Proposal to Ship Hanford High-Level Radioactive Waste to New Mexico – A Letter to Steven Chu

March 26, 2013

Secretary Steven Chu

Office of the Secretary

Department of Energy

1000 Independence Ave SW

Washington DC 20585

The.Secretary@hq.doe.gov

RE: Proposal to Ship Hanford High-Level Radioactive Waste to New Mexico

Dear Secretary Chu,

We write to you regarding the Department of Energy’s (DOE) News Release and subsequent publication in the Federal Register on March 11, 2013 of DOE’s “preferred alternative” to retrieve, treat, package, characterize and certify certain Hanford tank wastes for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico. 1 As detailed below, DOE’s proposed course of action would fail to resolve or meaningfully address potential threats to the Columbia River from leaking high-level radioactive waste (HLW) tanks at Hanford. The waste proposed for treatment and transfer to WIPP is too small a fraction of the total inventory of Hanford tank waste to make the investment worthwhile and the proposal does not prioritize the leaking single-shell tanks. Further, DOE’s “preferred alternative” would likely have a disastrous impact on both efforts to arrive at a national nuclear waste strategy and associated progress at the WIPP facility from legal, technical and institutional perspectives.

 With such caution in mind, we urge you to ensure DOE complies with the law and retracts the preferred alternative of attempting to ship high-level radioactive waste to New Mexico. It is costly, unwise and illegal to ship Hanford tank waste to WIPP. DOE should move as quickly as practicable to build new tanks to empty the actively leaking high-level radioactive waste tanks and have tank capacity for eventual feed to the Waste Treatment Plant. We would be happy to meet with your successor in the coming weeks to discuss these and other matters. We further detail these matters below.

Background

 As national and regional groups that have worked on the nuclear weapons complex cleanup for decades, we share DOE’s concerns about protecting human health, the environment, and of course, the Columbia River and its central role as the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest. We also share concerns about achieving an effective high-level waste program inclusive of state, tribal and public

1

EIS-0391: Notice of Preferred Alternative, 78 Fed. Reg. 15358, (March 11, 2013). Notice available at:

http://energy.gov/nepa/downloads/eis-0391-notice-preferred-alternative .

 interests that ultimately arrives at long-term geologic disposal solution for defense-generated HLW and commercial spent nuclear fuel.

As you know, Hanford’s tanks are leaking HLW with an underground flow pathway toward the Columbia River. An estimated one million gallons of contamination have already leaked from the tanks, and an undetermined quantity has entered the groundwater adjacent to the river. The Washington State Department of Ecology has declared, “out of these 149 SSTs, 67 have been declared as known or assumed leakers that have released more than one million gallons of waste to the soil and groundwater. The released tank waste is now moving toward, but has not reached, the Columbia River.” 2 Six single-shell tanks and one double-shell tank are now confirmed to be actively leaking, and 14 others may be leaking, according to DOE. 3 Such leaks will only serve to drive existing contamination closer to the Columbia River. This is an urgent problem, and we applaud the State of Washington and the Department of Energy for their renewed commitment to address this crisis.

 While we share concerns for a meaningful and effective high-level waste disposal program, the position of the NRDC, Hanford Challenge and Southwest Research and Development Center is that DOE’s “preferred alternative” to retrieve, treat, package, characterize and certify certain Hanford tank wastes for disposal at WIPP in New Mexico is both unlawful and fraught with several technical problems that make it evident any such plan does not meaningfully solve the urgent situation in Washington.

The Hanford EIS and the subject of shipping HLW to New Mexico

Prior to the close of the public comment period on the Draft Tank Closure & Waste Management EIS (TC &WM EIS), DOE issued a statement in the Federal Register (74 FR 67189) that indicated it was no longer considering sending Hanford tank waste to WIPP, declaring the intention that these wastes would be retrieved and treated at the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) being constructed at Hanford.

For this reason, the State of Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) and many members of the public did not comment on sending tank waste to WIPP during the public comment period, and no public meeting was held in New Mexico. However DOE changed its position in the Final TC & WM EIS and included the preferred alternative of sending portions of tank waste to WIPP.

