The Nuclear Industry Makes Its Christmas Wish List, and It's a Long One

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 29, 2009 1:14 PM

CONTACT: Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) Aaron Huertas, 202-331-5458

Why is a Mature, 50-year-old Industry Still Asking for Massive Taxpayer Handouts?, Science Groups Asks

WASHINGTON - October 29 - Earlier this week the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the nuclear power industry's principal trade organization, released a proposal asking for billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies and radical changes to the federal regulatory process that would shift even more risks and costs from the industry to the public.

The industry's first priority is to get a minimum of $100 billion in new federal loan guarantees on top of the $110 billion in loan guarantees already authorized by Congress. That would total nearly one third of the taxpayer bailout money the government gave Wall Street a little more than a year ago. At the heart of NEI's proposal is the implicit admission that the industry cannot compete in the private sector market without massive financial support from taxpayers and reduced liability for cost overruns and safety hazards.

"NEI essentially is saying the industry can't be competitive without massive new federal subsidies and tax breaks," said Ellen Vancko, UCS nuclear energy and climate change project manager. "It is truly staggering that an industry this big and this mature can claim to need so much government help to survive and thrive in a world in which technologies that don't emit global warming pollution will benefit."

One of the nuclear industry's top priorities is the establishment of a federal clean energy "bank," called the Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA), which NEI considers to be a "permanent financing platform" for nuclear reactor construction.

Both the House and Senate versions of energy and climate legislation include a CEDA provision. NEI favors the Senate version because it would: exempt CEDA from the Federal Credit Reform Act (FCRA), removing any limits on the amount of federal loan guarantees that could be issued for new nuclear reactors by bypassing the congressional appropriations process; not restrict the amount of financial assistance that could be given to any one technology; and not require applicants to compete on the basis of reducing carbon at the lowest cost. These three key provisions in the House version of CEDA-which are missing from the Senate version-would allow most of the financial assistance to go to the nuclear industry instead of to a diverse portfolio of least-cost clean energy investments such as renewable resources and energy efficiency.

A recent report by the Congressional Budget Office (pdf) (CBO) found that without adequate taxpayer protections and strict government oversight, CEDA could allow a few risky, capital intensive industries such as nuclear power and coal-to-liquids run away with the bank. The CBO estimated that, "in the absence of any statutory limits, [the Department of Energy] would guarantee an additional $100 billion in loans for nuclear power projects over the next 10 years and close to another $30 billion in loans for fossil and other large capital projects." The CBO's analysis focused on pending loan applications and did not attempt to estimate the number of additional applications that would be filed if the program is modified and expanded.

The nuclear energy industry sees CEDA as its own personal federal financing mechanism, which is at odds with the expressed intent of the program. The bank is supposed to promote domestic development and deployment of a range of "innovative" clean energy technologies that would otherwise not have access to low-cost financing.

"This program was designed to spur innovation so we can benefit from the next big breakthrough in clean energy technologies," Vancko said. "There is nothing innovative about 50-year-old industry with a long record of massive cost overruns and plant cancellations."

In addition to virtually unlimited federal loan guarantees, NEI is asking for $3 billion to cover cost overruns and construction delays and an extension of the production tax credit through the end of 2024 (compared with 2012 for wind energy and 2013 for other renewable technologies), which could give the industry as much as $10 billion in new tax breaks. NEI alternately proposes to convert the production tax credit to an up-front investment tax credit of 30 percent for investments in new nuclear reactors or upgrades to existing reactors that could provide the industry with a $20 billion windfall. NEI further proposes expanding the manufacturing investment tax credit from $2.3 billion to $5 billion to benefit nuclear component manufacturers. And the trade association wants to see changes to the IRS tax code to help some companies write off payments to nuclear decommissioning funds more quickly.

"If the nuclear industry gets its way, Christmas will come early this year-thanks to U.S. taxpayers," Vancko said.

As alarming are NEI's proposed shortcuts to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) new reactor licensing process. The industry, for example, wants to limit the NRC's ability to verify that a new reactor was built in strict accordance with its license before it starts operating. NEI also proposes restricting the public's right to raise reactor construction safety issues by requiring the NRC to use "informal" procedures in public hearings on such issues.

"Before the NRC gives the green light to a new nuclear plant to start up, it needs the authority to ensure that each and every part of the plant will function exactly as it was intended to function," said UCS Senior Staff Scientist Edwin Lyman. "NEI's proposal could jeopardize public safety by barring the NRC from double-checking earlier findings, which could prove crucial with such a large, complex construction project as a nuclear power plant."

Dr. Lyman acknowledged that NEI offered a positive suggestion regarding nuclear security, specifically its request that Congress clarify the respective roles of the NRC and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security regarding protecting commercial nuclear plants from terrorist attacks. However, UCS maintains that private industry should assume far more responsibility for defending nuclear plants than NRC currently requires, while NEI recommends that federal, state and local law enforcement agencies take on a greater burden, which would represent yet another substantial taxpayer subsidy.

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The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/10/29-4

Nuclear energy is not clean energy

We’re once again grateful to Areva’s North America blog for pointing us towards yet another piece of nuclear hype, spin and propaganda. This time it comes from Jim Prentice, Canada’s Minister for the Environment.

Nuclear will play a key role in our clean energy strategy. And the reality is: nuclear is non-emitting.

Let’s be blunt here. This isn’t just misleading. This isn’t just misinformation. This is a lie.

Nuclear energy is not clean energy. One need only look at the environmental destruction caused by uranium mining. In his book ‘Wollaston: People Resisting Genocide’, Miles Goldstick details the damage brought to the lives of the people living around the uranium mines in Canada’s Saskatchewan province. The accumulation of radioactive isotopes in edible plants. The lead, arsenic, uranium and radium found downstream from the mines. The spills that J.A. Keily, then Vice President of Production and Engineering for Gulf Minerals Rabbit Lake, described in 1980 as ‘probably too numerous to count’.

