Officials seek to put lid on uranium sales

by DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER

Casper Star-Tribune

Posted: Friday, October 9, 2009

CASPER - (e Wyoming officials are asking the U.S. Department of Energy to rethink a plan to sell excess government uranium. The sale would likely sink the price of uranium and snuff plans to launch several new uranium mining operations in Wyoming and across the West, according to Gov. Dave Freudenthal. (emphasis mine...SB)

Freudenthal and Wyoming's congressional delegation issued requests this week to DOE Secretary Steven Chu on the matter.

"Planned expansions and future operations that will provide long-term, high-paying jobs to Wyoming miners will be postponed or lost if the department continues to drive down the price of uranium through the releases that have been announced," Freudenthal wrote.

The federal government controls about 153 million pounds of uranium derived from the decommissioning of the nation's nuclear weapons program.

In December 2008, the DOE approved the Excess Uranium Inventory Management Plan. The plan sets out a schedule to gradually introduce portions of the uranium stockpile into the nuclear energy market in a manner that would soften the impact on pricing.

But in July the DOE announced its intention to release an additional $150 million to $200 million worth of uranium to fund the cleanup of pollution at a Cold War-era plant in Piketon, Ohio.

That effort, according to one industry official, is likely a politically driven attempt to save hundreds of jobs in Ohio that were jeopardized when the DOE turned down a loan application by U.S. Enrichment Corp. to build a centrifuge uranium enrichment facility in Ohio.

Scott Melby, president of Cameco Inc., said he suspects that the order for the additional uranium stockpile release came directly from President Barack Obama's White House staff.

"It appears to be a political decision that came down from the White House to address the jobs issue in Ohio without consideration of the collateral jobs impact in other states," Melby said. "I'm sure they (DOE and White House officials) didn't even think about any collateral impacts. But obviously there are."

In recent years uranium companies have bought up thousands of mineral lease acres in Western states and invested hundreds of millions of dollars to launch more than 30 new uranium mining projects. About two-thirds of those projects are in Wyoming.

Wyoming's political leaders, along with the uranium industry, say it's counterintuitive to fund a short-term cleanup project in Ohio at the expense of expanding the nation's domestic uranium industry and its long-term jobs.

The trade association Uranium Producers of America has suggested that the federal government could instead fund the Portsmouth cleanup project with stimulus funds or through a separate appropriation.

"We're hoping cooler heads prevail. But it is Washington, D.C.," Melby said.

http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/article_7fcaf13e-b48c-11de-b1ba-001cc4c002e0.html

Steven Chu Provides Clear Statements About The Importance of Nuc

You sort of have to understand where A-Rod is coming from. He's major-league pro-nuke guy although his arguments sometimes fall flat at which time he changes the subject and goes in another direction, still pro-nuclear. He lives in Annapolis but works in VA. He goes on and on at times about his modest lifestyle and his deep respect for the nuclear industry. Sometimes it sounds like he hung his hat on something that didn't quite pan out for him but he's in so deep, he can't get out. Just my humble opinion, of course, having sparred with him before. Here's his latest. I do appreciate his brinigng us Steven Chu's recent statements about Virginia's eager receptiveness toward nuclear power..."clean power". Looks like we've got lots of work to do!


On the Atomic Insights Blog, Rod Adams discusses energy supplies, energy technology, and energy politics from an atomic point of view. This blog is closely associated with Atomic Insights at www.atomicinsights.com

On the Atomic Insights Blog, Rod Adams discusses energy supplies, energy technology, and energy politics from an atomic point of view. This blog is closely associated with Atomic Insights at www.atomicinsights.com

by Rod Adams [aka Atomic Rod]

Sunday, September 27, 2009

I learned a lot time ago that it can be difficult, but not impossible to change the course of a very large vessel that has momentum going in a particular direction. Even when someone determines the necessity of a course change, the safe rate of change for the turn will be dependent upon the speed of travel. If the person on the helm wants to allow his passengers to maintain their balance, he will have to be judicious in the use of rudder orders so that the turn can be made gradually.

If done correctly, the turn can be almost imperceptible to the people on board. In order to make a smooth turn at high speed, the people who have determined that the turn is necessary have to pick a spot where there is sufficient space in which to complete the turn without colliding with other ships or with underwater hazards. The people who decide how to maneuver large vessels often put themselves into protected control rooms so that their actions do not get a lot of interference or distractions from people who do not have the full picture of the overall situation.

