ECA Update: April 2, 2013
Published: Tue, 04/02/13
Tom Beehan: Oak Ridge park would preserve history of Manhattan Project
Tom Beehan, Mayor of Oak Ridge March 30, 2013
LINK U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., recently introduced bipartisan legislation that would designate three sites of the World War II-era Manhattan Project, including sites at Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, N.M. and Hanford, Wash., as a National Historical Park.
In the House of Representatives, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and U.S. Rep. Ben Luján, D-N.M., introduced companion legislation.
Almost 10 years ago, our delegation secured passage of legislation that directed the National Park Service to examine how to develop a national historical park focusing on the Manhattan Project. The detailed study was completed in 2011, with the recommendation by the secretary of the interior that a "three-site, one-park" concept was both feasible and warranted to help interpret one of the most significant events of the 20th century.
The recommendation aligned with the city of Oak Ridge's own detailed feasibility and economic analysis, which resulted in an endorsement by City Council of heritage tourism as a cornerstone approach to economic diversification.
With the proposed legislation and help of our federal partners, we are finally bringing together pieces of a long-term strategy.
Only a place like Oak Ridge can sit at this intersection of world history -- Tennessee values, scientific research and economic development. We all know that the Manhattan Project changed the course of world history and, in the context of World War II, helped turn the tide toward victory over tyranny, war and injustice. That story is ingrained in the DNA of our East Tennessee city.
Thanks to the work of our congressional delegation, the rest of the nation may soon be able to learn the entire story of the Secret City.
As Alexander said, "As Americans, we have a special obligation to preserve and protect our heritage, and the Manhattan Project National Historical Park will ensure that all Americans learn about the significance of the Manhattan Project and how it continues to shape our history."
Fleischmann said, "Oak Ridge and the other Manhattan Project sites played a significant role in the security of our nation and the world. I am honored to sponsor this bill with Chairman Hastings and look forward to working with him towards its passage."
A model for a 21st-century national park, the three-site, one-park concept is innovative in a couple of respects. Here in Oak Ridge, we would partner with the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of Energy to promote a "hub and spoke" educational experience.
Visitors would start their tour of the Oak Ridge park at an interpretative center located in the center city with assets such as the American Museum of Science and Energy, Bissell Park and the Oak Ridge Public Library, which houses our Center for Oak Ridge Oral History.
Visitors would then be guided to the spokes -- the former K-25 site, Oak Ridge National Lab, the Y-12 National Security Complex, the Alexander Inn Guest House and our vibrant historical neighborhoods.
The proposed park also differs from the traditional model because most of the assets are already owned by the federal, state or local governments. Innovation extends to our desire to partner and leverage our land and facilities for use by the National Park Service in a manner that contributes to the economic vitality of the national parks system.
In Oak Ridge, we understand the history of our city and how that history will launch us into our next 50 years at the forefront of innovation at all levels of government and society. Preserving our past and excited about our future, Oak Ridge will continue to lead.
Bingaman, Scowcroft to introduce DOE secretary pick at hearing Hannah Northey, E&E reporter April 2, 2013 Two Washington heavyweights are slated to introduce Ernest Moniz, President Obama's nominee to lead the Energy Department, when he's vetted by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee next week.
Former panel Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft will introduce Moniz at his April 9 confirmation hearing.
Bingaman, who recently retired and is heading to Stanford Law School, has heard Moniz testify several times on various energy issues.
Moniz has testified 12 times before House and Senate committees over the past 25 years on the future of nuclear power, small modular reactors, the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan, gas markets and clean energy, according to a questionnaire posted on the Senate energy committee's site.
Scowcroft, who co-chaired Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission on nuclear waste storage for two years, is likely to discuss the professor's work on the issue.
A former DOE undersecretary and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, Moniz was appointed to the Blue Ribbon Commission in January 2010. Last year, the expert panel called on the federal government to retool the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to site one or more temporary nuclear waste storage locations and permanent repositories, and warned that doing nothing would strand about 65,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel at more than 70 reactors (Greenwire, Jan. 26, 2012).
Moniz could be asked to weigh in on the future of nuclear power and how the United States should move forward with storing and disposing of spent fuel from reactors. Discussions may also touch on the prickly issue of what to do with the abandoned nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which the Obama administration has deemed unworkable.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the committee's current chairman, has said he plans to float legislation with three bipartisan colleagues to revamp the country's stalled waste policies. Earlier this year, the White House laid out its plan to create a permanent geologic repository by 2048 (E&ENews PM, Jan. 11).
Key Nuclear Weapons and Related Amendments to the FY 2014 Senate Budget Resolution Kingston Reif, Nukes of Hazard March 28, 2013 Early on the morning of March 23, the Senate approved a Budget Resolution for the first time in four years by a largely partisan vote of 50-49. Final passage of the budget, which was put forward by Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA), was preceded by a long series of amendment votes. Senators filed over 500 amendments to the Resolution, but only a small portion of those were brought to the floor for a vote.
The Resolution, also known as S.CON.RES.8, would set discretionary defense budget authority for Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 at $552 billion, about $8 billion below the level in the budget proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). Over the next 10 years, Sen. Murray's plan would cut defense spending by about $240 billion, or approximately half the reduction required by sequestration.
The House approved its version of the Budget Resolution on March 21 by a vote of 221-207. There is no expectation that there will be a House-Senate agreement on a final resolution. Both the Senate and the House passed legislation despite the fact that the President has yet to submit his federal budget request for FY 2014. The President is expected to submit his request to Congress on April 10.
