Huntsman makes case against nuclear waste

[NVMojo]

WASHINGTON - Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. urged Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman on Monday to develop a federal policy that would allow nuclear waste to remain at the reactors that produce it rather than shipping it to a proposed storage facility in Utah's west desert.
Huntsman also said Monday that he will ask Interior Secretary Gale Norton to override the Bureau of Indian Affairs' decision to approve the lease between the utility companies seeking to build the repository and the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes, whose reservation would be home to the facility.
"As I told Secretary Bodman, there's no such thing as temporary storage in today's world. If this finds its way to Utah, I'm not sure it would ever leave," the Republican governor said.
He urged the Energy Department to develop a long-term energy storage plan that would allow waste to be stored at reactors for half-a-century.
"Let's let research and development catch up. If we were to buy 30 to 50 years on-site, reprocessing could happen. That's not beyond reality," Huntsman said.

more...

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2608347

[NVMojo]

1. YUCCA ALTERNATIVE: Longtime nuke plan revisited

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is looking to inject new life into a perennial proposal that would keep nuclear waste stored at power plants rather than sent for burial in Yucca Mountain.

Reid is preparing a bill that would require the Department of Energy to take ownership of radioactive spent fuel and build onsite containers to store the material at reactor sites

The proposal represents a fundamental shift in how the government manages the nation's nuclear waste. Efforts have focused for decades on developing an underground tunnel repository at the Yucca site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Previous attempts to advance onsite storage as a Yucca Mountain alternative have been rebuffed by utilities and officials in states with nuclear plants that want the dangerous waste moved away.

Reid said Energy Department legal and budget setbacks the past year signal it is time to look at other options.

After a court ruling in July that voided a key radiation health standard, the DOE set aside a 2010 target date to begin accepting nuclear waste at a Nevada repository.

more...

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Mar-15-Tue-2005/news/26074562.html

[jpak]

2. On-site storage is not a permanent solution

and the Feds (i.e., taxpayers) already have custody of spent fuel from commercial reactors.

Reactor operators - the ones who produced the spent fuel and the ones who made a profit off it - not the taxpayers, should be paying for all this.

WTF...