Questions:
1. Given that Northard's company will be spending 3.1 billion to get the facility built, but only paying 48 million (according to Mr. Blackbear) to the Goshute tribe itself is this an equitable relationship?
2. Conversely Northard mentions that the facility will be 800 acres, which is an area around 1.5 miles square. Does the size of the facility change your opinion about the facility?
3. Does Northard convince you that Minnesota is truly running out of room to store this fuel?
4. What do you think that Mr. Leavitt would say to Northard if they could talk to each other directly?
5. What do you think that Mr. Blackbear would say to Northard if they were to discourse.
6. Finally, put yourself in Mr. Northard's shoes, do you feel that he truly believes in his argument. Use evidence to support your opinion.
Scott Northard is a nuclear engineer with Xcel Energy (formerly Northern States Power), a Minnesota-based utility company that operates several nuclear power plants. For the past three years he has been the designated Project Director for the Private Fuel Storage temporary waste storage project intended for the reservation lands of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians in Tooele County, Utah.
The interview was conducted by program Producer Ken Verdoia at the Northern States Power Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant in Red Wing, Minnesota.
Ken Verdoia: I want to begin with trying to get a handle on Private Fuel Storage. Tell me about this entity.
Scott Northard: Well Private Fuel Storage is a group of eight utilities who have worked together to propose, license and develop an interim spent fuel storage facility located on the reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indian tribe. In 1996 we signed an agreement with the tribe to lease a portion of their reservation, about 820 acres, that would be used for a temporary storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. Spent fuel is a material that we need to store on an interim basis until a permanent repository is opened by the federal government and would be used for receiving, for long term storage and disposal of spent fuel. Currently, there's work going on in Nevada to scientifically explore and characterize an area called Yucca Mountain. And in 1987, Congress designated that as a study area for a permanent geologic repository for commercial and governmental spent fuel in the United States.
Verdoia: As you and I sit on this day in February, we may in fact be just months away from a certification by the Department of Energy that scientifically Yucca Mountain may be the best permanent facility. If a permanent facility might be within grasp, why even consider the notion of a temporary facility?
Northard: Well, Xcel Energy, as well as all of the other utilities that generate power with nuclear power plants, signed an agreement with the Department of Energy back in 1983. In that agreement, during that contract, our customers agreed to pay one million for every kilowatt hour of electricity that we generate to the federal government into a fund called the Nuclear Waste Fund, to build a long term storage and disposal facility for spent fuel. Since 1983, however, the federal government has not lived up to their obligation and their promise to have a disposal facility ready to receive spent fuel by January 31, 1998. Because this deadline has come and passed, and because the Department of Energy does not anticipate having a repository or a disposal facility available until 2010 at the earliest, utilities like Xcel Energy are forced to consider other options for interim storage of spent nuclear fuel.
When our plants were originally built back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, we only anticipated storing fuel for a few years on site and at that time the commercial power industry was involved in a reprocessing or recycling of spent fuel. And that's a process where you send the spent fuel off, transport it to a reprocessing plant. The uranium and plutonium are extracted from the spent fuel, which represents most of the material in the spent fuel, and that's reused in power plants. In the late 1970s commercial reprocessing , no longer continued in the United States, in fact, President Carter issued an executive order in 1978 that prohibited commercial recycling of spent fuel. Only the government could continue to do that after that time. So no commercial recycling plants continued operating in the United States and utilities were forced to store fuel for longer periods of time on site.
But because the plants were not originally designed to store spent fuel for decades on site, we didn't have the space available in the plants or the space surrounding our plants to build facilities such as these. In 1982, Congress recognized that the reprocessing option was shut off for commercial power plants, so they passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. In the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, they said that the federal government would take care of long term storage and disposal of spent fuel if utility customers would pay for it through a Nuclear Waste Fund fee. That was applied to their bills. And that fee is a one million per kilowatt hour fee. To date, utility customers and utilities in the United States have spent or have paid to the Nuclear Waste Fund about $16 billion dollars and roughly six billion of those dollars has been spent scientifically studying Yucca Mountain, drilling a five mile long tunnel through Yucca Mountain and doing extensive testing in the area. But it still looks like the federal government will not have a repository available for disposal of spent fuel until 2010 at the earliest.
Verdoia: And the situation has become so dire, by some estimates, that the utilities have decided to augment their argument for a storage site by taking the federal government to court and formerly Northern States Power, now Xcel Energy was party to that. What's the concern that's led the utilities to go to court?
Northard: Well, the reason that the utilities have gone to court to seek damages against the Department of Energy and to seek remedies with the Department of Energy for disposal of spent fuel is that the Department of Energy has not come to take the spent fuel as they said they would by 1998. Originally, under our contract, they were suppose to begin taking spent fuel away from our sites by January 31, 1998. That date has come and gone. The federal government will not give us a definitive date when they will guarantee the spent fuel will be removed, so we've been forced to seek redress through the courts. We currently have a lawsuit, along with several of the utilities, going through the U.S. Court of Claims. In fact, the Federal Court has already affirmed that the Department of Energy has a legal obligation to take the spent fuel. What's left is to determine exactly what they're going to have to do to meet that obligation.
Verdoia: As we've contacted other members of the consortium, they all have, in essence, differed to Xcel Energy, as if Xcel has a preeminent role in the Private Fuel Storage partnership. Is that a fair characterization?
Northard: Well, Northern States Power or now Xcel Energy is facing limitations on the amount of fuel that we can store on site. In order to keep our plant operating for a long period of time and provide safe and clean and reliable energy to our customers, we need additional storage for spent fuel. Other utilities certainly have a need as well but everybody's in a little different situation. We all have different sized sites. We all have different sized spent fuel pools that were originally designed in the plant to store spent fuel. Some of the plants started up later then our plants. Our plants were some of the earliest in the nuclear industry beginning operation here at Prairie Island in 1973 and 1974.
