Billions Down the Yucca Hole

  • Without the Yucca mountain site, companies like Exelon have to pay extra to safely store spent fuel in pools or in concrete casks. (Photo courtesy of Lester Graham)

The federal government had one place in mind to store the country’s most hazardous nuclear waste.

It was at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

President Barack Obama recently killed that project, even though the country had spent more than nine billion dollars on it.

Shawn Allee found that figure is just the beginning:

Transcript

The federal government had one place in mind to store the country’s most hazardous nuclear waste.

It was at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

President Barack Obama recently killed that project, even though the country had spent more than nine billion dollars on it.

Shawn Allee found that figure is just the beginning.

The Yucca Mountain project claimed more money than just the nine billion that’s on the books.

It also tied up cash from electric rate payers, power companies and taxpayers.

Let’s start with the first group – rate payers.

CHA-CHING

Yucca Mountain was supposed to store the radioactive spent fuel left behind in nuclear reactors.

The U-S government charges power companies a fee to cover costs.

Power companies pass it on.

“Everybody in the state of Georgia that uses electricity and pays an electric bill is paying into this Yucca Mountain trust fund.”

This is Bobby Baker.

He’s serves on Georgia’s public service commission.

Baker says now that President Obama took Yucca Mountain off the table, the federal government should return the money.

Georgia’s share of fees and interest is more than one point two billion dollars.

“We were supposed to be shipping our spent nuclear fuel out to yucca mountain back in 1998 they were supposed to be receiving shipments at that time. The only thing that’s been done is the fact that Georgia ratepayers are continuing to pay into that trust fund and getting nothing from that trust fund other than a big hole in Nevada.”

So far, the federal government’s collected a total of 31 billion dollars in fees and interest for the nuclear waste fund.

The next group who paid extra for Yucca – power companies.

CHA-CHING

By law, the federal government’s supposed to take away radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants.

But without Yucca, it stays put.

John Rowe is CEO of Exelon, the country’s biggest nuclear power company.

Last hear he complained to the National Press Club.

“My mother used to say, somebody lies to you once that’s his fault … lies to you twice and you believe it, that’s your fault. I don’t know what she would have thought about somebody lying to you for fifty years.”

Rowe is especially mad because his company and others like it have to pay extra to safely store spent fuel in pools or in concrete casks.

They sue the federal government to recover costs.

The US Government Accountability Office figures the government will lose these lawsuits and owe power companies twelve point three billion dollars within a decade.

The last group that paid extra for Yucca – taxpayers.

CHA-CHING

Yucca Mountain was supposed to handle nuclear spent fuel from civilian power reactors, but it was also supposed to handle decades-worth of the military’s radioactive waste.

That includes waste from former weapons sites, like Hanford in Washington state.

Washington’s Senator Patty Murray brought it up in a recent hearing.

Here, she’s looking straight at Energy Secretary Steven Chu:

“Congress, independent studies, previous administrations pointed to, voted for and funded yucca Mountain as the best option as the nuclear repository.”

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal government chipped in at least three point four billion dollars to cover military costs at Yucca Mountain.

But the tab’s bigger than that.

Murray says without Yucca, Hanford has to store its waste on-site. it’s not cheap.

“Billions of dollars have been spent at Hanford and sites across the country in an effort to treat and package nuclear waste that will be sent there.”

The Obama administration’s getting complaints from states and industry and taxpayer groups.

The Administration hasn’t responded publicly, but Energy Secretary Steven Chu mentioned the financial fallout from Yucca Mountain during a U-S Senate hearing.

He said the administration’s convinced Yucca Mountain just won’t work …

So, no matter how much money people have paid so far, it makes no sense to send good money after bad.

He didn’t mention paying any money back.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Regulating Hydrofracking

  • Natural gas well drilling site. (Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory)

A new drilling technique called
hydrofracking has opened up previously
inaccessible natural gas fields all
over the country and created a boom
in natural gas production. But it’s
also generated a lot of controversy,
since hydrofracking is exempt from
almost all federal regulations.
Samara Freemark reports
that legislation currently moving through
Congress would change that:

Transcript

A new drilling technique called
hydrofracking has opened up previously
inaccessible natural gas fields all
over the country and created a boom
in natural gas production. But it’s
also generated a lot of controversy,
since hydrofracking is exempt from
almost all federal regulations.
Samara Freemark reports
that legislation currently moving through
Congress would change that:

Hydrofracking involves pumping millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals a mile into the ground to break up rock and extract gas. But since 2005 the technique has been exempt from federal environmental legislation like the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act.

Now some members of Congress have introduced a bill to restore federal oversight over fracking. Kate Sinding is with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which supports the bill.

“So what has been proposed is known as the FRAC act. And what that would do is restore regulatory authority over hydrolic fracturing which means we would have some federal standards about how to regulate this activity. And it would require the public disclosure of the fracturing fluids that are used in fracturing fluids.”