It is with that knowledge that I am a bit less worried than some of my colleagues or even some of my regular readers and Atomic Insights contributors about the direction that America is heading with regard to effectively using nuclear energy as a primary tool in the war against pollution, poverty, and partisan politics.

A couple of days ago, I found some important words from the man who has been assigned part of the task of helping to make a big turn in direction. Those words were in a publication that would have been relatively inaccessible and probably overlooked in a less connected time in our history. You can find Chu's comments on the web site of the Lynchburg (VA) News and Advance at Virginia to receive federal funds for energy projects. Here is what Steven Chu told some people in Virginia when the Department of Energy announced some relatively minor federal block grants for energy projects (totaling just $16.1 million).

“Virginia is a perfect example of having real economic opportunities in clean energy,” Chu said. “The University of Virginia and Virginia Tech are at the forefront of clean-energy engineering,” he said.

In addition, “Virginia is a national leader in nuclear power,” and one-third of the state’s electrical energy comes from nuclear power, he said.

“We are eager to restart the nuclear program in the United States and we look forward to Virginia being part of that,” Chu said.

“We are in the final negotiations” for the federal government’s $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for the first utility companies that build new reactors, Chu said, “and I would personally like to see that loan guarantee program extended or renewed with additional money.”
(Emphasis added.)

It is certainly possible to be impatient about the length of time that it has taken to award loan guarantees. It can also be a bit discouraging to think about the amount of money now available from the federal government for nuclear energy projects compared to the amount given for home improvements, solar panels and wind turbines. That can be especially true if you happen to think that direct federal money is the prime enabler for nuclear energy deployment.

Read the rest of A-Rod's blog article here: http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2009/09/steven-chu-provides-clear-statement.html

Ore From Last Uranium Boom Still Scattered on Colorado Land

By Joe Hanel
Herald Denver Bureau

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

PARADOX - From the road, it looks like a pile of gray rocks. But a closer inspection reveals flakes of yellow and lime green - telltale signs of uranium ore.

The pile and others like it make up some of the 5,000 tons of uranium ore that remains on the surface from Colorado's last boom, according to a Department of Energy environmental study.

Five thousand tons of rock is only a few months of production from a mid-sized mine, but it's enough to concern Travis Stills, a Durango lawyer leading the legal challenge to the Energy department's plan to lease Colorado land for uranium mining.

The Office of Legacy Management, which issues leases on federal uranium lands, cleaned up all its old mine sites by 2001, according to court filings by Andrew Smith, a Justice department lawyer who is representing the OLM.

Piles of waste rock at uranium mines could cause trouble if water runs off them into creeks, said Angelique Diaz, an environmental engineer for the Environmental Protection Agency's Denver office. The piles are radioactive and give off radon gas, but not in significant quantities, Diaz said.

The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety cleans mines that were abandoned before 1977, using mostly federal dollars but also money from state taxes on gas, oil and coal production.

With 17,000 abandoned mines in Colorado, the priority goes to open mine shafts that might be dangerous for hikers, said Loretta Pineda, director of the abandoned mines program.

"I do have some environmental funding, but it's pretty limited," Pineda said.

The BLM has asked the state to put several old mines in the Paradox Valley on its list, Pineda said. She had a project on tap near Uravan a few years ago, but it was put on hold when people started staking claims in the area. Anyone who opened a new mine would have to clean up the old pollution first.

For Stills, the cleanup of the old mines should happen now.

"Five thousand tons of uranium ore sitting on the surface should be somebody's priority," he said.

http://durangoherald.com/sections/News/2009/08/11/Ore_from_last_uranium_boom_still_scattered_on_Colorado_land/

Health Risks From Mines Covered Up: Department of Energy Files Reveal Legacy of Secrecy and Negligence

Disgusting and infuriating but not surprising, unfortunately. Can we really expect any better protection or information dissemination in Virginia? Let's learn from the past and leave the U in the ground. Let's let integrity triumph over greed.

by Joe Hanel
Herald Denver Bureau

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

URAVAN - Health experts working for the state of Colorado and the federal government knew about the dangers of working in uranium mines and mills 60 years ago, but they hid their knowledge from the workers. As a result, workers died from cancer.

This has been public knowledge since the mid-1990s, when the Department of Energy published the results of its "Openness Project," an extraordinary catalog of government failures in the decades after World War II.

