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Saturday, May. 29, 2010

By ANNA M. TINSLEY
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Thirty-six states could start shipping loads of radioactive waste through Texas for more than a decade — likely crisscrossing the Metroplex on major highways and train tracks — if they get approval this summer to send their contaminated materials to a West Texas disposal site.

The proposal to allow the states to send low-level waste to a site in Andrews County has prompted concern from some state lawmakers, who worry about the safety of communities along travel routes — including the Interstate 20 corridor through North Texas — and from environmentalists, who worry about radioactive leakage and contamination at the site.

An eight-member commission is expected to take up the issue in coming weeks, considering rules that would govern what materials are accepted and whether dozens of states should be allowed to send radioactive waste to the Waste Control Specialists’ Texas site owned by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons.

"This could open [Texas] up to not only become the nation’s but potentially the world’s dump site," said Cyrus Reed, conservation director for the Sierra Club’s Lone Star Chapter. "We thought the intent … was to take care of our own."

Waste Control Specialists’ officials say the site is safe and opening the landfill to other states will reduce the cost for all. And many West Texans who live near the disposal site say they support the company.

"We are willing to be the solution for the low-level radioactive waste disposal," said Julia Wallace, executive director of the Andrews Chamber of Commerce. "They need somewhere to put it. This is the perfect place for it."

But others aren’t so sure.

Amanda Villalobos is one of the few in Andrews County speaking out against the company, saying that while it is a great community partner and has a strong working relationship with many in the community, she is worried about leakage or other environmental problems.

"They don’t know what they are getting into," Villalobos, 24, said of her neighbors.

West Texas site

The Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, made up of six Texans and two Vermont residents, will decide whether additional states may apply to send low-level waste to Texas.

State environmental officials already agreed to let Waste Control Specialists accept low-level radioactive waste from Texas — including from Texas’ two nuclear plants, Glen Rose near Fort Worth and the South Texas project in Matagorda County — as well as from Vermont and federal sources.

The site is a sparsely populated area on top of layers of red bed clay about 350 miles west of Fort Worth that has had a hazardous-waste disposal permit since 1997. It’s owned by Simmons, who has given more than $3.5 million to Texas Republican politicians and organizations since 2000.

Shipments would include materials such as beakers, test tubes and hospital equipment, as well as items that have come in contact with radioactive material such as gloves, shoe covers, rags and soil. It would all be sent on trucks or trains, with many of them expected to pass through communities in the Metroplex on a regular basis.

"If an accident occurs, state and local governments will be responsible for the emergency and cleanup services necessary to ensure public health and safety by protecting them from exposure to radioactivity," said a letter written by 15 Democratic state House members, including Lon Burnam and Marc Veasey, both of Fort Worth. "The proposed rule unnecessarily places our constituents and their families at risk."

The commission delayed voting on this proposal this month after logging thousands of concerns and complaints. Members are expected to meet in Andrews County on June 12. They could vote by July, officials said.

More states, more money

Waste Control Specialists is now getting ready to break ground on the disposal facility. It will take workers nearly a year to dig 120 feet into the red clay and install plastic and concrete liners, spokesman Chuck McDonald said.

The company has a 15-year license to collect and dispose of these materials, with options to renew for two more 15-year terms. The facility may accept up to 2.3 million cubic feet of material, McDonald said.

More states shipping their waste means more money for the company, and even for Andrews County, which receives a percentage of the company’s gross receipts from waste disposal each quarter, officials say. Residents in Andrews County also approved a $75 million bond project to help build the site.

The lawmakers’ letter stresses that radioactive waste shipped to West Texas will remain contaminated for tens of thousands of years, and if there’s a leak, "the potential clean-up costs to the state of Texas are exceptionally high."

Last year, Burnam filed a bill that would require the Texas Legislature, not the commission, to sign off on which states can deposit their waste at the site. The bill died.

Vermont consultants urged the commission last month not to approve an expanded contract because there hasn’t been a legal review and Vermont will need all the space available at the dump site for its own nuclear reactor.

Villalobos of Andrews County said there is great support for the company, which has provided scholarships and funded events.

