquids, sludge and solids, but it would address only a fraction of the 56 million gallons of total waste in the tanks.
The proposal was quickly met with criticism from a New Mexico environmental group that said the state permit allowing the government to bury waste at the plant would not allow for shipments from Hanford.
Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said WIPP specifically prohibits such waste from Hanford and any proposal to modify permit language in this case would need "strong justification and public input."
"WIPP has demonstrated success in its handling of defense TRU waste," Udall said in a statement. "With regard to Hanford waste, I urge all parties involved to exhibit caution and scientific integrity to ensure that DOE is abiding by the law and that the waste classifications are justified."
Dave Huizenga, head of the Energy Department's Environmental Management program, said the transfer would not impact the safe operations of the New Mexico facility.
"This alternative, if selected for implementation in a record of decision, could enable the department to reduce potential health and environmental risk in Washington state," said Huizenga.
Don Hancock, of the Albuquerque-based watchdog group Southwest Research and Information opposing the transfer to New Mexico, said this is not the first time DOE has proposed bringing more waste to the plant near Carlsbad.
"This is a bad, old idea that's been uniformly rejected on a bipartisan basis by politicians when it came up in the past, and it's been strongly opposed by citizen groups like mine and others," Hancock said. "It's also clear that it's illegal."
Disposal operations near Carlsbad began in March 1999. Since then, more than 85,000 cubic meters of waste have been shipped to WIPP from a dozen sites around the country.
Any additional waste from Hanford would have to be analyzed to ensure it could be stored at the site because a permit issued by the New Mexico Environment Department dictates what kinds of waste and the volumes that can be stored there.
WIPP spokeswoman Deb Gill said the facility does not anticipate any problems with its existing capacity as permitted under law.
Officials estimate that some 7,000 to 40,000 drums of waste would be trucked to New Mexico, depending on how the waste is treated and its final form.
South-central Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation is home to 177 underground tanks, which hold toxic and radioactive waste left from decades of plutonium production for the country's nuclear weapons arsenal. The tanks have long surpassed their intended 20-span.
Federal officials have identified six leaking tanks. Five of them contain transuranic waste and are among the tanks being targeted under the plan.
The Energy Department has said the leaking tanks could be releasing as much as 1,000 gallons a year. State and federal officials have said the leaking materials pose no immediate threat to public safety or the environment, but the leaks raise concerns about the potential for groundwater to be contaminated and, ultimately, reach the neighboring Columbia River about 5 miles away.
Inslee has said repeatedly that Washington state has a "zero tolerance" policy for leaks. He called the proposal a good start in the process of getting rid of Hanford's waste, and said he would insist that permitting and technical reviews are resolved so that none of the material gets "orphaned" in Washington.
He also said that groundwater treatment programs at Hanford could pump any groundwater that could be contaminated by the leaking waste while awaiting approval of the proposal.
Inslee traveled Wednesday to Hanford to learn more about the leaking waste tanks. His trip came a day after federal officials acknowledged budget cuts may disrupt efforts to empty the aging vessels.
In a letter to Inslee, the Department of Energy estimated it will have to eliminate $92 million for its Office of River Protection, resulting in furloughs for hundreds of workers who work to empty the tanks and build a plant to treat it.
Inslee spokesman David Postman said the governor's initial concern is for the workers, but he emphasized budget constraints cannot be an excuse to delay response to the leaking tanks.
The U.S. government spends some $2 billion each year on cleanup at Hanford -- one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally -- so the project is still in line to receive most of its usual federal funding.
The cuts within the Energy Department's budget are the result of debate in Congress, where Republicans and President Barack Obama are fighting over how to curtail the nation's debt.
Energy Department officials said their budget was being reduced by some $1.9 billion.
Who Is Ernest Moniz, Obama's Choice for Energy Secretary?
Niraj Chokshi, National Journal
March 4, 2013
Niraj Chokshi, National Journal
March 4, 2013
President Obama on Monday will nominate MIT professor Ernest Moniz to become the next Energy secretary, succeeding Steven Chu, according to a source familiar with the matter. Here's what you need to know about him.
No Stranger to Government. Moniz has held key energy-policy roles under Presidents Clinton and Obama. As undersecretary for Energy from 1997 to 2001, he was the department's public face in explaining in 1998 how Energy failed to prevent one nuclear-weapons plant from leaking nearly a million gallons of radioactive waste over time. A year later, he had to defend a nearly half-billion-dollar, 16-year mistake in how the department handled such waste. Earlier in Clinton's tenure, Moniz spent two years as the associate director for science in the president's Office of Science and Technology Policy. In 2009, he was appointed to be a member of Obama's Science and Technology Advisory Council. Moniz also has experience testifying before Congress, having discussed the Clinton administration's energy policy in June 2000 and the future of natural gas in 2011.
