Democrats should rethink position on nuclear waste
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 12:36 AM PST
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The next administration and new, more Democratic Congress will have to reassess their stated opposition to the proposed nuclear waste repository near Nevada’s Yucca Mountain if they are to develop a sensible energy policy. The campaign rhetoric that helped them turn Nevada blue in last week’s election would pretty much rule out an expansion of nuclear power — something President-elect Obama and most members of Congress have conceded must be part of any plan to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
The fact is, commercial utilities cannot be expected to construct new nuclear reactors until they have some assurance that the federal government will honor its promise to take possession of radioactive waste that has accumulated at existing reactors. Right now, there are tens of thousands of tons of commercial nuclear waste scattered around the country at 131 sites. This includes 4,700 tons of spent fuel rods currently stored at the idled Trojan Nuclear Plant near Rainier.
The radioactive waste continues to accumulate — at the rate of some 2,000 tons a year — at the nation’s 104 active commercial reactors. The U.S. Department of Energy said last week that it will urge Congress to either approve a significant expansion of the proposed Nevada repository or allow the DOE to begin looking for a second site to bury nuclear waste. Edward Sproat, head of the agency’s civilian nuclear waste program, said that, within two years, the amount of waste will exceed the 77,000 tons the Yucca Mountain project is designed to store. If development of the Yucca Mountain repository is allowed to proceed, the facility wouldn’t be ready to receive shipments of waste until 2020 at the earliest.
Any talk of scrapping the Yucca Mountain project and looking for another site or simply reneging on the government’s obligation to take possession of the waste is irresponsible. It ignores serious strategic, economic and policy consequences that surely would follow. Strategically, it is important that this radioactive waste be shipped to one central, secure site. Economically, failing to take possession of the waste would be very costly. The federal government is contractually obligated to secure the waste. Reneging on that obligation would leave the government liable to commercial utilities for at least $60 billion in damages. In terms of energy policy, it would pretty much rule out the construction of new commercial reactors.
Most members of Congress seem to understand that assigning this environmentally friendly source of power a larger role in the nation’s energy future is only sensible. There now is little basis for the popular fear triggered by the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Nuclear plants can be operated safely. Indeed, nuclear power provides nearly 80 percent of France’s electricity needs. By comparison, commercial reactors generate only 20 percent of U.S. electricity.
What members of Congress do not appear to understand is that the dawn of a new era of nuclear power is contingent upon the federal government honoring its pledge to take possession of the waste left over from the previous era. That must change.
Diesel wrote on Nov 11, 2008 10:03 AM:
newpapyrus wrote on Nov 11, 2008 12:21 PM:
Secondly, there is no logical reason to simply throw away spent fuel since it contains potentially useful fuels in the form of plutonium 239 and the remaining fissile uranium 235.
Since the federal government is ultimately responsible for spent fuel from nuclear reactors, the fairest and most logical way to deal with it is for the federal government to offer to build and secure above ground central radioactive waste repositories within the states that are currently producing radioactive waste designed to house radioactive material up to 200 years until either reprocessing or eventual permanent out of state deposition or transmutation.
If states don't want such temporary federal repositories built within their states then the federal government should continue to allow the on site storage of spent fuel at current nuclear facilities while allowing the state utilities to charge the state governments instead of the federal government for the cost of doing so!
Marcel F. Williams
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/08/short-long-term-solutions-to-nuclear.html "
Bmused wrote on Nov 13, 2008 12:14 PM:
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