Waste dump opponents sense victory

Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Yucca Mountain

Despite the eleventh hour push by the Bush administration to advance efforts to make Yucca Mountain the dump for all of the nation’s highly radioactive nuclear waste, that plan is on its last legs, Nevada’s anti-Yucca forces said this week.

“I believe we’re on the threshold of victory,” Richard Bryan, the former U.S. senator and former governor of Nevada, said at Monday’s meeting of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Commission. Bryan is commission chairman.

One reason for his belief: At the end of this week, the state will release its barrage of reasons why Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, should remain free of nuclear waste.

State Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto on Friday is to release the list of hundreds of contentions that will be filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

“These are serious challenges that will demonstrate convincingly the flaws in the Department of Energy’s program,” said Bob Loux, longtime chief of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency. “When others outside Nevada see the seriousness of these charges, they will come to the realization that Yucca Mountain can never be licensed.”

The list notes, for example, that the state has demonstrated that the canisters that are to be filled with nuclear waste are vulnerable to corrosion from water and “have no chance of lasting more than a few hundred years.”

The Department of Energy will have 50 days to analyze and respond to the list of contentions; then Nevada has two weeks to respond to that analysis. That’s when the real debate begins.

Loux expects that an administrative law judge’s review of all of this could take up to 12 years.

“It’s a very lengthy process,” he said.

And that’s only if the new president fails to meet Nevada’s expectations.

Loux also told the commission that he has talked with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition people, and everything he “heard indicates (Obama) will keep his word on Yucca Mountain.”

“We have a new president, we have the majority leader. Obama carried Nevada, and he pledged he was going to stop it,” Loux said.

During the campaign, Obama aired a television ad that said: “Barack Obama. Opposes Opening Yucca. He’ll protect our families.”

Another encouraging sign came this month when the Surface Transportation Board, a three-member appointed panel that oversees railroad construction projects, came to Las Vegas to consider whether to allow the Energy Department to build a railroad from Caliente in Eastern Nevada to Yucca Mountain.

And although the hearing was largely regarded as a formality by opponents of the Yucca Mountain dump plan, local officials expressed surprise at the thoughtful, pointed questions the board asked.

Suddenly the hearing seemed like yet another facet of the Yucca debate that might go Nevada’s way.

So, one way or another, Loux said after Monday’s meeting, the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump appears “on its way out and down.”

Sun reporter Phoebe Sweet contributed to this article.

Discussion: 11 comments so far…

By johnevegas

12/17/08 at 5:02 a.m.

Suggest removal

"Chu, a Nobel-prize winning physicist, is the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a leading advocate of reducing greenhouse gases by developing new energy sources."

Fallon, Chu is not only an excellent choice for the role, he is not a friend of Yucca. At all! He has himself raised concerns about the project and the long term viability of storing nuclear waste at Yucca.

Nevada should be grateful we've got who we've got in Washington. Certainly the national debate does not center around Nevada and Yucca mountain. To know that the people there now are actually concerned with the issue, and that they lean in our direction politically, is a windfall for us.
By Future2012

12/17/08 at 7:43 a.m.

Suggest removal

The directors of 10 national laboratories including Steven Chu as head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California prepared an eight-page position paper on nuclear power that was forwarded to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman near the end of the summer, calling for the "licensing of the Yucca repository as a long-term measure."

The main author was Adam Cohen, deputy associate director for the Argonne National Laboratory. Cohen indicated that it is not political. The laboratory officials "are not here to pass judgment as to whether Yucca Mountain is good, bad or indifferent,"

Cohen said. "It is really science based."

So we can go with a science based decision as recommended by Chu

Or we can go with a non-science based political decision by confessed crook Bob Loux and Harry Reid.

This puts to rest the bad science trash that is put out by the anti-nuclear crowd.

The science based YMP License Application was docketed September 8, 2008.

State Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto on 12-19-2008 is to release Lobbyist and confessed crook Bob Loux's list of hundreds of contentions that will be filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Nevada opponents, if they permit an adjudication their positions on technical facts of the program should have nothing to fear from a quality review process.

The LA process continues to establish the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site, and is based on the science of the five supporting national labs and the USGS.

Are Loux, Reid and Obama really smarter than Steven Chu, the five national labs, the USGS, and the NRC to make a decision to stop the project.

If Reid gets the project tanked it will not be because of "bad science".
By rusty57

12/17/08 at 9:03 a.m.

Suggest removal

Health-wise sitting next to a chain-smoking video poker player while having a drink would be much worse than Yucca. But guess we don't really need those jobs either.
By AmosMoses

12/17/08 at 3:14 p.m.

Suggest removal

The critic's credibility will be lost as soon as anyone reads the material property specs and test results on the canister steel. It has been tested in water of 100 times the ionic value of the aquifer beneath Yucca. The corrosion tests indicate the canisters will last over one million years.
By Ardent

12/18/08 at 3:54 p.m.