These are stories found wherever uranium mining takes place. The ruined lives, the contamination, the cover-ups, and the deception. And that’s before we even consider what happens to the waste produced by generating nuclear energy.

As for ‘nuclear is non-emitting’, it takes just five seconds to Google for ‘nuclear power’ and ‘emissions’ to show that statement for the ridiculous falsehood that it is.

May we remind you that Jim Prentice is Canada’s Minister for the Environment?

This is, unfortunately, a deception that the whole nuclear industry wants you to believe. A child could see through it and yet the industry and its supporters persist. When the US’s EPA - that’s the Environmental Protection Agency – is filing nuclear energy under ‘clean’ energy, you know how far this deception has spread. Look again what EPA stands (or is supposed to stand) for. You begin to wonder it these people think you’re a moron.

The nuclear industry does not want you to look at where uranium comes from or where it goes to afterwards. To do so would destroy the myths that have supported it this long. ‘Look, our hands are clean,’ it says, while trying to hide its dirty fingers.

Posted by Justin on October 28, 2009 1:33 PM

http://weblog.greenpeace.org/nuclear-reaction/2009/10/nuclear_energy_is_not_clean_en.html

Even Rabbit Droppings Count in Nuclear Cleanup

We've left the links live so readers can explore more deeply the huge disconnect between mining uranium in VA and continuing agri-business in VA. Those mining proponents, including the pols, who seem to think they can have it both ways in Southside should be able to see, from this article, the folly of this idea.

By MATTHEW L. WALD

Published: October 14, 2009

WASHINGTON — Anything that hops, burrows, buzzes, crawls or grazes near a nuclear weapons plant may be capable of setting off a Geiger counter. And at the Hanford nuclear reservation, one of the dirtiest of them all, its droppings alone might be enough to trigger alarms.

A government contractor at Hanford, in south-central Washington State, just spent a week mapping radioactive rabbit feces with detectors mounted on a helicopter flying 50 feet over the desert scrub. An onboard computer used GPS technology to record each location so workers could return later to scoop up the droppings for disposal as low-level radioactive waste.

The Hanford site, overseen by the federal Department of Energy, produced roughly two-thirds of the plutonium used in the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal, beginning in World War II and ending in the 1980s. Today it is the focus of the nation’s largest environmental cleanup, an effort that has cost tens of billions of dollars and is expected to continue for decades.

Yet the helicopter flights, which covered 13.7 square miles and were paid for with $300,000 in federal stimulus money, took place in an area that had never been used by the bomb makers.

The area had, however, been used by rabbits that had also burrowed into other areas that were contaminated. Many of the contaminants were in the form of salts, which attract wildlife. The rabbits carried strontium and cesium, which emit gamma rays, back out of the area in their digestive tracts.

The flights were far less expensive than other strategies, said Dee Millikin, a spokeswoman for the contractor, a subsidiary of the engineering and environmental consulting company CH2M Hill.

Walking through the area with radiation detectors would have taken eight months longer and cost $1 million, she said.

The flights were first reported by The Tri-City Herald newspaper of Kennewick, Wash.

The rabbits themselves are not a target of the operation: the area from which they picked up the contamination was paved over years ago, so the source was sealed off, Ms. Millikin said.

Rabbits were not the only biological vectors contaminated by the nuclear residue. Mice and badgers also picked it up, she said, and coyotes feed on the contaminated smaller animals. “It’s basically a circle-of-life situation,” she said, adding that researchers have also found traces of radioactive materials in fish of the adjacent Columbia River.

Yet roaming rabbits appear to account for the overwhelming bulk of the radioactive excrement located in the flights, Ms. Millikin said.

Technicians have monitored rodents and waterfowl at Hanford for radiation since 1947, and have identified about 5,400 incidents of “biological intrusion.” It is not only animals; tumbleweeds have roots deep enough to pull up radioactive material and then carry it as they blow away, said John Price, who monitors conditions at Hanford for the Washington State Department of Ecology.

Marylia Kelley, the executive director of a California group called Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, said the rabbit cleanup was “kind of funny, in a sick way.”

Hanford is not the only reactor site that has prompted concern about contamination spreading to animals, Ms. Kelley said. For environmentalists focusing on the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Laboratory in California, for example, she said, the priority is to keep endangered or threatened species like the California tiger salamander and the red-legged frog out of contaminated areas.

At that site, she said, contamination has been somewhat harder to track because it is mostly plutonium, whose main emission is alpha particles that travel only a few inches in air, unlike the gamma rays from cesium and strontium at Hanford.

Radiation is also a concern at the Savannah River nuclear site in South Carolina, where neighbors can enter a lottery every year to be allowed to hunt deer. “All harvested animals are tagged and brought to our check station, where they are monitored for cesium-137,” the site’s Web site advises.

“If they find something that was above the limit, they take out that part of the carcass and allow the guy to go on his merry way with the rest of it,” said Robert Alvarez, an environmental expert and former Energy Department official.

In the 1980s, researchers found turtles contaminated with radioactive materials on a hog farm near the Savannah River plant. The discovery briefly prompted concern that the radioactivity could move into the human food chain, although such a pattern was not detected.

As the federal government pursues cleanups at various nuclear sites, experts have deliberately contaminated a species to further their efforts: honeybees. The Environmental Protection Agency says honeybees have been used to map radioactive materials on five federal nuclear reservations, including Hanford, as well as heavy metal pollutants.

Workers position a hive at a suspect area and wait to see what the bees come back with. Researchers can measure the radioactive content of the bees’ honey or wax, but “the recommended sample is the bee itself,” the agency said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/science/earth/15rabbit.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=nuclear&st=cse

NATIONAL DON'T NUKE THE CLIMATE CALL-IN DAY--THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15

PICK UP THE PHONE! KEEP THOSE SENATE PHONES RINGING!

AND KEEP THOSE E-MAILS/FAXES COMING TOO!

TALKING POINTS BELOW

October 14, 2009

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow is the National Don't Nuke the Climate Call-In Day!

