Loading ...Yucca Mountain
Description:
Yucca Mountain is the location in the Nevada Test Site of the underground tunnel that was to store spent nuclear fuel rods generated from nuclear power plants. It was also to store nuclear material produced from various military functions.
Harry Reid has constantly been opposed to this plan and uses this as his “one trick pony” for the sole purpose of getting re-elected.
The project is very controversial but most people that are opposed to it are basing their opinions on the ‘fear factor’ generated by the opposing politicians (such as Reid) and a severe lack of scientific knowledge.
Also, by opposing the project, Reid has cut any potential high paying jobs for our state. This timing could not be better as Nevada has the highest unemployment rate (around ten percent) in 25 years!
President Obama has seemed to buy into Reid’s rhetoric and has stated he is against the Yucca Mountain Project as well. So much so that even his newly appointed Department of Energy director, Stephen Chu has recently stated that Yucca Mountain is no longer an option, but will let the NRC continue investigation into the License Application recently submitted to the Department of Energy (DOE) via the Sandia National Laboratory (who then delivered to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The NRC accepted the license for investigation by docketing it).
There are many, many problems with Reid’s, Obama’s, and Chu’s big plans to kill the Yucca Mountain project. They include:
The Law:
In December 1987, Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) to designate Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository for all of the nation’s nuclear waste. The plan was added to the fiscal 1988 budget reconciliation bill signed on December 22, 1987.
This means Yucca Mountain Repository is the LAW! You can for yourself HERE.
Liabilities:
If the Obama Administration decides to halt the Yucca Mountain project, it has a variety of tools available to implement that policy. Although the President cannot directly affect NRC proceedings, the Secretary of Energy could withdraw the Yucca Mountain license application under NRC rules. The President could also urge Congress to cut or eliminate funding for the Yucca Mountain project, and propose legislation to restructure the nuclear waste program. Abandonment of Yucca Mountain would probably further delay the federal government’s removal of nuclear waste from reactor sites and therefore increase the government’s liabilities for missing the NWPA deadline. DOE estimates that such liabilities will reach $11 billion even if Yucca Mountain opens as currently planned. DOE’s agreements with states to remove defense-related high-level waste could also be affected. If the Yucca Mountain project were halted without a clear alternative path for waste management, the licensing of proposed new nuclear power plants could be affected as well.
Litigation is ongoing regarding how to calculate damages for DOE’s partial breach of its contractual commitments. DOE currently estimates that if the agency begins to accept waste in 2017, taxpayers’ total liabilities to electric utilities will total roughly $7 billion (in today’s dollars). Further, it anticipates that payments from the Judgment Fund will span a number of decades after 2017.11
DOE’s estimate of future damages is uncertain and is predicated on the department’s views of the types of additional business and waste storage expenses that the courts will determine are appropriate and reasonable and should be paid by DOE. Those determinations will depend on such factors as the estimated rate at which DOE would have removed waste from a particular facility if the agency had been able to accept waste in 1998. If utilities successfully argue that the waste-acceptance rate used for the purpose of calculating damages should exceed the rate used in DOE’s projections of liabilities, costs would probably surpass $7 billion.
Estimates of liabilities will increase if the schedule for completing the planned repository slips further and waste continues to accumulate at utilities’ storage sites. For example, according to DOE, estimated liabilities will increase from $7 billion to $11 billion if the agency starts accepting waste in 2020.12 And even then, it will face a backlog that, at best, will take more than 20 years to eliminate. As long as the agency remains behind schedule, taxpayers will continue to incur liabilities.
As a result, without a change in law to expand the Yucca Mountain facility or designate another site for disposal, there will be insufficient capacity to dispose of wastes generated over the lifetimes of the nuclear power plants that are operating today. The resulting waste storage compensation payments to utilities from the Judgment Fund for waste that cannot be permanently disposed of would add significantly to federal liabilities.
Moreover, the NRC has announced that it expects to receive applications for licenses to build 32 new nuclear power plants in the next few years. If constructed, each of those plants would produce around 20 metric tons of waste per year, or about 1,000 metric tons over a 40- to 60-year period of operations. Such plants would also pay fees to the Nuclear Waste Fund, and their waste would become a federal liability because under NWPA, nuclear plants are required to sign waste disposal agreements with DOE. Without additional storage capacity, that waste could become an additional liability of the Judgment Fund.
This has many potential problems. First this will limit the amount of new future nuclear power plants. This comes at a time when Nuclear Power is one of the top rated “clean” options available to us. Solar and wind are great, but they will never keep up with the current demand. Yes, it’s great to further investigate this technology, but not rely on it for the near term.
Playing Politics:
Reid is trying to again, show off his one trick pony by recently introducing legislation to speed development of a green-powered electricity system, an effort he said was a big part of his vision of a nation that might someday run on renewable energy.
This is great, but just not feasible for the near term. Nuclear energy is a CURRENT technology that can offer clean power for the masses.
Lack of a Plan:
When DOE Secretary Stephen Chu stated that Yucca Mountain would not be an option, one large ommisiiion was left out, a “PLAN B”! Basically, he has none other than appoint a “Blue Ribbon Panel”! Well, this better be one true blue panel to figure this mess out.
For example:
During a recent meeting of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Senator John McCain questioned Secretary Chu if the DOE was to follow through with the proposed repository, where the DOE has spent about $10 billion over 26 years of research.
“What’s wrong with Yucca Mountain, Dr. Chu?” McCain asked during his turn to question the secretary.
“We have learned a lot more in the last 20-25 years,” Chu said.
“I know that,” McCain cut in. “What is wrong with Yucca Mountain, Dr. Chu?”
“I think we can do a better job,” Chu said.
“Where?” McCain asked.
Chu said the NRC has advised that nuclear waste can be kept at utilities for the time being “without risk to the environment.”
Continued storage there or at regional interim locations “is something we can do today,” Chu said. “That buys us time to form a comprehensive plan” that could include nuclear fuel recycling, but “we have a couple of decades to figure that one out.”
McCain said Obama’s policy would set back nuclear power, which he called a “clean” and nonpolluting source.
Oh oh, these are some tough questions I don't have answers for!!
“So now we are going to have spent nuclear fuel in pools all over America, and we are telling the nuclear power industry we have no way of either reprocessing or storing spent nuclear fuel, and we expect nuclear power to be an integral part of this nation’s energy future,” he said.
Chu later told senators the Obama administration planned to assemble “an esteemed bunch of people to look at this,” including some experts from overseas, with a charge to report back within a year. The idea of a blue ribbon commission has been floated by the nuclear industry, and is picking up support in Congress.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, echoed McCain, complaining the decision to restart on nuclear waste management will leave the nuclear industry “in limbo” as it tries to build more power plants.
“Boy, if I were looking to advance a new nuclear facility, the comments that we are starting the process would be very disconcerting,” she said.
Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, asked, if not Yucca Mountain, where does the Energy Department to store high level nuclear waste it is under court order to remove from temporary storage in Idaho by 2035?
“I can tell you that contract is very clear,” Risch said.
By law, Yucca Mountain is the option Congress chose for disposal of the nation’s used nuclear fuel, which is currently stored at 104 reactor sites in 39 states in pools and above-ground casks.
So basically the energy summary looks like this. The Democrats, lead by their majority leader Harry Reid, will push for development of a ‘clean energy’ bill. The option of nuclear energy will be set back in our nation for many, many years, if not decades. YOUR tax dollars will pay for the current and certain near future law suites from the utility companies while people like Chu appoint committees to “look” at alternate solutions.