The report blames state and federal bureaucrats for "intergovernmental buck passing and decades of study, a course that resulted in the premature deaths of hundreds of miners."

State and federal regulators did plenty of studies. According to the archives of the Department of Energy's Openness Project: On Aug. 25, 1949, Colorado health officials met with U.S. Public Health Service employees to discuss uranium mine and mill safety. The same month, the Colorado Health Department and Colorado Bureau of Mines asked the Public Health Service to do a formal study of the mines and mills.

Public Health Service official Duncan Holaday was in charge of the study, and he quickly found evidence that unventilated mines were exposing workers to cancer-causing levels of radiation. Vents would have helped lessen the danger.

But the Public Health Service couldn't get access to the mines without permission from mine owners. To get permission, inspectors promised the mine owners not to warn workers of radiation hazards, Holaday testified in a lawsuit brought by Navajo uranium miners.

"You had to get the survey done, and you knew perfectly well you were not doing the correct thing ... by not informing the workers," Holaday said, according to the Openness Project report.

In May 1952, the Public Health Service gave its initial results in a report that was released to only state and federal officials and mining companies. A news release said "no evidence of health damage from radioactivity had been found." But the Openness Project report notes lung cancer takes 10 to 20 years to show itself, and public health regulators knew about the risks as early as the 1940s.

In 1960, the Public Health Service at last gave the governors of uranium states such as Colorado what it said was a conclusive link between uranium mining and lung cancer. Yet the Atomic Energy Commission, the Public Health Service and the states continued their talks and studies.

The biggest radiation hazard for miners was radon, a radioactive gas that is formed when uranium decays. Although uranium is radioactive, the radioactive particles are most dangerous when ingested. That happens most often when radon is inhaled in mines with poor ventilation.

It wasn't until 1967 that the federal government finally set a standard for radon in uranium mines, about the same time Colorado and Utah started serious enforcement. Most small Colorado mines weren't ventilated until the 1960s, more than two decades into the uranium boom.

By 1990, miners in one study group had seen 410 deaths from lung cancer - almost five times the rate that statisticians would expect.

The judge in the Navajo miners' case called it the "tragedy of the nuclear age."

Congress in 1990 passed a law to compensate the surviving miners and millers called the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. But of the 165,000 claims filed, only 43,000 have been paid, according to Labor Department statistics cited in a 2008 Rocky Mountain News investigation.

http://durangoherald.com/sections/News/2009/08/11/Health_risks_from_mines_covered_up/

Clean Energy: U.S. Lags in Research and Development

When Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon 40 years ago, it was a triumph of American scientific skill. It was also the result of the government's willingness to spend over $125 billion, in today's dollars, to take the country to the moon.

The need to remake our energy economy and to replace fossil fuels with renewables like wind and solar is often referred to as the new Apollo Project, a challenge to our scientists — and to the federal checkbook — that will be even greater than the moon race. We're moving ahead on installing new clean energy — the U.S. was the fastest growing wind power market in the world in 2008 — and Congress, with the support of President Barack Obama, is on the road to establishing caps on carbon dioxide.

But according to many energy experts — including Steven Chu, Obama's Nobel Prize-winning Energy Secretary — the science isn't there yet. Significant basic research and development needs to happen before renewables can truly displace fossil fuels. And unlike the first Apollo Project, the U.S. seems far from ready to spend the money needed to create long-term solutions to global warming — which risks the country falling behind in this new scientific race, toward a clean energy economy. "If we are serious about delivering the real technological change needed to really reduce emissions, we need to scale up research in a massive way," says Mark Muro, a fellow at the Brookings Institute. "We need a paradigm shift, and we're falling behind."

Much of that research would be done under the auspices of the Department of Energy, but Secretary Chu has seen his requests for more funding rebuffed by Congress. Chu wants to spend $280 million to create eight new research and development labs, staffed by scientists from a variety of areas, to work on clean energy solutions. Called "energy innovation hubs," they would be patterned after AT&T Bell Laboratories, the famed research centers where Chu did much of the work that won him a Nobel Prize in physics. Each hub would have a different energy focus, but scientists from different disciplines could meet and interact, and hopefully speed scientific progress. For the Department of Energy, which generally focuses on nuclear weapons, the hubs would represent a chance to start anew with energy research. "This allows you to begin a process of major experimentation with new paradigms," says Muro.

