US delays plan to seek permit for nuclear waste site

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET>]

Index:



US delays plan to seek permit for nuclear waste site

Lithuania may decide this week on nuclear plant shutdown date

Yucca Foe's Aide Gets Nuclear Panel Post

NRC Panel To Hear Vt. Yankee Nuclear Power Boost Request

================================



US delays plan to seek permit for nuclear waste site



WASHINGTON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Monday 

delayed its plan to file an application to build a nuclear waste dump 

in the Nevada desert, citing an unresolved court case and budget 

questions.



The Energy Department had planned to apply to the Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission by the end of December for a permit to build a massive 

underground storage depot beneath Yucca Mountain about 90 miles (150 

km) northwest of Las Vegas.



"We're revising that original goal," Energy Department spokesman 

Joseph Davis said. "We don't anticipate significant delays, even 

though we have not nailed down a hard date."



The administration wants to open the repository in 2010, but recent 

delays call into question the timetable for the plan to store 77,000 

tons (70,000 metric tons) of waste from 103 U.S. nuclear power 

reactors.



"Everything hasn't gone according to plan," Davis said. "There are 

some outstanding issues we've got to deal with."



The department must weigh a court decision ordering it to prevent 

radiation leaks for more than 10,000 years, as well as budget 

constraints, Davis said.



The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in July 

rejected Nevada's attempt to block the plan on constitutional 

grounds.



But the court also said the administration wrongly ignored a 

recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences to ensure safety 

from leaks for well beyond 10,000 years. Radioactive releases could 

peak in 300,000 years and the administration must assure safeguards 

on that scale, it said.



There are also budget concerns.



Some opponents of Yucca in Congress, including new Senate Democratic 

Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, have tried to choke the project through 

the appropriations process.



Congress on Saturday approved a $388 billion spending bill for 

federal government programs that set aside $577 million to fund 

Yucca, equal to current levels but short of the $880 million sought 

by the Energy Department.



Spent fuel from the nation's nuclear plants -- which suppklies about 

20 percent of U.S. electricity -- is piling up, with over 50,000 tons 

(45,500 tonnes) of it stored at over 100 temporary locations in 39 

states.

---------------------



Lithuania may decide this week on nuclear plant shutdown date



VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) - The Lithuanian government is expected to 

decide this week the date it will close the first unit of its 

Ignalina nuclear power plant.



Rymantas Juozaitis, chief executive of Lietuvos Energija, the energy 

company that oversees Lithuania's only nuclear reactor, said the 

decision could come as soon as this week, but didn't say when.



Arturas Dainius, of the Economy Ministry, told Baltic News Service 

that a draft decision on the closing date had been given to the 

government, but didn't say what date the plant would be closed.



Under its entry deal with the EU, Lithuania must shut down Unit 1 of 

the Ignalina nuclear power plant before 2005 and Unit 2 by the end of 

2009. Slovakia has to shut down Unit 1 of its Bohunice power plant by 

the end of 2006 and Unit 2 by the end of 2008.



The Ignalina plant is Lithuania's only nuclear reactor, and is 

similar in type as those at Chernobyl in Ukraine, site of the world's 

worst nuclear accident in 1986.



In September, the European Commission set aside about 1 billion 

(US$1.2 billion) in EU funding to pay for the closure of the four 

Soviet-era nuclear reactors in Lithuania and Slovakia.



While the majority of the proposed money will cover technical aspects 

of shutting down the plants, money is also allocated for retraining 

of plant workers and securing alternative energy supplies.

---------------------



Yucca Foe's Aide Gets Nuclear Panel Post



WASHINGTON (AP) - In a deal to let 175 of President Bush's nominees 

take office, an adviser to new Democratic leader Harry Reid, the 

Senate's staunchest opponent of a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, will 

be named to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.



For months Senate Republicans had refused to take up, or even hold a 

hearing, on the nomination of Gregory Jaczko, Reid's adviser on 

nuclear issues.



In turn, Reid, who has pledged to try to kill the Yucca Mountain 

nuclear waste project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, had blocked 

the Bush nominations.



In negotiations just before Congress recessed during the weekend, an 

agreement was worked out: the White House promised Jaczko would be 

appointed to a limited two-year term while Congress was in recess, 

and Reid lifted his hold on the package of Bush nominations, which 

zipped through the Senate.



Also, it was agreed that a Republican nominee to the NRC, retired 

Navy Vice Admiral Albert H. Konetzni, would be put on the commission 

and probably would become its chairman late next year.