Your Tax Dollars are Paying for Litigation Award Fees
Oh yea, one other slight problem:
Idaho state’s four representatives have asked to meet with Secretary Steven Chu about nuclear waste which is presently stored in their state but would eventually be stored at Yucca Mountain.
Idaho has more than 300 metric tons of nuclear material that was produced by the military, and 4,400 cubic meters of high level waste that was for temporary storage. The DOE is committed to a 1995 court settlement to remove the material by 2035.
“Deep geologic disposal is the only disposal option for this type of defense waste,” the Idaho lawmakers wrote to Chu.
“If DOE is not going to continue development of the Yucca Mountain repository, we would like you to explain to us how the federal government will maintain its commitment to the state,” they said.
The Idaho lawmakers said the 2035 deadline would be at risk if President Barack Obama follows through on a plan to limit spending on the Yucca program in 2010 while the administration devises a new strategy to manage the nation’s nuclear waste.
Basically, Chu has no plan for this type of waste as well! Hmmm, looks like more law suites.
On Site Nuclear Storage at a Power Plant Facility
Lack of Security:
Nuclear waste stored currently as Nuclear Facilities across the United States are not near as secure as they would be if stored at the Yucca Mountain facility.
A typical nuclear power plant in a year generates 20 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. The nuclear industry generates a total of about 2,000 metric tons of used fuel per year.
Over the past four decades, the entire industry has produced about 58,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. If used fuel assemblies were stacked end-to-end and side-by-side, this would cover a football field about seven yards deep.
This is waste stored insecurely ON SITE at these reactors in pools and above ground casks! Yikes!
Above Ground Storage at a Nuclear Facility
Interesting Facts:
- The 103 nuclear reactors currently in operation in the U.S. generate over 97 billion watts of electricity, which equates to about 20% of the country’s electricity.
- At present, 441 nuclear power reactors operate in 31 countries, producing over 363 billion watts of electricity worldwide.
- Forecasts indicate that the U.S. will need about 335 billion W of new generating capacity by 2025.
- There have been no new orders in the United States for nuclear power plants since 1974. The last plant was completed in the late 1980′s.
- For each year beyond 2017 that the repository’s opening is delayed, the department estimates that U.S. taxpayers’ potential liability to contract holders who have paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund will increase by approximately $500 million.”
- Then candidate Obama answered a “Science Debate 2008” question in September 2008 as follows: “I will restore the basic principle that government decisions should be based on the best-available, scientifically valid evidence and not on the ideological predispositions of agency officials or political appointees. More broadly, I am committed to creating a transparent and connected democracy, using cutting-edge technologies to provide a new level of transparency, accountability, and participation for America’s citizens.
Update March 10, 2009:
Reid’s arrogance knows no bounds. He announced that he is working to form a study group to come up with alternatives to burying nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada.
“I am going to have a blue-ribbon panel to take a look at that,” the Nevada Democrat said in a meeting with reporters.
Other possible ideas “haven’t been studied at all; that is one of the problems,” Reid said.
First of all, other panels HAVE studied alternatives and guess what, they decided Yucca Mountain would be the best method for long term storage.
Another thing that is troublesome is this, President Obama (he is still President right?) selected a NOBEL PRIZE winning physicist, Stephen Chu as the Dept of Energy Secretary. Why is he not selecting this panel?
Maybe it’s just the staff here, but we think a decorated physicist would be better at selecting a panel for an important scientific decision than a washed up Senator with a law background.
It seems Reid has Obama right where he wants him, in his hip pocket.
Dance puppets, dance!!
Update March 11, 2009:
The Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu said he expects to move quickly to develop an alternative to nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain, with plans to convene a special commission that would report back to him by the end of the year.
Chu said a blue ribbon panel should be in place “in less than a month” as he is now “beginning to have discussions with people and recommendations as to who should be on it.”
Their commission’s goal will be to recommend to President Barack Obama a new strategy for managing thousands of tons of highly radioactive spent fuel now stored at commercial power plants.
It also will be charged with recommending how to handle forms of nuclear waste generated by the government’s weapons programs over the years, and spent fuel from naval reactors.
The commission “ideally would come to me with a report this year and then we will take it from there,” Chu said after the hearing.
Sounds like Chu is pulling a knee jerk reaction to the questions asked when Obama/Reid decided to pull the plug on Yucca Mountain without a “Plan B”.
Another question that the Obama camp has yet to answer is this: If “Science’ is supposed to play such a large role in his decision making, why oh why would one not wait until the NRC looked over the license application that was submitted by the Nation’s TOP SCIENTISTS!?!?!
Sounds like politics as usual. Obama better step up and quit letting Reid push him around or it will be four very short years for him!
Update March 12, 2009:
Today Reid announced a bill he proposed along with Ensign on forming a blue ribbon panel to investigate alternatives to Yucca Mountain.
Here are some issues that aBadReid.com staff have with this proposal:
1. Well, obviosly Reid will play a vital role in the staff’s selection as well as determine the chairperson along with Nancy Pelosi.
2. Reid is versed in Law and not Science
3. Reid is heavily biased against Yucca Mountain and will surely, as a crafty Senator, appoint a panel that will stack the deck against any type of decision that will even lean towards a solution like Yucca Mountain.
4. The Senate and Congress are not using any of the nation’s National Laboratories including the likes of Los Alamos, Livermoore, and Sandia National Labs, who house the top scientists that know a little about this sort of subject.
5. The NOBEL PRIZE awarded Secretay of Energy Chu doesn’t seem to be involved, or is just doing whatever ‘puppet strings’ Harry let’s him do.
6. The bill foresees no formal role for the Obama administration in setting up or operating the commission (again, this is just what Reid wants). Nice one, IMMUNITY from a biased, poor decision!!!
Just when you are thinking the situation could not possibly have any more stupidity, along comes something like this bill proposal that will redefine the word BIAS!
Update March 13, 2009:
This has been a pretty busy week for Yucca Mountain news and today is no exception.
The Nuclear Energy Institute announced it will fight the proposal of the Reid bill that is to select a “blue ribbon” panel to investigate alternatives to Yucca Mountain.
“NEI provided input to the majority leader’s office … but this is not the appointment process that we recommended or support,” spokesman John Keeley said. Having Reid and Pelosi appoint a chairman “does not provide the independence that the commission needs to be successful,” he said.
Another NEI official, Steve Kerekes, told the trade publication Nuclear New Build Monitor: “We feel it’s vitally important that it be a nonpartisan panel of experts, and that the chairman be above reproach and recognized as an independent figure.”
Sounds like at least someone actually READ this bill and noticed that it MAY have a slightly biased agenda!!! 
The bill itself also seems to take the Department of Energy completely out of the picture for an entity in charge of nuclear waste storage.
This really doesn’t make sense since Obama and Secretary Chu are allowing the DOE to continue to participate in allowing the license process to go forward.
Also reported is that the Energy Secretary is going to select a panel to study this issue.
IS ANYONE TALKING TO EACH OTHER UP IN WASHINGTON!
Between Obama, Chu, and Reid, it seems we have three separate policies/game plans in the making!
Update March 18, 2009:
Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Senator Harry Reid will meet on Monday in an effort to harmonize competing proposals for a nuclear waste study commission.
Chu and Reid “have the same goals in mind,” a Reid spokesman said. That would be to assess alternatives to the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada that the Obama administration has said is no longer an option for nuclear waste storage, the spokesman said.