But although Congress is willing to fund the Energy Department at roughly the levels Obama is demanding, the House would give Chu only $35 million for his innovation hubs — enough for one center. Meanwhile, Congress is pushing the Energy Department to spend over $200 million on hydrogen-based clean fuel technologies — an idea that was popular with President George W. Bush, but that many energy experts deride as a permanent pipe dream. Another House bill would have the Energy Department spend $30 million a year for five years on natural-gas vehicles, even though the Obama Administration hasn't sought the money and few experts believe natural gas is a smart fuel.

As Chu, a newcomer to the capital, fights for money in Congress, there's a bigger battle brewing over the carbon cap and trade bill. Co-sponsored by Democratic lawmakers Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, the bill barely passed the House last month and will soon be taken up by the Senate. The legislative fight has mostly centered on how tight the carbon caps should be, but some of the revenue created by the cap — which would require some companies to pay for carbon credits — will be directed to energy research and development.

As cap and trade was revised in Congress, though, that number has dwindled — the current bill would channel perhaps around $10 billion a year to energy research in its early stages — but not solely for clean energy. By contrast, on the campaign trail Obama promised to spend $150 billion over 10 years just on clean energy research. On July 16, an assortment of 34 Nobel Prize winners wrote a letter to President Obama, calling for more support for energy research and development in the climate bill. "We need a much larger investment than what we're getting," says Jesse Jenkins, director of energy and climate policy at the Breakthrough Institute.

In the government's defense, the stimulus bill has directed further billions toward clean energy, and the new levels of funding will be higher than anything the industry has ever known. But other nations, especially in Asia, are still beating us. China is reportedly investing up to $660 billion over the next decade in clean energy and research. South Korea is planning to invest close to 2% of its GDP each year, or about $85 billion over five years, in clean tech. And Japan is aiming for a 20-fold expansion in installed solar by 2020. Meanwhile executives in American clean energy companies, who visited Capitol Hill on July 28 to lobby for a stronger national renewable energy standard, worry that we could be falling behind. "This bill does nothing to drive the installation of new renewable energy for the next several years," says Craig Mataczynski, the president of Colorado-based clean energy company Res Americas. "If we don't do something to drive this industry here, we could end up in second place to a country like China."

Of course, the tiny renewable power industry has little weight in Washington. The major coal-powered utility American Electric Power spent $4.6 million to lobby Congress in the first six months of the year, $1.3 million more than it did over the same period last year. By contrast, "I don't think you can see the renewable energy lobby compete on a dollar-by-dollar basis with the fossil fuel and coal lobby," says Mataczynski.

The question now is whether Obama will throw his weight into the battle. "Which country will create these jobs and these industries?" he said in a speech on June 25. "I want that answer to be the United States of America." It can be — but only if we're willing to shoot for the moon.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1913781,00.html

Piketon Plant: Uranium Project May Go on Hold

Oh, great! This leaves USEC's gaseous diffusion plant in Paducah, KY still the only operational nuclear enrichment plant in the US.

Thursday, July 9, 2009 3:06 AM

By Jonathan Riskind

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

WASHINGTON -- The planned uranium-enrichment plant project in Piketon, Ohio, faces "demobilization" beginning in August unless the federal government grants a $2 billion loan guarantee, says USEC Inc.

USEC, the suburban Washington company trying to build the $3.5 billion advanced-technology plant on the same site where it ran the enrichment facility closed in 2001, has indicated for months that without the loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, the Piketon project would fail to get needed financing.

USEC has spent about $1.4 billion to build a test plant and begin work on the full-scale commercial facility, which would make fuel for nuclear power plants. The company says the enrichment plant could be operating by early 2011.

An Energy Department spokesman declined on Tuesday to discuss the status of the USEC request. However, Energy Secretary Steven Chu has made it a priority to speed up the loan guarantee process.

USEC made its application more than 10 months ago. Announcements are expected "fairly soon" for several projects, said Ebony Meeks, an Energy Department spokeswoman. But she could not say whether USEC would be the subject of one of those announcements.

Overall, the project employs 5,700 directly or indirectly; jobs range from construction of the plant in Piketon to work on the enrichment-facility components and supplies in eight states, the company says. In Piketon, more than 600 are working, and a fully operating plant would employ about 400 for years to come.