Please call both of your Senators offices and tell them to keep nuclear power out of the Senate climate bill. Recent events, like the John Kerry/Lindsay Graham op-ed in Sunday's New York Times calling for more nuclear power in the bill, add to the urgency of this call-in day.
Help keep the Senate's phones ringing all day long!
Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121.

And keep your letters and faxes to your Senators coming, and keep forwarding the action url to all of your lists: http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/t/5846/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2137

Post it on your Facebook pages, Tweet it, spread the word every way possible. More than 4,000 letters already have been sent to the Senate this week--but we'll need more than that to beat the nuclear lobbyists. And with 16,000+ people on this e-mail list, that means a lot of you haven't yet taken action, and haven't yet helped reach the millions more people across this country who also want to keep nuclear out of the climate bill.

So take action today. E-mail and/or fax your Senators here. Then spread the word to every list you have, everyone you can think of.

And take action tomorrow. Call both your Senators offices at 202-224-3121.
The basic talking point is simple. If you only get 30 seconds with your Senators' offices, or an answering machine, just tell them: No nuclear power in the Senate climate bill, no more taxpayer dollars to support the failed nuclear industry.

But if you get a little more time, below are some talking points you may want to use. These also will be useful for drafting letters to the editor, op-eds, blog postings and the like--all of which will be very helpful as well. The more noise and publicity we can make, the better off we'll be.

Talking Points
*Nuclear power already receives a competitive advantage when a price is placed on carbon. If the nuclear industry cannot compete with such an advantage, that's its own problem, taxpayers should not be expected to provide more help to the industry.

*Projected costs for new reactors are stratospheric. In early 2006, the Nuclear Energy Institute predicted costs for the first few new reactors would run $2,000/kw, going down to $1,500/kw over time. Instead, recent estimates include Turkey Point (Florida) at $8,200/kw and Calvert Cliffs-3 (Maryland) and Bell Bend (Pennsylvania) at about $9,000/kw, or $13-15 billion. For example, see: http://www.bellbend.com/faqs.htm

*Cost overruns have been a constant with the nuclear industry. A 1986 Department of Energy study found the average cost overrun for the first 75 U.S. reactors was 207%. Reactors coming online after 1986 typically experienced even larger overruns. The only two reactors now under construction in the West-Areva reactors in Finland and France-are currently 75% and 20% over-budget, with years to go before construction completion.

*Electricity from new reactors, as expected with such enormous costs, would make the 1980s concept of "rate shock" seem quaint. An August 2009 report from the California Energy Commission, for example, predicts kilowatt/hour costs for nuclear electricity as high as 27-34 cents/kwh-nearly a tripling from today's prevailing rate of less than 12 cents/kwh. This report is available at: http://www.energy.ca.gov/2009publications/CEC-200-2009-017/CEC-200-2009-017-SD.PDF

*Nuclear power is not carbon-free. The nuclear fuel chain is responsible for fairly significant carbon emissions--at least three times those of wind power, for example. A recent study by Virginia Tech professor Benjamin Sovacool on this subject is available here: http://www.nirs.org/climate/background/sovacool_nuclear_ghg.pdf

*Nuclear reactors use enormous amounts of water, and water will become an increasingly precious resource in years to come, especially as we grapple with a warming climate. Allocating water to nuclear reactors now means less water for people and agriculture down the road. An August 2009 Virginia Tech study notes 36 states are projected to experience water shortages during the next decade. http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/water/sr46waterdependency.pdf

*Nuclear power is not even the only baseload alternative, as some in the industry claim. As cited in the August 6, 2009 Wall Street Journal for example, Spain is building large baseload solar thermal power plants for about $5,200/kw. While expensive, this is still $2,000/kw cheaper than the current low estimates for new reactor construction.

*Congress must not pre-judge the administration's re-evaluation of radioactive waste policy, which has not yet even begun. Specifically, no money should be spent on expensive, dangerous technologies like reprocessing, especially when the future direction of waste policy is unknown.
Tomorrow, NIRS staff will be going door-to-door in the Senate office buildings, delivering the thousands of postcards you sent to us (Thanks!) and the list of 629 U.S. organizations that have signed on to the simple statement on nuclear power and climate change. We hope to hear those phones ringing in every office we visit!
Thanks for all you do, but this week, let's all try to do just a little bit more....

Michael Mariotte
Executive Director

Nuclear Information and Resource Service
www.nirs.org
nirsnet@nirs.org

Nuclear grant has more to it

VA Tech Collegiate Times

by Letter to the editor

Monday, September 28, 2009; 7:41 PM

Are there really no conflicts of interests here?

According to the article "Tech receives nuclear grant" (CT, Sept. 15), Virginia Tech is slated to "implement" the money Virginia Uranium, Inc. will pay to the National Academy of Sciences for its services in performing a research study, which is to determine if uranium mining and milling can be done safely in Virginia.

Tech's newspaper, Collegiate Times, recently featured a picture of a mushroom-shaped atomic bomb blast cloud with the title "Virginia Tech's History of Nuclear Energy" with the chronological dates of the program's inception (1953), its disbanding (1990s) and its revival (2007). Strangely included are the dates of the Three Mile Island disaster in Pennsylvania (1979) and the Chernobyl disaster in Russia (1986). It also lists the $850,000 nuclear grant money (2009) received from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The article by Liana Bayne relates the NRC nuclear grant money, $850,000, which will go toward hiring new professors to "revitalize" Tech's nuclear engineering program.

Now, I shudder to think what the school's newspaper was thinking to post such a photograph, but it should cause more than an uneasy pause for the members of the NAS governing board, which is currently deliberating whether its prestigious institution should contract with Tech to do a study when the school, as the above article states, is clearly enjoying "a taste of the nuclear renaissance."