Below is a list of the amendments that were filed regarding nuclear weapons and related issues. Amendments that were voted on are listed first and emphasized in bold. The amendments were primarily messaging amendments with little practical effect, since (1) the House and Senate will not agree on a final resolution, (2) even if the House and Senate were to agree on a final resolution, the resolution would be non-binding because it would not go to the President's desk for signature, and (3) most of the amendments cover programs that will be included in the President's budget request and dealt with during the authorization and appropriations process. However, the amendments provide a window into the thinking of Senators and may be a foretaste of similar amendments to be offered to authorization and appropriations bills.
Perhaps the most notable vote result was the Senate's overwhelming rejection of an amendment by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to increase funding for an East Coast missile defense site.
List of amendments
Ayotte (R-NH) amendment to prohibit funding of the medium extended air defense system. (#136) Agreed to by a recorded vote. 94 - 5.
Hoeven (R-ND) amendment to support programs related to the nuclear missions of the Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security Administration. (#217) Agreed to by Unanimous Consent.
Cruz (R-TX) amendment to reduce foreign assistance to Egypt and increase funding for an east coast missile defense site. (#471) Rejected by a recorded vote. 25 - 74.
Kirk (R-IL) amendment relating to sanctions with respect to Iran which may include efforts to clarify that the clearance and settlement of euro-denominated transactions through European Union financial institutions may not result in the evasion of or otherwise undermine the impact of sanctions imposed with respect to Iran by the United States and the European Union (including provisions designed to strictly limit the access of the Government of Iran to its foreign exchange reserves and the facilitation of transactions on behalf of sanctioned entities). (#671) Agreed to by Unanimous Consent.
Ayotte (R-NH) amendment to modernize the nuclear weapons complex and strategic delivery systems of the United States to maintain America's nuclear deterrent, which is critical to the security of the American people. (#163)
Udall (D-NM) amendment to strengthen and reform the National Nuclear Security Administration. (#193)
Manchin (D-WV) amendment to strengthen sanctions imposed with respect to the energy sector of Iran to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. (#210)
Hoeven (R-ND) amendment to ensure funds are available in fiscal year 2014 for the Air Force to conduct an analysis of alternatives to determine the next generation intercontinental ballistic missile and to provide an offset. (#216)
Hoeven (R-ND) amendment to ensure funds are available in fiscal year 2014 for the Air Force to develop a replacement for the air-launched cruise missile and to provide an offset. (#218)
Begich (D-AK) amendment to provide an additional element on the ground-based midcourse defense system. The element would include findings that adequate funding for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System, including the measures outlined in the Secretary of Defense's announcement on March 15, 2013, should remain a priority for the Department of Defense in the interest of national security. (#236)
Udall (D-NM) amendment to relating to strengthening and reforming the National Nuclear Security Administration. (#311)
Barrasso (R-WY) amendment to maintain and modernize United States nuclear forces, including nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles of all three legs of the nuclear triad (ICBMs, SLBMs, and nuclear-capable bombers), at levels no lower than the maximum allowed for under the New START Treaty (#323)
Kirk (R-IL) amendment to prevent Iran from directly or indirectly accessing the Trans-European Automated Realtime Gross Settlement Express Transfer System of the European Central Bank and to prevent the Government of Iran from accessing its euro-denominated foreign exchange holdings. (#364)
Coburn (R-OK) amendment to eliminate duplication, fragmentation, and overlap within 21 nuclear nonproliferation programs. (#566)
Ayotte (R-NH) amendment for the improvement of the ground-based missile defense system of the United States to better defend against ballistic missile threats from the Middle East. (#600)
Kirk (R-IL) amendment relating to sanctions with respect to Iran, which may include efforts to ensure that the clearance and settlement of euro-denominated transactions through European Union financial institutions does not result in the evasion of or otherwise undermine the impact of sanctions imposed with respect to Iran by the United States and the European Union (including provisions designed to strictly limit the access of the Government of Iran to its foreign exchange reserves and the facilitation of transactions on behalf of sanctioned entities, thus obliging financial institutions and clearinghouses to be vigilant and take transparency measures to avoid being used for the transfer of funds to or from sanctioned entities or the holding of funds for the benefit of sanctioned entities in violation of sanctions laws. (#613)
Obama's budget to be released April 10 Jennifer Epstein, Politico March 28, 2013 President Obama will release his budget on April 10, principal deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday.
The president's budget is formally due on the first Monday in February, but the White House has said that its two-month delay was in part due to the administration's focus on sequestration.
Regulations on civilian nuke exports draw GOP scrutiny Ben Goad, The Hill March 26, 2013 Republicans on the House Committee Energy and Commerce are pressing the Obama administration to share details of its plan to impose new regulations on exports of civilian nuclear technology and services.
The Department of Energy is reportedly updating rules governing such exports for the first time in 25 years, a development that could have major implications for U.S. nuclear-related commerce.
Led by Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), seven Republicans on the committee sent a letter Tuesday to outgoing Energy Secretary Steven Chu, requesting information about the forthcoming rules and the review process for export licenses through the National Nuclear Security Administration.
"We seek to examine how current policies and Administration efforts affect opportunities for enhancing or expanding U.S. manufacturing and competitiveness, both for strengthening domestic job growth and for the benefit of U.S. influence over international nuclear safety and nuclear security," the lawmakers wrote.
In the letter, the group posed a series of questions on the matter and requested answers by April 12.
Also signing the letter were committee Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Chairman Emeritus Joe Barton (R-Texas), Oversight and Investigations subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), subcommittee Vice Chairman Michael Burgess (R-Texas), Energy and Power subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) and Environment and the Economy subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-Ill.).
