Re: Write Your Senator

[muckerheide@highway1.com (James Muckerheide)]

The following notes should be considered in judging the merit of S.104:

>Date: Wed, 02 Apr 97 09:30:09 >From: "HARRY PEMBERTON" <pemberhe@songs.sce.com>
>
>       SanOnofreNuclearGenertingStation employees now have another
> opportunity to help ensure the continued success of the company and
> the future of SanOnofre.
>
>    On April 8, 1997, the United States Senate will vote on S. 104, the
>    Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997.  You are encouraged to write a
>    short, simple message to your Senator (Diane Feinstein/Barbara Boxer)
>    requesting their support of this bill.  Although there is support on
>    Capital Hill for this legislation, we must work to help ensure passage
>    with at least 67 votes to override an anticipated presidential veto.
>
>    Support of S. 104 is good for our industry for these reasons:
>
>    o   Utilities are running out of storage space because the DOE
>        has not kept their promise to begin taking fuel by 1998.
>        27 nuclear units will run out of on-site storage space by
>        1998, and it would cost consumers an additional $7 billion to
>        expand on-site storage.

A utility out of storage space is hopelessly incompetent. Argue that
storage space after 1998 should be paid from ratepayer waste fee funds
for no net cost. In fact there should be lower cost than having DOE do
it, unless DOE wants to compete for the funds to store fuel at existing
DOE sites. To depend on DOE even with the legislation demonstrates
hopeless ignorance.

>    o   Central storage in a remote area is a sensible approach that
>        is good for the environment.

Crap. Lying crap. NO environmental risks can be associated with leaving
fuel in dry storage at reactor sites, or other decentralized sites. The
fuel carried and burned to transport wastes to Yucca Mountain
constitutes an orders of magnitude greater "environmental cost" from
routine or accident considerations than leaving the fuel at local sites.

>    o   Consumers have already paid $13 billion through a tax on
>        nuclear generated electricity in return for the government
>        to manage used nuclear fuel.  Further delays will cost
>        consumers billions of dollars.

Right. The correct argument is that those funds, and continuing 0.1
cents/kWh ratepayer funds, be allocated to fund dry storage. The cost is
far lower than the cost of implementing the proposed legislation to have
DOE accept spent fuel at Yucca Mountain, even if DOE were competent and
willing to do it!

>    A short handwritten or typed note from you, your families and friends
>    is all that is needed.  You can also call the U.S. Capital switchboard
>    at (212) 224-3121.  Tell your Senators it is important that they vote
>    for the bill, and thank them for their support.  Address your letters
>    to:

Tell the Senators that a vote for the bill will further assure the
demise of nuclear energy in America. Perhaps that will get Boxer to vote
for it. Is Feinstein as bad?

>    The Honorable (Senator's name)
>    U.S. Senate
>    Washington, DC  20510
>
>    Thanks to your efforts in the past, we have been successful in
>    impacting the decisions of our lawmakers through the communication
>    process.  I urge you to take a few minutes and write your Senator.

I do too! :-)  But consider the difference between what's good for
nuclear energy and the country vs what's good for the utilities and
their executive managers. They'll be well off when nuclear professionals
are walking the streets or wasting $billions "cleaning up"
decommissioned plants, sentencing our children and grandchildren to a
weak economy and a world at war over gas and oil, in a world with
population growing by the total US population (263 million) every 3
years! with growing economies, especially China, compounding that in the
demand for oil, and with US gas/electricity prices skyrocketing once the
nukes are shut down - a campaign that's succeeding, with people like
O'Leary at the forefront, and utilities abandoning any social
responsibility for the country and economy.

> Re "Support for Nuclear Waste Legislation" - an "anti-nuclear" bill:
> 
> Alternative message to your Senator:
> 
> S.104 will damage nuclear energy and nuclear technology in the US:
> 
> Attempting to send all nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain assures that a lightning
> rod is provided to the anti-nuclear activists for at least the next decade.
> Attempting to send all nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain will result in some US
> version of the 30,000 police and national guard force that escorts wastes to
> the disposal site in Germany. The anti-nuclear campaign to be implemented thru
> "43 states at risk" will destroy any potential to reconsider nuclear energy in
> the US. The proposal could not be a more perfect fit to the desires of the
> anti-nuclear interests.
> 
> Attempting to send all spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain reinforces the
> falacious idea that the fuel is a significant hazard. It reinforces the idea
> that the materials must be sequestered under conditions and at costs that are
> indicative of the storage and control of live bubonic plague viruses instead
> of the insignificant risks of materials that, in any release scenario, are not
> substantially different than natural radioactivity sources and millions of
> radiopharmaceutical packages routinely transported, with any accidents readily
> managed with no public health or safety risk under any release scenario. The
> proposal fits the message and mission of the anti-nuclear interests about the
> high risks and higher costs of using nuclear energy to generate electricity.
> It meets only the needs of utilities who are equivalently anti-nuclear in the
> interest of eliminating nuclear commitments at any short-term and/or long-term
> cost to the ratepayer and society.
> 
> Attempting to send all nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain implies that the
> material is a "waste" rather than a valuable energy resource that must and
> will eventually be recovered for its enormous energy values. It took coal
> about 75 years to be allowed after being forbidden, until England was denuded
> of trees, and the steam engine came along. The proposal perfectly fits the
> message and mission of the anti-nuclear interests, including many current
> utility interests.
> 
> Proposing to send all fuel to Yucca Mountain ignores the fact that dry storage
> at reactor sites is a simple, safe, and cost-effective, solution to spent fuel
> storage, now implemented at a number of sites.
> 
> Proposing to send all fuel to Yucca Mountain ignores the fact that DOE has
> 100s of surplus sites/facilities around the country that are sufficiently well
> characterized to readily accept dry storage containers if there is any reason
> for the fuel to be removed from a reactor site, eg the Yankee Rowe site, but
> only if they are more cost-effective than leaving the fuel at reactor sites.
> DOD has missile silo sites and hundreds of additional sites that are being
> decommissioned at enormous cost, and many other surplus and operational
> Federal sites are perfectly suitable for the little space and limited
> activities, and non-existent risk, of intermediate-term dry storage.
> 
> Proposing to send all fuel to Yucca Mountain sends more $billions of
> rate-payer, NOT utility, funds down the DOE rat-hole. Dry storage at reactor
> sites should be funded from the DOE waste fund, but implemented by the utility
> with the utility's ability to manage a cost-effective project, unless DOE can
> firmly commit to take the fuel at a DOE-managed site/project for less cost.
> Utilities that commit to on-site storage should recover revenues by ceasing
> waste fund payments from its ratepayers in addition to any return of DOE waste
> funds, until all dry storage costs are covered, removing any DOE management of
> such funds.
> 
> Making DOE responsible for anything regarding nuclear waste management is a
> culpable failure of the fiduciary responsibility of any elected official on
> behalf of the citizens of the US. Any member of a Corporate Board who voted to
> send funds to an organization with the performance record of DOE OCRWM would
> appropriately be sentenced to a long Federal prison term.
> 
> Does anybody want to go on?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Regards, Jim Muckerheide
> jmuckerheide@delphi.com
>