Let's recap: VUI wants to excavate an $8 billion to $10 billion uranium ore body at Coles Hill in Chatham, Va., and is the only entity that has offered to pay for the proposed NAS study. Tech wants to revitalize its nuclear engineering program and is well on track in doing so by receiving nuclear grant money ($850,000) from the NRC. (This is on top of a $300,000 grant it received last year for this program.) Tech will utilize VUI's north and south mines at Coles Hill, and its milling facility, as field laboratories for its students, which will be part of the curriculum of the nuclear engineering program. (In the past, Tech graduate students have already been on the site doing various studies on the un-mined uranium ore body at Coles Hill.) Tech will be the conduit to "implement" the estimated $1.2 million to $1.4 million VUI plans to pay NAS for doing the research study - a study it needs in order to overturn Virginia's moratorium on the mining and milling of uranium.

I have to ask, are there really no conflicts of interest here? And what does a mushroom-shaped atomic bomb blast cloud have to do with Tech's revival of its nuclear engineering program? Will NAS disregard the obvious connection between the revival of Tech's nuclear engineering program and its role to "implement" the money VUI will pay the NAS to do a research study?

Does NAS have blinders on?

Anne Cocknell [sic]
Danville, Va.

http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/14276

France Should be a Powerful Cautionary Tale for the U.S. about the Folly of a Headlong Rush into More Nuclear Power

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 15, 2009

CONTACT Alis Aaron Wolf, NIRS 703-276-3265

European Expert: U.S. Policymakers Are "As Wrong As They Can Be" About the French Experience With Nuclear Power Marignac Says "Far From Being a Model, France Should be a Powerful Cautionary Tale for the U.S. about the Folly of a Headlong Rush into More Nuclear Power". WASHINGTON, D.C. U.S. policy makers are in the grips of "dangerous and costly illusions" if they think that France is a model showing how nuclear power could be implemented aggressively in the United States, according to Yves Marignac, a leading international consultant on nuclear energy issues and the executive director of the energy information agency WISE-Paris. In visits this week with state and federal officials, Marignac is debunking the myth of the so-called "French nuclear model" that is being touted as a blueprint for the revival of the embattled nuclear power industry in the U.S. His visit comes at a particular key time, as the U.S. Senate considers additional subsidies to the nuclear industry in its version of pending climate legislation and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) seeks public comment on weakening the rules for loan-guarantee bailouts of proposed new reactors. Yves Marignac said: "I am at a loss to understand how the United States could be so far off the mark in its understanding of the French experience with nuclear power. The so-called 'success story' of the French nuclear program, which is being promoted so assiduously by the U.S. nuclear industry, is a complete disconnect with the stark reality of the 50-year history of rising costs, steadily worsening delays, technological dead-ends, failed industrial challenges and planning mistakes. The United States could make few worse mistakes than embracing France's sorry nuclear legacy. If American policymakers are going to weigh the example of France, they need to get the facts instead of settling for the fantasy being sold to them by the US nuclear industry." In his remarks today, Marignac noted the following key problems: • French nuclear technology is deeply flawed. The French EPR Reactor is a new reactor design developed by the company Areva in cooperation with the German firm Siemens. Serious doubts have been raised about the safety and cost of the EPR. Experience in the construction at the two sites where EPRs are being built, in Finland (Olkiluoto 3) and France (Flamanville 3), has revealed serious and fundamental weaknesses in design, problems during construction phases and soaring costs. British and Finnish nuclear regulators have also raised significant safety questions, in particular about the computerized command and control system proposed for these reactors. • French nuclear reactor construction delays are getting steadily worse, not better. Alongside increasing costs, construction times have proven to be problematic. The last four reactors that were built in France, two units in Chooz and two in Civaux, were only connected on average 10.5 years after construction work began, and subsequent safety problems caused further delays. Their official industrial service only started in 2000 and 2002 respectively, some 15.5 and 12.5 years after construction started. • French nuclear reactor costs are just as out of control as they are in the U.S. The EPR has been promoted as a technology that makes nuclear energy cheaper and more competitive. When the decision was made to build an EPR in Finland in 2002, the government promised that it would cost Euro 2.5 billion and take only four years to build. The final contract, three years later, put the price at Euro 3 billion and construction time was set at 4.5 years. Since construction began in summer 2005, a variety of technical problems have led to a three and a half-year delay, extending the construction period to at least 7 years. The currently estimated additional cost is Euro 2.3 billion, raising the current price tag to Euro 5.3 billion, almost 75 percent over the initial estimate. More problems, delays and cost overruns are likely to occur before the project is completed. In September 2008, Nucleonics Week quoted an Areva official, saying that Euro 4.5 billion will be a minimum price for any new EPR — almost twice the initial estimate. The other EPR being built in Flamanville, France, was approved in 2005 on the basis of a 2.8 c€/kWh cost estimate, which was increased by EDF in December 2008 to 5.4 c€/kWh, although EDF itself estimated that it should be below 4.6 c€/kWh to guarantee profitability. • Nuclear power in France has not promoted energy independence. Nuclear power in France is a major presence, providing 76 percent of electricity produced in 2008. However, electricity accounted for only 20.7 percent of the final energy consumption in France that year. Excluding electricity exports, the overall contribution of nuclear power to France's final energy consumption is only in the range of 14 percent. If the real aim of the nuclear programme was to reduce oil dependence, then it has clearly failed in its objectives. Over 70 percent of France's final energy is provided by fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal), with oil accounting for 49 percent of the energy consumption in 2007. Nuclear power cannot provide energy security, as it only has a marginal effect upon oil consumption, which is dominated by the transport sector. France consumes more oil per capita than the European average, and despite its long-term objective to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by three-quarters, it seems incapable of bucking an upward trend. This is due largely to the weak policies on energy efficiency and new energy sources, influenced by the lock-in of nuclear power. • French nuclear power is not "safer" ... and the nation does not have a long term solution to waste storage. The operators of the 200 nuclear facilities in France declare a very large number of events — considered relevant for safety — every year. EDF alone declares between 10,000 and 12,000, of which 700 to 800 are deemed "incidents" or "significant events". Large amounts of radioactive waste arise from the French nuclear programme. In total, close to 890,000 cubic meters (m3) of radioactive waste had been produced by the end of 2004. Almost 40 percent of this amount is linked to reprocessing. This total does not account for some 12,000 m3 of waste from the reprocessing plant in Marcoule that was dumped into the sea in 1967 and 1969. While reprocessing is presented as a means to reduce the volume of highly-radioactive long-lived wastes in final disposal, it actually increases the complexity of waste management, and thereby the danger for the population and environment. Reprocessing comes with numerous extra nuclear facilities and transports, each creating extra safety risks. But also 'normal' radiation exposure arising from routine operations increases, for example by the radioactive discharges of La Hague reprocessing plants, with authorized discharge levels up to 1000 times higher than those applying to the nearby Flamanville nuclear power station. And even France, supposedly the country of nuclear expertise, has no long-term solution for its nuclear wastes. • Nuclear power in France is not popular. The pursuit of the nuclear program in France is a permanently undemocratic choice. Contrary to the image presented in the United States, the French population is no more in favor of nuclear power than the European average — indeed a majority is opposed to the building of new plants. Surveys repeatedly show that the public lacks confidence in the institutional promoters of nuclear power. • The "nationalized" nuclear model in France is completely incompatible with the market-driven U.S. In 2001, Compagnie Générale des Matières Nucléaires (Cogema — General Company for Nuclear Materials), a private company established in 1976, merged with Framatome, the nuclear reactor builder, to create the Areva group. Currently, 96 percent of the share capital of the Areva group is held by the French state and large French industries. Electricité de France (EDF), the French electric utility, was established in 1946 through nationalization of a number of state and private companies. First and foremost responsible for overseeing development of the electricity supply across France, today EDF operates all 59 nuclear reactors in service in France. EDF was partly privatized in 2005-2006, but the French government still retains control 84.9 percent of its shares. • State ownership of French nuclear power means that the true costs are hidden. Though largely in an indirect fashion, French taxpayers bear a large part of the nuclear costs. The French government, as both the regulator of electricity prices and the owner of the utility EDF, has been able to overcome the main obstacle to nuclear power by planning, at liberty, the return of capital costs from nuclear investments. French public funding is widely provided to the nuclear industry, from financing extensive R&D programs to guaranteeing low-rate loans. Official cost estimates for nuclear power tend to neglect or downplay hidden costs from the fuel cycle, waste management, decommissioning of nuclear facilities, security, infrastructural changes and state guarantees for liabilities. All in all, nuclear power is highly subsidized by the French taxpayer. ABOUT YVES MARIGNAC Yves Marignac is executive director of the energy information agency WISE-Paris, which he joined in 1997, after four years shared between academic research at Paris-XI University and applied studies in the French nuclear institute CEA and the nuclear company STMI. His consultant work covers a wide range of nuclear issues for various institutional bodies and NGOs at the national and international level. In 1999-2000, Marignac participated in the economic evaluation of the nuclear option commissioned by French Prime Minister (known as Charpin-Dessus-Pellat report), and in 2001 he was a co-author of a report to the European Parliament's Scientific and Technological Option Assessment (STOA) Panel on reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. In 2005, he acted as consultant to the Commission that organized the institutional public debate on the project of the new French reactor, EPR (Flamanville-3). Marignac is the author or co-author of a number of books and other publications, including Nuclear Power, the Great Illusion - Promises, Setbacks and Threats (October 2008) and Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing in France (April 2008). CONTACT: Ailis Aaron Wolf, (703) 276-3265 or aawolf@hastingsgroup.com. EDITOR'S NOTE: A streaming audio replay of the news event is available on the Web at http://www.nuclearbailout.org.

