Nuclear expert’s position criticized

Thursday, Jan. 30, 2003 | 9:15 a.m.

More than a year after a nuclear waste advisory board chairman spoke in favor of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, his university received a $1.97 million Energy Department grant.

President Bush appointed Michael L. Corradini as head of the independent Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board last year. The board is regarded by many as an independent, tough technical panel that has questioned the Energy Department's work at Yucca Mountain for more than a decade.

However, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has called for Corradini's resignation, questioning whether the 11-member board can remain independent.

Reid and other Nevada officials oppose the Yucca repository, which would store the nation's high-level nuclear waste.

Corradini is chairman of the engineering physics department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He conducted a board meeting in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

In October, the Energy Department announced a five-year grant to the University of Wisconsin and three other schools.

In addition to testifying at a Senate Energy Committee hearing on July 18, 2001, Corradini is listed as an expert by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm of the nuclear industry.

Corradini has said that he would act as an independent scientist on the review board.

"There is not much left to quarrel about at Yucca Mountain," Corradini said, quoting former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who called the site "safe and solid."

Corradini said the funds would help nuclear engineering students by upgrading the university's nuclear research reactor.

"We're buying new instruments and developing new training facilities," Corradini said.

"I think nuclear power will be a big player in the world of energy," Corradini said in the university's newspaper. "So will nuclear engineers."