Reid pushes nuke waste option

Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2002 | 12:01 p.m.

As Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham closes in on his recommended solution to the problem of nuclear waste -- burying it deep under a Nevada mountain -- two influential senators are throwing their weight behind technology that would reduce the danger and amount of the waste.

Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., are working to fund a process that would transform radioactive waste into less toxic material that could be used, for example, in medical research.

The two obtained $50 million -- half of what they requested -- to pay the Energy Department to research advanced accelerator technology this year. Reid vows to continue fighting for research money.

The senators say the technology may provide an alternative to burying 77,000 tons of waste in a repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Abraham informed Gov. Kenny Guinn last week that he would recommend the repository to President Bush, probably next month.

If accelerators are proven effective, the devices could be built near nuclear reactors currently operating throughout the country, said Troy Wade, a former Nevada Test Site manager who also advises the president on nuclear issues.

Reid supports building an accelerator in New Mexico at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the Energy Department has done research into the issue. Reid opposes building it at the Nevada Test Site.

Reid would oppose transporting high-level nuclear waste to either site, but would support research being done on waste already at the New Mexico site, his spokesman Nathan Naylor said.

Accelerators -- which eliminate much of the radioactivity from spent fuel -- could reduce the time radioactive waste is considered dangerous from a million years to less than 1,000, scientists say. Federal law requires a Yucca Mountain repository to contain the radioactivity for 10,000 years.

The process would not eliminate the need for a repository, and the radioactive waste would be reduced to 7,700 tons, the experts said.

Unless accelerators are built at nuclear sites, the problem of transportation will remain. Still, while Nevada's political leaders have lined up against Yucca Mountain, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and other state officials also have joined Reid as vocal advocates of funding for waste accelerator research.

"Many of these technologies are at this moment still in their infancies," Naylor said. "That is why we need to continue to invest in them. ...

"Accelerator technology is not a silver bullet to the waste problem."

The Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is a less likely candidate, because the DOE's primary mission there is to experiment with nuclear weapons, Wade said.

However, not all DOE scientists consider spent nuclear fuel as waste. If Bush is serious about supporting nuclear power as part of a national energy policy, the waste should not be buried, they say.

Accelerators don't wait for nature to reduce radiation, said Anthony Hechanova, director of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' accelerator research program.

"In an accelerator, we make it radiate in a snap," he said, noting that dangerous radioactivity lasting tens of thousands of years lasts for only a few days if processed through an accelerator.

During a national meeting Tuesday of the Advanced Accelerator Applications Program, DOE officials said an accelerator that could reduce toxic radioactivity in nuclear waste by 95 percent could be built for $1.1 billion. The earliest an accelerator could be built is 2003, when funding would become available. The design phase could begin with about $50 million, DOE officials said.

To supply more funds, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., is re-introducing a bill -- first introduced last year -- that would allow the DOE to use ratepayer contributions totaling $11 billion for Yucca Mountain study and construction to be shared with accelerator research. Congress set up the special nuclear waste fund in 1987.

"This project is of critical interest to Nevadans and the congressional delegation," UNLV Vice Provost Stephen Rice said.

The DOE this year will concentrate on research, rather than designing an accelerator, John Herczeg, DOE director of the Advanced Accelerator Applications Program, said.

Accelerator advocates are preparing a report to Congress, which is due in May.

"It's 21st century technology," DOE consultant Thomas Ward said.

Sun reporter Benjamin Grove, who covers Washington for the Sun, contributed to this story.