In its Forward to the Final TC & WM EIS, Ecology elaborated on some of its concerns over DOE’s current approach to the potential mixed TRU tank waste:

Ecology has legal and technical concerns with any tank waste being classified as

mixed TRU waste at this time. DOE must provide peer-reviewed data and a strong,

defensible, technically and legally detailed justification for the designation of any

tank waste as mixed TRU waste, rather than as HLW. DOE must also complete the

WIPP certification process and assure Ecology that there is a viable disposal pathway

2

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/nwp/tank_waste_storage.htm

“The U.S. Department of Energy and its contractor are evaluating 14 other single-shell tanks that appeared to have lost liquid, according to state regulators and others who attended a DOE briefing in Oregon Monday.”

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/03/more_tanks_could_be_leaking_at.html#incart_river_default

4

“DOE is now expressing its preference that no Hanford tank wastes would be shipped to WIPP.” 74 Federal Register 67189, (December 18, 2009).

(i.e., permit approval from the State of New Mexico and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) before Ecology will modify the Hanford Sitewide Permit to allow tank waste to be treated as mixed TRU waste. Further, Ecology is concerned with the cost benefit viability of an approach that sends a relatively minor amount of tank waste to WIPP, given the cost it would take to secure the disposal path, and to construct and operate the drying facility for the TRU tank waste. 5

 A treatment facility to retrieve, process and package Hanford tank waste for shipment to WIPP would be expensive, and time-consuming. Without substantially more information, we are unclear how any such plan could comply with current law. We are unaware of blueprints or plans for such adrying facility, and certainly there is no existing facility at Hanford that could accomplish that mission.

DOE named 20 tanks with high level waste that DOE would seek to reclassify as TRU in the Final TC &WM EIS, 6 but an earlier review by the Washington State Department of Ecology put the number of tanks that might qualify under the legal definition of TRU at only eight tanks. 7 DOE’s current presentations further the intention to classify 11 tanks as Contact Handled TRU (CH-TRU) and send this waste, totaling around 280,000 gallons to WIPP. 8 However, no policy, cost or legal analysis on the topic has been completed and therefore there is no credible basis at this time for DOE’s preferred alternative of sending Hanford tank waste to WIPP.

The Legal Bar Against Reclassifying HLW

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March 28, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

More than 250 employees axed from Hanford nuclear power facility leaking 1,000 gallons per year of radioactive waste !

…In a letter to Washington Governor Jay Inslee, Daniel Poneman from DOE warned that the furloughs and layoffs could severely delay progress towards fixing the leaking tanks — according to the latest estimates, nearly 5,000 Hanford employees, both permanent and contracted, are being either laid off or put on temporary furlough….

Thursday, March 28, 2013 by: Jonathan Benson

 (NaturalNews) Federal budget cuts have prompted the layoff of at least 235 workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southern Washington, a massive 586-square-mile storage site for radioactive waste located near Richland. But according to the Associated Press (AP), aging underground storage tanks at the facility are estimated to be leaking some 1,000 gallons of radioactive waste into the ground every single year, a serious environmental threat that has many questioning why the government would cut funding for this important mitigation project.

As reported by Tri-CityHerald.com, the cuts were made as part of sequestration by the federal government, or the automatic budget trimming of certain federal programs, and include primarily union positions. But some 27 non-union positions were also cut, and several thousand other contracted workers could also lose their jobs soon as a result of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) contractors cutting back on the work they assign to their subcontractors.

The Hanford facility was originally created by the federal government back in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop and build the atomic bomb, according to the Associated Press. But after the facility stopped producing nuclear weapons after the Cold War, Hanford became the nation’s largest and most complex environmental clean-up project, costing American taxpayers roughly $2 billion a year, or one-third of the country’s entire budget for nuclear clean-up efforts nationwide.

“You can’t furlough 20 percent of the workforce without having an impact on the work,” Gary Petersen from the Tri-City Development Council is quoted as saying to AP. “There’s no question that the longer you delay clean-up, the longer it’s going to take and the higher the cost.”