Well, the staff of aBadReid.com interpret this new as follows:
Steven Chu wants a panel to determine alternatives to storing Nuclear Waste via a scientifically based panel. Harry Reid on the other hand wants to select a panel based on “I want any other alternative as long as it doesn’t involve Yucca Mountain”, and will stack the deck with his own panel that will have nothing to do with science.
I’m sure Reid gave Chu a “talkin to” and “told” him the way things ran in Washington. Also note that aBadReid.com will be placing a rush on the tarnish remover we plan to give Dr. Chu!
Update March 18, 2009:
Just when you think an entity having to deal with Yucca Mountain could not possibly top the stupidity of these past couple of weeks, the Nuclear Regulatory Commision (NRC) pulls this rabbit out of their hat:
WASHINGTON — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is revising its estimates of how long nuclear waste can be kept safely at power utilities as confidence shrinks that the radioactive material ever would be shipped to a Yucca Mountain repository.
The agency could decide this summer that spent nuclear fuel could be stored securely in above-ground concrete and steel casks for at least 120 years, which is 20 years longer than current policy, NRC Chairman Dale Klein said at a Senate hearing today.
“Revising its estimates”!!! What sound scientific data did they use to suddenly determine this? Having statements like this come from our Nation’s Nuclear Regulators makes me very nervous that they are the ones who will determine if the license application for Yucca Mountain sent by the Nation’s National Labs is sound!
How can you “all of a sudden” decide that this is a good idea? What about the lack of security? What about the litigation fees we (as US Taxpayers) will face during this “extended” time frame?
Critics of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, which is planned 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, point to the NRC’s conclusions about on-site storage as evidence there is no need to complete the Nevada site if the material can stay where it is for the foreseeable future.
Now this statement is just horrid. How can entities decide that all of a sudden we NOW don’t even need to provide a storage site for this ‘on-site’ nuclear material? Again, what science basis is being used to justify such actions?
“Spent nuclear fuel sitting in pools and in dry casks at nuclear plants all over America, is that what you are planning on?” McCain asked Klein.
“Yes,” Klein responded.
Makes one wonder what the NRC is really up to and what true motivations they have for this flip flop direction…
Update March 27, 2009:
Sen. Harry Reid agreed this morning to yield to the Obama administration in organizing a study commission for nuclear waste, officials said. Reid will shelve a bill introduced earlier this month that would have Congress create a study group and give it two years to evaluate alternatives to disposing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain
I’m actually surprised at this outcome! I guess someone reminded Harry that, unlike politics, you actually NEED someone that knows what they are talking about concerning Nuclear Waste and policies directed for that technology (his proposed bill prohibited anyone that previously worked on a study for Nuclear Waste from becoming a member of the panel).
I’m not certain Secretary Chu’s panel is immune to this political agenda though as he has already been ‘told’ that Yucca Mountain is ‘off the table’, even before this committee’s members or methodology is started.
This is disturbing. For instance, what would happen if the panel determined that a long term burial solution is the method of choice that they prefer?
Also, there have been “Blue Ribbon” panel studies in the past. Will the outcome of those studies be taken into consideration as well?
I’m just wondering how much of an ‘agenda’ this committee will have and the heavy influence politics will serve for its outcome!
This could get a study rolling faster than trying to pass a bill through Congress, Reid acknowledged.
I’m guessing someone reminded Harry Reid that Yucca Mountain is the current LAW and having a bill proposed that contradicted this law is probably not the best thing to do.
What WILL be interesting is to see what Secretary Chu does with this “Blue Ribbon” panel’s decision as it will take two years to decide on an alternate to Yucca Mountain; or, about the SAME time that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will decide if the license submitted to them by the DOE (via the National Laboratories) is satisfactory to start construction of that project!
Update March 31, 2009:
Senator John McCain, an advocate for the Yucca Mountain project, called for ammendments to an upcoming energy bill that would acknowledge the shutdown of the project (as touted by the Obama administration) and begin returning $22 billion in funds to electricity ratepayers that have accumulated in a repository construction account.
“Nuclear power is a critical component in securing our nation’s energy future and reducing greenhouse gas emission and I believe that moving forward on Yucca Mountain is a key step in growing a strong nuclear industry,” McCain said in a statement after the meeting. “However, if opponents of Yucca Mountain are going to hold this project hostage, then we shouldn’t be charging the American taxpayer and utilities for this facility.”
The Staff of aBadReid believe Senator McCain is calling President Obama and Senator Harry Reid’s BLUFF!
Reid and Obama decided to kill the Yucca Mountain project (well actually it was Reid “pulling” Obama’s puppet strings) without ANY “Plan B” solution. Not to mention the fact that Yucca Mountain is the law passed by a bi-partisan congress.
We can’t afford to pay the tens of billions of dollars back to the utility companies (even though the way the Democrats are spending money, tens of billions may seem like “pocket change” to them).
Plus the fact that the Nuclear Utilities would rain down a new set of law suites (again as already mentioned if Yucca Mountain was “officially” stopped).
McCain is doing the equivalent of calling “all in” during a poker tournament.
He knows the opposition is not holding a “good hand” in the fact there is NO PLAN for an alternate to Yucca Mountain. Secretary Chu’s panel to decide on this alternate plan is nothing more than a political stunt.
So, let’s see how the Democratic leadership will play this out. Should be an interesting game to watch.
We are betting the Obama administration will NEVER decide on a viable alternate to Yucca Mountain, rather just play along with the license application investigation process and Secretary Chu’s panels.
All of this will take well over the four years of Obama’s presidential reign.
Then after that, a real leader will hopefully be elected to the office of president and get the ball rolling again on a viable nuclear waste plan.
Hopefully the root cause of Nuclear Power’s future, Harry Reid, will also be out of the picture.
Until then, we can only wait…
Update April 8, 2009:
The nuclear power companies who were promised a long term storage facility via the Department of Energy are starting to raise serious issues of what is to be done with their on-site waste and what is to be done with the billions of dollars they have been paying into a fund for the Yucca Mountain facility.
These are serious and honest questions as the fund is now in the tens of billions of dollars AND they continue to charge their power customers a surcharge for a facility that looks like has been stopped via the current presidential administration.
In Minnesota, state Rep. Joe Atkins is pushing legislation to place the state’s nuclear waste payments, about $13 million annually, into an escrow account.
States with nuclear power plants long have complained about how money from the waste fund was being spent, or not spent, on the destination site for spent fuel 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Yucca Mountain opponents led Harry Reid, successfully suppressed annual appropriations in a bid to slow the project.
The Maine legislature passed a similar resolution two years ago. But its concerns have taken on a new urgency with President Barack Obama declaring opposition to the Yucca project, and with Energy Secretary Steven Chu moving to form a commission to study alternatives.
Martez Norris, executive director of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, said communities with nuclear plants perked up when Obama confirmed a campaign pledge to shelve the Nevada project, and Chu began talking about alternatives.
“This business of having a blue ribbon commission is starting to resonate that the waste is going to be at their sites forever,” said Norris, whose organization is composed of state and utility officials.
They also took notice of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposal to lengthen by 20 years the period of time that nuclear waste can be stored safely onsite, Norris said.
Looks like Reid and Obama have placed themselves into a situation that demands a plan B. The only problem, there IS NO PLAN B!
Maybe they thought they could just ignore this problem for another four years and let the next president deal with it?
Update April 12, 2009:
President Obama is planning a new “Cap and Trade” energy policy that will amount to a new national energy tax for the US Taxpayer.
Our country would face a massive tax increase adding up to some $3,000 per household per year — or $4,560 per family of four, if you prefer. American consumers would pay more just for turning their lights on, keeping their homes warm, and driving their cars. And because energy is an input for other goods and services, Americans would have to pay more to feed their families and put clothes on their backs.