But she’s working for additional protections for the community, such as trying to get the company to fund a full-time Fire Department, pay for a committee to study environmental issues in the area and contribute funds to local hospitals and emergency medical services, "just in case something were to happen."

"It would be great if we could stop it completely," she said. "If not, it would be great to add more protections."

‘The Texas Solution’

McDonald said it is safe to transport items to Andrews County and to store them there.

"The issue is this: The material exists today," McDonald said. "We’re not creating it. It exists … in barrels at hospitals [and] at power plants.

"Instead of having some of it everywhere, it seems we would want to put it in one remote site."

Wallace, of the Andrews Chamber of Commerce, said residents have been supportive of Waste Control Specialists for decades, hoping it could help diversify West Texas’ economy, which has been so deeply rooted in oil.

The chamber recently started a campaign called "The Texas Solution" to support this disposal effort. Members say Andrews County has helped the state and nation through history, such as when the county provided oil needed during World War II.

"I’m not concerned," Wallace said. "I’ve raised my children here, I have my family here. There really is not anything to fear."

May 26,2010

By Harvey Wasserman

As oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, a shocking vote tomorrow (Thursday, May 27) may rush $9 billion worth of taxpayer guarantees into building three new nuclear power plants—two of them on that already tortured Gulf of Mexico.

Environmental and taxpayer groups (NIRS.org, PSR.org, Taxpayers for Common Sense) are posting alerts and circulating at least one letter asking House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) to stop the handout. The public is being urged to contact Obey and other Representatives on the committee and in the House (202-225-3121). Shrouded in murky haste, the vote is currently scheduled for 5pm.

The bailout may be attached to an emergency appropriations bill meant to provide funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. How that “emergency” relates to building new nuclear power plants remains a mystery.

Insider accounts say the bill may provide $9 billion in loan guarantees for two reactors to be built at the site of the South Texas Nuclear Plant, currently home to two aging reactors. Funding may also go to a new reactor proposed for Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, where two two-decade-old reactors are also licensed.

The move may be "balanced" with $9 billion earmarked for "green energy" proposals. But safe energy proponents dismiss that move as window dressing.

The frantic attempt to slip the loan guarantees into a military appropriations vote with minimal debate comes at an astonishing time for the energy industry. As with the Deepwater Horizon, which set off the current Gulf catastrophe, there are no reliable technologies capable of controlling a runaway reactor meltdown.

Nuclear proponents assure the public that the possibility of such an event is remote, but the public has been told similar things about deepwater drilling. And as with BP, owner-operators of the proposed new nuclear plants would enjoy strict limitations on their financial liability in case of a major catastrophe.

The South Texas Project has long been fraught with bitter controversy. The city of San Antonio was set to be a major investor, but pulled out amidst a raucous citizen-utility confrontation over soaring construction cost projections. The true nature of those costs continues to be immersed in angry recrimination and uncertainty. By all accounts the financial estimates for building the new reactors have soared by billions of dollars over the past few years and will continue to do so. How the Department of Energy would underwrite a project whose price tag remains a moving target would undoubtedly become the subject of years of litigation.

Just forty miles from the nation’s capital, Calvert Cliffs is also immersed in contention. Baltimore Gas & Electric has filed for license extensions on the two reactors now operating there, whose continued operation depends on turbine trade-outs that may cost around $300 million. The site is notoriously anti-union. The proposed new reactor may come from AREVA, which would make it the first French commercial reactor built on US soil. A version of the design proposed for Calvert Cliffs is currently billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule as it’s being built in Finland.

Both the South Texas and the Calvert Cliffs proposals have been hotly debated for years, with nothing resembling a public consensus in place. Neither has a reliable financial plan, and even the ultimate designs may be up in the air. What would suddenly give these loan guarantees "emergency" standing is a mystery.

The "green" aspects to this emergency funding proposal have also elicited puzzlement. Safe energy advocates point out that billions of dollars allocated for renewables and efficiency still sit unused at the Department of Energy. The allocations in this proposal appear to be spread out into the years to come, with a far looser timetable than the money allocated for the nukes.

Why a military appropriations bill would be used to deliver loan guarantees for new nuclear plants at a time like this will demand some hard answers down the road.