New Large-Scale Renewable Energy Projects Guide Federal Energy Management Program FEMP and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), with contributions from the U.S. Army Energy Initiatives Task Force (EITF), have recently issued a new resource, providing best practices and other helpful guidance to Federal agencies developing large-scale renewable energy projects. The Large-Scale Renewable Energy Guide: Developing Renewable Energy Projects Larger than 10 MWs at Federal Facilities provides a comprehensive framework including active project management strategies and principles that reduce project uncertainties and promote partnerships between the Federal government, private developers, and financiers.
For more information, follow the link to see the full document.
H-Canyon expansion maintains jobs Dede Biles, Aiken Standard April 1, 2013 Operations are set to expand at the Savannah River Site's H-Canyon facility, a development that will help maintain the jobs of 750 employees. The Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management announced that the chemical separations plant would be involved in two new projects in a press release Monday.
A Department of Energy and environmental impact review recently cleared the way for H-Canyon to process a limited quantity of the spent or used nuclear fuel that is stored in the L-Basin facility at SRS. That will free up more space in L-Basin, which receives spent fuel from domestic and foreign research reactors.
L-Basin has reached its storage capacity for High Flux Isotope Reactor cores and projections show it could reach capacity for other used nuclear fuel as early as 2016.
H-Canyon will now be allowed to process up to 1,000 spent nuclear fuel bundles and up to 200 High Flux Isotope Reactor cores from L-Basin through 2018.
Freeing up storage space rather than making costly modifications to L-Basin will provide near-term savings of approximately $40 million to taxpayers, according to the Department of Energy.
In another developments, H-Canyon will receive and process residual material from the production of molybdenum-99 in Canada. The material contains highly-enriched uranium that came from the United States originally.
After being processed, the material "can be turned into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors," said Bill Taylor, a Department of Energy spokesman.
Molybdenum-99 is the parent isotope of technetium-99m, the primary isotope used in diagnostic nuclear imaging.
The H-Canyon's involvement in processing the leftover material from molybdenum-99 production is the result of a contract between the Department of Energy and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. The latter organization is funding the project.
During the Nuclear Security Summit in South Korea last year, President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreed to expand efforts to return highly-enriched uranium materials stored at the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario to facilities in the United States.
Constructed in the early 1950s, H-Canyon is the only hardened nuclear chemical separations plant still in operation in this country.
Spring Travel Issue: Cold War-era tourist sites feature weapons of mass attraction Frank Bures, The Washington Post March 21, 2013 In the early 1980s, when I was a fifth-grader at Jefferson Elementary School, in a small town in Minnesota, our teacher, Mr. Odegaard, asked us if we wanted to see something. We did. So he took us down a little-used stairway, through a door and into a tunnel beneath our school. He flicked on the lights. The sound of our shuffling feet echoed down a long, dark corridor.
"The walls down here are solid concrete," I remember him telling us, "and you need three feet to stop gamma rays. When the Russians launch their missiles, this is where I'm coming!"
Mr. Odegaard was an unusual teacher and one of my favorites. He felt that we should know about the real world, in addition to multiplication and division, geography and grammar. He also explained -- in great detail -- the finer points of the nuclear winter.
"Beta rays," he told us, "those are dangerous, but they can't go very far. Gamma rays. Those are the ones you have to worry about. Gamma rays can go right through anything."
I don't remember how far he said gamma rays could go, but I do remember that it seemed impossibly far. There was no escape. Gamma rays would go everywhere and pollute everything until the end of time. I also remember how it all felt so close at hand, how it only would take a few foolish minutes for the last war to begin.
Another day around that same time, I was sitting outside with my best friend Jon discussing this when he told me that after the missiles were launched, his dad was going to drive them to ground zero, because he didn't want them to die slow, painful deaths. I had no idea what my family's plans were.
Such were the dilemmas of the Cold War, which seems so strange and distant now. I was thinking about this recently when I stumbled across the mention of an abandoned missile facility south of Minneapolis, where I live. So I drove for an hour and finally turned down a dirt road that rolled through cornfields until it came up onto a high, wide hill, where I could see for miles in either direction. There, sequestered behind a high barbed-wire fence, was a series of low concrete buildings, with doors hanging off their hinges.
The ruin was one of four Nike missile sites that had been positioned around the Twin Cities. In a nuclear attack, the rockets would have risen up into the sky and tried to destroy the nuclear bombs coming down at 15,000 mph before they destroyed us.
I stood staring at the place. It was so quiet. Corn leaves rustled in the wind, and crickets sang in the midday heat. I looked up at the blue sky and tried to picture the rockets racing against hope -- the noise, the terror, the end.
But it all seemed far away. The empty place felt like an echo of the future it had once promised.
***
When I got home, I started looking for other places like it and discovered that there are many more and that they're becoming popular tourist destinations. Every day, the Cold War gets a little colder. And as it does, interest in these nuclear relics heats up. So, with a mixture of grim fascination and nostalgia, I pulled onto Interstate 94 and drove northwest to the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Site in the hamlet of Cooperstown, N.D.
If not for the security fence and the various antennas on the roof, I might have mistaken the place for just another prairie ranch. In fact, it was the Oscar-Zero Missile Alert Facility, underneath which lurked a massive survival chamber where two men had sat waiting to turn the keys that would unleash Mr. Odegaard's nightmare.
Oscar-Zero was one of 15 command centers in the 321st Strategic Missile Wing -- one of six such missile wings built across the Great Plains in Missouri, Montana, South Dakota and other states between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. This one had 150 Minuteman missiles spread across an area the size of New Jersey, but all together, they contained 1,000 of these ICBMs, which could be launched in minutes and reach Moscow in half an hour. The Minuteman was a quantum leap from the previous generations of missiles, such as the ponderous, liquid-fueled Atlas and Titan, in whose abandoned, cavernous silos a few doomsday preppers have recently built their survival chambers.