The enrichment facility is separate from the planned nuclear-power plant that a consortium of companies recently announced. The nuclear power plant could take a decade to go online even if it gains all the necessary approvals.

USEC said this week that it expects the Energy Department to make a decision by early August on whether to grant a "conditional commitment" for the loan guarantee. But if the decision is no, or there is no decision, a demobilization plan for significantly slowing down the project will be put into effect that would "involve the partial or full halt of certain American Centrifuge project activities and plant construction," the company said.

"Even if a conditional commitment is provided by early August, demobilization may be initiated if the terms of such conditional commitment are not acceptable or if subsequent progress toward achieving actual funding later this year under the loan guarantee is not maintained," the company said.

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/07/09/copy/usec08.ART_ART_07-09-09_A9_3QEE0AO.html?adsec=politics&sid=101

[CO] Uranium Mill Issue Will Set National Precedent

MONTROSE – Deep divisions in the Paradox Valley community may well remain after the Montrose Planning Commission’s vote Wednesday night on whether to recommend a special use permit for a uranium mill in Paradox Valley.

Friendships have been severed, with some on the side of agriculture in the valley and some who want to hearken back to the good old days of uranium mining their parents and grandparents enjoyed decades ago.

Whatever the decision of the planning commission, Energy Fuels’ request to build a huge mill on 800 acres will be the first built in the United States in almost 30 years, and will have national implications, some say.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said recently that nuclear energy is “the wave of the future” and is encouraging nuclear energy development.

The proposed mill would set a precedent for the rest of the country, said Travis Stills of the Energy Minerals Law Center in Durango, but for the wrong reasons.

“They’re trying to claim it’s the resurgence of the uranium industry and trying to tie it into the nuclear equation,” he said. “It could be a national story because it could be the place where all the stuff goes. It could be looked at as a disposal facility.”

As originally proposed, the mill would only process raw uranium ore from nearby mines. But at a public hearing in Nucla last month, Energy Fuels CEO George Glasier said the mill could also extract uranium from radioactive groundwater.

After Glasier spoke, Stills went to the podium and expressed his displeasure with what he called “a major shift” in policy on what would be processed at the mill.

Only two uranium mills are operating in the U.S. at this time, the White Mesa and Shootaring Canyon mills in Utah, Stills said, both process radioactive wastes.

“A major source of income (for the mills) is waste disposal fees from various folks who have radioactive waste to get rid of,” he said.

The proposed Paradox Valley mill also wants to take in mine waste, not just tailings, he said.

“They should send that to a low level facility, not to a mill tailings cell, which is hazardous enough,” he said.

But Glasier and his many associates have decried health risks of exposure to radioactive materials in the air and water that opponents say could occur because of the mill. Glasier says the industry has made enormous safety advances since the near meltdown of a reactor core at Three Mile Island in 1979.

Glasier said he never had plans for the mill to become a waste disposal facility for nuclear and other radioactive wastes, but was only trying to help the state because of tighter laws on uranium content in drinking water.

New state laws require a new limit on the amount of uranium in drinking water, but in western Colorado, naturally occurring water has higher than those limits, Glasier said.

The mill could have treated municipal water by supplies by loading resin beads with uranium extracted from the water, sending the beads to a disposal facility, after which the beads could be reused.

Without the mill, the water treatment plants will have to install their own resin extraction columns, which is expensive, he said.

“They’ll have no place to dispose of it so they’ll have to ship it to a waste disposal site and they can’t reuse the beads,” he said. “The state wants us to do it, and it would save all these municipalities a great deal of money.”

But Glasier said he dropped the idea of extracting water from uranium because of objections raised at the public hearings.

“Some people were objecting to what would have been a real benefit,” he said. “But those environmental kooks come up with this stuff…They’re saying we’ll process waste, but we have no plans to process anything else but raw uranium ore and the water that comes right out of our mines.”

Other objections to the mill have come from the agricultural community. On to their Web site for Paradox Valley Community Supported Agriculture, William and Vernie Lynn DeMille wrote about how they moved to the valley from Missouri after farming there for 35 years.

“We love farming and we were thrilled when we discovered the Paradox Valley,” DeMille wrote. “Because of its outstanding soil, great climate and protected valley, it is the perfect place to grow excellent crops, both vegetable and fruit.”

Food grown in the valley will be packed with nutrition because of high mineral content of the soil, DeMille said.

During public forums, farmers in the valley objected to the mill, saying they will lose their organic agriculture status because the mill has the potential to pollute the air and water.