Proponent of Nuclear Energy. Moniz is an advocate for a low-carbon future and has, in a variety of forums, promoted the use of nuclear energy to get there. Despite the disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant in early 2011, Moniz argued later that year that "it would be a mistake" to let it put an end to nuclear power. Safety and cost are considerable hurdles to building large plants, he wrote, but there are cheaper, safer, more-versatile options, he argued. If the country doesn't invest in nuclear technology now, he wrote, Americans will look back with regret. "Washington should stick to its plan of offering limited assistance for building several new nuclear reactors in this decade," he wrote. "It should step up its support for new technology," too.
A Fan of Natural Gas--for Now. To the chagrin of some environmentalists, Moniz has described the growth in domestic shale-gas production over the past few years as paradigm-shifting. Introducing a major MIT report on the future of natural gas in 2010, he called it "a bridge to a low-carbon future." In the long term, natural gas would likely be phased out in favor of zero-carbon options, he said. "For the next several decades, however, natural gas will play a crucial role in enabling very substantial reductions in carbon emissions," Moniz added.
Nuclear Sector Sees MIT's Moniz as Sensible Choice for Energy Secretary
The Nuclear Energy Institute
March 4, 2013
WASHINGTON, March 4, Mar 04, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE via COMTEX) -- The Nuclear Energy Institute's president and chief executive officer, Marvin Fertel, made the following comments in response to the announcement that President Obama has selected Ernest J. Moniz, director of the Energy Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as Secretary of Energy.
"In nominating Ernie Moniz to be Secretary of Energy, President Obama has sent America a strong message that its energy leadership will be entrusted to an advocate of clean energy supplies, including nuclear energy. Dr. Moniz is experienced and well respected in the energy, nonproliferation and national security communities worldwide. He has made it clear that he recognizes nuclear energy's important role in reducing greenhouse gases as part of a balanced, low-carbon electricity generation portfolio.
"Dr. Moniz was a member of the administration's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, which recommended a new strategy for managing used nuclear fuel. The nuclear energy industry and many other stakeholders agree with the commission's key findings that would create a solid foundation on which to build a sustainable used fuel management program while development of a permanent repository is pursued. When confirmed as secretary, we urge Dr. Moniz to aggressively implement the commission's sound recommendations, including the development of one or more consolidated storage facilities for used nuclear fuel at volunteer sites. We also urge the Energy Department, as a matter of legal obligation, to prepare to resume the licensing of the Yucca Mountain used fuel repository and reassess the Nuclear Waste Fund fee based on court direction.
"We look forward to the opportunity to work with Dr. Moniz to ensure nuclear energy continues to be a vital part of our nation's energy and environmental policy. Nuclear energy is a reliable provider of affordable, low-carbon electricity, and provides many other benefits including grid stability, job creation, energy diversity and energy security."
The Nuclear Energy Institute is the nuclear energy industry's policy organization. This news release and additional information about nuclear energy are available at www.nei.org.
Afghanistan, nuclear weapons tops DOD sequestration priority list
Carlo Muñoz, The Hill
March 1, 2013
Defense Department officials have put nuclear weapons and Afghanistan at the top of their priority list as the Pentagon begins life under sequestration, Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday.
The Pentagon is "strictly protecting" all budget accounts tied to maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal and winding down the over decade-long war in Afghanistan, Carter told reporters at DOD.
That said, "the readiness of the other units to respond to other contingencies will gradually decline [and] that's not safe," Carter said.
That gradual decline will include massive cuts to training for Army units and flight hours for Air Force combat wings that are not preparing to deploy to Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said during the same DOD briefing.
Over half of the 66,000 American troops in Afghanistan are scheduled to begin rotating back to the United States this spring, according to the White House.
The remaining 32,000 U.S. forces in country will begin their final draw down after next April's presidential elections.
But on top of those training reductions, the Navy will begin grounding a total of four air combat wings and the department will begin issuing the first tranche of furlough notices to the nearly 800,000 civilian employees at the Pentagon and elsewhere.
However, "we're trying to minimize that in every way we possibly can," Carter added.
The DOD deputy chief made clear the department was not planning on making cuts to programs or people "that are unnecessary, just to do something" about sequestration.