So we're facing the problem, perhaps, earlier then some other utilities. But there are other plants which have already permanently shutdown and would like to decommission and restore that site to its condition before the plant was there, but they can't do that because the spent fuel still exists on site. In Utah, a similar situation was faced at Brigham Young University, when a nuclear reactor was operated there for research purposes. That reactor has since been shutdown and decommissioned. They were able to that because the fuel was transported away from the site.
Verdoia: Let me ask you, what are the consequences if a storage is not affected in a reasonable period of time for a facility such as Prairie Island?
Northard: Well in some cases power plants would have to shutdown because they would not have the space available to continue to store spent fuel on site. Plants like Prairie Island have to refuel their reactors approximately every 18 to 20 months. About one-third of the reactor fuel inside the reactor core is removed and replaced with fresh fuel so the plant can continue to operate for another 18 to 20 months. That spent fuel needs to be stored somewhere. And it needs to be in a secure, safe place for storage. We are storing fuel safely onsite now and we intend to continue storing fuel safely onsite in the future but there's a limited amount of space available to do that, so we need additional storage space available. It seems to make the most sense, from a national and economic standpoint, to build one centralized a storage facility, or perhaps two centralized storage facilities. Consolidate the material in that location, have one security force, have one set of employees watching it, and have one set of equipment needed to handle the storage casks. It makes sense to consolidate it into standard packages that are ready for shipment to Yucca Mountain, where the repository is expected to be built.
Verdoia: Why Utah? How did Utah come into the mix? Why did you come to that location? What brought these two entities together?
Northard: Well actually, the Skull Valley Band of Goshute tribe began studying this project in its earlier form as a federal facility proposal in 1990. After some amendments were passed by Congress to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1987, the federal government was supposed to look for a voluntary host community to build an interim storage facility, because even at that time they realized they would not be able to meet the 1998 date. The federal government sent out a solicitation letter. It went to municipalities, states and other governments, including Indian tribes, throughout the United States and said if you are interested in being a host community for this type of a facility, or at least studying that idea, please respond. There were 26 candidates that responded. One of those was the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indian tribe.
So they began working with the federal government, mainly the Department of Energy, in understanding what it meant to host this type of a facility. The tribe did receive two grants in which to do studies and they used those grants to actually study what it would be like to live next to a facility like this. They traveled to France to visit reprocessing and spent fuel processing plants. They went to Sweden to visit the National Interim Storage Facility. They went to England to see the reprocessing facilities and spent fuel processing plants there. They went to Japan to see how the Japanese deal with their spent nuclear fuel. When they came back they put together a video documentary and two written reports and presented those to their people. They determined, as the result of their study, that in fact this was a project they would be interested in doing for economic development on their reservation.
The interesting thing about the tribes' visits to these foreign countries is that they not only talked to the operators of those facilities, they talked to the people that live next to the facilities. I was particularly struck by an interview with the mayor of the town next to the facility in Sweden, the Central Interim Storage Facility in Sweden. He talked about how this plant was a good neighbor. How many of the people in the town worked at the facility and that they had received great benefits and they were not concerned at all about living next to this facility. What really struck me was that the tribe not only talked to those who operated the facility but those who live next to the facility. They also talked to people who were opposed to nuclear power and nuclear materials in general.
But after all of this, after doing all these studies, they agreed to continue to be considered as a voluntary host community for a federal interim storage facility. In 1993, Congress withheld further appropriations for that program and the tribe felt they were let down by the federal government and they wanted to continue pursuing this project so they began talking with nuclear power companies, nuclear utilities, like my own, about considering carrying this project forward only as a private sector development, not as a federal project. That's how we got involved. In fact, the tribe had been working on this for about five years before we even met the tribal members and met the tribal leaders.
Verdoia: I want to make sure I understand this correctly. You're saying the Skull Valley Goshutes solicited Northern States Power?
Northard: That's correct.
Verdoia: So they came to you?
Northard: Yes.
Verdoia: Simple question again, who's going to pay for this?
Northard: Well, the Private Fuel Storage Company and it's eight utilities are currently funding all of the work to license and develop this facility. Once the license is granted for the facility and we can begin construction, the construction will be financed in part by those utilities and in part by the perspective customers of the facility, the nuclear facilities themselves as well.
Verdoia: Is there a rightful claim from that Waste Management Fund that they've been paying into for years?
Northard: Well, the Private Fuel Storage Company is totally a private sector development. We have made no request directly from Private Fuel Storage to the federal government to pay for this facility, even though we're doing something the federal government should have been doing. It's up to the individual utilities if they want to seek reimbursement for their costs from the federal government at some point. Private Fuel Storage does not seek to have any involvement at all with funding directly from the federal government for this project.
Verdoia: The cynic might listen to that and say Private Fuel Storage is sounding as it's own separate entity and yet in fact, wears just a different sleeve of the same sweater of these other utilities. Private Fuel Storage is viewed by many as a shell corporation, it's a sham, the utilities are just trying to put themselves legally distant from certain obligations.
Northard: Well actually, Private Fuel Storage is an LLC (Limited Liability Corporation). It is a very commonly accepted corporate form, in fact, it's the most popular form of corporation that is being used today. In fact, Utah was one of the first states to approve the LLC form of company when it was first introduced some number of years ago. So it is really not an attempt to get out of any specific liabilities or obligations, and in fact, in this case the spent fuel that is stored at this facility will still be owned by the utilities, not by Private Fuel Storage. So the obligation and responsibility for that spent fuel will remain with these utilities as long as they still own this material and until it's turned over to the federal government.
Verdoia: And that's one thing that Utah officials have raised warning flags over. The concern with limited liability and who's going to be responsible if something goes wrong. Either in the transportation or in the maintenance on site. Who is going to be responsible?