If you think thousands of dollars in a new energy tax is going to end up in your pocket instead of being spent on big government programs and special interests, you haven’t been watching the way Washington works lately.
The demise of Nuclear Power via the single hand of Harry Reid will add to this problem.
You CAN’T try to implement a technology that is not mature enough to provide our nation’s power needs (i.e. solar and wind).
You CAN as evident on Obama, Secretary Chu, and Harry Reid’s actions, SAY you are going to implement these technologies, AND even be so bold as CANCEL all other options (i.e. coal fired plants and Yucca Mountain Project/Nuclear Power) BEFORE they are proven viable.
This is a train wreck that will drive energy costs up, only THEN will people say, “HUH, How the heck did this happen? I don’t like this!!!”
Coal fired is not the long term solution, but it is the CURRENT solution until we can get a broader alternative into an alternative’s “production” status.
This means NUCLEAR POWER which REQUIRES the Yucca Mountain Project.
Again, there MAY be alternatives to Yucca Mountain, but it is the CURRENT solution! IF you are again, going to bank your faith on politicians that know nothing of science (nor listen to people that do) DON’T COMPLAIN when you are paying through the roof on your energy bills!
Update April 29, 2009:
A letter from the US Senate was presented to Dr. Steven Chu, DOE Energy Secretary today demanding answers to some pretty pertinent and interesting questions regarding his decision to eliminate Yucca Mountain from consideration of a national repository according to the 1983 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
The questions are stated as follows:
1. What is the reason for your decision that Yucca Mountain is “not an option?”
2. What was the legal basis for the determination that Yucca Mountain is “not an option?” Who provided that legal advice?
3. Have you discovered, in a few short weeks, research that discredits the scientific work produced by the National Academy of Science, the Nulcear Waste Technical Review Board or any of the National Labs?
4. Are you aware of any conclusions by the Nuclear Regulatory Comission that would preclude completion of the license review?
5. Did you consult with the Secretary of the Navy regarding possible disruption to spent nuclear fuel de-fueling operations and storage plans? If so, what was the response?
6. Your decision may cause delays in the clean-up of DOE former weapons complex sites. Did you consult with the relevant governors regarding DOE’s potential non-compliance with its commitments under state agreements?
7. What significant findings do you anticipate a new blue ribbon panel to unearth that have not been previously considered?
In addition the Senators are also asking Dr. Chu to provide the following information:
* Record of Decision in support of your conclusion that Yucca Mountain is “not an option”;
* A detailed list of the scientists who briefed you an the technical and scientific aspects of Yucca Mountain which lead to your conclusion that it is no longer an option, including their scientific and technical qualifications along with any materials they used to brief you;
* A list of all those who provided legal counsel to support your decision including the dates, locations, and attendees for these briefings; and
* A description of the public involvement process conducted in support of your decision.
The letter in its entirety can be found HERE. It is signed by the following Senator members:
James M. Inhofe David Vitter Sam Brownback Jim DeMint
John McCain Jim DeMint Thad Cochran Richard C. Shelby
Mike Crapo Jeff Sessions James E. Risch Michael B Enzi
Jim Bunning Christopher S. Bond Jon Kyl
Olympia J. Snowe John Barrassso Michael Johanns
This is an interesting letter and well worth the read. It has an introduction into factual statistics on Yucca Mountain studies including the money spent to date, the various studies performed on the site, as well as some historic facts including this statement:
As recently as August 2008, all ten National Lab directors, including you, signed a letter on the essential role of nuclear energy which advocated continuing the licensing of a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain
And also this statement:
Given this history, President Obama’s memoranda that science will guide public policy and his commitment to an unprecedented level of openness, we find it difficult to reconcile your statement that Yucca Mountain is “not an option” made after only 6 weeks in office.
This letter pretty much sums up the lack of science involved with Secretary Chu’s decision with Yucca Mountain and proves, once again, how Senator Reid’s politics played a part in Chu’s and Obama’s role towards its making.
This should be interesting to watch. The letter requests a response from Dr. Chu by June 1. 2009. We better start ordering more tarnish remover!
Update July 20, 2009:
Energy Secretary Steven Chu DID respond to the Senator’s above questions on his reasons for looking for an alternative to Yucca Mountain. The response is (no surprise here) lacking any significant detail and did not provide any real answers! This just further shows that Chu is a puppet, NOT a Nobel Prize Winning Scientist, just a puppet that is strung along by the Reid/Obama directors. Shame on you Dr. Chu. Looks like it’s time to really break out that tarnish remover for your Nobel Prize.
You can read Chu’s pathetic response by clicking HERE.
Update July 20, 2009:
Obama to seek $54 billion in nuclear power loans.
See this Bloomberg.com site for additional details, but is looks like our president, acting on a pledge to support nuclear power, will propose tripling U.S. loan guarantees for new reactors to more than $54 billion.
He is doing this WITHOUT anyway to currently handle the waste!
Energy Secretary Chu elected a “Blue Ribbon Panel”, but the candidates don’t seem like the type that will enable a viable solution to this problem (details in posts below).
Update November 1, 2010:
Well, it looks bad for Yucca Mountain.
This was purely political. Even if you wanted to explore other alternatives via the ‘blue ribbon’ panel, there was NO reason to pull the license application (which would have been completed in two years) as it just didn’t cost that much money to continue the process (in comparison, the lawsuites that will reign down from the utility companies for violating the nuclear waste policy act will far out weigh the costs of continuing the license)
Oh, BTW, those suites will be payed by YOUR tax dollars, not the funds set aside for building Yucca Mountain.
Way to go Harry. You let politics once again influence sound science, just to try to get reelected.
Update February 14, 2010:
Blue Ribbon Panel Lacks Credibility
Out of the 15 ‘experts’ selected for Energy Secretary Chu’s Blue Ribbon Panel (the panel that will decide the ultimate future of how we handle our nuclear waste) only FOUR have technical experinece (one engineer, two physicists, and one geologist).
The remainder are politicians and business persons.
From THIS blog we obtained the excerpt below:
“Perhaps the most worrying name on the list none other than Brent Scowcroft. If you recall, he was the national security advisor for George H.W. Bush — a key figure in the end of the cold war. Him along with Albert Carnesale (nonproliferation diplomat, figure in SALT treaties — some writings here), and Susan Eisenhower (nonproliferation consultant, board of Nuclear Threat Initiative). I think we should read between the lines: why did Obama put a national security wonk and two nuclear weapons wonks on this panel? What the US does with spent reactor fuel has nothing to do with weapons or war. But the administration thinks, or perhaps wants to signal, otherwise; that US reprocessing and breeder reactors — key technical solutions for destroying nuclear waste — would be a security threat. Looking at history, nuclear weapons fearmongering has been a key political attack against nuclear power, especially closed fuel cycles. Ford’s reprocessing ban was ostensibly about weapons. John Kerry and Hazel O’Leary’s canceling of Argonne’s Integral Fast Reactor research was, again, used with proliferation as a pretext.
Professor Per Peterson is the sole nuclear engineer. Among many other things, he is researching a molten salt (!) reactor design called PB-AHTR. Unlike LFTR, it is only half fluid: the coolant is a molten salt, whereas the fuel elements are solid pebbles.
Richard Meserve seems to be lots of things – PhD physicist, former NRC chairman, sits on board of the electric utility PG&E.
