Porter urged to get full picture on nuclear waste in France

By Lisa Mascaro (contact)

Sunday, Jan. 6, 2008 | midnight

WASHINGTON -- The idea is so attractive: Rather than send the nation's used nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, recycle it. Use it again and again, just like a plastic water bottle, until it can be thrown away.

Recycling makes sense to Americans who are increasingly conscious of separating their trash into bins. Reprocessing waste could solve so many issues at once. It could slow the rush for Yucca Mountain while positioning nuclear power as an alternative to coal plants that are blamed for global warming.

If you can cut greenhouse gases and protect Nevada from becoming the nation's nuclear waste dump, all by putting spent fuel into the recycling bin instead of Yucca Mountain, why not?

Nevada Republican Rep. Jon Porter is intrigued by the concept. Porter leaves today for France, part of a four-member congressional delegation of Republican lawmakers that will survey the French facility that is a world leader in nuclear reprocessing.

Porter believes that with nuclear gaining in popularity over coal as a key energy source, “there's going to be a lot more pressure put on Yucca Mountain.”

“We need more solar, we need more geothermal, we need more wind, but those are not consistent alternatives,” Porter said. “We have to find some solutions fast.”

Seventy percent of France's power is nuclear, compared with 20 percent in this country. The French have built an industry on nuclear waste reprocessing and the Areva company's La Hague center south of Paris is a model in the field.

Steady streams of American lawmakers have visited the site and come back converts. The Energy Department under the Bush administration has been pursuing efforts to develop a reprocessing facility, a first since this country abandoned its reprocessing efforts decades ago.

These congressional trips worry Edwin Lyman, who follows nuclear issues at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington.

Lyman is among many scientists skeptical of the French experience. Washington halted the United States' research into reprocessing in the 1970s because of the potential proliferation of nuclear materials into enemy hands.

Lyman believes that when lawmakers arrive in France they are shown how the most toxic forms of waste indeed have been condensed into small volumes for disposal.

But what they aren't shown are vast quantities of reprocessed fuel that remain in storage for future use. That fuel requires enhancements so costly that it is cheaper for France to buy freshly mined uranium. Until the reprocessed fuel is actually used in nuclear plants, France will continue to have waste storage problems much like those in the United States, he said.

“It really angers me when I hear about these dog-and-pony shows,” Lyman said.

Lyman hopes Porter and the other members of Congress ask about the reprocessed uranium storage, saying if they saw the scope of what remains, the achievement “wouldn't look like a big deal.”

Nevadans should pay attention to the reprocessing debate, he said, because if the technology were used in this country it could hasten, not halt, development of Yucca Mountain. If the waste's toxicity is reduced, more of it can be stored in Yucca Mountain, as the Energy Department would like to do.

“It's really going to come back and bite Nevada in the tail,” Lyman said.

Porter's mind is not made up. He supports nuclear power as a clean energy source. The group heading to France on the taxpayer-funded trip will continue on to Azerbaijan and Turkey into next week to tour the region's vast oil and gas operations. But it's France's nuclear operations that will be Porter's focus.

“We can't hide our head in Yucca Mountain when there's new possible technologies around the world,” Porter said. “Is this the answer? I don't know. But we're sure going to find out.”

Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com.