A Simple Statement On Nuclear Power and Climate Change

Sign the Statement | Invite Your Friends to Sign | View the Signers | Print the Statement

We're getting a little tired hearing nuclear industry lobbyists and pro-nuclear politicians allege that environmentalists are now supporting nuclear power as a means of addressing the climate crisis. We know that's not true, and we're sure you do too. In fact, using nuclear power would be counterproductive at reducing carbon emissions. As Amory Lovins of Rocky Mountain Institute points out, "every dollar invested in nuclear expansion will worsen climate change by buying less solution per dollar..."

The simple statement below will be sent to the media and politicians whenever they misstate the facts. We hope you and your organization will join us and sign on in support here.

"We do not support construction of new nuclear reactors as a means of addressing the climate crisis. Available renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies are faster, cheaper, safer and cleaner strategies for reducing greenhouse emissions than nuclear power."

http://www.nirs.org/petition2/index.php

NRC supports nuclear engineering at Virginia Tech

How conVEEE nyent...Va Tech's getting money from the NRC for nuclear engineering while supplying faculty and students to do who-knows-what-all at Coles Hill. It's also going to handle the money from VUI to the NAS in some odd effort to effect some semblance of integrity in the conflict-ridden study and payer system that's been worked out. I'm not sure I've seen anything quite this incestuous in a long, long time. Virginia, it's past time to wake the hell up!

Blacksburg, Va. -- Virginia Tech's nuclear engineering program will receive $450,000 for faculty development and $399,948 for fellowships from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The NRC awarded nearly $20 million to 70 institutions to boost nuclear education and expand the workforce in nuclear and nuclear-related disciplines. Congress provided the NRC funding for a $5 million educational curriculum program and an additional $15 million to supplement the NRC's grant program for scholarships and fellowships, faculty development, trade schools, and community colleges.

"As directed by the Congress, this funding provides broad benefits to the nuclear sector rather than solely benefitting the NRC. These grants help develop a workforce capable of the design, construction, operation and regulation of nuclear facilities and the safe handling of nuclear materials," said NRC Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko. "This year the agency expanded the number of institutions receiving grants from 60 to 70, and increased the number of grants to minority serving institutions by 67 percent."

Virginia Tech revived its nuclear engineering program in 2007, offering graduate coursework that leads to a graduate certificate in nuclear engineering. Final approval of the graduate certificate is pending. Development of a master's and Ph.D. in nuclear engineering is in progress. In addition, an undergraduate certificate in nuclear engineering is currently available and a minor in nuclear engineering is in preparation.