The Minuteman missiles were a cornerstone of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which once numbered 32,000 warheads (and ultimately cost $5.5 trillion). But with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the climb down to the current 5,000 or so weapons began. After the START treaty was signed in 1991, three of six Minuteman wings were shut down, including the 321st. At each, a control center was marked for historic preservation, and they began their bureaucratic trek toward public use.
In 2009, the State Historical Society of North Dakota opened Oscar-Zero for tourists, along with the topside of a Minuteman silo two miles east of town called November-33. Site Supervisor Mark Sundlov told me he expected about 6,000 visitors this year but said interest is growing. The Griggs County Museum, in Cooperstown, North Dakota, for example, recently opened a new Cold War wing with an eye toward that traffic.
I could see that interest myself when I walked into the lobby at Oscar-Zero. It was a small room, and all told we were 15-odd nuclear tourists. After we'd each gotten our ticket, we trundled off together into the underworld.
First we passed through the bunkhouse, where the support staff had lived and which remained a kind of museum of 1980s decor, with acoustical ceiling tiles, institutional carpeting and lots of fabric-covered chairs. Sherry Lind, our guide, took us through the mundane existence of the eight men stationed above-ground, which sounded like excruciating boredom. She said before they got a VCR and a Sega Genesis console, they polished the floor for fun.
Sherry directed us to an elevator, and we piled in to begin our descent. Sixty feet down, we entered what could have been Mr. Odegaard's dream survival chamber: two huge rooms surrounded by four feet of reinforced concrete. It was like stepping into a giant petrified cocoon.
We walked past the 13-ton blast door, into the equipment room, and Sherry said there had been enough food, water and generator fuel for both the two missileers and the support crew to survive for nine weeks.
"What was the plan after nine weeks?" I asked.
Sherry shrugged. "I don't really know," she said. "Either starve down here or take your chances with the radiation. You were damned if you did and damned if you didn't."
Across the hall, we stepped into the control room, where two missileers had been present 24 hours a day in case the war came. They sat in red chairs facing a console where they would turn their keys to arm the missiles.
"Now if you look up there," Sherry said and pointed into a corner, "you'll see an escape hatch. Behind it is a three-foot metal tube filled with sand, and it goes to the surface at a 45-degree angle. That's so that if there was a blast, and you were down here for your nine weeks, and your food ran out, and you couldn't open the blast door, you could try that one."
"Where does it come out?" I asked.
"No one knows. Somewhere on the other side of the fence." Around the edge of the hatch door at our end, someone had written, "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter."
"Fascinating," said an old man next to me, as we filed out and began our ascent. "Just glad we never had to use it."
***
Almost a hundred miles north from Cooperstown sits one of the strangest ruins of the nuclear era. Technically, it is known as the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard facility, but it is also called "Nixon's Pyramid." I could see it long before I got to it: Its primeval shape grew bigger as I drew near, and it stirred something like awe, as if I could sense the primitive yearning for greatness behind it.
I turned off the highway and down a dirt road that passed alongside the pyramid, which stood several stories high. It had operated for just eight months in 1975 as a radar facility armed with Sprint and Spartan missiles to defend the 321st missile wing from a Soviet attack. The pyramid had a large white circle on each side facing the sky, like eyes.
The gate to the facility was open, so I drove into the sprawling, empty complex. Buildings sat vacant, and weeds grew up through the cracks in the parking lot. There was one building with a car next to it; I walked inside and found the caretaker, an imposing man named Neil "Buzzy" Holman, who invited me to sit down. He offered me some watery coffee, then informed me that I couldn't go see the pyramid without Army permission, though I was welcome to drive down the gravel road next to it and look all I wanted.
"You get many people up here?" I asked.
"We get a few," he said. "Some try to break in, and I'm not a good guy to do that with."
"They cut the fence?"
"They had a ladder. Said they wanted to take pictures. Well, you can take pictures from the road."
"Is the pyramid big inside?"
"It's huge. What you can see, that's just a third of it."
"What's inside?"
"Nothing. They gutted it. It's tomb now. That's all it is."
***
The United States' weapons of mass destruction -- unlike Saddam Hussein's or Kim Jong Il's -- are not hard to find. There are 450 land-based ICBMs still active, still on alert, and there are street signs that show where they are.
I decided to try to find some of these. I drove a few hours east from the pyramid, to a dying prairie town called Drake, full of empty, run-down homes and boarded-up shops. Drake was also home to 10 Minuteman missiles from the 91st Strategic Missile Wing, based out of Minot Air Force Base.
I stopped at the post office, where an older woman seemed to be the only employee. We chatted for a minute before I inquired about the bombs.
"Do you get many people coming through to see the missiles?" I asked.
"No," she said and shrugged. Then she thought about it and added, "No one's ever asked about it."
"Do you remember when they put them in?"
"Oh, yes!"
"What did you think about that?"
"You know, we didn't have much to say about it. Just like we don't have much to say about this new railroad they're putting in for the oil. Can't do much about the government or the railroad!"
Outside, I looked at the maps I'd printed out. Ten missiles were positioned around Drake, and it seemed as though they would be easy to find. I double-checked the maps with a book called "Nuclear Heartland: A Guide to the 1,000 Missile Silos of the United States," put out by Nukewatch in the 1980s. It was meant for protesters who wanted to bang a hammer on a silo or make some other quixotic gesture.
In addition to the locations of the individual missiles, it also gave the nicknames of each. They were mesmerizing. Some were literary: Farewell to Arms, Naked Lunch and Grapes of Wrath. Others were ironic: Sod Buster, Harmful if Swallowed and Guided Gas Oven. And others were straightforward: Cancer, Just War, Eisenhower's Sorrow and Omnicide.