The severe damage those reductions, including that initial tranche of cuts outlined by Hagel poised to begin next week, "is going to be abundantly obvious, starting tomorrow and building through the year," he said.
"Those who do not appreciate how serious this is, as the year goes on, it will be unmistakable. This is not subtle," Carter said. "This is an abrupt, serious curbing of activity in each and every one of our key categories of activity" within the Pentagon.
DOD had spent the better part of a year warning against the significant damage sequestration will have on the military's ability to take on America's adversaries across the globe, in a futile attempt to force lawmakers to find a way to stave off sequestration.
However, some on Capitol Hill have put the blame of sequestration squarely on the Pentagon's shoulders.
DOD's decision to postpone sequestration planning until the last minute, combined with the department's long history of excessive spending and mismanagement on several big-ticket weapons programs, set the stage for sequestration to happen.
"You are part of the problem ... you helped cause this," House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) told DOD officials and top military brass during a panel hearing on sequestration last February.
During the same hearing, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) asked point-blank whether DOD's decision to not take sequestration into account during its budget planning process was a mistake.
"There's been 560 days since [sequestration] was signed into law as the law of the land ... [and] just within the last couple of weeks, [is] when we've received the memos from you guys about the impacts that this was going to have," Forbes said at the time.
On Thursday, Carter admitted that DOD should bear the same fiscal responsibility as other government institutions and was not exempt from its share of the sequestration load.
"We should only get the money that we deserve and that the nation needs [and] we understand that," Carter said, adding Pentagon strategic planners had built that principle into its new post-Afghanistan national security strategy unveiled in 2011.
To that end, Hagel and Carter said Thursday that strategy, which emphasizes a large-scale shift of U.S. forces from the Mideast to the Asia-Pacific region, will not be sacrificed, as a result of sequestration.
"We're trying to address the national security problems that are going to define this country's future and this world's future. And we're prepared to do that," Carter said.
Decision on NNSA Furloughs Likely Within First Month of Sequester
Douglas P. Guarino, Global Security Newswire
March 1, 2013
Acting National Nuclear Security Administration chief Neile Miller said on Thursday it might take one month before it becomes clear whether agency employees will have to be furloughed as a result of the federal budget sequester expected to take effect on Friday.
In a Thursday memo to NNSA employees, Miller noted that her "senior leadership team has been working very hard to implement cost-cutting measures across the enterprise in order to mitigate the effects of sequester, should it occur. In addition we are working closely with our lab and plant partners to assess potential impacts on those operations."
However, while officials at NNSA headquarters "are doing everything we can to protect our work force and our critical mission, there remains the possibility of furloughs of both federal and contractor personnel may be required as a result of factors beyond our control," she wrote.
Miller's memo states that the semiautonomous Energy Department agency is "working to avoid or minimize furloughs of NNSA's federal work force to the extent possible." If furloughs become necessary, the agency would notify employees "as soon as that becomes a certainty" and at least 30 days in advance of action, pursuant to federal law.
The 2011 Budget Control Act requires the federal government to cut $85 billion in spending for the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. Congress and the White House were not expected to agree on an alternative plan ahead of the Friday deadline.
Miller told Global Security Newswire that NNSA officials should know more about possible furloughs of agency staff "within a month." She said it would be up to private companies to determine when contract personnel might be forced to take unpaid time off from work.
B&W, the contractor at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, plans to spread potential furlough days for nonessential employees between April and October in an effort to minimize the impact on workers and disruptions at the facility, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported on Friday. President Chuck Spencer said the company would submit its plan to NNSA officials next week.
"From an operational standpoint, our first priority will be to maintain the systems at the site that allow us to operate safely and securely," Spencer said. "Our next priority will be to accomplish as much work as we can under a reduced schedule. Some work that can be moved into next year would be rescheduled, and some discretionary activities would be eliminated."
During a Feb. 14 hearing on Capitol Hill, Miller provided some insight into how sequestration would impact NNSA programs. She said certain efforts to extend the lives of aging nuclear warheads would continue, while others would be delayed.
"We will ensure that that there is no impact on the continuing life extension of the W-76 warhead, we must deliver that for national security reasons, but there will be delays to the B-61 life extension schedule and the W-88 Alt [370] schedule," Miller said. The W-76 and W-78 warheads are carried by submarine-launched ballistic missiles while the B-61 gravity bomb is carried by a variety of military aircraft.
"Reductions across the board will include reductions to surveillance of the stockpile," Miller said at the time. Safety upgrades being made to Plutonium Facility 4 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico due to concerns about seismic activity in the area will be delayed, she said.