Paradox Valley proponents of the mill, most from families who remember the heyday of mining in the area decades ago, scoffed at farmers’ concerns, even displaying a sign at the last public meeting that read, “Uranium dust helps your organics grow” along with “We need jobs on the West End.”

However the planning commission votes, which occurred after the Watch printing deadline, the divisions in the Paradox Valley will apparently not soon heal.

http://www.telluridewatch.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Uranium+Mill+Issue+Will+Set+National+Precedent%20&id=2867706-Uranium+Mill+Issue+Will+Set+National+Precedent&instance=secondary_stories_left_column

Economic Benefits, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions Reductions, and Water Conservation Benefits from 1,000 Megawatts (MW) of New Wind Power in Virginia

The graphics and charts for this article didn't copy but they're certainly worth a look. Click on the link below for the rest of this release and for the visuals. If VA would harness its wind energy, there would be no need for U mining here or in lots of places with similar winds. Job creation would be substantially higher than with U mining and milling too. There are no compelling reasons not to harness VA's renewable energy source, wind.

Wind power is one of the fastest growing forms of new power generation in the United States. Industry growth in 2007 was an astounding 45%. New wind power installations constituted 35% of all new electric power installations. This growth is the result of many drivers, including increased economic competitiveness and favorable state policies such as Renewable Portfolio Standards. However, new wind power installations provide more than cost-competitive electricity. Wind power brings economic development to rural regions, reduces water consumption in the electric power sector, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by displacing fossil fuels.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Powering America Program is committed to educating state-level policy makers and other stakeholders about the economic, CO2 emissions, and water conservation impacts of wind power. This analysis highlights the expected impacts of 1000 MW of wind power in Virginia. Although construction and operation of 1000 MW of wind power is a significant effort, six states have already reached the 1000-MW mark. We forecast the cumulative economic benefits from 1000 MW of development in Virginia to be $1.2 billion, annual CO2 reductions are estimated at 3.0 million tons, and annual water savings are 1,600 million gallons.

Economic Benefits
Building and operating 1000 MW of wind power requires a significant investment. But this investment will generate substantial direct, indirect, and induced economic benefits for Virginia. Direct benefits include jobs, land-lease payments, and increased tax revenues. Indirect benefits include benefits to businesses that support the wind farm. Induced benefits result from additional spending on goods and services in the area surrounding the development.

Direct impacts result from investment in the planning, development, and operation of new wind facilities. Beneficiaries include landowners, construction workers, O&M staff, turbine manufacturers, and project managers. Indirect impacts reflect payments made to businesses that support the wind facility and include banks financing the project, component suppliers, and manufacturers of equipment used to install and maintain the facility. Induced benefits result from increased spending by direct and indirect beneficiaries. Examples include increased business to restaurants, retail establishments, and child care providers.

Drivers of economic benefits include the use of local construction companies, the presence of in-state component suppliers, local wage structures, local property tax structures, and operation and maintenance (O&M) expenditures.

The projected benefits for Virginia could be greatly increased by the development of a local wind supply, installation, and maintenance industry within the state.

See the rest of this article, including statistics and graphics here:
http://vwec.cisat.jmu.edu/Fact%20Sheets%20&%20Presentations/Fact%20Sheets/NREL%20factsheet%20(latest).pdf

Ohio Uranium Plant at Risk Without Federal Loan

Your tax dollars at work! Again!


Updated 12:26 PM Sunday, June 21, 2009

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A company's plans to build a uranium enrichment plant in southern Ohio are in jeopardy without a $2 billion federal loan guarantee, The Columbus Dispatch reported Sunday.

USEC Inc., based in Bethesda, Md., is developing the American Centrifuge project on the site of a former gaseous diffusion plant in Piketon, about 65 miles south of Columbus.

The company applied for the loan guarantee 10 months ago under a U.S. Department of Energy program launched by former President George W. Bush.

Without the loan guarantee, USEC won't be able to obtain private financing, company officials said.

The delay is adding to the project's overall cost, which is about $3.5 billion, USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle told The Dispatch. The company has spent about $1.4 billion so far, including the construction of a new facility.

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has said he intends to speed up the process of approving loan guarantees, but only one has been issued. In late March, Chu's department signed off on a $535 million loan guarantee for a solar-panel manufacturing plant to be built by California-based Solyndra.