More than a dozen Hanford nuclear waste storage tanks believed to be leaking

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March 28, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Tohoku Electric to abandon planned nuclear plant in Fukushima!

Kyodo

 

TOKYO, JAPAN, 28 SEPTEMBER – Kasumigaseki – The woman’s active group “KNOW NEW KISS” (Japanese phonetically : No Nukes) at the anti-nuclear demonstration in front of the National Diet Building (Kokkai Gijidou) – Following shyly the example of the Femen’s Ukrainian activist, they use the charm of their naked shoulder an belly to protest about the resumption of the nuclear power after the Fukushima’s crisis. – September 2012

Copyright:Sébastien Lebègue

 

SENDAI – Tohoku Electric Power Co. is planning to withdraw its plan to build a new nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture, local government sources said Thursday, in the first such move since the March 2011 nuclear disaster.

Tohoku Electric apparently decided it was impossible to go through with the construction plan amid strong local opposition following the triple meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. The utility will exclude the plan from its supply plan for fiscal 2013 to be released later Thursday.

Tohoku Electric has been in the process of acquiring around 150 hectares of land in the town of Namie and Odaka Ward, Minamisoma, but has faced strong local opposition.

The construction site was flooded with tsunami after the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the area was designated as a no-go zone.

Since the nuclear crisis erupted the same month, Fukushima Prefecture has supported the phase out of atomic energy while the municipal assemblies of Namie and Minamisoma have passed resolutions to stop attracting nuclear power plants to the area, making it difficult for Tohoku Electric to proceed with the construction plan.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/03/28/national/tohoku-electric-to-abandon-planned-nuclear-plant-in-fukushima/#.UVPOIhyP8xA

March 28, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Can Small Reactors Ignite a Nuclear Renaissance?

Even once the final design is approved by the NRC, costs could prove higher than expected once the plants are actually built. “Part of the problem when you start in on these things, especially with a new technology, is that all the news after you begin is bad,” says Michael Golay, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT. “Things never behave in an optimized fashion.”

Small reactors have some benefits, but they won’t make nuclear as cheap as natural gas.

• By Kevin Bullis on March 28, 2013

Small, modular nuclear reactor designs could be relatively cheap to build and safe to operate, and there’s plenty of corporate and government momentum behind a push to develop and license them. But will they be able to offer power cheap enough to compete with natural gas? And will they really help revive the moribund nuclear industry in the United States?

Nuclear option: Babcock & Wilcox’s proposed power plant is based on two small modular nuclear reactors.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it would provide $452 million in grants to companies developing small modular reactors, provided the companies matched the funds (bringing the total to $900 million). In November it announced the first grant winner—Babcock & Wilcox, a maker of reactors for nuclear ships and submarines—and this month it requested applications for a second round of funding. The program funding is expected to be enough to certify two or three designs.

The new funding is on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars Babcock & Wilcox has already spent on developing its 180-megawatt reactor design, along with a test facility to confirm its computer models of the reactor. Several other companies have also invested in small modular reactors, including Holtec, Westinghouse Electric, and the startup NuScale, which is supported by the engineering firm Fluor (see “Small Nukes Get a Boost,” “Small Nuclear Reactors Get a Customer,” and “Giant Holes in the Ground”).

The companies are investing in the technology partly in response to requests from power providers. One utility, Ameren Missouri, the biggest electricity supplier in that state, is working with Westinghouse to help in the certification process for that company’s small reactor design. Ameren is particularly worried about potential emissions regulations, because it relies on carbon-intensive coal plants for about 80 percent of its electricity production.

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March 28, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Second High Court in Japan to Declare 2012 election Unconstitutional

freedomwv

Published on 27 Mar 2013

The results of the 2012 general election are again in doubt in Japan.

March 28, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

India – Nuclear cooperation with Kazakhstan

Sandeep Dikshit

Kazakhstan has said interaction with India in nuclear energy will open up prospects for implementation of other “breakthrough projects” in many of the priority sectors. Kazakhstan, the largest and most dynamic economy among five Central Asian states, wants civil nuclear energy cooperation that will benefit both countries.