In the meantime, the green power community will be going all out to prevent them from slipping through.

————————————————

Harvey Wasserman’s SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH is at www.harveywasserman.com, along with THE LAST ENERGY WAR.

May 21, 2010

By: Margaret Ryan
CleanSkies.com

Anyone who has followed the nuclear power industry over the last three decades has to have flashbacks watching the BP oil spill unfold.

We don’t yet know exactly what caused the accident now wreaking such havoc in the Gulf of Mexico – but anyone involved in the painful evolution of nuclear energy’s safety culture can outline the final report. It will finger a combination of human errors – both managerial and technical; a technology pushed into unknown territory without any comprehensive analysis of the potential failures, and profit pressures propelling everyone full-steam ahead.

Why am I certain? Because that combination seems to pop up wherever human beings push the high tech envelope and think they’ve finally gotten past those pesky laws of physics. Some areas we can expect to hear about:

‘WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE’

First, it IS rocket science – but the failures were probably not. As they say on Star Trek, the oil and gas extraction industries are literally going "where no man has gone before." Only a decade ago, drilling to 35,000 feet was the stuff of science fiction. The Deepwater Horizon reached that depth in the subsea well drilled just months before this tragedy.

But the failures will be far more mundane. Look at the issues already identified – engineering documents not updated to reflect actual rig configuration, one of the five blowout preventer rams left in test mode, an undetected or ignored (we don’t know which) leak in a hydraulic system powering another ram, and whether the well bore concrete was allowed to cure long enough to develop full strength. No rocket science there!

Second, what happened to the Deepwater Horizon between the time it drilled that record-setting 35,000 foot well and the time it was deployed at this well? Did Transocean give it a thorough going over, checking out systems and materials that had been stressed as never before? Or did the company say, in effect, “Yowza!” Maintenance costs money, and this baby showed it’s so great, let’s get it out there fast and drill more!

RUSH TO EXPLOIT?

Third, did Transocean, or BP, have any idea why the rig had worked until it failed? While the Deepwater Horizon performed at 5,000 feet, its equipment was never tested for that depth. As the challenges, and rewards, of deepwater drilling have multiplied, there’s evidence the industry rushed to exploit these reserves by layering on engineered systems. As a result, few people understand how the systems interact in a crisis.

More importantly, those few were not operating the rig. Fail-safe does not mean idiot-proof. Three Mile Island-2 safety systems operated perfectly. Ill-trained operators turned them off. Human beings who are not properly trained in complex equipment, directed by managers who don’t understand it either, have historically demonstrated an uncanny ability to defeat the smartest engineering.

And finally, we’re not in Kansas anymore. In fact, we’re not in the U.S. The deep sea oil industry involves global giants. Notice that the Deepwater Horizon was built in Korea, flagged in the Marshall Islands, owned by a Swiss company, and leased by a British company. Even some of the workers weren’t Americans. The oil originates in the United States, but it will be sold into a global market, and if China will pay more than we do, that’s where it will end up.

REGULATORS HOBBLED

That leaves national regulators hobbled unless they coordinate with regulators in other countries, so everyone is demanding a minimum safety standard. Otherwise, the multinational oil industry will be able to continue playing off regulators against each other, picking and choosing where to flag and whose safety standards to meet.

One model for the oil industry may be the worldwide nuclear industry’s response to Chernobyl. Both regulators and the industry reached across national lines, exchanged expertise, and set standards that demanded the best and identified the worst — and helped them change their ways. Leaders of regulators and power plant operators recognized that “an accident anywhere is an accident everywhere,” and that the best operators couldn’t afford to be tarred by the accidents of the worst.

A WAKE UP CALL?

Is the Gulf spill getting enough international attention to be the same wake-up call to the oil industry? Or is that industry so wealthy and so arrogant that it will take more to convince them of their own self-interest? Are countries so glued to competing for industry petrodollars that regulators can’t or won’t set and hold to better safety standards?

The veterans of nuclear accidents will be waiting for those big investigative reports, knowing there’s only one sure-fire absolute here: whatever taking those recommendations seriously costs, it’ll be cheaper than the next disaster.

May 10, 2010

By Heather Menzies
Bay City Tribune

Matagorda County residents showed overwhelming support for the South Texas Project’s expansion during Thursday’s public meetings to discuss the findings in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) draft environmental impact statement (EIS).

Afternoon and evening sessions were held for public comments to be made on the content of the NRC’s findings in the draft EIS.

About 85 people attended the afternoon session, with 34 making public comments – 30 in support of the combined licenses for units 3 and 4 and three who opposed expansion and challenged findings in the EIS and one who was neutral but encouraged citizens to be interveners.

Jessie Muir, NRC environmental project manager, explained NRC’s process of compiling the EIS and shared their preliminary findings.

According to Muir, the NRC quantifies impacts based on three levels – small, moderate and large.

Small means the effect is not detectable, or so minor it will neither destabilize nor noticeably alter any important attribute of the resource; moderate means the effect is sufficient to alter noticeably, but not destabilize, important attributes of the resource; and large means the effect is clearly noticeable and sufficient to destabilize important attributes of the resources.

Muir said the expansion impacts on use and quality for both surface water and groundwater would be small; and impacts for both terrestrial and aquatic species would be small.

The EIS found that radiological impacts would be small in all areas as well.

Radiological doses to the workers, to members of the public through construction and operation, and to wildlife would be small and below regulatory limits and relevant guidelines.

The environmental justice review focused on low-income and minority populations and concluded that this group would not be "unevenly affected" by the expansion.

The socioeconomic review included impacts on taxes, housing, education, traffic and public services.

The EIS found that adverse impacts range from small to moderate while the beneficial impacts range from small to large.

The environmental impacts from the uranium fuel cycle, transportation of fuel and radioactive waste and decommissioning would be small.

NRC officials along with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also studied the cumulative environmental impacts factoring in proposed projects with other past, present and "reasonably foreseeable future actions."

Muir said they considered projects like White Stallion Energy Center, STP Units 1 and 2, and also LCRA-SAWS to name a few.

The cumulative adverse impacts on the environment ranged from small to moderate, while the cumulative tax impacts would be beneficial and range from small to large.

The EIS noted a need for new baseload electric generating capacity in the region and pointed out that no feasible energy alternatives, nor alternative sites or alternative system designs would be environmentally preferable.

"So based on our environmental review, our preliminary recommendation is that the combined licenses for STP units 3 and 4 be issued," said Muir.

When public comments began, Diana Kyle, spokeswoman for U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, was the first to read into record a letter from Paul encouraging NRC to grant the license.

"I am writing in support of the South Texas Project Units 3 and 4 combined license application. This project will provide much needed energy generation capacity in he area and will have a significant positive impact on economic development in Matagorda County, which I represent," Kyle read.

State Representative Randy Weber also read a letter of support from Sen. Glenn Hegar before speaking on his own behalf in support of units 3 and 4.

Matagorda County Judge Nate McDonald, Bay City Mayor Richard Knapik, and former state representative Mike O’Day were other local officials who hailed the benefits of STP’s past record on safety and corporate citizenry.

Each also mentioned the need for the economic boost through the construction phase and the addition of permanent jobs.

Owen Bludau and D.C. Dunham, local economic and community development officials, along with countless local business and real estate owners also spoke of the benefits two new reactors would bring to the community including a boost in sales tax revenues, construction of desired amenities and more jobs.

Tom "Smitty" Smith, of Public Citizen, was the first to speak in opposition of the expansion.

"I don’t think NRC has done an adequate job of analyzing the need for the plant," said Smith.

"And if the plant is not needed then we as tax payers and you as residents of Matagorda County may end up with a plant that is never completed and may end up being and economic albatross because of the federal loan guarantees and dreams unfulfilled."

Karen Hadden, of the SEED Coalition, was the next to detail her concerns with the EIS.

"The EIS does not have adequate scientific analysis on many fronts and it paints a glossy picture while minimizing risks," said Hadden.

"We have concerns with safety, security, radiation risks for the general population and for workers, radioactive waste problems that still have no solution, and the consumption of vast quantities of water."

Susan Dancer, local wildlife rehabilitator, was the third and only local commenter to express concern with STP’s expansion.