Allison MacFarlane is a geologist who researches spent fuel repositories, and has written a book criticizing Yucca Mountain. Some of her writings are here at the Belfer Center (which she is an associate of). Rod Adams interviews her on Atomic Podcast #61 (haven’t watched yet; Rod says they “agree to disagree”, which is worrying.)
There are several remembers whose only “qualification” appears to be political stature. Lee Hamilton is a former Democratic congressman. Chuck Hagel is a former Republican Senator. Pete Domenici is a former Republican senator, who sat on the energy subcommittee. Phil Sharp is a former Democratic congressman who now heads the political think tank Resources for the Future.
Several sitting energy industry executives, who likewise have no particular reason to be here, and an in my naive opinion have way too much conflict of interest to be allowed in the first place. Vicky Bailey is director of Chiniere Energy, an importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) (she was also a former commissioner of FERC). John Rowe is CEO of Exelon, an electric utility whose fleet is largely nuclear reactors.
Mark Ayers is a union boss from AFL-CIO.
Jonathan Lash is a lawyer, formerly with the National Resources Defense Council, presently chairman of the World Resources Institute (environmentalist think tank).”
So it looks like the deck is stacked and has no scientific credentials necessary to make such an important decision. What is also interesting is that Yucca Mountain was “off the table” as one of the decisions/methods. How can you seriously create a panel and say the major method of storing nuclear waste should not even be CONSIDERED as a possiblilty? Mind boggling for sure and once again that POLITICS takes precedence over SCIENCE.
Update February 17, 2010
Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina questioning the decision via the Obama administration to close Yucca Mountain
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford accused the president of playing politics with nuclear waste Tuesday, urging the Obama administration to follow through on plans to send thousands of tons of radioactive material to Nevada and urging legal action if it does not.
Sanford, surrounded by state, local and federal officials, accused the Obama administration of allowing “old-style Chicago politics” to dictate the fate of a long-planned nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The governor said the president was trying to protect Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid’s seat while ripping off companies in South Carolina that have paid $1.2 billion to create the dump.
For now, high-level nuclear waste is stored at 80 sites around the nation, typically at nuclear power plants or places such as the federal Savannah River Site in Aiken County, where more than 3,600 tons of nuclear waste is stored.
Sanford said the plans for Yucca Mountain span decades and numerous administrations and that $10 billion has spent on the underground site. “I mean, I think we all get it that Harry Reid is in a tough race out in Nevada and giving him this would give him a win in a tough race in Nevada but it would come at great expense to the rest of us as Americans,” he said.
Gov. Mark Sanford threatened to take legal action against the federal government if the White House does not reverse its position by the end of the month. And Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, said he plans to introduce legislation to divert payments flowing from the state to the federal government so that South Carolina can create a fund for its own waste-storage purposes.
“We have 30 years of science and probably millions of man hours and woman hours that have gone into the science of Yucca Mountain as a permanent depository,” said Ryberg.
“We probably have 10 minutes in a poll that decided it wasn’t good for the sitting (U.S. Senate) majority leader for Yucca Mountain to be pursued,” he said, referring to Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada.
“The people of Aiken and neighboring counties have worked for decades at the Savannah River Site to assist the federal government while it developed Yucca Mountain,” said Ryberg, adding that his resolution will end any future payments toward a permanent repository for the federal government, directing part of the money to a new state fund “to pay for a different permanent storage solution that we must obviously find for ourselves.”
A copy of the letter to Obama written via the Governor is HERE
Update February 18, 2010:
Here is an interesting article from Wil Hylton of the Huffington Post that is well worth the read about his opinion on the Obama administration closing Yucca Mountain. In it he states:
If Obama’s decision to close Yucca Mountain seemed like a victory for the environment, it may have been just the opposite. Although the issues at Yucca are serious and several – including those cinder cones, a nearby seismic fault, and the gradual creep of water through the mountain – the decision to cancel the repository may be even riskier still.
The unfortunate reality is that for nuclear waste, as the President likes to say, there are no easy answers. Today, Yucca Mountain is one of only two options for the waste that are even under consideration; and the other – the one endorsed by Obama and Reid – is to do nothing at all, leaving the waste where it currently sits, scattered among 121 locations in 39 states, beside water sources like the Hudson River, and in many cases, just a few miles from population centers like Manhattan and Chicago. Whereas the repository at Yucca is more than a thousand feet underground, deep in the Nevada desert, in a honeycomb of tunnels more than five miles long, the current facilities for storing the nation’s 132 million pounds of radioactive garbage are almost all on the grounds of private energy companies, and in containers that were intended to be temporary – either concrete casks stored outside nuclear reactors, or submerged inside the plants under relatively shallow pools of water. I have stood at the edge of one of these spent-fuel pools, looking down at the iridescent glow of radioactive rods, knowing that if the water were to drain accidentally, I would be exposed to a radiation dose equivalent to that on the ground in Hiroshima just after the blast. If Yucca Mountain is an imperfect solution to the nation’s nuclear waste crisis, the current arrangement is no solution at all.
Yet finding a solution for our radioactive waste is a matter of rising urgency. Since the dawn of the atomic age, the federal government has promised Americans that the refuse from nuclear plants would be safeguarded by a rigorous government program. That’s because nuclear waste is staggeringly lethal – far more volatile than raw uranium (a chunk of which I keep on my desk) or even fresh nuclear fuel, which is only 3% pure. Brimming with nuclear byproducts like cesium, strontium, and plutonium, the apt comparison is between spent nuclear fuel and a nuclear weapon. In fact, spent fuel can be used to make a nuclear weapon. Yet after decades of working to develop a better place to house these lethal chemicals, at a cost of more than $13 billion to taxpayers, the Obama administration appears ready to return to square one and leave the waste untouched while we embark on another 50-year, multi-billion-dollar quest for a new facility.
The larger debate over atomic power itself can be highly polarizing and complex, with heated opinions on both sides. For my own part, I believe that the case for nuclear plants remains strong – and that our country needs to confront the difficult choice between atomic power, with its risk of a meltdown, and coal power, with its certain doom – spewing millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the air and accelerating global warming. The record for nuclear plants in the US is surprisingly strong; to date, not a single civilian life has been lost at a plant, and the 104 existing reactors provide some 20% of household electricity with virtually no carbon footprint. If these nuclear plants were phased out tomorrow, as many anti-nuclear activists propose, the only viable way to supplement their power would be with more coal – and more pollution, and more sick and dying. To an increasing number of environmentalists, the nuclear option has begun to seem, in a field of distasteful choices, slightly less distasteful than the others. But this is a calculation about which reasonable people can, and do, differ.
Still, even the most fervent critics of nuclear power should be concerned about the closure of Yucca Mountain. Regardless of whether or not we continue to use nuclear plants, the question of what to do with the existing stockpile of radioactive waste cannot be wished away. To close Yucca Mountain is an implicit decision to leave that waste in the hands of energy companies, in temporary containers, near major cities and waterways – simply because the Nevada desert may experience a seismic event at some point in the next 10,000 years. This is a trade-off that few people outside Nevada would consider wise.
Over the past year, as President Obama has allowed development of the repository to grind to a halt, it has been especially sad to watch a leader from the state of Illinois, which leads the US in nuclear production and generates more than half its electricity from nuclear plants, buckle to political pressure from Majority Leader Reid without offering any other solution to the waste crisis. At a minimum, we should be prepared to open Yucca on a conditional basis, and consolidate our waste there while we search for a more perfect solution. The notion that doing so would be risky represents a serious misunderstanding of the risk in doing nothing.