Reduced schedules planned for 2,000 SRS workers
Rob Pavey, The Augusta Chronicle
March 4, 2013
About 2,000 Savannah River Nuclear Solutions workers will be placed on reduced schedules April 1 over sequestration concerns, and others will be given "full furloughs."
The announcement was made to employees Monday in a memo from Dwayne Wilson, the president and CEO of the largest contractor at Savannah River Site.
Workers whose schedules will be cut from 40 to 32 hours per week will be notified by March 15, Wilson said, and workers chosen for furloughs will be notified next week.
"Due to the uncertain and potential fluctuating amount of funding which may be available to SRNS, further furloughs may be necessary," Wilson said. "We recognize the difficult financial implications of any furlough and we will make every effort to keep you informed."
The specifics of the budget-cutting measures are still being worked out, with no specific time span determined for the furloughs, company officials said, adding that the reduced work schedules are designed to possibly lessen the impact and duration of furloughs.
The Fluor Corp.-led management contractor is the largest employer at Savannah River Site, a Department of Energy operation, and oversees facilities including Savannah River National Laboratory.
The federally imposed sequestration cuts came as no surprise.
In a Feb. 13 report by House Appropriations Committee Democrats, analysts said the impact at SRS would fall mainly on environmental management and nuclear waste cleanup programs and cause the furlough of more than 1,000 workers for about four months.
Potential consequences at SRS could include suspension of plutonium processing at H Canyon, further delays in the disposition of liquid waste in underground tanks and a halt to radioactive waste shipments from South Carolina to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the report said.
The issue revolves around a missed March 1 deadline to resolve a congressional budget stalemate.
The Office of Management and Budget now must sequester $85 billion in fiscal year 2013 spending as mandated by the Budget Control Act, which comes on top of $1.5 trillion in discretionary cuts already enacted, the House Appropriations Committee report said.
Report: SRS radiation could skyrocket if door opened to commercial waste
Sammy Fretwell, The State
February 27, 2013
Radiation levels could rise dramatically at the Savannah River Site if the federal weapons complex becomes a disposal ground for the nation's high-level nuclear waste, a new report says.
The study, written by a former senior adviser at the U.S. Department of Energy, outlines the potential hazards of making SRS an interim storage site for nuclear waste generated at the country's commercial atomic power plants. The material once was destined for burial inside a Nevada mountain, but that site has been abandoned.
Report author Bob Alvarez said radiation in waste that could come to SRS would dwarf the amount of radiation now contained in the site's top environmental hazard: more than 40 aging tanks of deadly high-level waste created during Cold War weapons production.
The SRS tanks have about 280 million curies of radioactivity, the largest concentration at the 310-square-mile federal site, DOE spokesman Bill Taylor said.
Waste that could go to SRS would contain more than 1 billion curies, according to the report, which used calculations of government and nuclear industry data. But that's waste from only 17 closed reactors the government says are most in need of a storage site. The U.S. has 104 reactors that continue to produce high-level atomic waste.
"This would be one of the largest concentrations of radioactivity in the United States in one place" if SRS received waste from the 17 closed sites, Alvarez said Wednesday.
The report also said some 2,500 shipments of high-level waste initially could travel across the nation's highways for storage at SRS if sent by truck. If sent by rail car, 280 to 500 shipments would be bound for SRS, the study said. Waste would come from nuclear sites as far away as Oregon, Alvarez said.
Located near Aiken, the Savannah River Site is a federal nuclear weapons complex that produced material for atomic bombs during the Cold War. The site's supporters today are seeking new missions that create jobs, including storing atomic waste at the complex and then possibly recycling the material.
SRS booster Clint Wolfe, who heads Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness, said the Alvarez report should be taken with a grain of salt because the former DOE official has a history of opposing nuclear projects. He said SRS is perfectly suited as a nuclear storage site and he downplayed concerns about transporting the material.
"This is kind of an attempt to get an emotional response from the public about all this bad stuff," Wolfe said. "SRS has a great track record of dealing with this material."
Alvarez was brought to South Carolina this week by the Sierra Club and Don't Waste Aiken, a green group concerned about storing commercial power plant refuse at SRS. Alvarez, who served at the DOE under President Clinton, works for the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C.
Alvarez' report will be officially released in Aiken County today as discussion intensifies over how to deal with the nation's growing amount of commercial power plant waste. The nation today has about 70,000 tons of spent fuel.
