Nevada officials wary of waste alternatives

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, May 17, 2001 | 11:06 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush today unveiled his sweeping new national energy policy, which included recommendations for developing nuclear waste treatment technologies, including transmutation and reprocessing.

However, those technologies do not erase the need to bury waste permanently at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the 163-page document said.

"While this approach does not obviate the need for geologic disposal of nuclear waste, it could significantly optimize the use of a geologic repository," the eight-chapter report said.

Nevada lawmakers appreciated the plan's mention of waste treatment alternatives, but said the strategy doesn't go far enough to scrap the Yucca proposal.

If Congress could support developing technologies that treat waste to make it less toxic, or to recycle, that would at least delay plans to ship waste from reactor storage areas to Yucca Mountain as early as 2010, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said.

"What this does for us is it maybe delays (Yucca) for another 30 or 40 years," Ensign said. "If we get people to go along with accelerator technologies, that means they have to advocate on-site, dry-cask storage."

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said Bush could end up rethinking Yucca Mountain.

"We're certainly excited about the idea that the administration is showing an interest in new technology," Gibbons said. "I think we've now got the door open."

Nevada lawmakers are wary of the plan's proposal to increase nuclear power because that would mean more waste.

"If they need support on nuclear power, they won't get it from Nevada if they don't come up with an option to Yucca Mountain," Ensign said. "At least not from this senator."

Still, Nevada's Republican lawmakers generally praised Bush for creating a comprehensive energy plan.

"The reality is we have to increase supply and become less dependent on foreign oil," Ensign said. "There are no quick fixes."

But Democrats had scathing reaction to the Bush plan. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said Bush's commitment to Yucca signaled a "disaster for Nevada." She said his mentions of treating or recycling waste were throw-away "ornaments" in the plan.

"What they are saying is 'We're going to dump all the waste at Yucca Mountain and then maybe we'll dabble a little in researching these other technologies,' " Berkley said.

In general, Berkley harshly criticized the Bush plan for encouraging drilling on "pristine" lands and lacking "serious" tax credits and research money for renewable energies like wind, solar and geothermal energy.

"Nevada should be the epicenter for that type of research in this nation," Berkley said.

The energy plan calls for 1,300 to 1,900 new plants to be built in the next 20 years. It does not specify how many should be nuclear. The nation's 103 nuclear reactors produce 20 percent of America's electricity.

The report said that much has changed since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, which raised public anxiety over nuclear power and increased regulations on power plants. No plants have been ordered since 1973.

Since then, safer plant designs have been approved and safety technology has advanced, the report said.

The strategy proposes to increase production by:

* Making current nuclear plants more efficient.

* Making it easier for aging plants to renew their licences.

* Expediting licensing procedures for new plants.

* Adding new reactors on sites where reactors already exist.

* Developing a permanent waste repository.

The Department of Energy has invested 14 years of research and $7 billion studying Yucca Mountain, the only site under consideration to be a national burial ground for 77,000 tons of waste. Yucca would be the first repository of its kind.

"The administration will continue to study the science to determine whether to proceed with the consideration of this site as the location for the repository," the report said. "No waste will be sent to any location until the (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) determines it to be safe."

Earlier this month Vice President Dick Cheney agreed to meet for a 15-minute discussion with Ensign and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who asked Cheney to consider options to Yucca Mountain.

Whether a consequence of the meeting, Bush officials seem ready to consider transmutation and reprocessing to help clear the way for a new era of nuclear power plants.

Transmutation is an expensive and undeveloped technology that involves breaking waste down into a less harmful form through a process of bombarding it with neutrons.

Although the report recommends the United States should develop "fuel treatment technologies that are cleaner, more efficient, less waste-intensive and more proliferation-resistant," Bush's budget did not include money for transmutation research.

Bush also recommends reviewing a national policy that bans reprocessing waste, most of which is in solid form -- bundles of 14-foot rods full of radioactive uranium pellets. That involves hauling the waste to reprocessing plants where it would be recycled into new fuel. France, Britain and Japan reprocess waste.

Reprocessing, or "recycling," involves recovering plutonium, a key component of atom bombs. President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s was worried the plutonium could fall into the wrong hands and effectively banned reprocessing.

Carter's decision left nuclear waste piling up at nuclear reactors.

The report does not direct more specific direction or make budgeting recommendations for developing transmutation or reprocessing.

The nuclear energy industry strongly backs developing Yucca as a permanent dump for its waste. But industry officials are open to transmutation and reprocessing, a spokeswoman said today.

"Any type of technology that would beneifit the continued use of nuclear technologies, not just nuclear power, is a good thing," Nuclear Energy Institute spokeswoman Thelma Wiggins said. But Yucca "is still needed."

Environmental groups oppose most of Bush's plans, including reprocessing and the Yucca plan.

"Reading between the lines, we can see that the administration intends to put its weight behind opening Yucca Mountain," Public Citizen's Lisa Gue said.

Cheney this week told the Associated Press, "The Yucca Mountain is the one that's most, that's farthest along and most advanced ... It's been drawn out for a long time, and if we want to promote the use of nuclear energy, then clearly we've got to address the waste question and get it resolved."

Environmentalists, taxpayer groups and leading Democrats have been quick to criticize the energy plan, drafted by a Cheney task force.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has led some Democratic criticism. Earlier this week he told the Los Angeles Times it was a "recipe for disaster."

Cheney was a "stalwart advocate" of subsidies and tax incentives for energy companies during his days in Congress, said Taxpayers for Common Sense, a U.S. budget watchdog group that analyzed his voting record.

"The Vice President has never found a giveaway to big energy that he didn't like," said Cena Swisher, the organization's director.

Cheney in an interview this week denied giving too much consideration to energy industry recommendations.

Environmentalists will spend more money battling the energy plan than they have ever spent because so much is at stake, National Environmental Trust president Phil Clapp said this week.

"What they are assembling is an all-out attack on environmental protections," Clapp said.