Source: Huffingtonpost.com, January 7, 2010
Update February 19, 2010:
Well, the repercussions of closing Yucca Mountain down are starting to emerge. The potential for billions of law suites is starting to hit the tip of the iceberg as evident from this latest post from the TricityHerald.com website (the “tricity” represent the Tri-Cities in Washington state and are comprised of the cities of Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland).
President Obama’s authority to terminate plans for a high-level radioactive waste repository in Nevada.
They had a letter delivered to the White House and to Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Thursday afternoon saying that Obama and Chu have violated the federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act by abandoning development of the Yucca Mountain repository.
If necessary, they will file a lawsuit, said Bob Ferguson, who has worked for the Department of Energy, the former Washington Public Power Supply System and as an entrepreneur.
The letter was written by a K&L Gates attorney on behalf of Ferguson; Bill Lampson, president of Lampson International; and Gary Petersen, the Tri-City Development Council’s vice chairman for Hanford programs.
The three are concerned that without Yucca Mountain, high-level waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation will be stranded indefinitely. That would create a significant public health and environmental risk at Hanford and the nearby Tri-Cities, they said.
What is interesting is this statement in that article. The Obama administration has been touting that the waste is fine right where it is presently stored (at the many nuclear facilities spread across our country).
“This final action abandoning the Yucca Mountain project creates the very danger that DOE and Congress said should be avoided: environmental and human health risk arising from the continued existence of 121 sites where nuclear waste continues to be stored in ways far less safe than Yucca Mountain,” said the letter to Obama and Chu.
The absence of a repository for the permanent disposal of Hanford waste now stored in underground tanks “will only increase the costs and continue to expose the residents around the Hanford site to unacceptable environmental and human health risks,” the letter said.
Apparently, Hanford is currently building a $12.2 billion vitrification plant which will turn the radioactive gas form waste into a ‘glassified’ waste so it can then be stored in casks which were planned to go into Yucca Mountain. Also, the lack of a promised repository would mean billions more would have to be spent into legally binding requirements and schedules for Hanford’s environmental cleanup plans.
Congress approved a resolution naming Yucca Mountain the site of the repository in 2002 and the Obama administration does not have the power to overturn that, Ferguson said.
“It’s not legal,” he said. “It’s a violation of the law.”
Since 1983, consumers of electricity produced at nuclear power plants have paid a fee, based on the amount of power produced, into a fund to pay for a waste repository program. Commitments to the fund, including interest, now total about $33 billion.
Source: tricityhearld.com, February 19. 2010
Update: March 3, 2010:
The DOE has asked to withdraw the Yucca Mountain license. A copy of this legal document can be seen HERE.
This opens the door for law suites via the utility companies, many have already filed against this decision by the DOE.
Update: July 24, 2010:
The Department of Energy is not performing a methodical shut down of the Yucca Mountain project according to a recent audit via the inspector general’s office. The funding has been cut to zero and in their zest to vacate the project, DOE is plowing ahead and literally destroying critical scientific data and other archiving disaster methods with full steam ahead vigor.
The problem is that all of the billions of dollars in scientific research can, and most likely WILL be lost forever. Even if the site is moved to another location (most likely Carlsbad, New Mexico, where they EMBRACE high dollar DOE projects) this data could have been used rather than ‘re-inventing the wheel’.
Also, DOE is throwing away TONS of recently purchased equipment, including expensive networking hardware recently installed for their fielding operations!
So Harry Reid is wanting President Obama and Secretary Chu to violate the Nuclear Waste Policy Act?
Can you underfund a project that is LAW just because you yourself as a Senator chose not to want it?
I find this amazing that one Senator can get away with these tactics.
Even IF we can reprocess the waste from nuclear power plants, what about the waste generated via the DOE and the Navy? That HAS to be burried. What better place than Yucca Mountain?
Honestly I don’t know what is more troubling here, the fact that Reid can influence the stop of this project or the fact that Stephen Chu, a NOBEL PRIZE PHYSICIST can’t provide any answers other than he will look into it.
For crying out loud, you don’t stop a project like this WITHOUT first providing a viable alternative!
Well, as a taxpayer it bothers me that MY tax dollars are going towards litigation fees because the DOE can not provide a storage solution for the nuclear power industry.
All this talk about saving money and spending wisely and now we have this.
Not only that, it looks like there is no end in site. The payouts will continue, no alternative plan is decided, and Reid just pulled the plug on a project solution that just may never recover.
Nice one Harry!
This project would have been one of the largest booms for our state. This comes at a time when unemployment is at its highest in 25 years.
Not only that, this futher limits diversity in the work place here in Las Vegas. The only jobs (if you can find them) deal with gaming and construction. All the high paying scientific jobs seem to never have a fighting chance here.
Where is the ‘change’? All I see is the same ol’ politics being played out.
I really wish a real leader would emerge and make a decision on this. Obama/Reid/Chu said that Yucca Mountain isn’t in the plan anymore, but provided no alternate solution.
Yet, they cut the budget and all the people that worked on this project (specialized geologists, hydrologists, vulcanologist, physicists, engineers, technicians, etc…) are leaving the state as we speak.
You can not flip a switch and turn a project of this magnitude back on once it is turned off.
I have seen this happen with other industries. Once you loose the technical specialized people and capabilities and knowledge, it would take years to get it back.
Harry Reid’s arrogance in not wanting Yucca Mountain has put this country back from providing clean nuclear power by many years, if not decades.
I’m an engineer and I know for a fact that you can not provide the brunt of our nation’s power with wind and solar as these POLITICIANS are touting.
Nuclear is the only other viable source other than coal fired plants.
Sure it would be great to research better and more efficient methods for wind and solar, but what are you going to do in the mean time (and if it EVER happens)?
There are just to many questions that are unanswered to put all your marbles into wind and solar right now.
It pains me to see politics decide these important energy matters over science (and reality).
Obama will include something in the neighborhood of $100M to $200M to support the license.
Reid has been saying `little or nothing’. That probably equals the $100M plus number. (to me that isn’t `little or nothing’ but then again, I am not rich).
That amount of funding would support the license process, but not the Nevada workforce. Whether Obama likes Yucca or not, he really has no choice but to keep the process moving forward due to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
I doubt he, or Reid, has the votes in Congress to change the Act, therefore Yucca moves forward (It wouldn’t surprise me if the Obama’s folks talked to the Justice Dept and was informed of this).
So, in recap, nothing has changed with the exception that the Nevada workforce was fired, but the out-of-State workforce that supports the license process remains.
Ironic, isn’t it? In hindsight, I think this backfired on Harry.
One last item. Note a recent statement from Reid’s office:
..Reid on Wednesday called Obama’s decision “a critical first step towards fulfilling his promise to end the Yucca Mountain project..”
I think these words (critical first step) set the stage for the back peddling that the Project is far from dead, only delayed (unless an acceptable alternative is found).
This is just my legal opinion, but reflects my read on the subject.
Fiscal Year 2010 Budget;
I agree with what you stated but my only concern (as in “Engineer’s” post above) is the the specialized work force is not left intact.
Last week notice was given to most of the M&O contractors that this month would be their last on the project. Also, DOE itself has closed most of the site down and are not even allowing tours right now (only FOUR full time DOE people run the entire site and most of the buildings are shut down (power/water/etc removed).
I do hope your correct that at least the license itself is budgeted adequately so the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Sandia National Laboratory can continue supporting the “RAI” (Request for Additional Information) and other investigative processes.
Why is the Obama administration not taking part in these decisions (as stated in this article)?
