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Contact Senators about Legislation
As the Senate begins debate on the Climate Change BIll, we need to push for funding for a nuclear research center at Yucca. Please contact our Senators. Talking points are below.
Contact Senator John Ensign
Fax: 202-228-2193
Senator Harry Reid
Fax: 202-224-7327
Here's a sample letter you can cut and paste into a document and send:
Dear Senator:
As the Senate takes up the Climate Change bill, I urge you to support funding for creating new programs for research and development for advanced nuclear technology and nuclear waste management.
Nevada has played a key role in understanding the power of the nucleus through decades of research at the Test Site. Few states are better prepared than us – since we already host some of the best nuclear scientists in the world - to take nuclear research to the next level and help our nation address nuclear “waste” management.
As a Nevada voter, I support creating a facility at Yucca Mt. that will serve as an interim storage facility, research center, and a future reprocessing plant to recycle nuclear spent fuel.
I agree with you that burying spent fuel for 10,000 is an outdated idea. That is why I urge you to consider how Nevada can benefit from the emerging technology that will safely reuse this fuel.
Over $10 billion has been invested at Yucca Mt., and Nevada is poised to safely and economically benefit from this research. It is an ideal location to temporarily store spent fuel while research is done on how to recycle it. And when that technology is ready, we’ll have the fuel here to either sell to re-processors, or build a facility that will generate power from the spent fuel.
We have a great opportunity to create an economic boom for Nevada, and help our nation address a critical energy need. Please support funding in the Climate Change bill to create a research center at Yucca.
Rory Reid: No Place Safer than Nevada
In his recently published vision document for his run for Governor, Rory Reid says he wants data center businesses to relocate to the Silver State. "There is no safer place in the country to store data - no hurricanes, no tornados, and no active fault lines. The vast potential for security... in Nye County, for instance... between Yucca Mountain and the Nevada Test Site... could support such data centers and back-up operations," says Reid.
No fault lines? Isn’t that why he and his Dad the Senator are so opposed to Yucca? So now he says you can safely store data, but you can’t safely store nuclear spent fuel at Yucca? How convenient to be able to change the facts to fit your agenda...
Congressmen Want GAO to Analyze Costs of Killing Yucca
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) and Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said that abandoning the Yucca Mountain Project will cost taxpayers to store used reactor fuel temporarily, fight lawsuits from the nuclear power industry and study another disposal site.
They want the GAO to examine what weighed into the Obama administration's decision to deem Yucca Mountain not an option and the taxpayers' liabilities that lie ahead.
In July, Barton and Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., introduced a bill that would authorize the Energy Department's nuclear waste fund to establish contracts with a company to recycle spent fuel from power reactors. The measure has not been scheduled for action by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Let Joe Barton know you agree with him! Send him a fax at (202) 225-305.
Obama Supports Expanding Nuclear
"There's no reason why technologically we can't employ nuclear energy in a safe and effective way. Japan does it and France doesn't and it doesn't have greenhouse gas emissions, so it would be stupid for us not to do that in a much more effective way," Obama said at a conference in New Orleans recently.
Nuclear Forums Planned
Reno - November 12
7:30 – 9:00 am, location Reno Sparks Chamber
Debate between Ty Cobb Sr. and Bruce Breslow
Sponsored by the Reno Sparks Chamber of Commerce
For more information contact Tray Abney at TAbdney@renosparkschamber.org.
Carlsbad, NM Officials Lobby to Fill Yucca Role
Remember when Yucca opponents said that if storing spent fuel is such a great idea, why aren’t more states interested? Well, guess what folks…
It didn’t take long for Members of the Carlsbad, NM Department of Development to meet with congressional leaders in an effort to promote Carlsbad's continued contributions to solving the nation's nuclear waste problem.
Carlsbad Mayor Bob Forrest and other officials met with their leaders in response to the DOE’s plan to kill Yucca and form a blue-ribbon panel to determine the future of the country's nuclear waste policy.
As the DOE looks for alternatives, they will likely focus on the potential role of existing sites like the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad.
WIPP is a DOE designed to safely isolate defense-related transuranic waste from people and the environment. Waste temporarily stored at sites around the country is shipped to WIPP and permanently disposed in rooms mined out of an ancient salt formation 2,150 feet below the surface. WIPP began operations in 1999 and is located 26 miles outside of Carlsbad.
The group underscored WIPP's success over the past 10 years and hoped to reinforce its position as a potential site for future nuclear waste disposal plans.
"We had a good meeting with Sen.Reid, and we were able to get in there and just talk about WIPP," said NM State Senator Heaton.
WIPP is not the only competition. Idaho and Washington both had nuclear facilities and are seeing what role they can play if Yucca is indeed dead.
So why does OUR delegation continue to fight a safe, multi-billion project located in the middle of the nuclear test site, in the middle of a deserted desert? You just gotta wonder
Idaho Delegation Speaks Out
In an article on August 5 in the American Chronicle, Idaho's Governor and Congressional delegation question the decision by the Obama Administration to kill funding for Yucca without an alternative.
Senator Jim Risch said, "The President´s decision to kill the nation´s congressionally-directed repository for high-level nuclear waste as a favor to one state is politics at its worst. This is a political deal that flies in the face of our nation´s energy security as well as the Settlement Agreement that the state of Idaho reached with the federal government in 1995."
"For an Administration that touts science over politics, it seems to have gotten amnesia on Yucca Mountain," said Representative Mike Simpson.