USEC's project, announced five years ago, is supposed to open in 2011 and employ about 400. Enriched uranium from the plant would be used in generating electricity at nuclear power plants.

Work on the plant has slowed, and the prospect of mothballing it isn't far off, said Stuckle told the newspaper. She declined to specify when the project could be shut down.

"This is a serious time issue. We cannot get enough funding absent the loan guarantee," Stuckle said.

Rob Portman, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate and a former congressman from Cincinnati whose district included Piketon, recently wrote to President Barack Obama urging that the loan guarantee be granted quickly.

Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland also wrote to Obama in March, saying that "without timely approval of the loan guarantee, the many thousands of new jobs currently being created will be delayed or perhaps lost."

Obama was supportive when he campaigned in southern Ohio last year.

The Piketon site is where the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant enriched uranium during the Cold War.

Cleanup of the site is still going on, and just last week Gov. Ted Strickland and other politicians announced plans by Duke Energy and the French nuclear energy company Areva to build a $10 billion nuclear power plant there over the next 10 years.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/ohio-news/ohio-uranium-plant-at-risk-without-federal-loan-171934.html

New Documents Show 42-square-mile Uranium-leasing Program Threatens Endangered Species and Dolores, San Miguel, and Colorado Rivers

Conservation Groups Threaten Department of Energy With
Additional Legal Action for Endangered Species Act Violations

DURANGO, Colo.— Today conservation groups notified the Department of Energy and Bureau of Land Management that they intend to add claims of Endangered Species Act violations to litigation challenging the Department’s 2007 decision to continue and expand its 42-square-mile uranium leasing program on public lands around the Dolores and San Miguel Rivers in western Colorado.

The groups are the Center for Biological Diversity, Colorado Environmental Coalition, Information Network for Responsible Mining, and Center for Native Ecosystems.

Newly obtained documents reveal that the Department of Energy failed to consider the impacts of water depletion and contamination to threatened and endangered species — including Colorado pikeminnow, razorback sucker , and humpback and bonytail chubs — despite warnings from the Bureau of Land Management that those threats exist. The notice of intent gives the agencies 60 days to remedy violations of the Endangered Species Act by initiating formal consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider the program’s impacts on threatened and endangered species. In 2008, the same groups filed a lawsuit challenging other aspects of the Department of Energy’s uranium-leasing program. Should the agencies fail to act in response to today’s notice, conservation groups will add legal claims to their pending lawsuit.

“Risking species, public lands, and scarce western water with irretrievable uranium contamination is profoundly short-sighted — but that’s exactly what the Department of Energy has done,” said Taylor McKinnon, public lands program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Department’s choice now is to comply with the Endangered Species Act or be sued for these new violations.”

Uranium mining and milling resulting from the lease program will deplete Colorado River basin water and may pollute streams and rivers with toxic and radioactive waste products, including uranium, selenium, ammonia, arsenic, molybdenum, aluminum, barium, copper, iron, lead, manganese, vanadium, and zinc. These pollutants may contaminate rivers and aquatic ecosystems for hundreds of years following uranium mining, threatening downstream communities and fish and wildlife. Selenium and arsenic contamination in the Colorado River basin from abandoned uranium mining operations in the region has been implicated in the decline of the four endangered Colorado River fish species, and may be impeding their recovery.

“Even small amounts of some of these pollutants, like selenium, can poison fish, accumulate in the food chain and cause deformities and reproductive problems for endangered fishes, ducks, river otters, and eagles,” said biologist Megan Mueller of the Center for Native Ecosystems. “It is irresponsible for the Department of Energy to put fish and wildlife at risk by rushing to approve numerous uranium mines without adequate protections to prevent pollution. ”

Since approving the leasing program in 2007, and despite having sidestepped Endangered Species Act requirements, the Department of Energy has executed dozens of new 10-year lease agreements that effectively authorize new and additional mining. Uranium tailings on Department lease and other tracts have already contaminated the Dolores and San Miguel River watersheds heavily impacting water quality in both rivers. Proposed uranium mines and mills in the area (including the Whirlwind mine and the Paradox uranium mill) may also result in runoff and discharge of contaminants into the Dolores River basin.

“We hope the DOE will do what’s right in protecting the land, water and people from a massive and flawed development plan rushed through by the Bush administration,” said Joe Neuhof, West Slope director for the Colorado Environmental Coalition. “This land has plenty of long-term value for its recreational opportunities and wildlife so there is no reason to rush ahead without properly assessing potential impacts.”

