Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham in February released the Department of Energy's FY 04 budget request to Congress. The FY 04 request is $591 million for the repository program.
However, a significant change from the FY 04 budget is a proposal to eliminate oversight funding provided to the State of Nevada and the affected units of local government (AULG).
According to Abraham, if Congress goes along with the request, this funding level will enable the Energy Department to complete the work needed for a December 2004 license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and develop transportation capabilities needed to initiate repository operations by 2010.
Abraham also disclosed the Bush administration intends to propose a change in congressional accounting that would allow lawmakers to increase Yucca spending by substantial amounts without violating their budget rules.
The plan would remove accounting restrictions on segments of the Yucca budget, allowing larger sums to be expended from the Treasury and the Nuclear Waste Fund, a special fund paid by utilities.
Ironically, President Bush unveiled the FY 2004 federal budget eliminating the oversight funds less than a week after DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Director, Margaret Chu, represented to an assemblage of State of Nevada and local government officials that "a new day" was dawning at DOE.
Chu spent much of her visit to Nevada pitching the energy department’s commitment to increase cooperation and enhance involvement between the Energy Department and affected governments. Despite extensive discussion of the FY 2004 budget, Chu conveniently neglected to mention that her agency had already decided to eliminate all oversight funds.
After the budget was unveiled, Chu did say that since the Yucca program has moved into licensing and transportation, "we want to work with local governments to revise their work plans to reflect this new phase." She said new local funding could grow from the talks.
However, by eliminating AULG funds for independent oversight, DOE will now be able to pick and choose which entities it wishes to fund and potentially eliminate those that might disagree with or criticize DOE activities.
Bob Loux, the head of Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects, questioned the legality of the Energy Department action. Loux said the state is supposed to receive Yucca grants until a repository is licensed.
The proposed budget action would essentially cripple state and local oversight programs at the very time when DOE is poised to make critical and potentially devastating decisions related to spent fuel and high-level waste transportation and storage in Nevada.
Elimination of the oversight funds also will affect the ability of AULG to intervene in any NRC licensing proceedings, thereby reducing the Energy Department’s burden of proving that Yucca Mountain is and will continue to be a suitable site for containing the nation's deadliest waste.
Sources: FY 2004 Congressional Budget; Yucca Mountain Update, 2-11-03; Steve Tetreault, Stephens Washington Bureau, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2-4-03
Because of the potential risks posed by military aircraft operations conducted near the Skull Valley site, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, an independent judicial arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has blocked for now the issuance of a license to the Private Fuel Storage consortium (PFS) to build a spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Utah.
The proposed above ground facility is intended to temporarily house the waste fuel from the nation’s nuclear power plants that is eventually destined for a permanent storage facility (currently envisioned at Yucca Mountain.)
The PFS facility would be located on the Reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
Formal hearings were held in mid-2002 in which the Licensing Board received evidence on a number of issues challenging the PFS proposal, including the likelihood of an F-16 (a single-engine military jet) crashing into the facility. The State of Utah, the proposal’s principal opponent, said the site was unsuitable because it would sit under the airway that pilots use to fly thousands of F-16s a year from Hill Air Force Base down Skull Valley to the military’s Utah Test and Training Range.
At the hearing, PFS claimed that the chances of an F-16 accidentally crashing into the facility were so minimal that taking precautions against that potential event was unnecessary. PFS relied heavily on a "pilot avoidance" theory, which predicts that Air Force pilots would almost always, before ejecting during an in-flight emergency, take steps to guide their crashing jets away from the facility. The State’s evidence led the Board to reject that theory and to rule that the PFS facility could not be licensed until the safety concern over the F-16 crash scenario is addressed.
The Licensing Board’s ruling leaves room for the facility to receive later NRC licensing approval if either:
PFS will also have the opportunity to convince the five commissioners who head the NRC to overturn the Licensing Board’s ruling on appeal.
A copy of the 220-page decision will be available from the NRC’s web site at http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/regulatory/adjudicatory/pfs-decision.pdf.
Nuclear-waste disposal programs,
including the one at Yucca Mountain, should be implemented in stages, so that
decisions about how to proceed can be based on the latest available information,
says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. The
committee that wrote the report coined the term "adaptive staging" to describe
this approach because it allows project managers to make adjustments throughout
the disposal process based on operational experience or scientific advances.
Safety, environmental, and cost concerns also can be taken into account in a
timely manner, and managers can better respond to public input. In the case of
Yucca Mountain, adaptive staging would allow the U.S. Department of Energy,
which is overseeing the project, to retain the option of reversing a decision or
action while moving forward with disposal.