"Without a permanent location to safely store nuclear waste, the role of nuclear energy as a component in our nation´s energy portfolio will be severely affected," said Senator Mike Crapo.
Here are highlights of recent articles about Yucca:
A NY Times article on May 11, titled “The 'screw Nevada bill' and how it stymied U.S. nuclear waste policy," explains what a legal mess the President’s statement to close Yucca has created, and that the US may face as much as $11 billion in damages for breaching its obligation to remove the wastes from power plants. The US might also have to give the $21 billion in the waste removal fund back to electricity users.
May 13 - the LV Review Journal ran a story titled: “Yucca Mountain: Barely alive, but still limping around and costing taxpayer dollars.” It says that “experts say Yucca Mountain hasn’t disappeared from the budget for reasons both practical and political. Sometimes not even the president, with the Senate majority leader at his back, can kill a project 25 years and $13.5 billion in the making. Not quickly or cheaply, anyway.”
A NY Times editorial on May 20 questioned if President Obama, who has pledged to restore science to its rightful place in decision making, will curtail the scientific analyses needed to determine whether a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada would be safe to build.
On May 21, CNET.com had a story titled "MIT experts tackle nuclear power waste problem." The panel says the U.S. should fund more research and development, particularly around long-term solutions to radioactive waste.
On May 22, a NY Times article titled, “Is the solution to the U.S. nuclear waste problem in France,” states that the two cities that reprocess spent fuel provide 11,000 jobs and about $624 million for the local economy. The article explains the success and safety of reprocessing.
Yucca Ads
Here the two ads we produced:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCEY6SEP8EE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N-hEAq0bCo
To ensure the public that the Alliance is not misleading them, below are the sources for the information in the ads. Below are the statements made in the advertisements, and the sources for the statement.
Natural radiation levels in Denver would be higher than those at Yucca
Source: March 2009 article in Forbes Magazine, Berkley physics professor Richard Mueller said that the radiation levels in Denver, which occur naturally, are higher than the levels that would be present at Yucca Mt. when it is operational.
Radiation exposure at the repository is not expected to increase until some 300,000 years after the repository is closed. At that time, it is possible that some people living in the Amargosa Valley could receive an additional 260 millirem per year, bringing their total radiation dose to around 660 millirem per year.
3,000 shipments of spent fuel have crossed over a million miles of road and rail without incident
Source: US Department of Energy and US Department of Transportation: Since the early 1960s, the U.S. has safely conducted more than 3,000 shipments of spent nuclear fuel without any harmful release of radioactive material. This safety record is comparable to the worldwide experience where more than 70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel have been transported since 1970.
Nevada’s politicians have denied our state millions of dollars by fighting Yucca Mountain.
Source: The Nuclear Waste Policy Act, US Code 42, Chapter 108, Subchapter I, Part C. Section 10167 Benefits agreement:
Once selection of a site for a monitored retrievable storage facility is made by the Secretary under section 10165 of this title, the Indian tribe on whose reservation the site is located, or, in the case that the site is not located on a reservation, the State in which the site is located, shall be eligible to enter into a benefits agreement with the Secretary under section 10173 of this title
Nevada has received over $500 million since 1982 for the project, without asking.
Now we could lose the chance to make Yucca a national site for nuclear research and reprocessing.
Source: in 2006, DOE awarded grants to 11 volunteer locations to study the possibility of hosting advanced fuel-cycle developmental facilities in their communities. DOE is incorporating the studies into an environmental impact statement for potential recycling and fast reactor sites. Due to Nevada’s continued opposition to Yucca, Nevada was not asked to submit an application.
Reprocessing at Yucca could generate over one point five billion dollars each year for Nevada and advance nuclear technology for the world.
Source: DOE cost estimates show $1.5 billion would be spent annually to operate a long term repository and rail line. That does not include a reprocessing site.
In the current commercial reactor fuel cycle, reactor fuel is used once and then removed from the reactor for disposal in a specially designed repository. However, in France, Japan and the United Kingdom, reactor fuel is safely recycled and reused.
Bruce Breslow and Bob Fulkerson both made statements in interviews that are also false. Here are a few of their statements, and our response.
There is no money for Nevada - Breslow
The Nuclear Waste Trust Fund is currently over $20 billion and growing. It receives $750 million each year from the users of nuclear power, and another $720 million a year in interest. Of the annual contribution of $1.4 billion, only about $200 million is spent.
This fund is adequate to cover the total life cycle cost for Yucca, which is estimated at $96.18 billion in constant 2007 dollars (through 2133). Most of that $100 billion will be spent in Nevada. In addition, Congress can allocate additional funds. And, Nevada can take position of the spent fuel and “charge” to store it, and “sell” it back to the re-processors.
There can’t be a reprocessing or power generation plant at Yucca because there is no water - Fulkerson
What could be built at Yucca is a Sodium-cooled fast reactor that would generate about 1000 MW of power and use the spent fuel as the fuel source. SFR is a Generation IV reactor project to design an advanced fast neutron reactor.
But the other option is piping ‘”waste” water to Yucca. The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station is Arizona is the largest nuclear generation facility in the United States (3.2GW), and the only nuclear generating facility in the world not located adjacent to a large body of water. Instead, it uses treated sewage from several nearby municipalities to meet its cooling water needs.
And let’s remember, the opponents say that we can’t have a repository at Yucca because “radiation could leak into the water.” What water? If there is none for a power plant, how can there be any to pollute?
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