“The bill foresees no formal role for the Obama administration in setting up or operating the commission…”
Could it be President Reid, err, I mean SENATOR Reid does not want Senator, err I mean PRESIDENT Obama to participate at all so he can have free reign over this goat rodeo?
Where is the SCIENCE here!
Oh yea, let’s not forget about the hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars that we (yes we as in TAXPAYERS) are going to spend on lawsuits and payouts to nuclear power plants because it’s the LAW that Yucca Mountain be built to store their waste PROMISED by a bi-partisan government.
Keep the “CHANGE” Obama, how about getting us out of paying these large litigation bills in these tough economic times?? Oh wait, I’m sorry, you don’t have any part of this… Never mind!
You better start thinking about putting a muzzle on that Senate Majority Leader or it is going to be four short years for you!!!
Note Section 3 of the “Blue Ribbon Panel” bill(as of March 13):
The Bill
It states, in part “…In the event that the proposed Yucca Mountain high level waste repository is never operational..” Key words here are “in the event”.
I would be surprised if the political appointees to this `blue ribbon panel’ come up with anything of value. Yucca will move forward, as it should. Hopefully, our egotistical Senator is booted out in 2010. It is a shame that all these Nevada jobs were lost in the process,, but, that is politics!
I agree, that is rather odd wording (“in the event“) for a ‘decision’ that has so decisively been made! Makes one wonder what is really on the agenda…
I also noticed these words about the panel itself:
Well isn’t that a hoot. Why oh why would you want to eliminate experts from the DOE who are engaged in high-level radioactive waste or spent nuclear fuel activities?!?! Seems to me that you would WANT to seek out those kinds of scientific qualifications instead of banning them!
I agree with above posts, this committee will be a joke. Secretary Chu, your scientific credibility is really really going down the tubes with the more knowledgeable public sector. It seems to me that you don’t have anything to do with this committee.
After all, you were the Lawrence Livermoore National Laboratory DIRECTOR!! How can a former United States National Laboratory director and Nobel prize winner (in physics) NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE SELECTION OF THIS COMMITTEE?!?!? Yikes! You would think HE would be running this show instead of a bunch of politicians versed in law!
Here is another interesting quote from that bill:
Looks like this bill’s creators want the Department of Energy out of the picture entirely! WOW, was Secretary Chu doing THAT bad of a job two months into it where you want to completely take the responsibility of establishing a nuclear waste policy away from his department!
Here is yet another quote from the bill that describes what the committee should do:
Hey, I got a solution for them. There is this site in Nevada suitable for this type of storage, YUCCA MOUNTAIN!!
I would argue that this Reid/Ensign bill is only slightly less absurd than the one they introduced a couple years ago that attempted to permanently institute on-site above-ground storage and thereby render the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain obsolete. You’ll recall that these two senatorial dimwits, in their floor testimony, argued on the basis of potential terrorist attacks. Their rationale was as follows: studies indicate that nuclear plants are vulnerable to attacks on cooling pools; that is, a cooling pool could be breached and the water would drain out quickly, leaving the fuel rods exposed. According to the expert testimony of Reid, the exposed spent fuel would then heat up, melt the zircaloy cladding, and ignite, spewing radioactive particles into the atmosphere and creating an American Chernobyl. Their bill would have mandated removing all of the fuel from the pools and placing it in dry cask storage. The obvious problem is, spent nuclear fuel needs to cool — hence the term “cooling pools.” Any operating reactor, in other words, would always have a percentage of its spent fuel inventory cooling off in pools, until such a time that it could be transferred to dry cask storage.
It is worth noting that Reid relied on a Sandia National Laboratories study to substantiate his argument about the vulnerability of cooling pools to terrorist attack. Apparently, Sandia’s work is credible when it supports the Senator’s goals, but “unsound” when it supports the repository.
In any event, there are other things in Reid’s new bill worth noting. You’ll notice, for example, that the “tiebreaker” selection (the ninth member of the panel) would be picked by Reid and Pelosi jointly (per the bill, “Five members shall constitute a quorum”). Not entirely sure I like those odds, given the history of Supreme Court nominations.
Also, as has already been suggested, panelists cannot be “DOE contractors” or apparently associated with DOE in any way. Because DOE runs all of the national labs, that excludes any potential panelists from Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, Berkeley Lab, Oak Ridge, Idaho National, and so on. It’s astonishing that Reid and Ensign would banish the national labs from this process; these are the first places you would look to empanel a group such as this! I mean, who is left? Academics? It just so happens that academics (many of them with little real-world experience in the subject) are just about the only people you can find to oppose Yucca Mountain: think of the widely quoted Allison Macfarlane (MIT geologist) or the one or two academic “experts” the State recruited from UNLV to produce anti-Yucca “studies.”
It is also interesting to note that our nation’s independent nuclear regulator, the NRC, is not mentioned in the bill, nor is their jurisdiction over all things nuclear acknowledged. Finally, I would point out that the bill leaves open the possibility of “stacking the deck” with respect to discipline. A range of “fields of expertise” are mentioned, including engineering and nuclear science, but also included are fields such as “environmental policy” and “law” and “governmental service.” What do you imagine the panel’s conclusion would be if most of the members hailed from the “environmental policy” field? What if they get one engineer and one scientist, and the rest are environmentalists and lawyers?
Stunning, brazen, and ethically corrupt.
This is a BIG problem folks! With no path forward for nuclear waste we now have multiple issues: 1) We need nuclear energy to get ourselves off dependency on foreign oil 2) Nuclear energy is the most cost-effective abundant energy source we have available for electricity 3) We have no reprocessing capability for spent nuclear fuel rods and developing it will cost easily as much as the Yucca Project has cost up to this point and much more 4) With no waste disposal option we not only discourage development of new plants but we leave fuel rods in water in pools!! Take a look at a project called the K-Basins at the Hanford Site and see the effects of leaving spent nuclear fuel in a water-filled basin for years and years…eventually the basin will leak radioactive water into the surounding soil, the fuel rods will lose “dust sized” particles and larger chunks will fall to the bottom of the pool creating a radioactive sludge. This is a royal nightmare to clean up when you finally identify the final disposal option for the fuel rod waste. So, instead of one nicely monitored storage and disposal facility (i.e., Yucca Mounain) where the fuel could be removed if a problem in one of the tunnels is identified, we will have a clean-up project at EVERY reactor site that uses water basins to hold fuel rods. Get with it folks…think a little more long-term and let the President and Harry Reid know killing Yucca is a huge mistake! Something tells me if the current Democratic regime is successful with the economy, Harry can get re-elected even if he revises his position on Yucca…which is what this opposition is is all about…votes in Las Vegas…not science! The Yucca site is located beneath a beautiful desert where we exploded nuclear weapons above and below ground for decades. That area is not…nor can it be…cleaned up to a pristine environmental condition…put the commercial fuel rod waste there please. I am largely a supporter of President Obama and most Democratic causes…but this is one where they are dead wrong!
There has been a significant development shown as the “Update April 29, 2009″ entry above that is well worth the read.
Members of the United States Senate today presented Dr. Steven Chu a letter demanding answers to some interesting questions about his decision not to go with Yucca Mountain!
Take a look at these developments in the above post!
For those interested, attached is the April 29, 2009 letter from the Republican Senators to Dr Chu over Yucca Mountain-
THE LETTER
Hi “Senators Want Answers”
Thanks for the information. You posted one minute after I “just” updated this site with this crucial and interesting information!
Thanks again for visiting our site and its good to know other are interested in this matter as well!