"With the critical demand for energy by our nation and the world, we were pleased to revive our concentration on nuclear engineering," said Richard C. Benson, dean of Virginia Tech's College of Engineering. "We have strong relationships with a number of industrial and government entities, including AREVA, NP, Inc., the Babcock and Wilcox Company, Dominion Resources, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the American Nuclear Society, and the Department of Energy, that have shown support for our nuclear engineering program. I believe educating our very bright students in this area will be beneficial to them and to society."

Leading the effort in ME are two faculty members, Mark Pierson and Eugene Brown. Pierson was formerly on the staff of the director of naval reactors, a joint Department of Defense/Department of Energy organization founded by Admiral Hyman Rickover. Pierson was responsible for operational and maintenance input for all SW5 naval nuclear reactors and shipboard radiological controls. In 1992 he was named executive officer, second-in-command, of the USS Indianapolis SSN 697, a fast attack submarine.

From 1994 until 1997 Pierson served as the submarine maintenance program officer for the director of submarine warfare on the chief of naval operations staff at the Pentagon. In 1998 he was named deputy department head of the engineering, materials, and physical sciences department, and program officer for nuclear ballistic missile submarine security, for the Office of Naval Research. He retired from the U.S. Navy in 2001 and enrolled at Virginia Tech to earn his doctoral degree in mathematics. http://www.me.vt.edu/people/faculty/pierson.html

"Our long term vision is to create an interdisciplinary program in nuclear science and engineering," said Ken Ball, head of the ME department, who also has expertise in nuclear materials and engineering. "Our program would encompass the nuclear sciences and medicine as well as nuclear engineering and reach across three Virginia Tech colleges."

###

The NRC announcement is here: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2009/09-140.html

Uranium poised for another boom

By Joe Hanel
contact@rmindependent.com

Warning signs and barbed wire mark the old townsite of Uravan. Once home to a uranium mill, the entire town was removed during a Superfund cleanup that ended last year. (Photo by Joe Hanel)

The Rocky Mountain Independent is running a three-part series of environmental snapshots from the Front Range. Part two examines how some Colorado residents fear that the industry and government regulators will repeat previous safety missteps.

No one wanted the piles of gray rocks with the yellow and bright green flakes. They lay in piles outside the vanadium mills in Southwest Colorado until World War II.

The suddenly, military men arrived and claimed the piles for the Manhattan Engineering District. A mill town called Uravan became a secret military city.

The yellow flakes became fuel for the first American atomic bombs, and Colorado’s uranium boom was born. For decades, the government bought all of the uranium that miners could find. But in the 1980s, the market crashed, and uranium resumed its status as a nearly worthless rock.

Now uranium is poised for a comeback. Companies are pushing projects near Fort Collins and Cañon City and in Southwest Colorado’s remote Paradox Valley.

“Population is growing, demand is increasing, and the world is also looking for affordable energy that produces no (greenhouse) emission and is very safe,” said Stuart Sanderson, president of the Colorado Mining Association.

Uranium prices have rebounded since the early part of this decade. Although, at $50 a pound, they are below their record $138 during a speculative bubble in 2007. A U.S.-Russian program to use fuel from old Soviet weapons in American power plants will end in 2013, which could create demand for domestic uranium. Also, nuclear power might become more popular as an alternative to fuel sources that emit global-warming gases.

Uranium critics scoff at the idea that it is a safe fuel source.

“I’ve been in misery, sometimes literally hell, for 41 and a half years,” said Reed Hayes, of Paradox, who fell into a vat of uranium in 1967 at a mill in Moab.

Hayes has suffered rashes all over his body and sometimes in his mouth and eyes. Of the 26 workers who started at the mill when it opened, 23 have died, mostly of cancer. By contrast, most of his high school class is still alive, Hayes said.

He opposes a new uranium mill planned for his valley, saying that the element of human error can never be overcome.

“I don’t want to see any more people die,” he said.

In every place in Colorado where a company has proposed a uranium project, a citizens group has risen up to oppose it.

• Powertech Uranium Corp. plans to open an “in-situ” mine east of Fort Collins that would leach uranium out of the groundwater. Coloradans Against Resource Destruction is fighting
the plan.Cotter Corp. plans to reopen
• its Cañon City uranium mill by 2014. It shut down the mill in 2005, and Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste wants it to remain closed. The mill polluted the nearby Lincoln Park neighborhood, and residents blamed it for causing cancer in their families.
• Energy Fuels Inc. plans to build a uranium mill in the Paradox Valley. Mill backers say it would spur the region’s dormant uranium mines back into production. But opponents in the Paradox Valley, which has become a haven for organic agriculture, want the region to turn its back on mining permanently.

Both the Cañon City mill and the Uravan mill — just outside the Paradox Valley — were on the federal Superfund list for environmental cleanups. Although the Cañon City mill remains, Uravan had a different fate. The entire town — homes, church, swimming pool, soda fountain — has been wiped off the map. All that remains is an office building and a barbed-wire fence marked with red-and-yellow radiation signs.

During the last uranium boom, government regulators failed to keep people safe. The Department of Energy published an extraordinary mea culpa during the Clinton administration, admitting that health experts in the federal and Colorado governments knew about the dangers of unventilated mines but hid the danger from miners. That story and many others are chronicled in the DOE Openness Project.

Congress set up a compensation system for uranium workers in 1990. But not everyone qualifies, and payments come slowly, if at all. The Department of Labor has paid only 43,000 claims out of 165,000 filed, according to a 2008 Rocky Mountain News investigation.

State health officials say things will be different this time.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has no applications on file for uranium mills. But Powertech, Cotter and Energy Fuels all will need radiation permits before they start operating. Warren Smith, of the state health department, said he expects Powertech and Energy Fuels to apply for their permits this year. When they do, it will trigger an intense 15-month review that includes at least two public meetings.

Steve Tarlton, who is in charge of the health department’s radiation program, says times have changed.