Dancer noted that, "underpaid inexperienced staff kill protected species, relocated infectious diseased specimens and kill off honey bee swarms."

She said the construction of units 3 and 4 could, in the long term, contribute to high unemployment rates when construction workers come to town for temporary jobs and then can’t find permanent work.

Dancer also criticized STP for not having enough women and minorities holding upper management positions.

Ed Halpin, STP’s president and chief executive officer; and Mark McBurnett, STP’s vice president of regulatory affairs, spoke of STP’s mission to improved lives through excellence in energy development and expressed their gratitude for community support.

Written public comments on the EIS can be made until June 9 and can be submitted online at
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/form.html.

A copy of the draft EIS can be viewed at
www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1937.

April 15, 2010

By JACK Z. SMITH
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

GRANBURY — Luminant, the power generator proposing a multibillion-dollar expansion of the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant, took issue Thursday with arguments that it failed to give sufficient consideration to renewable energy alternatives and catastrophic radiation leaks that might result from an event such as a terrorist attack.

The issues were debated by lawyers for Luminant and plant opponents at a hearing held in Granbury by a three-judge panel of the federal Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The hearing is part of Luminant’s application for a license to expand Comanche Peak from two to four reactors. The plant is near Glen Rose, 45 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

The panel is expected to decide, perhaps within two months, whether Luminant’s environmental report on the proposed expansion gives adequate consideration to alternatives to nuclear power and to safety risks posed by building reactors near the existing ones, which went online in the early 1990s.

Luminant attorney Steven Frantz said renewable energy options, such as a combination of wind and solar energy supplemented by natural-gas-fired generation and a compressed-air energy storage system, wouldn’t meet the need for a "baseload" power plant that could reliably generate large volumes of electricity around the clock.

"There are no combined wind and solar facilities anywhere in the world that provide baseload power," Frantz said. "It’s never been done."

Robert Eye, an attorney for opponents of the nuclear expansion, argued that the technology for wind and solar power is "advancing on an almost daily basis."

Frantz said amendments to Luminant’s environmental report adequately address concerns about the ability of Comanche Peak to contain radiation leaks. But Eye countered that Luminant failed to sufficiently consider the possibility that substantial radiation could be emitted by spent nuclear fuel if there were an accident.

Plant opponents, dubbed "intervenors" in the licensing process, are the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, Public Citizen, True Cost of Nukes and state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth.

Attorneys for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which licenses new reactors, often sided with Luminant’s lawyers Thursday in the oral arguments on its amended environmental plan.

The war of words continued outside the Central Jury Room of the Hood County Justice Center, where the hearing was held by atomic licensing board administrative judges Ann Marshall Young, Gary Arnold and Alice Mignerey.

"Despite limitations on what was allowed to be presented about clean and safe energy alternatives to more reactors, we were able to make a strong case," Burnam said Thursday on behalf of plant opponents. "Hopefully, the panel of judges will listen," said Burnam, who called nuclear power "an outdated and dangerous way to generate electricity."

Eliza Brown, clean energy advocate for sustainable-energy coalition, said "all it takes is one serious accident such as a meltdown or terrorist attack on a spent fuel pool to result in catastrophe. … Deaths and cancers would result from radiation releases, as well as birth defects from genetic damage."

In an interview with the Star-Telegram, Comanche Peak Site Vice President Mitch Lucas countered that the plant "has seen 20 years of very safe operation."

"I’m completely confident in the safety of the existing units and the [proposed] new units," he said.

The plant’s concrete walls are four to four-and-a-half feet thick with "massive rebar [reinforcing steel]," Lucas said. He said the plant’s "robust design" could help it withstand a hit by a large plane, such as those used on 9-11.

Comanche Peak "was already a very, very secure facility, but we’ve increased security after 9-11," Lucas said.

The proposed new reactors would add 3,400 megawatts of generation capacity at Comanche Peak, more than doubling the current 2,300-megawatt capacity. Luminant has estimated the expansion cost at $15 billion, but former Texas utility regulatory official Clarence Johnson has pegged the cost at $23.8 billion to $27.6 billion.