“Undoubtedly, our cooperation in this area will include the development and deepening of cooperation from Kazakhstan’s fuel supply to full-sized participation in joint projects, from training of personnel to the sharing of the best and environment-friendly technologies,” Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov told The Hindu in an interview.

This means instead of selling the uranium ore to India, Astana will like to value add by providing fuel rods as well as jointly taking up projects in this sector. India has already expressed its wish to be involved in Kazakh plans to set up small nuclear plants to provide electricity in its far-flung and thinly populated areas.

Kazakhstan is a major producer and exporter of uranium and has always signalled its interest in supplying its products to India. Its company Kazatomprom has already signed an MoU with NPCIL. The foundation was laid with the signing of an Inter-Governmental Agreement on cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy. This led to Kazakhstan assuring India of supply of 2,100 tonnes of uranium. “We hope that our cooperation in the nuclear field will lead to intensive cooperation in the exchange of technology and creation of joint ventures,” reiterated Mr. Idrissov, who is fluent in Hindi. The two sides have already agreed to set up a Centre of Excellence in information and communication technology at Gumilyov Eurasian National University in Astana.

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March 28, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Hinkley nuclear plant put back five years !!

…..The government says it wants to deliver a plan for oil and gas this week, in order to “secure sustainable future growth in the economy”. Some would argue that planning for a sustainable future should not include finite, polluting sources of energy, but instead focus primarily on clean, renewable sources such as wind, solar and marine…..

The government has put back by five years the deadline to build the first new nuclear power station in the UK since 1995.

27 March 2013

As we reported last week, the plant at Hinkley Point, Somerset, would cost around £14bn and this has now been confirmed in the ‘Nuclear Industrial Strategy’ released by the Department of Energy & Climate Change.

The document also said that the facility would be developed by 2030 – originally, the government had said it would be built by 2025. Back in 2007, we reported that the Conservative controlled West Somerset District Council had opposed plans to a new nuclear power plant in the region.

The strategy document said there were “plans to deliver around 16GW of new nuclear by 2030. That broadly translates into at least 12 new nuclear reactors at five sites currently earmarked for development: Hinkley Point, Sizewell, Wylfa, Oldbury and Moorside”.

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March 28, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Tawian – NSC denies USA role in nuclear energy policy -except uranium refinement and “consultations” for billions?

By Mo Yan-chih  /  Staff reporter

Thu, Mar 28, 2013

Tapei Times

The National Security Council (NSC) yesterday denied that it had discussed the recent dispute over the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮) with the US, saying that nuclear power issues would not affect US-Taiwan relations.

“The government never discussed nuclear power plant issues with the US and did not receive any response from the US on the matter,” it said in a press release.

Amid mounting opposition to the power plant’s completion, the Chinese-language China Times yesterday said that while Taiwan imports most of its uranium from Australia, the uranium is sent to the US to be refined into fuel for the generation of nuclear power. The Taiwanese government pays billions to the US government every year for uranium refinement and for consultations about the power plant.

Citing anonymous sources from the council, the report said that the fuel refinement business with the US plays a role in the Taiwanese government’s nuclear power policy, such as its insistence on only gradually reducing the use of nuclear energy, or aversion to abruptly suspending construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, because a policy change could jeopardize bilateral relations.

The council yesterday said that Washington did not play any role in the government’s stance on nuclear power and said the story “blurred the focus of the nuclear power plant issue and misled public perceptions of the issue.”

Separately yesterday, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) reiterated the government’s plan to resolve the dispute over the Gongliao plant via a national referendum, adding that the Democratic Progressive Party’s proposal to put the suspension of the project to a legislative vote was a violation of the Constitution.

Ma said the policy on the construction of the nuclear power plant received support from the legislature, which made it a major national policy.

In addition, amendments to the Constitution have scrapped a previous article that gave the legislature the authority to ask the Executive Yuan to make changes to major policies.

“The Executive Yuan has the authority to propose and change major policies. Right now, the Executive Yuan’s attitude toward the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is quite clear, and that is to hold a referendum and let the public decide whether the policy should be changed,” he said.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/03/28/2003558195

March 28, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

USA and S.Korean pact stifles the South as nuke waste piles up!