“When I was a kid, we didn’t have seat belts. Things are different now. The same is true of the uranium industry,” Tarlton said. “We have learned a lot from past mistakes.”

Joe Hanel reports from Denver for The Durango Herald and the Cortez Journal. Watch www.durangoherald.com and www.cortezjournal.com this month for a four-part series on uranium mining in Southwest Colorado.

http://www.rockymountainindependent.com/2009/07/uranium-poised-for-another-boom/

Abandoned uranium mines pose health risk to New Mexicans

Study: Increased likelihood of kidney disease and diabetes among people who live close to mines

By Marjorie Childress 5/7/09

ALBUQUERQUE — New Mexico legislators are in Washington D.C. this week to press the federal government to help clean up hundreds of abandoned uranium mines that dot the state’s landscape.

The trip comes on the heels of an appropriation of $150,000 included in this year’s state budget to help complete the painstaking work of assessing the extent of the problem, said Bill Brancard, director of the state’s Mining and Minerals Division of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department.

So far, his agency has listed 259 mines that have reported uranium production at some point. And there may be many more than that, he said.

The agency has a second list of 400 “uranium occurrences,” where uranium mines saw “significant exploration” but from which no production was ever reported to the state, Brancard said.

According to Jon Goldstein, deputy secretary of the state Environment Department, the mines cover a wide variety in scale, but most operated without regulation.

“These mines range from full-scale mines to what’s commonly known as a dog hole, where a prospector was going out and trying to do it on his own,” he said. “And when most of these ‘legacy’ mines were operating, there weren’t the rules there are today. The Clean Water Act hadn’t been passed and the New Mexico Environment Department didn’t exist.”

The abandoned mines are found literally all over the state. But the overwhelming concentration is in the “Grants uranium belt” in western New Mexico. Uranium mining began in earnest on Navajo land in the 1950s and lasted until the late 1980s. This was the “Grants uranium boom,” Brancard explained.

The uranium, or “yellow cake,” was produced for the federal government’s nuclear program in the early decades then became an important fuel source for electricity producers.

Of the 259 mines that reported uranium production to the state, 137 have no record of any kind of clean up or restoration work. Those mines are the targets of the assessment being undertaken by the mining and minerals agency.

The agency is visiting the sites to assess the condition of the physical landscape–whether there are open mine shafts or waste piles, for instance — and to do radiology surveys. These surveys take readings of mining features and compare them with background readings to determine a mine’s radioactivity.

Data on the health impacts of uranium mining on communities is hard to come by. While studies have been done on miners themselves, studies looking at the effects on entire communities have been limited in scope.

Dr. Johnnye Lewis, director of the Community Environmental Health Department in the College of Pharmacy at UNM’s Health Sciences Center, is currently heading up an effort to assess the health impact of uranium mines in 20 chapters of the Eastern Agency of the Navajo Nation.

Thirty percent of the people who live in those Navajo chapters don’t have access to regulated drinking water, Lewis said. Since many haul their water, one goal is to find out which sources are clean.

In addition to proximity, Lewis’s research is also looking at how people come into contact with mines.

“Some of the mines don’t even look like mines,” Lewis explained. “You’d never know they’re there or might not recognize them for what they are.”

“No wonder then that people use abandoned ore in their homes, that kids swim in contaminated water or play around mine waste, or that people shelter livestock in abandoned mines,” she added.

Lewis’s team has only finished the first stage of the study, but initial findings show an increase in likelihood of kidney disease and diabetes among people who live close to mines, she said.

The findings have to take into account a higher prevalence of these health problems among Navajo and Hispanic populations in general, she said. However, a longterm medical monitoring program conducted in Fernald, Ohio has also shown an increase in kidney disease among people living near and drinking water contaminated by uranium. The initial findings in New Mexico support those results, she added.

Return of uranium mining?

There’s currently no uranium mining in the state, but in recent years there’s been renewed interest by industry to dig back in. This is due to a surge in prices in response to increased global demand. Between 2003 and 2007, the price skyrocketed from under $25 a pound to over $175, and then fell back down to around $50 a pound today.

Goldstein said the “amount of chatter has decreased” since the drop from the high in 2007, but that there is currently one active mine permit in the works.

The Mount Taylor Uranium Mine is owned by Rio Grande Resources, and is located northeast of Grants, just outside the Mount Taylor Traditional Cultural Property boundary, which was established last year. The company’s website says the mine site contains the “largest uranium resource” in the U.S., with an estimated 100 million pounds of uranium.

Goldstein said when the mine was closed in the late 1980’s, it flooded with water which the company will now have to pump out and treat in order to resume mining, something the mine owners are trying to figure out how to do now.

“It was operated in the 1970s up to the late 1980s,” Goldstein said. “A lot of mines have to pump ground water to keep dry. They turned the pumps off in this mine in 1989, and let it flood. That water is contaminated, so we’re waiting to hear from them how they intend to treat it.”

The mine also faces a lot of scrutiny from the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, and the pueblos of Zuni, Acoma, and Laguna, which consider Mount Taylor a sacred site and pushed for its designation by the state last year as a traditional cultural property, as a direct result of the increased interest in uranium mining.

One of the primary leaders in getting the mine assessment funds appropriated this year, state Sen. Lynda Lovejoy, D-Crownpoint, said that the prospect of new uranium mining in the state is concerning given the many mines that haven’t been cleaned up.

While the federal government has shouldered the responsibility for cleaning up uranium mills, they’ve paid little attention to the mines themselves, she said.

“Over the last few years during the interim [Senate] Indian Affairs Committee has held joint sessions at which we’ve discussed the renewed interest by industry in uranium mining,” Lovejoy said.

“But in these places where the mining might resume, like the Ambrosia Lake area near Grants, or the Churchrock and Crownpoint areas, a lot of sites haven’t been cleaned up.”

Lovejoy said she’s toured the areas to see some of the abandoned sites.

“It’s appalling, and we want to know why the state and the federal government haven’t made it a priority to clean them up.”