Regards,
The Webmaster for aBadReid.com
Regarding “Update April 29, 2009″ above…
Wasn’t there supposed to be a reply forthcoming from Dr. Chu by June 1 regarding the legal basis for the determination that Yucca Mountain is “not an option” and other questions?
Was a reply ever given?
Hi Steve:
Sorry for the late response, but you can view the answers (if you want to call them that) Dr. Chu provided by looking at the July 20th 2009 updates in the article above!
This is just further proof of how pathetic this once great, respected and knowldegable Nobel Prize Winning physicist is being played by the Reid/Obama machine. There is no science here as promised!
Please see this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124804383363363397.html
I had a long post analyzing this, but forgot to answer the anti=spam question, so my input was lost. Regardless, read this carefully and notice a) the loss of population for the first time in 20 years, b) the comment that it may be 10 years before a casino project gets built again, c) the conclusion that Vegas is suffering badly in large part because it doesn’t have anything economically except tourism (and which a 50+ billion, 50+ year project COULD help alleviate), and d) the TRIPLING of the unemployment rate in TWO YEARS.
Harry is killing the very golden goose that could quite easily be a multi-decade BOON for southern nevada and provide much needed economic diversity. Harry should follow the lead of Nye County and at least explore what concessions they could get to address their inflated safety concerns. They might be surprised to learn that they could easily negotiate from the US government all sorts of accommodations (economic and political) that could really help put a solid base under the region (think annual stimulus checks for everyone like Alaska and oil, think new schools, roads, other government projects, etc.)
When Harry runs for re-election, and begins to spout about how he killed Yucca and saved Nevada, his opponent should focus on simply “IT’S THE ECONOMY STUPID”.
Well the Energy Secretary has selected the ‘Blue Ribbon Panel’ to determine the future of our nuclear energy’s power.
BLUE RIBBON COMMISSION ON AMERICA’S NUCLEAR FUTURE
• Co-chairman: Former Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana. President and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and director of The Center on Congress at Indiana University
• Co-chairman: Brent Scowcroft, president, The Scowcroft Group, an international business advisory firm
• Mark Ayers, president, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO
• Vicky Bailey, former commissioner, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; former Department of Energy assistant secretary for policy and international affairs
• Albert Carnesale, chancellor emeritus and professor, UCLA
• Pete V. Domenici, senior fellow, Bipartisan Policy Center; former U.S. senator from New Mexico
• Susan Eisenhower, president, Eisenhower Group
• Chuck Hagel, former U.S. senator from Nebraska
• Jonathan Lash, president, World Resources Institute
• Allison Macfarlane, associate professor of environmental science and policy, George Mason University
• Dick Meserve, former chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• Ernie Moniz, professor of physics and Cecil & Ida Green Distinguished Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Per Peterson, professor and chairman, Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California-Berkeley
• John Rowe, chairman and chief executive officer, Exelon Corp.
• Phil Sharp, president, Resources for the Future
Only really one or two that seem to have ‘real world’ technical experience with the issue.
Oh well, it’s all blowing smoke anyway. Why oh why would you tell this committee ‘any choice BUT Yucca Mountain” before they even start? I mean, what would happen if they decided on a solution that required say reprocessing, then later stated that the small leftover spent fuel from that needed to be stored somewhere?
Just showing once again that politics and science is a terrible combination.
Federal Law mandates:
“The law states that only if the Energy Department declares the site unsuitable can it be withdrawn from consideration.”
Notice it didn’t say if Reid didn’t want it! It didn’t say if Obama didn’t feel like budgeting it (as a favor to Reid)!
Additionally, Obama and Reid are opening up the federal government and thus the taxpayer to potentially $500 billion in legal and additional costs by delaying nuclear waste solutions due to the litigation judgements that are being won by the nuclear utility companies against our government!
Here is some food for thought! If Obama, our nation’s president, doesn’t feel like following this nuclear waste policy act LAW, what OTHER laws will his administration not follow?
I have some personal experience with the Nellis Test Range and the area to its north as I worked there for 14 years. I was once told to find a site for a new system and happened upon a bunker which had an AEC identifier and an “AEC Keep Out” sign. I once took my family sight seeing off route 6 and happened upon ground zero of a 50′s vintage air burst. It was still instrumented and had a concrete cover with an open vent keeping pressure from building up under the cover. All this is only to say that after 25 years of air bursts and vented underground tests an area larger than the state of Rhode Island has radioactive waste all over it. If you were to fly over the test range, and I have, you will see regions so pock marked by air bursts that it looks more like the moon than the earth. There is no way that this nuclear junk yard will ever be used for non-military uses. Storing radioactive waste there is the best use for this area. It will not alter the quality of life there. Had Harry not made it his lifes’ work to break the law, We would have concrete four lane roadways in every directions. He has cost us dearly.
Here is an arial view (from Goggle Earth) of the underground nuclear tests that DV Fagan was referring to in his post above.
http://abadreid.com/images/nuke.jpg
I finally realized that Harry Reid is not as stupid as I thought he was. By closing the Yucca Mountain Project, hundreds of well-paid federal government and contractor employees will be forced to seek employment outside the state of Nevada. He knows that this will add a commensurate number of houses to the already long list of houses in forecloure in Las Vegas. Therefore, he arranges for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to increase their foreclosure SWAT team in Las Vegas. He actually gets it! I trust that the voters of Nevada get it too when they go to the polls in November 2010 and vote Reid out of office.
So now the floodgates will open with South Carolina leading the way in lawsuits against the federal government. This could amount to the tune of tens of billions of dollars that WILL be payed via the taxpayers of this nation.
Sort of makes that 200 million a year price tag for continuing the license investigation (which only needed two more years) seem like a bargain!
I agree with the Wil Hylton HuffingtonPost’s article above. I can’t see HOW this administration thinks storing the waste at the individual facilities is safer (for the long term future) after reading that!
Here is the first official law suit registration by Aiken County South Carolina that brings suit against the DOE and its Energy Secretary Chu.
http://media.lasvegassun.com/media/pdfs/blogs/documents/2010/02/22/In_Re_Aiken_County_No_10-1050_Petition_2010-02-19.pdf
Also note, business leaders in Washington state are bringing suit against the DOE as reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal below (note that these litigation costs will come out of our tax dollars to the tune of tens of billions if the decisions go against the DOE):
WASHINGTON — Three business leaders from the area around the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state say they plan to file a lawsuit March 1 to stop the Obama administration from shutting down the Yucca Mountain Project.
Terminating the site would leave stranded millions of gallons of radioactive waste stored in underground tanks at Hanford, they said. The waste was to be converted to glass logs for disposal in the proposed nuclear waste repository, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
“Based on the fast track of this action to cancel the Yucca Mountain Project, we felt that a lawsuit was necessary to avoid irreparable impact to our community,” Bob Ferguson, one of the expected plaintiffs, said at a news conference in Richland, Wash.
The businessmen sent a letter last week to President Barack Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu to protest the administration’s plan to withdraw the Department of Energy’s repository construction application.
“As far as we know, they did not consult with our community, and therefore, we believe the impacts on our community and the environment have not been addressed,” Ferguson said. “They have not given any scientific reasons for their decision to circumvent the law, and there are just too many unanswered questions.”
Yup, the fines are just starting:
On Friday, Feb 26 2010, a federal court awarded Energy Northwest nearly $57 million in damages from the Energy Department for breach of contract for failing to take the utility’s spent nuclear fuel, which was to have gone to Yucca Mountain.
Looks like the tip of the iceberg. BTW, these fines come out of OUR tax dollars. Can’t even imagine how much this is going to cost us as now a precedence has been set, with many, many more utility companies to follow!