Monday, February 18, 2008

Las Vegas, NV - Nevada Senator Harry Reid called on Ward Sproat, the Director of the proposed dump at Yucca Mountain, to level with the American people about the future of the dump. Sproat is scheduled to deliver an update of the dump's progress and priorities for 2008 on Monday in Washington , DC.

"I hope the Energy Department can find it within itself to actually shoot straight with the American people about the future of Yucca Mountain ," said Reid. "The dump will never be built, especially after the devastating blow Congress dealt it last year when we cut its funding by $108 million. As support for the dump deteriorates among the nuclear industry and among its few cheerleaders in Congress, it could not be more clear that its days are numbered. The Energy Department should stop wasting taxpayer dollars and look at real solutions to the nation's nuclear waste challenges that don't put the lives of millions of Americans at risk by hauling it across the country."

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The Associated Press: February 19, 2008

LAS VEGAS (AP) _ The top official overseeing the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump says he cannot say when the project will open any more.

The department had planned to open by 2017 _ but Ward Sproat says it has now abandoned that goal.

Sproat is the director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Officials say the project will need at least $1 billion a year to construct, but the most recent budget capped funding at about $400 million a year.

Sproat said in a speech Monday in Washington that a firm date cannot be set until the funding issue is resolved.

He said liabilities from lawsuits by utility companies will balloon to $11 billion by 2020 if nothing is done.

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STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU: STEVE TETREAULT

Las Vegas Review-Journal - Feb. 19, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Long-range prospects for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain are clouded because there is no fix in sight for budget shortfalls plaguing the Nevada program, a Department of Energy official said Monday.

Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said DOE is poised to meet a key licensing milestone by the end of the summer after budget cuts forced the latest in a series of retoolings for the repository, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But Sproat said the department has abandoned its "best achievable" goal of having a repository opened by 2017. Now, he said, DOE is reluctant to set a new target.

"A firm date cannot be set until the funding issue is resolved," Sproat said in a speech to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the organization of state public service officials.

Sproat urged them to step up lobbying for Congress to pass a bill that would loosen the strings on the fund earmarked to pay for the repository.

Ratepayers for nuclear utilities are charged a fraction of a penny per kilowatt hour of electricity they consume, a rate that has built the fund to a $21 billion balance.

In time, more than $1 billion will be needed annually for construction, DOE officials say. Budget caps in Congress, plus the efforts of repository opponents such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have limited annual payouts to about $400 million.

"Until we get this issue fixed I can't, nor can anyone else, tell you with any degree of certainty when the repository is going to open," Sproat said. "This is the single biggest issue we as a country need to address so this repository can go forward."

At $400 million a year, "we are never, ever going to build this repository with that kind of cash flow funding; it just ain't going to happen," he said.

The longer a repository goes unopened, the more taxpayers will pay to utilities who have sued the Energy Department for delays, Sproat said.

If Yucca were to open by 2017, the liability would be some $7 billion, he said. A 2020 opening would cost $11 billion in settlements and judgments.

Sproat said those numbers are getting the attention of lawmakers.

"We are talking big bucks," he said. "It is one of the levers that gets people interested and gets them to understand we just can't leave things the way they are."

In the near term, Sproat said, DOE plans to file a repository license application "sometime this summer" with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Spending limits engineered by Reid in this year's budget caused DOE to push back a June 30 target.

Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at<br> stetreault@stephensmedia.com or (202) 783-1760

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February 19, 2008

Mountain Dues: Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, reports that the Department of Energy is "poised to meet a key licensing milestone" for the Yucca Mountain depository; but, the DoE has abandoned the idea of having the dump open by 2017. Sproat is urging members of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners to lobby Congress for more funding for the Yucca Mtn. project, a stance predicated in part on the notion that the federal government will be liable for payments to energy corporations who have sued the DoE over the delays. This latter argument is intriguing given that it comes from an Administration wholly fixated on bashing trial lawyers who win awards in medical malpractice and product safety cases, or who challenge the Administration's authority to conduct warrantless domestic spying.

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Eureka County, Nevada -- Yucca Mountain.org -- What's New

Earthquakes In The Vicinity Of Yucca Mountain

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An earthquake Thursday morning in northeast Nevada did not cause any damage to the region's power grid, local power companies said. The 6.0 magnitude quake hit about 400 miles north-northeast of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the U.S. Department of Energy's proposed repository for spent nuclear reactor fuel and other radioactive waste...

http://www.topix.com/tech/nuclear-energy/2008/02/<br>no-damage-to-power-lines-from-nevada-earthquake

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Modeling temporal-spatial earthquake and volcano. clustering at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Tom Parsons U. S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA 94025 ...

www.osti.gov/energycitations/servlets/purl/<br>893884-w3dQkd/893884.PDF

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Earthquake Could Cause Flooding Of Yucca Mountain Repository ...The study of Davies and Archambeau was funded by the state of Nevada, which is opposed to the federal repository at Yucca Mountain. ...

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Earthquake and volcano clustering via stress transfer at Yucca ...

34; no. 9; p. 785-788; doi: 10.1130/G22636.1; 3 figures. 785. Earthquake and volcano clustering via stress transfer at Yucca. Mountain, Nevada. Tom Parsons ...

walrus.wr.usgs.gov/reports/reprints/Parsons_G_34.pdf

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Yucca Mountain - The Nevada Seismological LaboratoryAerial photo of Yucca Mountain The NSL has monitored the seismicity around ... June 14, 2002 ML = 4.4 Earthquake at Little Skull Mountain, southern Nevada ...

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Las Vegas Now - Breaking News, Local News, Weather, Traffic ...Earthquake Fault Possible Beneath Yucca Mountain Site ... View recent earthquake activity in Nevada and California. The head of the Nevada Agency for ...

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ReviewJournal.com - News - Yucca fault line might spring surpriseBore hole drilling operations at the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site have turned up preliminary evidence that an earthquake fault line passes ...

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Earthquake and volcano clustering via stress transfer at Yucca ...Earthquake and volcano clustering via stress transfer at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Tom Parsons1, George A. Thompson2 and Allen H. Cogbill3 ...

geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/34/9/785

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Earthquake Nevada Of 1992 - Dogpile Web SearchThe Ms 5.4 Little Skull Mountain earthquake of 29 June 1992 occurred within 21 km of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the site of a proposed high-level nuclear-waste ...

www.dogpile.com/.../rfcp=RightNav/rfcid=302349/<br>_iceUrlFlag=11?_IceUrl=true

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Earthquakes In The Vicinity Of Yucca MountainEarthquakes In The Vicinity Of Yucca Mountain. Nevada ranks third in the nation for current seismic activity. Earthquake data bases are available that ...

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Nevada: Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository stalled Government ...6 Apr 2005 ... The recent revelations about the falsification of data relating to the site merely clarify the fact that the Yucca Mountain project rests ...

www.wsws.org/articles/2005/apr2005/yucc-a06.shtml