Northard: Well actually, it's fairly well laid out and in great detail by the federal regulations. You cannot receive a license for a facility of this type unless you demonstrate that you have the financial qualifications to not only safely operate the facility, but also safely shutdown and decommission the facility. The money for decommissioning has to be provided up front before the fuel is placed at the facility.
With respect to transportation, there is private insurance available that Private Fuel Storage will be gaining, but there is also something called the Price Anderson Act, which is a Federal Act that was passed in the late 1950s that provides for virtually unlimited protection for the public should there ever be anything happen during a transportation incident. So everything has been well addressed ahead of time in terms of liabilities and obligations. The public really doesn't have to be concerned about that. If we cannot adequately address the liabilities and the financial assurances necessary for a facility like this we will not get a license. It's that simple.
Verdoia: What about the concern that at Yucca Mountain there is one very exacting standard for the study, the scientific veracity, if you will, of creation of this permanent location. Yet, in Skull Valley, the standards are completely different. The exacting study is less exacting than at Yucca Mountain and that there seems to be two completely different standards that these units are marching towards as satisfying that public good or that public assurance.
Northard: Well I guess I would argue that the standards for both Yucca Mountain and for Skull Valley are very exacting standards. The Skull Valley facility has to meet a whole host of federal regulations. They're different regulations perhaps then you might have for Yucca Mountain, but we're talking about an interim storage facility that could operate for up to 40 years at Skull Valley as opposed to a repository that will operating for 10,000 years or more at Yucca Mountain. So there are differences in the standards but they're both very exacting. They're both very specific and they're both very rigorous.
We had to do a full scope Environmental Impact Statement for the Skull Valley facility that looked at all of the different potential environmental impacts that could be caused by an industrial facility of this type. We had to do a very detailed safety analysis report and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had to do a safety evaluation report of this facility that outlined how the facility would operate, to make sure that it would operate safely. That the workers would be protected. That the public would be protected. That the neighbors would be protected. So an extremely rigorous licensing process that we're currently going through.
Verdoia: You draw a clear distinction between the "permanent" facility being studying at Yucca Mountain and a "temporary" site. The central concern of the governor of the state of Utah is if it comes in under the guise of temporary, it will stay under the practical reality of permanent. Once it's here, we'll never be able to get rid of it.
Northard: Well there are many reasons why this facility in Skull Valley will not become a permanent facility. Number one, we won't allow it to be. Our customers and our companies will not stand for temporarily storing spent fuel on our own, indefinitely. It's not something we would like. That's why we're in court with the federal government today. That's why we're working very hard with Congress to force the Department of Energy to be accountable and to take this spent fuel as soon as they possibly can. That's why we're doing everything we can to support continued licensing at Yucca Mountain, and if you look at the license that's granted for this facility, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not allow you to indefinitely store fuel at a temporary storage facility. It's just not part of the licensing basis, so it's not allowed.
Now there are a lot of other reasons why spent fuel will not stay at Skull Valley permanently and why Yucca Mountain or a permanent repository will eventually open. The first reason is that commercial spent fuel, like we have from power plants, is not the only thing that Yucca Mountain is being built and designed for. In fact, it needs to receive spent fuel that comes from our Navy nuclear submarines, from the Navel aircraft carriers, that's now piling up at a facility up in Idaho. There are materials in Hanford, Washington that were left over from the weapons production plants in the 40s and 50s that's in liquid form, it's in underground storage tanks. That material needs to be solidified and stored in a permanent repository where it can be safely protected from the environment for a long period of time.
There are other plants located all around the United States that were part of our weapons complex, back during the Cold War in the 40s, 50s, and 60s that have materials all destined to go to Yucca Mountain. And there's 15,000 spent fuel assemblies that we're currently receiving from 42 foreign countries in the United States today, that has to go to Yucca Mountain as well. We're bringing all this material back from 42 foreign countries and finding space at federal facilities all around the United States until Yucca Mountain is ready to receive it. So all of this material, in addition to commercial spent fuel, has to go to Yucca Mountain. Now, our material is being stored safely and it's in good condition and we're protecting the environment the way we store it now, but it still needs to go to a permanent repository someday and we're working very hard to make sure the federal government builds that repository and lives up to their obligation to our customers to store that spent fuel.
Verdoia: You've been, by your own account, involved with the Nuclear Power Industry for more then 20 years. When the subject turns to "radioactive" or "nuclear" you can almost see the fear factor rise in a good portion of the public. What prompts that fear and how do you address that central fear?
Northard: Well, unfortunately, we live in a day and age when people are concerned about radioactivity and people fail to understand that radioactivity is a part of our everyday life. It's in the soil around us. It comes from the atmosphere. It comes from other sources that we have that we deal with in daily life. Our smoke detectors in our homes and lantern mantels. There's potassium in salt substitutes that we use on our food. Some of the dishes that we eat off of may contain radioactive materials. The buildings we live in have radioactive material, the granite and marble at the state Capitol in Utah contains radioactive materials. It's part of our everyday life. People don't understand that generally, because it is not something that they can see or smell or taste but it is something that's very natural and very much a part of our everyday life.
In fact, living in Utah, most residents receive more than the average annual exposure from natural sources because they live at a higher elevation near the mountains, than perhaps people on the coasts. The atmosphere tends to shield a lot of the radiation from outer space that bombards us everyday. So it is a part of our everyday life and it is unfortunate that it's difficult for people to put in context how small the radiation contribution is from nuclear power plants and facilities like Private Fuel Storage would be in comparison to the natural background sources. I guess I've often said that I don't think we'll be totally comfortable with it until you're watching the nightly weather forecast on the news and they tell you what the temperature is. They tell you what the wind speed is. They tell you what the relative humidity is that day and then they also tell you what the natural background radiation levels are, because it's just as natural as the other elements we hear about on the weather report.