….Temporary storage for spent nuclear fuel rods at South Korea’s nuclear plants was 71 percent full in June, with one site in Ulsan — the heartland of South Korea’s nuclear industry — set to hit full capacity in 2016…..

 

….“Even under the most optimistic scenario, pyroprocessing and the associated fast reactors will not be available options for dealing with South Korea’s spent fuel on a large scale for several decades,” said Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, Miles Pomper and Stephanie Lieggi in a joint report for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monetary Institute of International Studies. “With or without pyroprocessing, South Korea will need additional storage capacity.”….

Mar 27, 2013

The Japan Times

ULSAN, SOUTH KOREA – North Korea’s weapons program is not the only nuclear headache for South Korea. The country’s radioactive waste storage is filling up as its nuclear power industry burgeons, but what South Korea sees as its best solution — reprocessing the spent fuel so it can be used again — faces stiff opposition from its U.S. ally.

South Korea fired up its first reactor in 1978 and since then the resource-poor nation’s reliance on atomic energy has steadily grown. It is now the world’s fifth-largest nuclear energy producer, operating 23 reactors. But unlike the rapid growth of its nuclear industry, its nuclear waste management plan has been moving at a snail’s pace.

A commission will be launched before this summer to start public discussion on the permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel rods, which must be locked away for tens of thousands of years. Temporary storage for used rods in spent fuel pools at nuclear power plants is more than 70 percent full.

Undeterred by the Fukushima nuclear disaster or recent local safety failings, South Korea plans to boost atomic power to 40 percent of its energy needs with the addition of 11 reactors by 2024.

South Korea also has big ambitions to export its nuclear know how, originally transferred from the U.S. under a 1973 treaty that governs how its East Asian ally uses nuclear technology and explicitly bars reprocessing. The treaty also prohibits enrichment of uranium, a process that uranium must undergo to become a viable nuclear fuel, so South Korea has to get countries such as the U.S. and France to do enrichment for it.

That treaty is at the heart of Seoul’s current dilemma. It wants reprocessing rights to reduce radioactive waste and the right to enrich uranium, which would reduce a hefty import bill and aid its reactor export business. The catch: The technologies that South Korea covets can also be used to develop nuclear weapons.

Accommodating Seoul’s agenda would run counter to the Obama administration’s efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and also potentially undermine its arguments against North Korea’s attempts to develop warheads and Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. South Korea, with its history of dabbling in nuclear weapons development in the 1970s and in reprocessing in the early 1980s, might itself face renewed international suspicion.

“For the United States, this is a nonproliferation issue. For South Korea, this is the issue of high-level radioactive waste management and energy security,” said Song Myung Jae, chief executive officer of state-run Korea Radioactive Waste Management Corp. “For a small country like South Korea, reducing the quantity of waste even just a little is very important.”

Newly elected President Park Geun Hye made revision of the 38-year-old treaty one of her top election pledges in campaigning last year. The treaty expires in March 2014 and a new iteration has to be submitted to Congress before the summer. The two sides have not narrowed their differences on reprocessing and enrichment by much despite ongoing talks.

South Korea also argues that uranium enrichment rights will make it a more competitive exporter of nuclear reactors as the buyers of its reactors have to import enriched uranium separately while rivals such as France and Japan can provide it. It is already big business after a South Korean consortium in 2009 won a $20 billion contract to supply reactors to the United Arab Emirates. Former President Lee Myung Bak set a target of exporting one nuclear reactor a year, which would make South Korea one of the world’s biggest reactor exporters.

Doing South Korea a favor would be a huge exception for the U.S. Congress, which has never given such consent to non-nuclear weapon states that do not already have reprocessing or enrichment technology.

“It is not the case that we think Korea will divert the material. It’s not a question of trust or mistrust,” Sharon Squassoni, director of the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said on the sidelines of the Asian Nuclear Forum in Seoul last month. “It’s a question of global policies.”

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March 28, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment