Archive for the ‘Nukes’ Category

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Edward Klump, reporter
E&E News

Waste Control Specialists LLC, after months in corporate limbo, may look at restarting its push to store high-level radioactive waste in West Texas.

That’s because an investment affiliate of J.F. Lehman & Co. recently acquired WCS, ending the company’s hazy status under Valhi Inc.

WCS asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year to suspend — temporarily — the review of its high-level waste proposal, citing the cost and its limited financial resources. The company was waiting to see if a deal to sell WCS to EnergySolutions, a well-known industry player, would close. The transaction fizzled after a judge blocked it (Energywire, June 22, 2017).

Instead, WCS is joining J.F. Lehman’s portfolio. In a statement last week, Glenn Shor, managing director at J.F. Lehman, said the partnership "with WCS will ensure that the business has the resources required to support its long-term growth strategy across the government and commercial marketplace." The deal also gives WCS closer ties to NorthStar Group Services Inc., which is involved in the nuclear decommissioning business.

"This is not the end of the line for WCS as it still has much more to accomplish," Rod Baltzer, who had been CEO at WCS, said in a statement.

The request for a delay last year in the NRC’s high-level waste review was surprising because WCS had championed its potential to help store spent fuel from U.S. reactors, though Valhi had recorded operating losses from its waste segment for years. It remains to be seen how J.F. Lehman may help to boost volumes of various types of waste at WCS and perhaps pursue high-level storage. While a number of West Texas voices have touted potential economic benefits from the high-level waste plan, critics have blasted the idea over safety and environmental concerns (Energywire, Feb. 24, 2017).

Last year, J.F. Lehman announced that an investment affiliate had "recapitalized" NorthStar and a related entity in partnership with another firm. The new WCS deal means it and NorthStar are under a shared umbrella. J.F. Lehman is a private equity firm that has an interest in areas such as aerospace, defense and maritime holdings. Under the WCS deal, Valhi said the acquirer would assume WCS’s third-party indebtedness and take on certain liabilities.

Scott State, an executive with NorthStar, was listed last week by J.F. Lehman as CEO of WCS. Baltzer is no longer an employee or officer at WCS, though he is consulting during a transition period.

Efforts by E&E News to obtain further comments this week from J.F. Lehman and State about plans for high-level waste and the NRC process for WCS were unsuccessful. Baltzer said in a statement last April that WCS expected to go forward with the project as soon as possible after a sale, though EnergySolutions was the potential acquirer at the time.

One prominent WCS critic expects the push for high-level waste in West Texas to re-emerge now that new parties are involved.

"It seems likely to me that they will push for it," said Karen Hadden, executive director of the Texas-based Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition. She added: "We remain concerned and ready to fight to protect Texas and New Mexico."

If there is movement with the application, Hadden called for the NRC to start the licensing process over in terms of scoping meetings and public notice. The application will need to be revised in light of new WCS ownership, she said, suggesting there could be questions on finances, technology and safety.

"The public deserves the opportunity to thoroughly examine what gets put forward and to comment on a fresh version of their application," she said.

NRC process

The NRC indicated this week that the WCS review process hasn’t been restarted. The commission is also reviewing documents from Holtec International about a different interim storage proposal for a site in New Mexico (Energywire, April 6, 2017).

Scott Burnell, an NRC spokesman, said via email the agency expects to "re-notice" and restart the environmental scoping process if there’s word that WCS wants to restart. He said the NRC is doing an acceptance check on the Holtec application, meaning a full review could start if it’s acceptable.

Issues around how to deal with potential interim storage and a permanent repository, such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, remain tied up in Congress (Greenwire, Jan. 25).

Yesterday, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners issued a statement saying 20 years have passed since the federal government defaulted on a legal responsibility to store nuclear waste. NARUC said damages related to the government’s failure to act are in the billions of dollars and could rise substantially.

The association called on Congress to act, saying additional appropriations from the Nuclear Waste Fund already collected are needed to help with a review of the Yucca Mountain license application.

Hadden has opposed interim high-level proposals from WCS and Holtec, as well as the potential to use Yucca Mountain in the long term. She called for a "viable permanent repository" that has the right systems and geology for permanent disposal.

The Brattleboro Reformer newspaper in Vermont recently quoted State, WCS’s new CEO, as saying the new corporate setup wouldn’t reduce waste-removal prices for the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant decommissioning. That reactor ceased power generation in late 2014. State said the WCS deal would streamline the relationship between the company and NorthStar, according to the newspaper. Both companies hope to be involved in proposed decommissioning at the plant site.

WCS operates an existing low-level radioactive waste disposal business in Andrews County, Texas.

"The management of Waste Control will be 100 percent focused on the needs of NorthStar," State told the Brattleboro Reformer. "We will be able to better control and manage the activities for shipping waste and disposing of waste that comes out of Vermont Yankee."

Alex Harman, a partner at J.F. Lehman, in a statement last week expressed excitement at the idea of helping with the long-term success of WCS, including by "strengthening the partnership with NorthStar" on nuclear power plant decommissioning. State, in the same release, said WCS’s site has "significant capacity for growth."

Low-level waste should be a good business, according to Fred Beach, an assistant director for policy studies at the Energy Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. That could come from realms including medical and energy businesses.

Beach wondered about the likelihood of creating an interim site for high-level waste, saying it’s a tough business. He has suggested the United States look to close its fuel cycle for nuclear power and recycle fuel. If that isn’t politically feasible, he said Yucca Mountain could still be a permanent disposal site.

"WCS has a bright future and should reap synergistic benefits from the tighter ties with NorthStar and their plans for the nuclear power plant decommissioning market," said Baltzer, the former CEO.

September 29, 2017

By Sergio Chapa – Reporter

San Antonio Business Journal

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has renewed the license for the South Texas Project. The nuclear power plant provides electricity to San Antonio, Austin and many other area communities.

In an order issued on Thursday, the NRC approved the South Texas Project to remain in operation for an additional 20 years.

Located just outside of Bay City and managed by the STP Nuclear Operating Co., the nuclear power plant is owned by Houston-based NRG Energy, San Antonio-based CPS Energy and Austin-based Austin Energy.

Originally built in the 1980s, the plant filed its application for a license renewal in October 2010. Operating under 40-year licenses, the plant’s two reactors were set to expire in 2027 and 2028 respectively. Under the 20-year renewals, the reactors are now cleared to operate through 2047 and 2048.

STP Nuclear Operating Co. President and CEO Dennis Koehl called the NRC’s decision a significant milestone for the plant.

"The license renewal of the South Texas Project is part of our ongoing commitment to provide Texans with safe, clean and reliable energy for decades to come," Koehl said in a statement.

Environmentalists opposed the renewal based on concerns over the handling of the plant’s radioactive waste, its potential vulnerability to hurricanes and market shifts that have made nuclear power more expensive than natural gas and renewables. The Bay City plant was able to keep producing power when Hurricane Harvey tore through the Texas Gulf Coast last month.

"I am proud of the dedication of our storm crew teammates," Koehl said. "Through great personal sacrifice, these individuals provided safe, reliable electricity to millions of Texans throughout Harvey."

The South Texas Project employs 1,200 people and is one of the newest and largest nuclear power facilities in the United States. Its two units produce 2,700 megawatts of electricity to an estimated 2 million homes.

NRC officials granted the South Texas Project a license in February 2016 license to add two more nuclear reactors at the site but they have yet to be built. Cheap natural gas has made building a new nuclear plant uneconomical, but plant operators told the Business Journal in a previous interview that they will be able to hold on to the license and build them when market conditions are right.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Jon Queally, staff writer
Common Dreams

"This storm and flood is absolutely without precedent even before adding the possibility of a nuclear accident that could further imperil millions of people who are already battling for their lives."

The South Texas Project nuclear power facility in Bay City, Texas could be under extreme threat from historic flood waters, groups warned on Tuesday. (Photo: STP)

As record-breaking rainfall and unprecedented flooding continue to batter the greater Houston area and along the Gulf coast on Tuesday, energy watchdogs groups are warning of "a credible threat of a severe accident" at two nuclear reactors still operating at full capacity in nearby Bay City, Texas.