The White House already had sent Konetzni's nomination to the Senate 

this month hoping to resolve an impasse that had kept the president's 

nominations in congressional limbo. Among them were senior positions 

across the executive branch and at such entities as Amtrak, the 

Social Security Administration and the judiciary.



Some Republicans and executives in the nuclear industry had opposed 

Jaczko's nomination bitterly, fearing that he would work to further 

Reid's desire to kill the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project.



The NRC is expected to begin considering a license for the facility 

next year. Under the compromise reached on the NRC nominations, 

Jaczko agreed not to participate in any Yucca Mountain related 

matters for the first year of his two-year term.



The licensing process is expected to take at least three years once 

an application is received from the Energy Department next year. 

Margaret Chu, director of the DOE office that heads the Yucca 

program, recently informed regulators the department would not meet a 

Dec. 31 target to submit a license application, officials said 

Monday. It had been widely believed the target would be missed 

because of financing problems and adverse court decisions involving 

radiation standards.



Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who opposed Jaczko's nomination, said he 

was comfortable with the arrangement after, he said, the White House 

assured him Jaczko would not be renominated by the president after 

his two years.



A Reid spokeswoman, Tessa Hafen, said that the agreement "in no way 

prohibits (Jaczko) from being renominated."



By law three of the five commissioners at the NRC must be of the same 

party as the president. The commission currently has two Republican 

and one Democratic member.



Jaczko, a physicist who joined Reid's staff in 2001 as a nuclear 

adviser, did not return telephone calls to his office Monday.



"Greg is eminently qualified to serve as a commissioner. He is a 

scientist first and has the background and experience necessary to 

evaluate information objectively," Reid said in a statement.



Domenici and 15 other Republican senators informed Senate Majority 

Leader Bill Frist that it would be impossible to confirm Jaczko 

without senators first having the opportunity to question him at a 

formal hearing.



"A nominee as controversial as Greg Jaczko will not be confirmed ... 

for the sake of political expedience," said Domenici. An appointment 

to a post while Congress is in recess does not require Senate 

confirmation but is good for only the length of the congressional 

session, which is two years. A normal NRC appointment is for five 

years.

------------------



NRC Panel To Hear Vt. Yankee Nuclear Power Boost Request



BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP)--A Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel will 

hold its first-ever public hearing on a nuclear plant's request to 

increase power - a hearing that will focus on Vermont Yankee in 

Vernon.



"It's unique," said David O'Brien, commissioner of the state's 

Department of Public Service, after Monday's announcement by the 

Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.



In a decision issued late Monday afternoon, the quasi-judicial board 

said it found grounds in two issues raised by the DPS and in two 

issues raised by the anti-nuclear group New England Coalition.



Vermont Yankee will have operated 33 years in March, leaving seven 

years on its current operating license. It is one of the nation's 

older plants, and no nuclear plant owner has asked for a power 

increase larger than the 20% boost sought by Vermont Yankee owner 

Entergy Nuclear (ETR).



The state, whose attorneys argued last month in preliminary hearings 

in Brattleboro that such a review was needed, had raised seven areas 

of concern about Entergy Nuclear's plans to boost Yankee's power. The 

Atomic Safety and Licensing Board accepted two, O'Brien said.



"The NRC says we are asking valuable questions," he said. "They would 

not grant a hearing otherwise."



The state had argued that Entergy's redesign of its Vernon reactor 

would make it less reliable in case of an accident because it 

eliminated one level of safety - in this case, the emergency core 

cooling pumps.



The state's other contention that was accepted for further review 

dealt with Entergy's calculations about the pressure in the reactor's 

containment in the event of an accident.



"We're not here to shut down Vermont Yankee," O'Brien said. "Our goal 

is to make sure that it's safe. What we want to accomplish in these 

hearing is that the public health and safety is being conserved," he 

said.



Raymond Shadis of the New England Coalition said late Monday 

afternoon he was unaware of the decision and he declined comment 

until he had a chance to study it.



NEC's concerns that warrant a closer look include safety concerns 

about the seismic integrity of the plant's wooden cooling towers.



Entergy spokesman Laurence Smith said the company's attorneys were 

studying the decision and that he could not comment.



Entergy, which had opposed both the state's and the coalition's 

requests for a full hearing, has 10 days to appeal the decision.



-------------------------------------

Sandy Perle

Senior Vice President, Technical Operations

Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.

2652 McGaw Avenue

Irvine, CA 92614 



Tel: (949) 296-2306 / (888) 437-1714  Extension 2306

Fax:(949) 296-1902 



E-Mail: sperle@dosimetry.com

E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 



Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/ 

Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/ 



************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To

unsubscribe, send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the

text "unsubscribe radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail,

with no subject line. You can view the Radsafe archives at

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/