The deadly material was originally scheduled to go to Yucca Mountain, Nev., for disposal, but President Obama canceled the project in 2010 after citing environmental concerns. Last month, the Department of Energy released a three-point plan for replacing Yucca Mountain. The plan calls for establishing an interim storage site by 2021 and a larger interim storage site by 2025. A permanent disposal ground would be available by 2048, according to the DOE.SRS boosters are intrigued at bringing nuclear plant waste to the complex because the material could be the feed stock for a reprocessing plant that could create thousands of jobs.
Reprocessing is envisioned as a way to recycle spent nuclear fuel for re-use, thus reducing the amount of atomic waste that needs disposal. But recycling has been outlawed in the U.S. since the 1970s because of its potential environmental hazards - and concerns that terrorists could acquire reprocessed plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. Boosters say reprocessing technology has improved, but others disagree.
"Reprocessing is more terrifying than interim storage," said Jesse Colin Young, who works with Don't Waste Aiken.
Rep. Alexander: Turning Nuclear Swords Into Energy Plowshares
Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
March 6, 2013
During the height of the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union had tens of thousands of nuclear weapons threatening each other. It was a dangerous point in history for sure, but as the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union fell apart, the United States and newly formed Russian Federation began to look for ways to cooperate. One way was to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons and the dangerous material in them, particularly highly enriched uranium and plutonium.
In addressing this problem, both countries managed to turn a national security threat into a clean energy source. The two nations did this by signing the HEU Purchase Agreement in 1993, which gave financial incentive to the Russians to dismantle nuclear weapons, dilute the HEU in those weapons to make low-enriched uranium and sell that LEU nuclear fuel to American power companies to be burned in nuclear reactors. Currently, 10 percent of our electricity comes from this material -- material that at one time threatened the American public.
As HEU was downblended into LEU and burned in reactors, stockpiles of plutonium began getting larger. So in 2000, the United States and Russia signed the Plutonium Management Disposition Agreement, which called for each nation to dispose of at least 34 metric tons of plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons. This agreement was reaffirmed in 2011. To put in different terms, 68 metric tons of plutonium is equivalent to approximately 17,000 nuclear weapons -- an amazing number of nuclear arms that will no longer threaten the world.
The U.S. is building a facility that supports this agreement with Russia. When completed, it will take this nuclear-weapon-grade plutonium and convert it to a form that will be burned in civilian reactors, just as the Russian HEU is being burned in U.S. reactors. It's called the mixed-oxide project and will combine plutonium oxide with uranium oxide into fuel assemblies to be used in U.S. reactors. This National Nuclear Security Administration program will change the composition of the plutonium ensuring it can never be used in a nuclear weapon again.
By disposing of the plutonium, fabricating it into MOX fuel and irradiating it in commercial reactors, we can be sure this material will be unsuitable for nuclear weapons. Guarding nuclear material is enormously expensive, and plutonium's half-life is more than 24,100 years.
MOX fuel has been used safely around the world for decades. When produced, just one MOX fuel assembly can provide enough electricity to power 9,000 homes for one year. One energy consulting firm calculated in 2009 that 32.5 metric tons of plutonium when converted into MOX fuel can supply 1.7 million households, or 4.4 million people, electricity for approximately nine years.
Currently, the NNSA is working with the Tennessee Valley Authority to finalize a fuel supply agreement for MOX fuel. The NNSA is completing a supplemental environmental impact statement in which the TVA is a cooperating agency. In addition, the NNSA is consulting with various nuclear fuel companies to have them market MOX fuel to their utility customers.
These issues unite Republicans and Democrats. More than 20 years ago, two leading bipartisan statesmen showed us the way with swords to plowshares programs. Then-Sens. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., and Sam Nunn, D-Ga., ensured the U.S. had the strongest military we possibly could, but at the same time, worked with Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton on groundbreaking cooperative threat reduction with the Russians. This important work not only destroyed conventional weapons but secured nuclear material and weapons.
We need to keep that bipartisan spirit alive as the U.S. moves forward with a solution to our plutonium problem. Let's continue supporting turning this material, a serious national security threat, into a clean energy source for our country. That means continuing with the U.S. plutonium disposition program and the MOX project -- something that I strongly support. I hope the Obama administration's proposed budget, which my committee will review in weeks, will reflect his continued support for these critical national security -- and energy security -- programs.
Rep. Rodney Alexander represents the 5th District of Louisiana and serves on the House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee.
 |
|
More Information |
|
To help ensure that you receive all email with images correctly displayed, please add ecabulletin@aweber.com to your address book or contact list |
| ECA New Leadership
April 11-12, 2013
Washington, D.C.
More information and registration at link above |
|
to the ECA Email Server |