Across the highway south of town, I turned down a dirt road, past a small lake, through some fields, and then I saw it on the left. A large patch of gravel that you wouldn't even notice if you passed by it on the highway. It had a small satellite dish and a few odd poles sticking out of the ground. From the road, I couldn't see the 100-ton door that would open to the sky to let out the missile inside -- this one named Sigmund. Yet it still made my stomach lurch to know that 90 feet underground was a Minuteman III with a nuclear warhead sitting on top, quietly awaiting orders. This was the place where all my young nightmares began.
I drove on. Down the road I found the next missile -- Cossack -- which sat on a rise where I could see its blast door clearly from the road. I went on to a third, High Tech, and my heart leapt a little when it came into view. This happened every time I spotted a new one, not because there was anything to see, but because it felt as if I was doing something wrong, seeing something I shouldn't.
I eventually found all 10. At one -- Guarded -- I saw a farmer standing by his car on the road next to the security fence. I rolled down my window. He walked over.
"You live around here?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said, "just south here." He pointed down the road.
"Doesn't it bother you to live next to this?" I asked, looking over at the missile.
"No," he said. "That's our security is how I look at it."
"You ever get any protesters?"
"No, not here. There was one up by Minot a couple years ago. Guy crawled across a fence. That's a federal offense."
"Seems like there used to be more protesters in the '80s."
"Yeah, those long-haired hippies who don't want to protect the country."
He seemed a little suspicious of me, so I said goodbye and I drove on.
The last missile -- Meadowlark Song -- was set farther back from the road than the others. I got out of my car and sat on my trunk. Out there away from all the politics and history, the whole thing seemed both so real and so unreal. It was out there, among the growing things, with so much violence hidden away, that I felt most keenly the two poles we're balanced between: our vast capacity for both creation and destruction. It's no wonder scientists say the earth has emerged from the Holocene, the geological era that began after the last ice age. They call this new period the Anthropocene, which means that instead of being covered by ice, the earth is covered by us: Our species has become a geological force. To what end that force is applied, however, remains to be seen.
***
There was one more stop on my post-pre-apocalyptic Cold War tour. A few hours from Drake, down the Missouri River and west along Interstate 90 sat the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, run by the National Park Service. Its main office was situated in a mobile home at the exit to Badlands National Park. That was where people could stop to get directions to both the Delta-01 Command Center and the Delta-09 missile silo, several miles to the west. Next year, however, a much bigger headquarters and interpretive center was scheduled to break ground across the highway. Still, it was the first National Historic Site dedicated to the Cold War. Even though there were no signs for the site, Chief Ranger Pam Griswold told me they'd had nearly 60,000 visitors the previous year. Once the new visitor center opened, and the signs went up, they expected 100,000.
Back on the freeway, I drove west a few miles. The sharp peaks of the Badlands were on one side and the rolling grassland hills on the other. At the next exit, I got off and pulled into the parking lot of the Delta-01 Command Center -- once the hub of its nuclear wheel, and one of the two remnants of the 44th Strategic Missile Wing.
Inside, I joined up with a tour group just as it was headed underground. As we got out of the elevator, the difference between the two was clear. Delta-01 was part of the second missile wing built; it had just one room, about half the size of the control room at Oscar-Zero, the sixth one built. Here there was no equipment room with power, water, food or air filters. I asked the tour guide, Signy Sherman, about this.
"These guys," she said, "had about 24 hours of oxygen down there. Pretty much when they turned that key, they were ... expendable. There's an escape hatch they could get out. But once you get to the top, what are you going to find?"
Perhaps this was just a more honest post-apocalyptic scenario. But it seemed to me that we had better odds at Jefferson Elementary School. Signy could see my concern, which she thought misplaced.
"We know from declassified information," she explained, "that there was a 10-megaton nuclear weapon pointed at this facility. Ten megatons would have created a mile-deep crater. It would have destroyed everything from here to Kadoka, 20 miles that way, to Wall, 20 miles that way. If this capsule managed to survive, it would have fallen a mile."
After we came up from below, I thanked Signy and drove on to the final place. On the freeway, I rolled down my window, felt the summer air, and tried to imagine this whole area becoming a crater 40 miles wide and a mile deep. Mr. Odegaard had never said anything about that. Maybe he didn't know. Maybe that was for the best.
Somehow, though, seeing these places made me feel slightly more at ease, as if it was all a bad dream from which we had mostly awakened. Calling it history seemed to put it more firmly behind us, as if these sites were a kind of mausoleum where our past insanity was now safely preserved.
There was no one at the Delta-09 missile silo when I first pulled in. It was as quiet as it had been all those years it was in use. Unlike the active silos I'd seen, this was wide open and had a glass cover over the top. Inside was a training missile they'd used for practice loading -- a replica in all but its payload.
I walked over to the silo, looked down and took a sharp breath. Till now, all the missiles I'd seen had either been miniature reproductions or old photos. But this one was life-size and just a few feet away. It took me by surprise: It didn't look like a machine. It didn't look terrifying. It was smooth and white. It looked like something cared for, something feared and loved. It was -- and there's no other word for it -- beautiful. It looked like something waiting to be born.
After a few minutes, other cars pulled in, and tourists poured out. Kids ran and climbed on the blast door, while their parents stared down at the missile, unsure what to say. A man talked on his cellphone. A couple discussed other things.
As the crowd grew, so did my sense that history was becoming entertainment, that something deadly serious had been made into a diversion. Normally, I would feel a kind of loathing at that notion. But as I drove away, with the sun nearing the jagged horizon, I thought of mile-deep craters, of escape hatches, of gamma rays, and I wondered if turning terror into tourism might not be our greatest achievement after all.