Three groups—Beyond Nuclear, South Texas Association for Responsible Energy, and the SEED Coalition—are calling for the immediate shutdown of the South Texas Project (STP) which sits behind an embankment they say could be overwhelmed by the raging flood waters and torrential rains caused by Hurricane Harvey.

"With anticipated flooding of the Colorado River, the nuclear reactors should be shut down now to ensure safety."
—Karen Hadden, SEED Coalition "Both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the STP operator have previously recognized a credible threat of a severe accident initiated by a breach of the embankment wall that surrounds the 7,000-acre reactor cooling water reservoir," said Paul Gunter, director of the Beyond Nuclear’s Reactor Oversight Project, in a statement by the coalition on Tuesday.

The groups warn that as Harvey—which on Tuesday was declared the most intense rain event in U.S. history—continues to dump water on the area, a breach of the embankment wall surrounding the twin reactors would create "an external flood potentially impacting the electrical supply from the switchyard to the reactor safety systems." In turn, the water has the potential to "cause high-energy electrical fires and other cascading events initiating a severe accident leading to core damage." Even worse, they added, "any significant loss of cooling water inventory in the Main Cooling Reservoir would reduce cooling capacity to the still operating reactors that could result in a meltdown."

With the nearby Colorado River already cresting at extremely high levels and flowing at 70 times the normal rate, Karen Hadden, director of SEED Coalition, warned that the continue rainfall might create flooding that could reach the reactors. "There is plenty of reserve capacity on our electric grid," she said, "so we don’t have to run the reactors in order to keep the lights on. With anticipated flooding of the Colorado River, the nuclear reactors should be shut down now to ensure safety."

Last week, the STP operators said that safety for their workers and local residents was their top concern, but that they would keep the plant operating despite the approaching storm.

Susan Dancer, president of the South Texas Association for Responsible Energy, said that as residents in Bay City—herself included—were being forced to leave their homes under manadatory evacaution orders, it makes no sense to keep the nuclear plant online.

"Our 911 system is down, no emergency services are available, and yet the nuclear reactors are still running. Where is the concern for employees and their families? Where is the concern for public safety? This is an outrageous and irresponsible decision," declared Dancer. "This storm and flood is absolutely without precedent even before adding the possibility of a nuclear accident that could further imperil millions of people who are already battling for their lives."

As Harvey hovers over the coastal region, heavy rains are expected to persist for days even as the storm system creeps toward to Louisiana in the east.

But no matter how remote the possibility, said Gunter, "it’s simply prudent that the operator put this reactor into its safest condition, cold shutdown."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

March 16, 2017

JIM MALEWITZ
The Texas Tribune

AUSTIN, Texas (TRIBUNE) – Texas is trying to take the federal government to task for failing to find a permanent disposal site for thousands of metric tons of radioactive waste piling up at nuclear reactor sites across the country.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday night, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accuses U.S. agencies of violating federal law by failing to license a nuclear waste repository in Nevada — a plan delayed for decades amid a highly politicized fight.

Paxton’s petition asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to force the Nuclear Regulatory Committee to cast an up-or-down vote on the Yucca Mountain plan. It also seeks to prevent the federal Department of Energy from spending billions of dollars in fees collected from utilities on efforts to find another disposal site before such a vote.

“For decades, the federal government has ignored our growing problem of nuclear waste,” Paxton said in a statement Wednesday. “The NRC’s inaction on licensing Yucca Mountain subjects the public and the environment to potential dangerous risks from radioactive waste. We do not intend to sit quietly anymore.”

Paxton filed the lawsuit just two weeks after former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was sworn in as the agency’s leader. And it comes as Texas’ only radioactive waste site — run by Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County — is asking the NRC to let it temporarily store the nation’s spent nuclear fuel.

About 78,000 metric tons of spent uranium rods are stored at operating or closed reactor sites throughout the country, with 2,610 metric tons in Texas. Those sites, mostly meant to be temporary, are filling up.

Though the nuclear energy industry insists that temporary waste disposal — either in pools or sealed in dry casks of metal or concrete — is safe and environmentally sound, it has long agreed that sealing the waste in geologic formations deep underground boosts protection against terrorist attacks and natural disasters, such as the earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in 2011.