There are many opportunities in our life when we receive radiation exposure from natural sources. On a transcontinental flight you receive approximately three millirims of radiation exposure. A chest x-ray might be 20 to 30 millirims of exposure. During the course of a year, a resident in Utah may receive about 400 millirims of radiation exposure. We are required at Private Fuel Storage and all nuclear facilities like that, to limit the amount of radiation exposure that a member of the public would get by standing next to the fence at the facility for a year to less then 25 millirim per year. And in fact, our analysis for this facility shows that , the radiation levels would be less then 1 millirim per year to a member of the public. We've gone above and beyond to try to make sure that radiation exposure from the facility like this are extremely low and a small fraction of what is normally received from our everyday life from background radiation.
Verdoia: Another sentiment that is expressed on a regular basis is when it comes to nuclear waste, spent fuel rods, Utah didn't produce it. Utah didn't benefit from it. Utah is not a nuclear power state, therefore this is not for us to deal with. It's not our problem. How do you respond to that?
Northard: Well in the United States about 20 percent of our electricity is generated from nuclear power. Nuclear power is really a great help in providing a diverse source of reliable and cost effective power for customers throughout the United States. And as you know, all states are connected by a high voltage power grid so we share power among and between all the states in the Union. Nuclear power helps keep the air clean. We all benefit from nuclear power. It generates about twenty percent of the nations electric power and we all benefit from that because we're all interconnected with a high voltage power grid that goes between and among the states in the Union. In the West, there are seven large nuclear power plants. Four in California, three in Arizona that provide quite a bit of power in the West. Those plants also help keep carbon based emissions out of the atmosphere by generating nuclear power and displacing power that would have to be generated otherwise by fossil fuels like natural gas, oil and coal.
Now the other thing that nuclear power does is it provides diversity in supply for our electric power. I don't think we all want to relive the lessons we learned back in the 1970s when we were so wholly dependent on foreign sources of oil. Likewise, we don't want to be dependent on a single source of fuel for electricity. Right now natural gas prices are high and most of the power plants that have been built over the past ten to fifteen years have been using natural gas. So that resource is being consumed to make electricity and you're seeing a lot of price volatility with natural gas right now. Nuclear power doesn't see the same volatility because the price of uranium stays fairly stable and the amount of fuel that's used at the power plants is not that large. So the price of power from nuclear power plants stays fairly stable and that's a stabilizing force for electricity prices in the nation and electricity is really the fuel for the economic engine we have in the country.
Verdoia: You address the importance of nuclear power in the nation's energy needs. You've spoken to the dependability of the storage site that PFS is intending to create in Skull Valley and yet even as we meet on this day in February, the Utah State Legislature is considering tough new laws to keep you the hell out of Utah. They don't want you. How do you address that public sentiment being expressed in those halls of power?
Northard: Well we've been very up front about this project from the very beginning. We announced this proposal after we began working with the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indian tribe. We've hand delivered our materials to the state government at every step of the way. As we go forward in this project, we've testified before the Utah Radiation Control Board, before the Utah Legislature about our intentions. But really this is not a project with the state of Utah. It's really a project with the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indian tribe, which is a sovereign entity. They're the ones who envisioned the idea for this project. They're the ones who came to us, and we ultimately agreed upon a lease agreement to work with them.
So while the state of Utah does have concerns about the project, they are a full participant in the licensing process and we are required to answer their questions just like we are required to answer anybody else's questions on this project, but in the end we really don't have to have the state of Utah give the blessing for this project. We would very much like to work with the state. We don't want to be a bad neighbor or have an antagonistic relationship with the state and we'll continue to look for opportunities to work with the state of this project, with our partner the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indian tribe.
Verdoia: There are people that question what the benefit of this project would be to Utah in general. There are clear benefits obviously to the Skull Valley Band. But the state of Utah, does it stand to benefit?
Northard: Well I think the state of Utah stands to benefit from this project in a number of different ways. First, by keeping nuclear power a vital part of our nations energy mix the state of Utah receives more stability in pricing for electricity then they would otherwise have without nuclear power. As I mentioned before, about 20 percent of our nation's electricity comes from nuclear power and that energy is used to make the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the products we use in our everyday life. So in fact, everybody in the United States is benefiting from nuclear power, having nuclear power available.
Finally, there are a lot of other benefits that the state would receive from this project over its life cycle. If the facility operates for a 40 year period of time, we've estimated that approximately $3.1 billion dollars would be spent in building and operating this facility. Well of course a lot of the products that we will use, the casks, the goods and services that the facility uses would come from local manufactures because it would be more efficient and economical for us to do it that way. So in fact, the Utah manufacturers and fabrication facilities and companies would stand to benefit greatly from this project as well as the state itself through taxes or sales taxes on the products that are used at this facility.
Verdoia: One aspect that has troubled a number of observers, and frankly as a journalist it's troubling for me, is the aspect of secrecy. Certain contracts are viewed as none of my business and certainly not the business of the state of Utah. Documents we've reviewed have been heavily censored. Why is that contract so secret?
Northard: Well there are a couple of documents that have had sections redacted or words redacted out of the contract, meaning that there's certain information that hasn't been provided. In all those cases, the information is considered to be proprietary. It either has some commercial value to competitors and in fact there are other proposals for spent fuel storage facilities in the United States, in fact, one in Wyoming, and these are in fact competition for a business like this.
Secondly, there's matters of privacy with respect to the tribe itself, and the government itself. There are certain matters that they perhaps don't wish to make public and it's not unlike any other contract between private citizens. If you rent your backyard out to somebody else to use for some purpose, that is not a public document. The terms of that agreement are between you and the party you're renting your backyard out to. So it really is not an issue for public dissemination. It's a private matter between the parties who enter into the contract. Now the difference is where there are issues of public safety and or impacts on the public, that information has all been provided and is out in the public but where it's a private matter where it does not effect other parties that information may be kept proprietary in some cases.