Lovejoy carried a Senate Memorial urging the federal government to clean up the mines, and this week she joins the delegation of five other legislators in Washington to drive the point home.

In addition to speaking with members of Congress about the problem, the legislators are making the rounds at federal agencies, including the Departments of Interior and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

http://newmexicoindependent.com/26823/abandoned-uranium-mines-pose-health-risk-to-new-mexicans

Nuclear power isn't clean or cheap

BY NIELS S. NOKKENTVED - Idaho Statesman

Published: 07/14/09

An Eagle-based company wants to build a 1,600-megawatt nuclear power plant in Elmore County.

The U.S. Congress is considering a bill that proposes the nation build 100 new nuclear power reactors over the next 20 years.

Idaho Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson has embraced nuclear power, and like others, promotes it as cheap and clean. They argue also that nuclear energy emits no greenhouse gases. But it is unclear which part of the nuclear energy cycle they're referring to. Nuclear power is neither cheap nor clean.

The two main reasons no new power plants have been built in the United States since the late 1970s are the high cost of construction and the uncertainty of the regulatory approval process. Only federal subsidies make nuclear power "cheap."

The nuclear fuel cycle starts with mining, which relies on trains, trucks and heavy equipment that run on diesel fuel. Refining the ore and turning it into nuclear fuel creates large amounts of radioactive and toxic tailings and waste. Uranium, for example, gives off radioactive radon gas, the second leading cause of lung cancer in this country.

And operating a nuclear power plant requires an outside source of electric power. Reactors emit small amounts of radiation and heat in the form of steam or hot water, and they produce waste for which we have no disposal solution.

Uranium mining and milling have a sordid history in the West. In the Southwest, Navajo homes once were built of radioactive mine tailings, and their land is riddled with more than 1,000 abandoned mines. Mining companies hired local residents to work at low wages without telling them of the health risks. When the ore played out, some companies simply walked away.

In one example, Uranium Reduction Co. began processing ore from the Moab area's rich uranium ore deposits in the 1950s. In 1962, the company sold the mill to Atlas Minerals Corp., which ran it until declaring bankruptcy in 1998. The federal government took over the site in 2001.

Today a 94-foot tall pile of radioactive and toxic mill tailings covers 130 acres and holds 12 million tons of radioactive waste - about 750 feet from the third largest river in the West, three miles from Moab, less than a mile from Arches National Park and across the mouth of Moab Wash.

The unlined pile leaks an average of 57,000 gallons per day into the Colorado River upstream of Lake Mead, which supplies drinking and irrigation water to southern California, Las Vegas and parts of Arizona. Similar piles at 38 mill sites in the West - 22 of them abandoned - hold 140 million tons of radioactive tailings.

The story doesn't end with refining the ore. Producing reactor fuel involves a process that concentrates one form, or isotope, of uranium that can sustain a nuclear reaction. The leftovers, known as "depleted uranium," remain radioactive. About 750,000 tons of depleted uranium already awaits disposal. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently issued warnings about disposing of large amounts of this material as "low level" waste - the current proposed practice.

Most industry supporters - who claim nuclear power produces no greenhouse gases - want to ship spent fuel from power plants, mainly in the eastern part of the country, by diesel-powered trains to a proposed waste disposal facility in Jackass Flats, Nev. - a site known as Yucca Mountain.

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Niels S. Nokkentved has degrees in journalism and environmental studies and has worked as natural resource reporter for 20 years, including more than 12 years of covering nuclear waste issues at the Idaho National Laboratory.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/story/832976.html

Top Korean utility buys into uranium miner Denison

Denison is a Santoy partner. Santoy is a VUI partner. It would appear that VUI, through Denison, is now partially owned by Korean Electrical Power. And yet VUI still wants us to believe it's a Virginia-owned company.

South Korea's state-owned utility company KEPCO has bought a major stake in Toronto's Denison Mines, and intends to buy African uranium mining assets within the year.

Author: Dorothy Kosich
Posted: Monday , 06 Jul 2009

RENO, NV -

Korean Electrical Power Corp (KEPCO) announced Sunday that it has acquired 17% of Canadian uranium miner Denison Mines in order to secure a stable source of fuel for its nuclear power plants.

KEPCO said it bought the stake for US$68 million. As reported on June 24th by Mineweb, KEPCO agreed to buy 58 million shares of Denison at an issue price of Cdn$1.13 per share.

The stake allows KEPCO to buy 300 tons of uranium per year or roughly eight percent of South Korea's annual uranium consumption from Dennison between 2010-2015. Denison mines 1,000 tons of uranium annually. South Korea imports 4,000 tons of uranium annually.

KEPCO also says it will retain the right to purchase Denison uranium beyond 2016 unless its interest in the Canadian miner fails below 10%. South Korea's uranium consumption is expected to increase by half to 6,000 tonnes annually by 2016.

The Korean utility said it also intends to acquire one or two uranium mining project in Africa within the year. In a statement, KEPCO President and CEO said, "2009 is the best time for M&A in natural resources development before the world economic recovery actually happens."

The company said it will also participate in the management of Denison through the contract. Kepco will be given a seat on the Denison board of directors.

Toronto-based Denison has mining assets in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan, Canada and in Colorado, Utah and Arizona in the U.S.

http://www.mineweb.net/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page72103?oid=85906&sn=Detail

Uranium Companies Urged to Protect Industry's Reputation

From the "Oh, Puh-leeze" Department:

Wednesday, 10/06/2009

Junior uranium companies attending an international conference in Darwin have been told to be careful and responsible as they enter the industry.

300 delegates from around the world are at the conference to talk about the future growth of uranium mining in Australia.

Rob Atkinson, from Energy Resources Australia, which owns the Ranger mine in the Northern Territory, says simple mistakes made by companies can harm the industry's reputation as a whole.

"We've been working very hard with the Australian Uranium Association to provide guidance and mentoring around the high standards, which should be in place to help support the junior miners, so they don't have to make perhaps mistakes which have been made before."

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200906/s2594600.htm