For more than 20 years, Washington saw Yucca Mountain as the solution, and the federal government spent tens of millions of dollars preparing it to accept the waste. But Nevada’s congressional delegation — led by now-retired U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat — has thwarted the project. And, facing significant political pressure, President Barack Obama’s administration abandoned the Yucca Mountain plans by failing to fund an NRC review.

“The NRC was never able to carry out its task to determine whether that site was safe,” said Dale Klein, associate vice chancellor for research at the University of Texas at Austin and a former NRC chairman under George W. Bush and Obama. “It was really frustrating that we were not able to do our job because of political reasons.”

Since 1983, utility ratepayers across the country chipped in billions of dollars to fund a waste repository — including $815 million collected from Texans. With interest, Texans have contributed $1.5 billion to the fund, managed by the Department of Energy.

A 2013 federal appeals court ruling halted the collections, and the fund now has an unspent balance of $40 billion, according to Paxton’s lawsuit, which opens with a comment from Perry during his confirmation hearing as energy secretary:

“My hope of this committee and administration is that we, finally after 35 years of kicking the can for whatever reason, we can start … moving to temporary or permanent siting of this nuclear waste.”

A Perry spokesman did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

During Perry’s tenure as governor, Texas became home to one of the nation’s few facilities that accept low-level nuclear waste. Since 2012, Waste Control Specialists, a company formerly owned by the late Dallas billionaire and Republican donor Harold Simmons, has disposed of contaminated tools, building materials and protective clothing, among other items, from shuttered reactors and hospitals.

That site in Andrews County grew rapidly during Perry’s final years in office. Over the objection of environmental groups, the company is seeking a licenseto temporarily store spent reactor fuel — high-level nuclear waste.

If Paxton’s suit does not force President Donald Drumpf’s administration to restart the Yucca Mountain plans, some observers say the federal government might more closely eye the Andrews County site — a move that would require Congress to change that 1987 law naming Yucca Mountain as the nation’s repository.

Asked whether Paxton’s lawsuit had anything to do with Waste Control Specialists’ expansion plans, Kayleigh Lovvorn, his spokeswoman, said her office had no comment.

Chuck McDonald, a spokesman for Waste Control Specialists, said the company had not yet read the lawsuit, “therefore, we don’t know if it will have an impact on our project or not.”

But he added: “WCS has always been supportive of a permanent repository, and we believe a consolidated interim storage facility is needed as part of an integrated waste management system in the U.S.”

Karen Hadden, executive director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, a group fighting the Andrews County site’s expansion, agreed with Paxton’s criticism of the Yucca Mountain process — “a waste of money,” she said. But Hadden worries that the lawsuit could force the government to permit a site ill-equipped to protect public health and safety.

“It’s really important that we get a permanent repository in place that will isolate this waste so we don’t have cancer effects or deaths from contamination today or into the future,” Hadden said. “My concern is that [Paxton] has another Texas permanent disposal site in mind.”

Disclosure: The Harold Simmons Foundation and the University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed here.

Midland County Dems react to Conaway’s support of storage bill

February 9, 2017

By Trevor Hawes thawes@mrt.com
Midland Reporter-Telegram

Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of PublicCitizen Texas office, speaks Thursday 02-09-17 during a press conference about how citizens can make their voice heard concerning the action of Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County changing to a high level nuclear waste depository. Tim Fischer/Reporter-Telegram

February 9, 2017

A recent letter from Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Conaway about the proposed high-level nuclear waste storage site in Andrews has prompted Midland County Democrats to act in hopes of a better solution, and they’re reaching out for help.

The Midland County Democratic Party held a press conference at the DoubleTree hotel Thursday and brought with them activist heavyweights Tom "Smitty" Smith, longtime director of Public Citizen Texas, and Karen Hadden, president of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, better known as SEED.

"This is not just a Democratic thing to be concerned about," MCDP Chairman David Rosen said. "We invite our Republican brothers and sisters, as well as the unaffiliated. A waste dump 50 miles from Midland is not a good idea."