Verdoia: And so is it proprietary information to say how much the Skull Valley Band would benefit financially for the life of this contract?
Northard: Yeah. Well that's an issue the tribe has chosen not to make public and it is a private matter between that group and the party that signed the contract.
Verdoia: That leads us to a conversation we had last week with a significant state official in Utah who said the entire process involving Private Fuel Storage and Skull Valley Band really troubled her because, "PFS is trying to fly this one under the radar of public scrutiny and public accountability."
Northard: Well, I guess I would differ with the opinion that we're somehow trying to fly this project in under the radar. I would venture to say that this has probably been the most public licensing and permitting process in the history of the state of Utah. We have had a number of public hearings. We've had public comment meetings where the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has asked the public for comments on the scope of the studies that they're doing. We've had public hearings where we've taken testimony, not only from the state but other parties that are interested in the project and given opportunity for the public to comment.
All of the information that we have submitted has been placed in two public document rooms. One at the Marriott Library at the University of Utah that's open to anybody to come in and look at anytime, and one in the city of Tooele. We have published everything, every notice has been published in the Federal Register. Every letter that we've sent in to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been made available to the public. So I guess I would say that if this is flying in under the radar, I would like to know what being out in the open is because this has been the most open licensing process I think I've ever seen.
Verdoia: You have signed an agreement with the Tooele County Commission. An agreement that promises, potentially, nearly $200 million dollars over the life of the storage project. This has led some to conclude that the Tooele County Commission has been "bought off" by Private Fuel Storage. How do you respond to that assertion?
Northard: Well, we are not buying anybody. In fact, we want to be a good neighbor. We recognize there may be impacts on the local community, so we want to work with the local community to mitigate those impacts. We realize that, for instance, the tribe has a lease agreement with the Private Fuel Storage and there are benefits that the tribe would receive. We'd also like to see the local county receive benefits from this project too, above and beyond just the jobs and the business opportunities that go along with the facility. We'd also like to see the state gain as a result of this project, and we're more then willing to talk about what impacts there may be on the state and how those can be mitigated. But nobody's really buying anything. We're just really looking at what genuine impacts would there be and how can we make that right.
Verdoia: Is it easier to work in an area such as Tooele County, which has a 50 year legacy of dealing with the disposal or handling of extremely hazardous materials, in fact even low grade radioactive materials, does that make the site easier to work with since there is something about history and dealing with this in advance?
Northard: Well the one thing Tooele County provides is they have probably one of the most advanced and well trained emergency response organizations in the United States. Because this group has worked with facilities like Dugway Proving Ground, the nerve gas incinerator, some of the hazardous waste facilities in the county, they're well equipped and well trained to deal with emergencies should they come up. They understand the technologies that are used to protect the public and protect workers. We've found that it's been very easy to work with the county and their emergency response organization. They're very well trained and highly capable.
Verdoia: With re-licensing, Prairie Island could stay on-line through the year 2034. That's 33 years away. Today we visited your dry casks storage site. It seems to be a model of what might be done in the Skull Valley of Utah. The governor says if it works so darn good here in dry cask storage, keep it here. Just keep it here. You're only going to be operating for 30 more years anyway. There's plenty of time for a permanent storage site to be on-line. Just keep it at Prairie Island.
Northard: Plants like Prairie Island would like to continue operating but there is limited space available and limited storage available at their plants. Also, there are many other plants in the United States that want to continue operating and they're running out of storage space as well. Doesn't it make more sense to build one single, centralized storage facility to temporarily store spent fuel then it does to build seventy-two separate facilities all around the United States that all would need a separate work force, a separate set of equipment to handle the casks, a separate set of monitoring equipment, separate security systems, and all sorts of other ancillarious equipment that's necessary to operate those facilities. It makes much more sense to build a large centralized storage facility then 72 smaller ones spread, spread throughout the United States.
Verdoia: These public utilities are business entities, not withstanding the difficulties created by the California energy crisis, but these are wise business leaders. You're going to spend $3.1 billion dollars over the next 40 years, or you hope too, in Utah. Where's the financial incentive for the utilities? I mean, how does this turn out to be a good deal for them?
Northard: Well if we were to spend $3.1 billion dollars over the next 40 years in Utah, if we were to build facilities at 72 separate sites, we would have to spend much more then that to store it all around the country. So while it may seem like a lot of money to spend at that storage facility, it would be even more if we had to store it individually at all of our separate sites. And then once a facility is permanently shutdown and wants to decommission, they're prevented from decommissioning until that spent fuel is removed. So there are a lot of compelling reasons why it makes sense to build one facility, even at $3 billion dollars over 40 years then it would to build 72 separate ones across the United States.
Verdoia: Not the least of which would be the headaches of trying to win local approval and support, state support and licensing, I would imagine for each one of those 72 individual sites, correct?
Northard: Yeah, there's a separate licensing process you have to go through for each one so why not go through it one time for a large centralized storage facility then to go through that 72 separate times. That's correct.
Verdoia: The governor of Utah says, "Just keep it there at Prairie Island." Minnesota, the state government of Minnesota seems to be saying, "No, thank you." So it seems like you have that type of pressure being exerted on you as well.
Northard: Well the state of Minnesota is looking to make sure that the customers and the citizens of Minnesota get what they paid for, and that is a permanent long-term storage and disposal facility built by the federal government to take that spent fuel off of our hands and dispose of it properly, because we paid for that service and we're continuing to pay for additional storage of above and beyond that. So there's a strong interest by the state of Minnesota and I'm sure by electric customers all around the United States to make sure the federal government lives up to their obligation. And we're going to continue to work very hard to make sure the federal government ultimately lives up to their obligation and that the fuel would only have to be stored in Skull Valley for a short period of time until the federal government's got a facility available in Nevada.
Verdoia: Does the permanent site immediately mean the end of the temporary site?