Suggest removal

johnevegas:

I'd like to know your source for the assertion that Dr. Chu "is not a friend of Yucca. At all!"

I've seen an NYT article where Chu raises doubts and sounds less than enthusiastic, but that hardly merits labeling him an opponent of the Yucca Mountain Project.

A few obvious points have been noted in this and many other blogs:

(1) Chu is the head of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). As anyone can quickly determine from visiting its website, LBNL is a "U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by the University of California." In essense, Chu already works for the agency he will soon lead (the DOE), and by law (the Nuclear Waste Policy Act) the DOE must construct and operate a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. Thus, expecting him to scuttle the Yucca Mountain Project, absent any legislative directive, is tantamount to asking Chu to break the law. It is DOE's obligation, by law, to build a national repository -- end of story.

(2) LBNL is heavily invested in the Yucca Mountain Project -- at least from the perspective of laying its scientific credibility on the line. Through its Earth Sciences Division (in particular, its Hydrogeology Department), LBNL has contributed significant data, computer models and codes, and supporting reports to the Project. Much of the hydrogeologic science included in the DOE's license application for a repository comes directly from LBNL, and several of its top scientists have largely staked their careers on the work done in support of Yucca Mountain. Would Chu really throw his own lab's reputation, and that of its staff, under the bus by arbitrarily withdrawing the Yucca Mountain license application at the request of the president-elect, without allowing a fair assessment of LBNL's scientific contribution by the NRC?
By Ardent

12/18/08 at 4:10 p.m.

Suggest removal

On the subject of the contentions set to be released by the State:

There is no telling how many of these contentions will be deemed admissible by the NRC's panel(s) of judges. If you go to NRC's website and pull up examples of admissibility hearings, you find that (1) they are very strict, (2) contentions must meet several criteria to be admitted, and (3) the judges have no qualms about rejecting anyone's contention (including NRC staff's) if the criteria are not met.

And bear in mind that this is only a first hurdle: The fact that the NRC judges declare a contention admissible doesn't mean that it will be successful when adjudicated on the merits. A contention can earn admissibility to an NRC hearing and still get torn apart on technical grounds. Demonstrating regulatory compliance, adequate basis, and a reasonable argument of potential harm only gets you in the door: after that, the contention can easily go up in flames if the technical basis is lacking or shoddy.

One example that springs to mind is the State's contention involving corrosion of the waste packages, which is largely based on a flawed experiment in which the metal used to fabricate the packages was subjected to unrealistic conditions. Anything will corrode if you subject it to concentrations, pressures, or temperatures that are highly unlikely to exist in the setting of interest. At some point, you may as well argue that "a waste package would not be able to withstand temperatures on the surface of the sun." It doesn't follow, in other words, that the waste package would suffer a similar fate in a repository at Yucca Mountain.

In short, a contention like this from the State might make it through the initial vetting by NRC, but it will be torn to shreds in short order based on the scientific evidence (or the State's conspicuous lack thereof).
By johnevegas

12/18/08 at 4:19 p.m.

Suggest removal

Fallon, I don't have any concerns about the facility. You've misread my statement.

I just said Chu was no friend of the facility. I did not say he was or should be against it. My only intention was to point out that he is not cheer leading the project.

What I believe, and why I say he is a good choice, is that Chu's decisions will be made on sound science. Not rhetoric.

I'm not anti Yucca Mountain and I'm not anti-nuclear.
By marianne

12/19/08 at 2:48 a.m.

Suggest removal

WELL DONE!! to the State of Nevada for opposing the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump. Science has proved that even natural background radiation is damaging to human health. A recent German study (KiKK) has shown there is a direct link between nuclear installations and cancer - the German government has accepted this. A nuclear dump will release more radioactivity than operational nuclear power plants and the regulatory authorities have increased the 'recommended dose' rates by more than double to allow for this.
The State of Nevada's opposition to the dump is in direct contrast to our Council Leaders here in Cumbria UK. Councillors have been denied a vote on what they describe as "the most important decision they will ever take" - or should that be 'never be allowed to take!" A decade ago an enquiry found that the geology of Cumbria with its underground water channels and fissured rock was unsuitable for a nuclear dump - the only thing that has changed is the UK governments mad desire for new nuclear build which cannot go ahead with out a nuclear dump. Cumbrian Councillors don't want it - Cumbrians don't want it but we are being bribed with our own money to accept the unacceptable. GOOD ON YOU - STATE OF NEVADA!!

« Previous Ten Next Ten »

Live chat: Tuesday, noon PST; Chat with Krista Creelman; Problem Gambling Center executive director Krista Creelman will answer questions about gambling addiction from Las Vegas Sun readers from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. ... Submit question