The public lands impacted by the uranium leasing program – all of which remain under Bureau of Land Management jurisdiction – are world-renowned for their unique and impressive mesas, canyons, arches, and wild sections of river that draw recreationists from around the world. The unique ecosystems support cryptobiotic soils, vegetation, fish and wildlife, and the Dolores River watershed, which flows into the Colorado River system on which millions of people and four critically endangered fish species depend.

“The Department of Energy’s actions are not only irresponsible, they risk devastating destruction to the biota for short-term gain,” said Damien Borg of INFORM. “This is reprehensible behavior and must not be tolerated.”

Downloads:

Record of telephone conference in which BLM states water depletion and toxic discharge may affect endangered fish in downstream.

DOE environmental checklist stating that threatened and endangered species may occur in the vicinity of uranium lease tracts.

Map of DOE uranium lease tracts in the Dolores and San Miguel River canyons and watersheds.

Notice of Intent to sue for violations of the Endangered Species Act in connection with the Department of Energy, Office of Legacy Management Uranium Leasing Program.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/uranium-exploration-04-15-2009.html

Animal Claims May be Added to Uranium Lawsuit [in CO]

DENVER (Map, News) - Conservation groups say they may add endangered species claims to a lawsuit seeking to stop uranium mines in western Colorado.

The groups are suing the U.S. Department of Energy over a leasing program that could clear the way for uranium mining on 42 square miles near Dolores River Canyon in southwest Colorado.

The lawsuit has been pending since last summer. The environmentalists said Wednesday they may add endangered species claims to the lawsuit. The groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, say uranium mining would release poisons that could hurt protected fish and waterfowl living on the Delores and Colorado rivers.

Southwest Colorado was a major uranium-producing area in the 1940s and 1950s.

http://www.examiner.com/a-1962705~Animal_claims_may_be_added_to_uranium_lawsuit.html

Map of Nuclear Power Reactors: UNITED STATES

From the International Nuclear Safety Center operated by the Arbonne National Laboratory for the US DOE.

For a list of all of the nuclear reactors in the US, and their current status, click on the link below for the graph. The link also allows you to see maps and corresponding nuclear reactor information for each continent.

http://www.insc.anl.gov/pwrmaps/map/united_states.html

Energy Dept. Boosts Clean up of Uranium Tailings

By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Writer

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The U.S. Energy Department has allocated $108 million in economic stimulus aid for removing the 16 million ton radioactive tailings pile on the Colorado River near Moab, Utah.

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said Tuesday the funding commitment shows that the Energy Department is trying to meet a 2019 cleanup deadline. As recently as February, the department maintained the cleanup would not be finished before 2028, he said.

The money will help remove an extra 2 million tons of tailings by 2011 — the end of the current five-year removal contract. That will be accomplished by adding more rail cars and more rail shipments from the former Atlas Mineral Corp. site near Moab to a disposal site about 30 miles away.

Shipments are set to begin in April.

The waste is part of a Cold War legacy in Moab, where rich uranium deposits were mined during the 1950s for nuclear weapons. The Atlas Minerals Corp. bought the mill in 1962. It closed in 1984 but left behind the heap of tailings on the banks of the Colorado River.

Matheson and other lawmakers worked to convince the Energy Department that the massive pile should be moved away from the river's banks, rather than capped. The final environmental impact decision adopting that action was issued in 2005.

The overall cost of the cleanup is estimated at $1 billion.

"There is overwhelming scientific evidence that this site is unstable and that the contamination already migrating under the river towards the town of Moab could, with one major flood event, be dumped into the Colorado (River)," Matheson said in a statement.

The river is a source of drinking water for 50 million people, including residents of Arizona, California and Nevada.

Despite the legacy of the Atlas tailings pile, there has been renewed interest in uranium mining and processing, driven by speculation that efforts to combat climate change will reinvigorate the nuclear power industry.

The first application since 1988 for a uranium processing facility was filed in October with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Since then, the NRC has received at least 27 applications for facilities in Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, Arizona and New Mexico. Utah, Colorado and Texas have their own oversight agencies.

More than 1,100 uranium mining claims have been filed for sites within five miles of the Grand Canyon in recent years.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/31/state/n101516D82.DTL&type=science