Northard: Well there will probably be some number of years where you'll have to transition from temporary storage into the permanent storage. As you know, you can't ship all of the fuel in one year from a temporary facility to the permanent facility because it only receives so much fuel at a time. It would depend how much fuel is located in Skull Valley, but it would take some number of years to transport it from Skull Valley to the federal repository.
Verdoia: What happens if we move forward and you get licensing for Skull Valley and then the federal government, as it's done many times, stumbles, fails to come forward with a definitive stride forward in a National Energy Policy, fails to create the permanent site on a reasonable timetable and 40 years from now we're still dragging our feet on a permanent solution?
Northard: I don't think we're going to be dragging our feet 40 years from now. The one thing that is certain is our country needs a solution for high-level waste storage and disposal. The federal government needs to move on with it, to get on with building the repository at Yucca Mountain. It's something that's needed, not only for the commercial spent fuel, but for all of the other materials that we have located throughout the country and for all the materials that we're bringing in from all the foreign countries for disposal in this country. There are very compelling reasons why we've got to move on with it. We've studied and studied and studied Yucca Mountain. I believe we're near the point where the Department of Energy can make a site recommendation at the end of this year to the president to move on with characterizing, to move on with licensing Yucca Mountain and getting a repository built there.
Winston Churchill had a favorite saying about Americans. He says, "You know, Americans always do the right thing after they've tried everything else." Well, we've been trying everything else and I think we're finally coming around to the fact that we need the permanent repository. We need to safely dispose of all this material that we've collected from the weapons production programs, from the Navy nuclear reactors program, from the research reactor programs, from the foreign research reactor programs, and from the commercial spent fuel programs. And that material should go into a place like Yucca Mountain for a long term burial and disposal.
Verdoia: If you had one minute to speak directly to every person in Utah, just to give them your most heart felt reasoning. "As you hear people talk about PFS and Skull Valley, you need to keep this in mind." What would you tell them?
Northard: I think people really need to go out and learn a little bit more about what's being proposed. Some of our opponents have talked about exaggerated claims of safe, or of accidents and fears and leaks, radioactive leaks, etc. I think you really need to go out and look at how this spent fuel is being stored in dry storage containers. These containers are passive storage. There's no moving parts. They're stored in a inert gas. It's environmentally benign. They just sit there until they're ready to go to the permanent repository. The transportation record for spent fuel in this country is unparalleled. Over the past 40 years there's been over 3,000 shipments of commercial spent fuel and there's never been a major injury or a fatality in that, in those shipping programs. I don't think any industry that transport hazardous material can claim that kind of safety record.
You know, everyday we have gasoline tankers going down our freeways and there are accidents and you'll see a story about a fiery accident and a car being burned up or people being killed but yet we continue to allow those gas tankers to drive down the freeways and next to us and we don't seem to get worked up about it. Yet when people talk about spent fuel transportation all of a sudden, it's the end of the world. People are talking about doom and gloom and, and it's because a lot of people's fears have been whipped up in a frenzy by exaggerated claims and misrepresentations that are made about the transportation of spent fuel.
I think you people should go out and see how the casks are built and how they're tested. The casks that we use to transport spent fuel are built like the black boxes on airplanes. Where you have a very robust container and you put a crushable surface or an impact limiter on the casks to absorb the force of the crash. You know that when there's an airplane crash the one thing that survives is the black box and it's because they're built to survive that type of an accident. Well that's the way spent fuel casks are built, to survive the accident even though the railcar may be damaged, even though other parts of the train maybe damaged, the cask will remain intact because that's how it's designed. And people need to go out and actually see how they're built. See how they're tested and designed, because they're designed to remain intact during all sorts of horrific accident scenarios. It's just an extra measure of design and protection that's built into these packages.
Verdoia: And so if they're sitting at home and on the other hand they hear elected officials proclaiming doom and gloom, saying this is a danger, this is a threat, this is deadly for 10,000 years. How would you counter that from the state's own elected officials?
Northard: Well it's unfortunate that people try to fan the flames of fear and misperception on spent fuel storage and transportation. Even politicians may make claims that this is dangerous and it shouldn't be done, but the fact is it's being done everyday. The fact is that spent fuel is being shipped through all the states, including Utah, on a fairly regular basis. Just within the last couple of years there have been shipments through Utah, up to Idaho, and there didn't seem to be a big outcry by the politicians when those occurred. In fact, the state is notified of these shipments well in advance and they monitor those shipments while they're going through. So I don't know why this should be treated any differently then what's customarily or ordinarily being done today.
Source: http://www.kued.org/
Scott Northard is a nuclear engineer with Xcel Energy (formerly Northern States Power), a Minnesota-based utility company that operates several nuclear power plants. For the past three years he has been the designated Project Director for the Private Fuel Storage temporary waste storage project intended for the reservation lands of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians in Tooele County, Utah.
The interview was conducted by program Producer Ken Verdoia at the Northern States Power Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant in Red Wing, Minnesota.
Ken Verdoia: I want to begin with trying to get a handle on Private Fuel Storage. Tell me about this entity.
Scott Northard: Well Private Fuel Storage is a group of eight utilities who have worked together to propose, license and develop an interim spent fuel storage facility located on the reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indian tribe. In 1996 we signed an agreement with the tribe to lease a portion of their reservation, about 820 acres, that would be used for a temporary storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. Spent fuel is a material that we need to store on an interim basis until a permanent repository is opened by the federal government and would be used for receiving, for long term storage and disposal of spent fuel. Currently, there's work going on in Nevada to scientifically explore and characterize an area called Yucca Mountain. And in 1987, Congress designated that as a study area for a permanent geologic repository for commercial and governmental spent fuel in the United States.
Verdoia: As you and I sit on this day in February, we may in fact be just months away from a certification by the Department of Energy that scientifically Yucca Mountain may be the best permanent facility. If a permanent facility might be within grasp, why even consider the notion of a temporary facility?