That’s an important point for fracking opponents, who say those chemicals have contaminated wells and groundwater across the nation.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

Related Links

Green Last Requests, Part Two

  • Steve Dawson is an undertaker trying to give people greener options (Photo by Todd Melby)

When businesses begin offering
earth-friendly alternatives to
traditional products, it often
takes a while for those items
to catch on. The funeral industry
is no exception. Todd Melby reports
on one undertaker’s attempt at
greening death:

Todd Melby and Diane Richard produced a documentary on green burial called “Death’s Footprint.” You can listen to it here .

Transcript

When businesses begin offering
earth-friendly alternatives to
traditional products, it often
takes a while for those items
to catch on. The funeral industry
is no exception. Todd Melby reports
on one undertaker’s attempt at
greening death:

Steve Dawson is an undertaker who lives above his funeral home business.
His backyard looks like many here in suburban Chicago. It’s full of cherry
trees and apple trees and he’s got one of those round, above ground
swimming pools. Next to the pool, there’s a small building that looks like a
two-car garage.

We step inside.

“This is the crematorium. This is a cremation retort. As you can see it’s a
fairly large machine.”

That retort is a big furnace. It’s also a big part of Dawson’s business here at
Sax-Tiedeman Funeral Home.

Dawson: “We have a body that has been dropped off here for cremation. If
this is bothering you because we have a body here, I will do what I can to
get the body out of the way.”

Melby: “No, I’m fine.”

Dawson: “We’ll go back over here and get this started.”

(sound of the crematory furnace)

“That starts out the blowers, which is a purging blower, to basically clear
out anything that might be in the way there.”

After the furnace starts, it takes about two hours to finish the process. Then
Dawson takes the remains over to a machine that sifts through what’s left.

Dawson: “What we do is we go through there and sort through the
cremated remains.”

Melby: “This is actually what happens at the end, obviously.”

Dawson: “Right.”

Dawson collects all the prosthetics, those titanium knee and hip joints, in a big
can nearby. They get recycled.

That’s important to Dawson. At home, he’s a passionate recycler of soda pop
cans, newspapers and other household items.

“My family calls me the recycling Nazi because I get after them to put it all gets
put in the recyling bin.”

On the job, he tries to be green too.

Dawson knows that cremation — an option chosen by nearly 1 in 2 Americans —
has environmental downsides. Many older people have mercury dental fillings.
During cremation, that cancer-causing toxin vaporizes and goes up into the
atmosphere. Heating up the cremation furnace also eats up energy.

Dawson is also a savvy businessman. He believes more Americans are going
to want green choices, even when buying death products.

That’s why he’s embraced green burial. Sax-Tiedemann is Chicago’s first —
and so far only — green-certified funeral home. So in addition to selling
baseball-themed urns and big wooden caskets, Dawson has other choices
too.

“In this area here, we have rental caskets and up on the top, these are e-caskets,
Eco-caskets. These are made out of bamboo and these are designed to be
biodegradable.”

Although most Jews and Muslims skip embalming, the procedure is still quite
popular among Christians. Green death advocates are opposed to embalming
because of the formaldehyde used in the process. So to get certified, Dawson had
to buy a new machine.

“This is a three-body cooler. Inside a three-body cooler, this is what we use to be
able to hold remains without embalming. The temperature in the cooler is kept at
roughly 42 degrees. That’s enough to be able to slow down the decomposition
process.”

(funeral music)

A chilled body will hold for a day or so, which is usually enough time for friends
and family to gather and say good-bye. As baby boomers begin dying in big
numbers, Dawson expects more of them to choose green burial.

For The Environment Report, I’m Todd Melby.

Related Links

A Bloomin’ Solution for Cell Phone Waste?

  • Researcher Dr. Kerry Kirwan is experimenting with a cell phone case that will biodegrade. The case contains a flower seed. As the material breaks down, the seed is allowed to germinate and become a flower. (Photo courtesy of The University of Warwick)

Researchers in England have an idea for your old mobile
phones – bury them and grow a flower. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner explains:

Transcript

Researchers in England have an idea for your old mobile phones – bury them and grow a
flower. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner explains:


Most people have one – if not several – cell phones they’ve outgrown. Some keep them
around for no good reason, some just throw them away, and some people actually recycle
them.


Kerry Kirwan at the University of Warwick in England wants to take that idea further.
He’s developing a biodegradable cell phone case that could be buried and would grow
into a flower when you’re ready to upgrade your phone.


“We thought it’d be a rather unique way of getting people to take responsibility of the
disposal of their mobile phones, but also, a way for moving a lot of plastic waste from the
waste stream so it didn’t have to be dealt with.”


Kirwan says he’d like to have the product on the market in a few years. He says the
phone cases would contain a wide range of flower seeds, based on what would grow best
in your climate.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links