Conaway issued a press release on Jan. 12 with comments in support of H.R. 474, the Interim Consolidated Storage Act. The bill seeks to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 "to authorize the Secretary of Energy to enter into contracts for the storage of certain high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel, take title to certain high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel, and make certain expenditures from the Nuclear Waste Fund," according to the bill’s summary.

A few companies are seeking to house high-level nuclear waste from dozens of decommissioned nuclear power plants that currently sit at reactor sites and from those to be decommissioned in the future. At issue is the Department of Energy’s inaction on taking possession of the waste and putting it into permanent storage, which by law it must do.

One company that seeks to take the waste for temporary storage while the Department of Energy finds a permanent home for the dangerous material is Waste Control Specialists, which already had a low-level radioactive waste storage facility west of Andrews. WCS wants to house the waste above ground while the Department of Energy finds a solution.

H.R. 474 would help move the process along, with the relocation of waste beginning in as little as five years. "This legislation allows the Department of Energy to cut through the red tape and enter into contracts with these licensed facilities, such as the one in Andrews, ensuring that nuclear waste will be properly stored until a permanent site is established," Conaway said in his press release.

WCS initially wants to take 5,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste for above-ground storage, according to previous Reporter-Telegram reports. Its facility will have capacity for up to 40,000 metric tons.

Smith said above-ground storage has "risks beyond what any community ought to take." He said that the waste should be buried underground, citing preliminary studies dating back to the 1980s that show perhaps the site with the best and safest geology is Washington, D.C. However, storage at the nation’s capital isn’t "politically feasible," he said.

Smith also said above-ground storage is dangerous because it’s an open target for terrorist attacks.

"We have a lot of concern about the potential of terrorist attacks," he told the Reporter-Telegram before the press conference. "This waste is basically going to be sitting on a big parking lot and visible to anyone who uses Google Maps. This is just putting a big nuclear target on West Texas and eastern New Mexico. Any terrorist worth his salt who wants to take a good shot at the United States would aim a rocket right at those locations."

Smith had no comment when asked during the press conference why waste storage casks shown to survive a battery of tests in the late 1970s, including impacts on a "rocket-powered train," were no longer viable but permanent site storage research from the early 1980s was.

Hadden said the canisters needed to be more robust because they will contain as much plutonium as the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Codenamed "Fat Man," the bomb was dropped on the city on Aug. 9, 1945. About 22,000 people died on the first day and 17,000 more perished in the four months after, according to the World Nuclear Association.

"Forty-two square miles of land could be uninhabitable from an accident," she said. Hadden said the steel casing for canisters in the U.S. are about a half-inch thick; in Europe, they’re up to 10 inches thick.

Ultimately, Smith and Hadden argued that temporary centralized nuclear waste storage wasn’t necessary. They said the current sites are secure and that what’s really needed is a safe, secure and permanent storage site underground.

Smith also expressed worry that temporary storage sites might wind up as de facto permanent sites because the federal government will no longer have incentive to actively find a forever home for the waste.

"I don’t think (the federal government) will officially name Andrews a permanent disposal site, but it will never move because nobody wants it," he said before the event.

Hadden and Smith are taking their message to Andrews on Saturday and were in Eunice, New Mexico, on Wednesday. The mini tour is setting up for U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission public meetings next week. The first is 7-10 p.m. MST Monday at the Lea County Event Center, 5101 N. Lovington Highway, in Hobbs, New Mexico. The second is 7-10 p.m. Wednesday at the James Roberts Center, 855 State Highway 176, in Andrews.

"One of the opportunities within a democracy is to make your opinions heard," Smith said. "Democracy is a contact sport, and this is your opportunity to have contact with the people who make these decisions and tell them what you think about (putting high-level nuclear waste) in West Texas and the consequences for tens of thousands of years."

Like Trevor on Facebook and follow him on Twitter at @HowdyHawes.

—-BE HEARD

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold two public comment hearings next week, where residents can weigh in on the proposal to store high-level nuclear waste in West Texas and eastern New Mexico. The schedule is as follows:

• Hobbs, New Mexico.: 7-10 p.m. MST Monday at the Lea County Event Center, 5101 N. Lovington Highway.

• Andrews: 7-10 p.m. CST Wednesday at the James Roberts Center, 855 State Highway 176.