Energy Budget Fast Tracks Nuclear Waste Repository

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, February 4, 2004 (ENS) - The Bush administration has asked Congress to double funding for a project to transport and store nuclear waste in a national repository deep within Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The $880 million demand is part of the $24.3 billion budget proposal for the U.S. Energy Department - the largest request in the history of the department.

The Yucca Mountain site was first identified as a possible location for storage of the nation's high-level nuclear waste in 1987, and legislation authorizing it has been passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush. But the project has been beset with criticism and skepticism and is the subject of an array of lawsuits brought by the state of Nevada.

The waste is spent nuclear fuel rods from the nation's 104 nuclear power plants and highly radioactive materials left from nuclear weapons production. It is currently stored where it was generated at more than 100 locations across the country.

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the Yucca Mountain geological repository "is key to ensuring the future use of nuclear power in this nation."

Funding for the Yucca Mountain program includes $186 million to study and develop transportation plans to haul the waste from 39 states to the proposed facility.

The White House budget also contains a proposal to direct all the fees received from utilities paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund toward construction of the Yucca Mountain facility.

Yucca Mountain is the site of a planned geological repository for the nation's nuclear waste. (Photo courtesy Energy Department )

The facility, to be located some 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is not expected to be complete until 2010 and will not be large enough to hold all of the nation's nuclear waste.

The Energy Department has spent more than $6 billion on the project, and project estimates total $58 billion.

The administration is trying to "sink so much money into this hole in the ground that the project becomes a self fulfilling prophecy," said Wenonah Hauter with the advocacy group Public Citizen.

Critics of the Yucca Mountain plan note that federal officials have raised an array of concerns about the project, including a finding that the manufactured storage containers in which the government plans to store nuclear waste at the facility will probably leak.

More than 250 other scientific questions about Yucca Mountain remain unanswered, and the state of Nevada has filed six lawsuits to block the project.

"Due to the doubts and uncertainties plaguing the Yucca Mountain project, Congress should not increase its budget or change the funding practices," Hauter said.

Abraham defended the plan and said the administration aims to apply for a license for the project with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of 2004.

"The department did an excellent job of conclusively establishing from a scientific point of view that the site would be safe," Abraham said. "I believe that at the end of the day America will finally have a long promised, safe repository for nuclear waste."

The Energy Department's overall $24.32 billion budget request is an increase of $1.03 billion over 2004 appropriations.

The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management is experimenting with new robotic technologies. Here, a robot rolls across the floor of the underground laboratory inside Yucca Mountain. (Photo courtesy Yucca Mountain Project)

Some $9 billion, more than one third of the department's budget, is earmarked for the National Nuclear Security Administration, including $6.6 billion to maintain the nation's stockpile of more than 10,000 nuclear weapons, $1.35 billion for nuclear nonproliferation initiatives and $798 million to develop nuclear reactors to power naval warships.

Despite widespread criticism of the plan, the budget supports a new facility to build plutonium pits for nuclear weapons and calls on Congress to help the department reduce the time needed to resume nuclear testing.

"One of the concerns the President and I have is that some of the capabilities within our weapons complex have either been allowed to deteriorate or simply have been lost," Abraham said. "The ability to manufacture plutonium pits for nuclear weapons is one example. This will restore to the United States the capacity that other nuclear weapons states already have."

The Bush administration has been a vocal advocate for nuclear energy and advanced fossil fuel and hydrogen technologies, and this is reflected in its $2.6 billion request for energy resources.

"The administration's energy portfolio takes a long term focus through investments in hydrogen use and production, electricity reliability, and advanced coal and nuclear energy power technologies," Abraham said. "Investments in these pivotal areas honor a commitment to strengthen the nation's energy security for the near term and for generations to come."

The budget includes $410 million for nuclear energy, including $31 million to develop a next generation nuclear power plant.

It provides $228 million for the administration's hydrogen initiative and $447 million in research and development for advanced coal power technologies. This includes $237 million for a $1 billion integrated carbon sequestration and hydrogen production research power plant.

Some $291 is set aside to conserve energy and cut utility costs for 1.2 million low income families and $91million is earmarked to research efforts to modernize and expand the nation's electricity grid and

Funding for wind energy remains flat in the Bush budget proposal. (Photo by Warren Gretz courtesy National Renewable Energy Lab)

But the Bush budget request cuts some $29 million from the department's energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, including $3 million from solar and $15 million from biomass and biofuels programs.

The Energy Department's science and technology programs are provided $3.43 billion, but this is down $52 million from 2004 appropriations.

Abraham said priorities include $209 million for nanoscience research and $264 million for fusion science.

"Fusion power could well be one of the technologies that allows us to leapfrog the enormous acceleration in future energy demand that we know threatens economic growth in every corner of the world," Abraham said.