Nuclear Waste Disposal Sites Still Rare After All These Years David Wagman, POWER Magazine April 1, 2013 The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published in early January its "Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste," an 18-page outline of how the Obama administration plans to implement recommendations made by its so-called Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) on America's Nuclear Future. The commission was set up in 2010 to review and recommend a plan of action to manage and dispose of used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
With appropriate authorizations from Congress, the Energy Department said it hopes to implement a program over 10 years that:
Other aspects of the administration's proposal include requiring consent-based siting, reforming the funding approach, and establishing a new organization to implement the program.
This seemingly back-to-square-one action runs counter to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and subsequent congressional action that, in 1987, named Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert as the sole candidate to receive U.S. domestic radioactive nuclear waste. Lawsuits are under way challenging the Obama administration's decision to scrap development of a Yucca Mountain repository and establish a new process for designating and building a long-term waste storage facility.
Those decisions, which came early in Obama's first term, were motivated in part by politics. As described in prior articles (see the sidebar "The Quest for Long-Term SNF Storage"), candidate sites in Texas and Washington State were dropped from consideration in favor of Yucca Mountain largely because Nevada's congressional delegation couldn't block action anointing Yucca Mountain. In the intervening years, Nevada Senator Harry Reid gained stature and as Senate majority leader found an ally to stop Yucca Mountain's development once Barack Obama took office in 2009. As a result, some $15 billion in taxpayer investment at the Nevada site now seems likely to lead to nothing. What's more, the timetable for establishing a national nuclear waste repository has been reset until at least 2048, according to the DOE's January recommendation.
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), an industry trade group, said it welcomed the Energy Department's recommendation and said many of the concepts put forward by the BRC and recommended by the DOE have enjoyed support among its members and other experts.
"After two years of BRC deliberations and an additional year for DOE to develop its strategy, it is essential that the nuclear waste fee be used solely for its intended purpose--to cover the cost of used fuel management and disposal," the NEI said. The fee (equal to one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour of electricity) paid by consumers of electricity from nuclear power plants, totals about $750 million a year and is at present "effectively unavailable for its intended purpose," the NEI said. Conflict remains, however. In late January, the NEI joined state utility regulators in asking a federal court to reopen a lawsuit that challenged the DOE's practice of continuing to collect fees from nuclear utilities to pay for long-term storage (see sidebar "Fee Dispute Re-ignites"). The federal government already faces a large and growing liability to pay claims resulting from its failure to begin accepting waste from commercial utilities under the 1987 Nuclear Waste Policies Act. According to a Congressional Research Service report, as of mid-2012 the government had paid around $1 billion to settle claims by utilities that the DOE had, at least in part, breached its contracts to accept spent nuclear fuel (SNF). These claims stem from some 76 contracts the DOE signed in the early 1980s, largely with commercial utilities, of which 74 have filed claims for damages arising from failure to accept the SNF by 1998. SNF continues to pile up at a rate of around 2,000 metric tons a year, the congressional report said. To date, more than 67,000 metric tons of SNF in more than 174,000 assemblies currently are stored at 77 sites in 35 states. Of the nation's 104 existing nuclear reactors, all have wet storage pools for SNF. These wet pools are required to allow a safe "cooling off" period of up to five years after fuel assemblies are removed from a reactor. The pools hold around three-quarters (49,338 out of 67,450 metric tons of uranium, or MTU) of the current commercial SNF inventory. The remaining one-quarter (equal to about 18,112 MTU) of commercial SNF is stored in dry casks on concrete pads or in vaults. As wet storage pools become filled using "dense packing" storage methods, dry storage increasingly is being used (Figure 1).
The U.S. is not alone in figuring out what to do with spent nuclear fuel. Worldwide, some 436 operational nuclear power reactors operate in 32 countries. There are another 122 permanently shut-down nuclear power reactors. To date, however, few permanent disposal solutions have been implemented. What's more, the siting approach favored by the DOE--namely, voluntary cooperation on the part of a host community--suffered a setback in the UK earlier this year when local authorities there voted against a storage scheme, effectively killing a project that had been under development for years.
Classifying Radioactive Waste
Not all nuclear waste is the same, and disposal techniques range from tipping it at commercial landfills to long-term geologic storage with remote monitoring. As a starting point, consider that a typical 1,000-MWe light water reactor generates 200 to 350 cubic meters of low- and intermediate-level waste each year. That reactor also likely will discharge about 20 cubic meters (roughly 27 metric tons) of used fuel each year. In countries where used fuel is reprocessed, around 3 cubic meters of vitrified waste (in the form of glass) are produced. By comparison, an average 400,000 metric tons of ash are produced from a similarly sized coal-fired plant. An overview of the range of radioactive waste and disposal techniques follows, adapted from the World Nuclear Association (WNA). Exempt waste and very low-level waste (VLLW) contain radioactive materials at a level considered not harmful to people or the environment. It consists mainly of material produced during rehabilitation or dismantling operations at nuclear industrial sites. Industries such as food processing, chemical, and steel production also produce VLLW, but waste typically is disposed of with "domestic" refuse. Countries including France are developing sites to store VLLW in specifically designed disposal facilities.
Low-level waste (LLW) is generated by hospitals and industry, as well as the nuclear fuel cycle, and contains small amounts of mostly short-lived radioactivity. It does not require shielding during handling and transport and is suitable for shallow land burial. To reduce its volume, it is often compacted or even incinerated before disposal and accounts for around 90% of the volume and 1% of the radioactivity of all radioactive waste worldwide.
Intermediate-level waste (ILW) contains higher amounts of radioactivity and some requires shielding. It typically comprises resins, chemical sludges, and metal fuel cladding, as well as contaminated materials from reactor decommissioning. Smaller items and most nonsolids may be solidified in concrete or bitumen for disposal. This type of waste makes up around 7% of the volume and has 4% of the radioactivity of all radioactive waste.