"Adaptive staging focuses on cautious
progress based on continuous learning and on maintaining flexibility in the
program, rather than on meeting pre-arranged, rigid milestones," said committee
chair Charles McCombie, an independent consultant based in Switzerland. "While
this approach calls for a measured pace of advancement, it will not necessarily
delay the project."
Adaptive staging is characterized by
the simultaneous presence of seven attributes: continuous and systematic
learning, flexibility, reversibility, "auditability," transparency, integrity,
and responsiveness to public concern. The committee called the decision-making
that separates each stage of the disposal process a "decision point." At each
decision point, project managers collect and evaluate all relevant information
acquired so far and use it to develop options for the next stage. At the same
time, they re-assess the safety of the geological repository, make their
findings public, and engage in a dialogue with stakeholders. Introducing
decision points throughout the project reduces the odds of large-scale, costly
mistakes.
DOE requested the report after
recognizing the potential advantages of employing a staged development approach
at Yucca Mountain -- where the department wants to operate a geological
repository for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste, pending regulatory
approval. Some of DOE's plans are already consistent with the principles of
adaptive staging.
However, DOE's overall approach to
the Yucca project is still more "linear" than adaptive, the committee said. This
linear planning is illustrated by the department's tendency to propose
unrealistic schedules and by a lack of public involvement in some decision
processes. Furthermore, DOE's major milestones that involve interaction with
other stakeholders correspond to licensing-decision requirements, whereas
adaptive staging incorporates many more transparent decision points.
The sooner DOE adopts adaptive
staging for Yucca, the more effective this approach is likely to be, the
committee said. It urged the Department to follow through on the idea of a pilot
stage, which could -- after obtaining the proper license from the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission -- consist of first placing some nonradioactive simulated
waste in the geological repository, and then putting a small amount of
radioactive waste in one section of the underground facility. At the same time,
other tests can be conducted outside the repository but within the same rock
formation so that the integrity of the repository itself is not jeopardized
while studying features that, if implemented, would improve performance or
reduce uncertainties. DOE also should consider reserving a fraction of the
waste-disposal area for public demonstration purposes.
To provide the recommended
flexibility, adaptive staging may require a larger "buffer" storage capacity at,
or near, Yucca Mountain. This additional storage will allow managers to receive
waste at the repository even if there will be a delay in its being placed
underground, the committee said. Buffer storage also offers a place for waste to
be stored if it has to be retrieved from the underground facility.
Adaptive staging will not affect the
security of nuclear waste, the committee added. The length of time before Yucca
Mountain is ready to receive waste is so long that more immediate measures will
be needed if security becomes a heightened concern.
Adaptive staging may lead to higher
costs early on, the report says, but it could also accelerate schedules and
reduce costs in the long term because the nature of the process may allow
problems to be identified and corrected before they become expensive and
time-consuming.
The committee made several
recommendations for improving scientific knowledge and public outreach. For
example, a technical oversight group -- independent of the federal government --
should be established by DOE to review scientific aspects of the Yucca project,
and a stakeholder advisory board representing local organizations, state
governments, municipalities, and other concerned parties should be set up as
well. In addition, the long-term science and technology program initiated last
year by DOE to address technical concerns at Yucca Mountain -- beyond what is
required to obtain license approval -- should be given high priority and
sustained funding, and should include social-science research.
The U.S. regulatory framework has
adequate flexibility to accommodate an adaptive staging approach at Yucca
Mountain, the committee said. It called on DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to work together -- without either agency compromising its
independence -- to ensure that the regulatory process allows for adaptive
staging, and that the public has access to information and participates in
hearings and the licensing process.
The committee was not asked to
comment on the choice of geological repositories as a preferred option for
disposal of high-level radioactive waste or on the suitability of Yucca Mountain
as a repository site. Its study addresses geological repositories in general,
with specific applications to Yucca Mountain when appropriate.
The study was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter.
Source: News Release, National Academys of Science, February 6, 2003
The National Research Council is part of the National Academies, comprised of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine.
They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology and health policy advice under a congressional charter. The Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of further knowledge and advising the federal government.
Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the National Research Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public and the scientific and engineering communities.
The Research Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine through the National Research Council Governing Board.
For more information on the National Research Council or the National Academies, log on to: http://www.nationalacademies .org/
The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board Panel on the Waste Management System met to review plans for operating the waste management system associated with
a Yucca Mountain repository. Presentations covered waste acceptance at nuclear facilities, transportation to Yucca Mountain and emplacement underground.
The DOE currently has 68 contracts covering nuclear power plants and 8 contracts with 7 non-utility purchasers to take title to and store spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at a repository.