Northard: Well, Xcel Energy, as well as all of the other utilities that generate power with nuclear power plants, signed an agreement with the Department of Energy back in 1983. In that agreement, during that contract, our customers agreed to pay one million for every kilowatt hour of electricity that we generate to the federal government into a fund called the Nuclear Waste Fund, to build a long term storage and disposal facility for spent fuel. Since 1983, however, the federal government has not lived up to their obligation and their promise to have a disposal facility ready to receive spent fuel by January 31, 1998. Because this deadline has come and passed, and because the Department of Energy does not anticipate having a repository or a disposal facility available until 2010 at the earliest, utilities like Xcel Energy are forced to consider other options for interim storage of spent nuclear fuel.
When our plants were originally built back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, we only anticipated storing fuel for a few years on site and at that time the commercial power industry was involved in a reprocessing or recycling of spent fuel. And that's a process where you send the spent fuel off, transport it to a reprocessing plant. The uranium and plutonium are extracted from the spent fuel, which represents most of the material in the spent fuel, and that's reused in power plants. In the late 1970s commercial reprocessing , no longer continued in the United States, in fact, President Carter issued an executive order in 1978 that prohibited commercial recycling of spent fuel. Only the government could continue to do that after that time. So no commercial recycling plants continued operating in the United States and utilities were forced to store fuel for longer periods of time on site.
But because the plants were not originally designed to store spent fuel for decades on site, we didn't have the space available in the plants or the space surrounding our plants to build facilities such as these. In 1982, Congress recognized that the reprocessing option was shut off for commercial power plants, so they passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. In the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, they said that the federal government would take care of long term storage and disposal of spent fuel if utility customers would pay for it through a Nuclear Waste Fund fee. That was applied to their bills. And that fee is a one million per kilowatt hour fee. To date, utility customers and utilities in the United States have spent or have paid to the Nuclear Waste Fund about $16 billion dollars and roughly six billion of those dollars has been spent scientifically studying Yucca Mountain, drilling a five mile long tunnel through Yucca Mountain and doing extensive testing in the area. But it still looks like the federal government will not have a repository available for disposal of spent fuel until 2010 at the earliest.
Verdoia: And the situation has become so dire, by some estimates, that the utilities have decided to augment their argument for a storage site by taking the federal government to court and formerly Northern States Power, now Xcel Energy was party to that. What's the concern that's led the utilities to go to court?
Northard: Well, the reason that the utilities have gone to court to seek damages against the Department of Energy and to seek remedies with the Department of Energy for disposal of spent fuel is that the Department of Energy has not come to take the spent fuel as they said they would by 1998. Originally, under our contract, they were suppose to begin taking spent fuel away from our sites by January 31, 1998. That date has come and gone. The federal government will not give us a definitive date when they will guarantee the spent fuel will be removed, so we've been forced to seek redress through the courts. We currently have a lawsuit, along with several of the utilities, going through the U.S. Court of Claims. In fact, the Federal Court has already affirmed that the Department of Energy has a legal obligation to take the spent fuel. What's left is to determine exactly what they're going to have to do to meet that obligation.
Verdoia: As we've contacted other members of the consortium, they all have, in essence, differed to Xcel Energy, as if Xcel has a preeminent role in the Private Fuel Storage partnership. Is that a fair characterization?
Northard: Well, Northern States Power or now Xcel Energy is facing limitations on the amount of fuel that we can store on site. In order to keep our plant operating for a long period of time and provide safe and clean and reliable energy to our customers, we need additional storage for spent fuel. Other utilities certainly have a need as well but everybody's in a little different situation. We all have different sized sites. We all have different sized spent fuel pools that were originally designed in the plant to store spent fuel. Some of the plants started up later then our plants. Our plants were some of the earliest in the nuclear industry beginning operation here at Prairie Island in 1973 and 1974.
So we're facing the problem, perhaps, earlier then some other utilities. But there are other plants which have already permanently shutdown and would like to decommission and restore that site to its condition before the plant was there, but they can't do that because the spent fuel still exists on site. In Utah, a similar situation was faced at Brigham Young University, when a nuclear reactor was operated there for research purposes. That reactor has since been shutdown and decommissioned. They were able to that because the fuel was transported away from the site.
Verdoia: Let me ask you, what are the consequences if a storage is not affected in a reasonable period of time for a facility such as Prairie Island?
Northard: Well in some cases power plants would have to shutdown because they would not have the space available to continue to store spent fuel on site. Plants like Prairie Island have to refuel their reactors approximately every 18 to 20 months. About one-third of the reactor fuel inside the reactor core is removed and replaced with fresh fuel so the plant can continue to operate for another 18 to 20 months. That spent fuel needs to be stored somewhere. And it needs to be in a secure, safe place for storage. We are storing fuel safely onsite now and we intend to continue storing fuel safely onsite in the future but there's a limited amount of space available to do that, so we need additional storage space available. It seems to make the most sense, from a national and economic standpoint, to build one centralized a storage facility, or perhaps two centralized storage facilities. Consolidate the material in that location, have one security force, have one set of employees watching it, and have one set of equipment needed to handle the storage casks. It makes sense to consolidate it into standard packages that are ready for shipment to Yucca Mountain, where the repository is expected to be built.
Verdoia: Why Utah? How did Utah come into the mix? Why did you come to that location? What brought these two entities together?
Northard: Well actually, the Skull Valley Band of Goshute tribe began studying this project in its earlier form as a federal facility proposal in 1990. After some amendments were passed by Congress to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1987, the federal government was supposed to look for a voluntary host community to build an interim storage facility, because even at that time they realized they would not be able to meet the 1998 date. The federal government sent out a solicitation letter. It went to municipalities, states and other governments, including Indian tribes, throughout the United States and said if you are interested in being a host community for this type of a facility, or at least studying that idea, please respond. There were 26 candidates that responded. One of those was the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indian tribe.