High-level waste (HLW) results from "burning" uranium fuel in a nuclear reactor. HLW contains fission products and transuranic elements (that is, elements having atomic numbers greater than uranium) generated in the reactor core. It is highly radioactive and "hot" (contaminated), and requires both cooling and shielding. Referred to as "ash" produced by "burning" uranium, this waste accounts for more than 95% of the total radioactivity produced in electricity generation. HLW has both long-lived and short-lived components, depending on how long it will take the radioactivity of particular radionuclides to fall to levels considered no longer hazardous for people and the environment.
Uranium oxide concentrate from mining, essentially the well-known "yellowcake," is considered to be barely more radioactive than granite used in buildings. Through refinement and conversion to uranium hexafluoride gas, it undergoes enrichment to increase the U-235 content from less than 1% to about 3.5%. Following this step, it is turned into a hard ceramic oxide for assembly as reactor fuel elements.
The main byproduct of enrichment is depleted uranium, principally the U-238 isotope. About 1.2 million metric tons of depleted uranium are now stored. Some is used in applications where its high density makes it valuable, such as in the keels of sailing vessels and military projectiles. It is also used (with reprocessed plutonium) to make mixed oxide fuel (MOX) and to dilute highly enriched uranium from dismantled weapons for use as reactor fuel.
Waste from Electricity Generation
Highly radioactive fission products and transuranic elements are produced from uranium and plutonium during reactor operations and are contained within the used fuel. LLW and ILW are produced during power generation operations (such as cleaning reactor cooling systems), in fuel storage ponds, and during decontamination of equipment, filters, and metal components that have become radioactive in or near the reactor. Storage is handled mostly using ponds at reactor sites or, occasionally, at a central site. If the used fuel is reprocessed--as it is for UK, French, Japanese, and German reactors--HLW comprises highly radioactive fission products and some transuranic elements with long-lived radioactivity. These are separated from the used fuel, enabling the uranium and plutonium to be recycled.
The HLW also generates heat and requires cooling. It is vitrified into borosilicate glass, encapsulated into stainless steel cylinders around 4.5 feet high, and stored for eventual disposal underground. France operates two commercial plants to vitrify HLW left over from reprocessing oxide fuel, and there are plants in the UK and Belgium. The capacity of these plants is around 2,500 canisters (about 1,000 metric tons) a year, and some have been operating for decades.
Used reactor fuel that is not reprocessed still contains all the highly radioactive isotopes, meaning the entire fuel assembly must be treated as HLW for direct disposal. However, because it consists largely of uranium (with some plutonium), it represents a potentially valuable resource. As a result, an increasing reluctance exists to dispose of it permanently. Current thinking is that after 40 to 50 years the heat and radioactivity have fallen to around one-thousandth the level at removal, providing a technical incentive to delay permanent storage and find some other use for it.
Recycling Used Fuel
Used fuel still contains some of the original U-235 as well as plutonium isotopes that have been formed inside the reactor core and U-238. These account for roughly 96% of the original uranium and more than half of the original energy content. Reprocessing, which is done in Europe and Russia, separates this uranium and plutonium from the wastes for reuse in a reactor. Plutonium that results from reprocessing is recycled through a MOX fabrication plant, where it is mixed with depleted uranium oxide to make fresh fuel. European reactors currently use more than 5 metric tons of plutonium a year in fresh MOX fuel. Commercial reprocessing plants operate in France, the UK, and Russia with a capacity of some 5,000 metric tons a year. A new reprocessing plant with an 800 metric ton per year capacity is being constructed at Rokkasho in Japan. France and the UK also reprocess used fuel for utilities in other countries. For example, Japan has made more than 140 shipments of used fuel to Europe since 1979. Russia also reprocesses spent fuel from some Soviet-designed reactors in other countries.
Storage ponds at reactors, and those at centralized facilities such as in Sweden, are 20 to 40 feet deep to allow several feet of water to cover the used fuel, which is in the form of racked fuel assemblies 12 feet long and standing on end. These pools are made of reinforced concrete with steel liners and often are designed to hold all the used fuel for the life of a reactor.
Some storage of fuel assemblies that have been cooling in ponds for at least five years is continued in dry casks, or vaults with air circulation inside concrete shielding. One system involves sealed steel casks or multi-purpose canisters (MPCs), each holding about 80 fuel assemblies with inert gas. Casks/MPCs also may be used to transport and eventually to dispose of the used fuel. For storage, each is enclosed in a ventilated storage module made of concrete and steel. These commonly stand on the surface, are about 18 feet high, and are cooled by air convection. A collection of casks or modules constitute what's known as an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation. In the U.S. they are licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission separately from power plants and are intended for interim storage only. About one-quarter of U.S. used fuel is stored this way.
Long-Term Disposal
To ensure that no significant environmental releases occur over tens of thousands of years, "multiple barrier" geological disposal is planned to immobilize radioactive elements in HLW and some ILW and isolate them from the biosphere. The main barriers to be built using this approach include: The process of selecting deep geological repositories is under way in several countries (see table). Finland and Sweden are well advanced with plans for direct disposal of used fuel, since their parliaments decided to proceed on the basis that it was safe, using existing technology. Both countries have selected sites, in Sweden, after competition between two municipalities.