The nuclear facilities will prepare and package the material for shipment with the DOE taking title at the gate. The DOE’s estimated schedule for acceptance of commercial nuclear materials is to have 400 MTHM delivered to Yucca Mountain in 2010, 600 MTHM in 2011, and increasing to 3,000 MTHM in 2014 through the end of emplacement.
The DOE is currently developing the Transportation Strategic Plan which will present their vision and approach to planning, developing and operating a transportation system.
The TSP will include the path forward for the transportation project plan and operation transportation plans as well as how they intend to work with federal agencies, states and local governments. This document is expected to be issued by the end of 2003.
The Transportation Project Management Plan is also in development and expected to be released by the end of 2003. This document is intended to define DOEs strategies to meet its goals and describe how the transportation system will be acquired and mobilized.
Due to limited funding in previous years, the DOE had stopped funding transportation activities. The Secretary requested $38 million for transportation in FY03 based on the $591 million request for the program. Congress approved $460 million for FY03, and the amount that will be allocated to transportation is unknown at this point, although sources indicate it may only be $10 million.
Presentations ranged from recommendations of specific modes and routes to general concern regarding cumulative impacts from low-level waste shipments, emergency response capabilities and the funnel effect.
The overwhelming message to the DOE is the need for a systematic approach, both nationally and within Nevada, thorough evaluations and studies along proposed corridors, and continued communication with local agencies.
An internal investigation recently cleared Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials accused of holding meetings and discussions regarding the Yucca Mountain Project in which Nevada officials were not included.
Hubert T. Bell, inspector general for the NRC, said at the end of an investigation in December that the contacts were deemed proper.
He said communications "occurred during informal meetings" in accordance with the licensing process for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
The sessions "were consistent with NRC regulatory requirements and policy mandates," Bell said.
The outcome of the investigation was disclosed by Bell during February 13th testimony to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The panel met to review the workings of the NRC.
Bell initiated the investigation after receiving a complaint in September 2002 from then Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa.
Del Papa said Nevada officials learned of meetings between DOE and NRC staff members where Yucca Mountain agreements seemed to be taking shape without the presence of Nevada representatives.
Federal rules allow the two agencies to "confer informally" during the DOE's preparation of a repository license application that will be judged by the NRC, an independent regulatory agency. Nevada and other interested groups are supposed to be given advance notice of meetings and copies of letters and other materials.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, who also filed a complaint, said federal rules should be altered to require Nevada participation in every Yucca Mountain matter.
"While they say it may not violate a law or regulation, perhaps we ought to look at the laws and regulations and change them," Berkley said.
Source: Associated Press in the Las Vegas Sun, February 15, 2003
Nevada's congressional delegation last month urged President Bush to remove the chairman of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB), questioning his ability to be impartial in directing an independent investigation of Yucca Mountain.
Michael L. Corradini was appointed chairman of the NWTRB by President Bush in June 2002. Senators Reid and Ensign, along with Congresswoman Shelley Berkley and Congressmen Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter, argued that Corradini is unable to lead an independent study given that he is a long-time supporter of the Yucca Mountain Project.
Internal documents released by the NWTRB indicate potential conflicts became a matter of concern among the 11 board members and staff after the president approved the Yucca Mountain site last year and then appointed five new board members.
In writing to President Bush, Nevada lawmakers claimed that Corradini has conflicts that "seriously undermine the board's credibility and independence." They also drew attention to Senate testimony that Corradini delivered July 18, 2001, which included remarks on Yucca Mountain.
In the testimony, Corradini agreed with an assessment that the Yucca Mountain site is "safe and solid". He said the stalemate over nuclear waste disposal "is primarily a political rather than a technical issue."
The Nevadans also were critical of a $10 million Energy Department nuclear research grant shared by the University of Wisconsin, where Corradini is chairman of the engineering physics department.
Sources: Steve Tetreault, Stephens Washington Bureau, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2/26/03; Whip Round Up, 2/28/03
Citing the Freedom of Information Act, Egan & Associates, the law firm heading Nevada's legal opposition to the Yucca Mountain Project, in January requested from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board detailed background information on all recently named members.
Among the information requested was correspondence, documents relating in any way to conflicts of interest or potential conflicts of interest, conflict of interest questionnaires, conflict of interest disclosure forms, financial disclosure forms and documents relating in any way to professional background, qualifications and possible conflicts of interest of newly appointed members.
The request came in conjunction with Nevada lawmakers' claims to President Bush that Michael L. Corradini, NWTRB Chairman, has conflicts that prevent the Board from remaining independent and impartial.
In early February the Board responded to the Egan & Associates requests, and the firm is currently reviewing the documents provided by the NWTRB.
Complete text of the request and the response are posted on the NWTRB web site at
www.nwtrb.gov/.