U.S. Energy Dept. Says Nevada Nuclear Site Promising

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Tuesday December 22 12:19 AM ET 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy said 
Friday that Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert was a ''promising'' 
site for becoming the nation's permanent nuclear waste repository, 
pending more research on its safety.  

DOE released its first detailed analysis on the potential waste site 
in a long-awaited viability assessment. The agency said that if it 
were eventually approved, the site would cost some $19 billion to 
build and monitor.  

``DOE believes that Yucca Mountain remains a promising site for a 
geologic repository and that work should proceed to support a 
decision in 2001 on whether to recommend the site to the 
president for development as a repository,'' the DOE said.  

Clinton administration officials, however, said the mainly positive 
report would not change White House policy against construction 
of an interim waste site, as some Republicans and the nuclear 
industry want.  

``We are not working on a program of interim storage. We are 
committed to finding a long-term solution,'' said acting DOE civilian 
waste director Lake Barrett.  

DOE said costs for building and maintaining a permanent site 
would be covered mostly by the continued collection of a one-tenth 
of a cent per kilowatt-hour fee collected from nuclear energy 
consumers.  

Sen. Frank Murkowski, Republican of Alaska and chairman of the 
Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, called the release 
of the viability assessment a ``step forward,'' but said nothing was 
currently being done to move more than 30,000 metric tons of 
waste sitting at reactors across the country.  

``I again underscore the necessity of an interim storage facility. 
DOE has used as its excuse for inaction that the viability 
assessment has yet to be completed, Today we have received this 
assessment, and it indicates that Yucca Mountain is a promising 
site,'' Murkowski said in a statement.  

By calling it ``promising,'' the agency rejected pleas from 
environmental groups to disqualify Yucca Mountain. Those groups 
have cited research showing that groundwater could be 
contaminated by radioactive waste during the thousands of years 
the nuclear fuel would remain highly radioactive.  

``We object to the content of the report for its optimistic 
conclusions...It is time for the DOE to stop the show and disqualify 
Yucca Mountain,'' said a statement signed by more than 100 
environmental and consumer organizations.  

For the site to be recommended, the agency said it must still 
demonstrate that a repository can be designed and built at Yucca 
Mountain that would protect the public and the environment.  

The waste site would become the home for some 70,000 metric 
tons of spent radioactive fuel rods from nuclear power plants, and 
additional waste from production of nuclear weapons.  

Currently, around 38,000 tons of spent fuel is being stored at more 
than 70 commercial nuclear power plants across the country, 
pending the resolution of a dispute over when the federal 
government must remove the waste for storage.  

A coalition of states and nuclear utilities charge that a 1982 law 
ordered the DOE to start disposing of spent nuclear fuel no later 
than Jan. 31, 1998, and say the viability study clears the way for 
building an interim waste site.  

Last month, the Supreme Court let stand a U.S. appeals court 
ruling that refused to force the DOE to start taking waste, but did 
allow utilities to seek compensation for costs related to the storage 
of spent fuel at their facilities.  

The DOE said uncertainties remained about key natural processes 
in the Yucca Mountain region, and over preliminary design plans. 
The agency said environmental impact assessments would be 
conducted in the next two years before the final  
recommendation in 2001. 

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -
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