The UK's radioactive waste disposal process stalled in late January after conflicting votes between regional and local government. The Borough of Copeland voted to continue exploring its suitability, but it lies within Cumbria County, which voted against the idea. The site selection process is based on a principle of voluntarism under which communities explore their options and have the right to withdraw at any time. The same approach has been practiced with success in Finland and Sweden to find suitable and welcoming places for radioactive waste disposal. It's also the approach now favored by the U.S. Energy Department, as outlined in its January announcement. The negative vote in Cumbria now means that "the current process will be brought to a close," said the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, which "will now embark on a renewed drive" to find other interested communities that may be able to host a disposal site. Canadian Nuclear Waste Disposal
Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) was set up under the 2002 Nuclear Fuel Waste Act by Ontario Power Generation (OPG), Hydro-Québec, and New Brunswick Power Corp. operating in concert with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL). Its mandate is to explore options for storage and disposal, make proposals to the government, and implement what is decided. Less than 3,000 metric tons of used fuel per year from Candu reactors is involved. The nuclear utilities and AECL remain responsible for low- and intermediate-level wastes, which are currently stored above ground. OPG in 2005 moved ahead with plans to build a deep geological repository for its LLW and ILW near the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station on Lake Huron. The facility will be 2,000 feet beneath OPG's Western Waste Management Facility, which it has operated since 1974. Operation is expected to begin around 2017/18.
In June 2007, the government selected the retrievable deep geological disposal option, referred to as adaptive phased management, recommended by the NWMO for the long-term management of HLW. The NWMO has said that a final repository would probably be in Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, or Saskatchewan, and host localities would need to volunteer for the role. Operation is expected by around 2025.
French and German Nuclear Waste
Radioactive waste management in France is governed by a 2006 law, which requires the updating every three years of a National Plan for the Management of Radioactive Materials and Waste. It confirms that long-term management of HLW would be by deep geological disposal (with retrievability for at least 100 years). The 2006 law envisages an operational solution for deep geological disposal to be available by 2025. The site is likely to be at Bure, where an underground laboratory in a clay formation was opened in 2004. Germany has a nuclear phaseout policy in place, which, if not reversed, would result in all nuclear power stations being closed by around 2021. German policy had been to reprocess used fuel, but it has shifted toward direct disposal. Vitrified HLW from France and the UK is temporarily stored at facilities in Gorleben and Ahaus. HLW from reprocessing is stored at the facilities where they were created. The Morsleben repository for radioactive waste was used for the disposal of LLW and ILW in the former German Democratic Republic from 1971 to 1991 and later from 1994 to 1998. That installation is now being decommissioned. A former iron ore mine, Konrad in Salzgitter, has been investigated since 1975 as a possible repository for radioactive waste with negligible heat generation.
Japanese Nuclear Waste
Japan has a policy of reprocessing, and a large reprocessing complex at Rokkasho-Mura, Aomori Prefecture is under construction. A large LLW center at the Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. (JNFL) site in Rokkasho-Mura has been operational since 1992. JNFL is a private venture led by 10 domestic electric power companies. Deep geological disposal is the preferred option for HLW. A site selection process for a final repository is under way by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan. Site selection could take place between 2023 and 2027.
Hungarian Facility Crosses the Finish Line
After 15 years of work and an investment of more than $300 million, the first disposal chamber at the Bataapati storage facility in southern Hungary was completed in early December. The project was built by the country's Public Limited Co. for Radioactive Waste Management (known as Puram). Underground disposal vaults at Bataapati will eventually hold all the low-level and short-lived intermediate-level radioactive wastes left over from the operation and decommissioning of the Paks nuclear power plant.
As part of the repository inauguration in December, the first concrete container holding nine drums of waste was moved from a temporary surface storage facility. Once the facility is fully operational, waste drums will be stacked 650 to 800 feet underground inside granite bedrock caverns. Bataapati's modular design will allow for its expansion should the Paks plant be granted a 20-year license extension and if Hungary decides to construct new reactors.
U.S. Renewable Energy Production Now Tops Nuclear Power Todd Woody, National Journal April 1, 2013 President Obama has pursued an energy policy he describes as "all of the above," a bit of Bill Clinton-style triangulation that seeks to boost production from carbon-intensive oil and gas drilling while promoting clean technologies like solar and wind.
So how's he doing?
New data released yesterday from the U.S. Energy Information Administration offers a snapshot of the energy landscape in Obama's first term.
Energy production from natural gas grew 16% while coal-fired power fell more than 4%, thanks to a glut of cheap natural gas from the fracking boom. It's a trend likely to continue as shale gas reserves are tapped and new emissions regulations effectively bar the construction of new coal-fired power plants.
Renewable energy production jumped nearly 24% but remains only 11% of the US' total energy production. But the trend lines tell the story: Wind energy, for instance, grew 89% while electricity production from nuclear power plants fell 4%.
And this factoid should warm the hearts of anti-nuke activists: The US now gets more energy from renewable sources--wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and biomass--than it does from nuclear power plants.
While there are new nuclear projects winding their way through the regulatory process, don't expect a nuke boom. Multibillion-dollar price tags, waste disposal issues and growing water shortages are likely to limit nuclear power's contribution to the nation's energy mix in the coming decades.
Mr. Burns just might want to start looking for another job, perhaps as a wind farm magnate.
Song about Hanford furloughs picks up viewers on YouTube Anna King, KPLU88.5 March 28, 2013 Jason Strickling and his wife Lana of Pasco, Wash. are planning some extra time with the kids this summer. That's because she works for a Hanford Nuclear Reservation contractor in southeast Washington and her employer is requiring her to take about five weeks of unpaid leave before September.
The federal budget cuts known as the sequester are forcing a total of 2,500 workers at Hanford to take unpaid time off. Together the Stricklings came up with a song about the furloughs to the tune of the Harry Belafonte's Banana Boat and put it on YouTube.
The song has only been up for a few days and already collected hundreds of hits. Thursday more than 200 Hanford employees also were laid off because of the national budget cuts.
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