So they began working with the federal government, mainly the Department of Energy, in understanding what it meant to host this type of a facility. The tribe did receive two grants in which to do studies and they used those grants to actually study what it would be like to live next to a facility like this. They traveled to France to visit reprocessing and spent fuel processing plants. They went to Sweden to visit the National Interim Storage Facility. They went to England to see the reprocessing facilities and spent fuel processing plants there. They went to Japan to see how the Japanese deal with their spent nuclear fuel. When they came back they put together a video documentary and two written reports and presented those to their people. They determined, as the result of their study, that in fact this was a project they would be interested in doing for economic development on their reservation.
The interesting thing about the tribes' visits to these foreign countries is that they not only talked to the operators of those facilities, they talked to the people that live next to the facilities. I was particularly struck by an interview with the mayor of the town next to the facility in Sweden, the Central Interim Storage Facility in Sweden. He talked about how this plant was a good neighbor. How many of the people in the town worked at the facility and that they had received great benefits and they were not concerned at all about living next to this facility. What really struck me was that the tribe not only talked to those who operated the facility but those who live next to the facility. They also talked to people who were opposed to nuclear power and nuclear materials in general.
But after all of this, after doing all these studies, they agreed to continue to be considered as a voluntary host community for a federal interim storage facility. In 1993, Congress withheld further appropriations for that program and the tribe felt they were let down by the federal government and they wanted to continue pursuing this project so they began talking with nuclear power companies, nuclear utilities, like my own, about considering carrying this project forward only as a private sector development, not as a federal project. That's how we got involved. In fact, the tribe had been working on this for about five years before we even met the tribal members and met the tribal leaders.
Verdoia: I want to make sure I understand this correctly. You're saying the Skull Valley Goshutes solicited Northern States Power?
Northard: That's correct.
Verdoia: So they came to you?
Northard: Yes.
Verdoia: Simple question again, who's going to pay for this?
Northard: Well, the Private Fuel Storage Company and it's eight utilities are currently funding all of the work to license and develop this facility. Once the license is granted for the facility and we can begin construction, the construction will be financed in part by those utilities and in part by the perspective customers of the facility, the nuclear facilities themselves as well.
Verdoia: Is there a rightful claim from that Waste Management Fund that they've been paying into for years?
Northard: Well, the Private Fuel Storage Company is totally a private sector development. We have made no request directly from Private Fuel Storage to the federal government to pay for this facility, even though we're doing something the federal government should have been doing. It's up to the individual utilities if they want to seek reimbursement for their costs from the federal government at some point. Private Fuel Storage does not seek to have any involvement at all with funding directly from the federal government for this project.
Verdoia: The cynic might listen to that and say Private Fuel Storage is sounding as it's own separate entity and yet in fact, wears just a different sleeve of the same sweater of these other utilities. Private Fuel Storage is viewed by many as a shell corporation, it's a sham, the utilities are just trying to put themselves legally distant from certain obligations.
Northard: Well actually, Private Fuel Storage is an LLC (Limited Liability Corporation). It is a very commonly accepted corporate form, in fact, it's the most popular form of corporation that is being used today. In fact, Utah was one of the first states to approve the LLC form of company when it was first introduced some number of years ago. So it is really not an attempt to get out of any specific liabilities or obligations, and in fact, in this case the spent fuel that is stored at this facility will still be owned by the utilities, not by Private Fuel Storage. So the obligation and responsibility for that spent fuel will remain with these utilities as long as they still own this material and until it's turned over to the federal government.
Verdoia: And that's one thing that Utah officials have raised warning flags over. The concern with limited liability and who's going to be responsible if something goes wrong. Either in the transportation or in the maintenance on site. Who is going to be responsible?
Northard: Well actually, it's fairly well laid out and in great detail by the federal regulations. You cannot receive a license for a facility of this type unless you demonstrate that you have the financial qualifications to not only safely operate the facility, but also safely shutdown and decommission the facility. The money for decommissioning has to be provided up front before the fuel is placed at the facility.
With respect to transportation, there is private insurance available that Private Fuel Storage will be gaining, but there is also something called the Price Anderson Act, which is a Federal Act that was passed in the late 1950s that provides for virtually unlimited protection for the public should there ever be anything happen during a transportation incident. So everything has been well addressed ahead of time in terms of liabilities and obligations. The public really doesn't have to be concerned about that. If we cannot adequately address the liabilities and the financial assurances necessary for a facility like this we will not get a license. It's that simple.
Verdoia: What about the concern that at Yucca Mountain there is one very exacting standard for the study, the scientific veracity, if you will, of creation of this permanent location. Yet, in Skull Valley, the standards are completely different. The exacting study is less exacting than at Yucca Mountain and that there seems to be two completely different standards that these units are marching towards as satisfying that public good or that public assurance.
Northard: Well I guess I would argue that the standards for both Yucca Mountain and for Skull Valley are very exacting standards. The Skull Valley facility has to meet a whole host of federal regulations. They're different regulations perhaps then you might have for Yucca Mountain, but we're talking about an interim storage facility that could operate for up to 40 years at Skull Valley as opposed to a repository that will operating for 10,000 years or more at Yucca Mountain. So there are differences in the standards but they're both very exacting. They're both very specific and they're both very rigorous.
We had to do a full scope Environmental Impact Statement for the Skull Valley facility that looked at all of the different potential environmental impacts that could be caused by an industrial facility of this type. We had to do a very detailed safety analysis report and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had to do a safety evaluation report of this facility that outlined how the facility would operate, to make sure that it would operate safely. That the workers would be protected. That the public would be protected. That the neighbors would be protected. So an extremely rigorous licensing process that we're currently going through.
Verdoia: You draw a clear distinction between the "permanent" facility being studying at Yucca Mountain and a "temporary" site. The central concern of the governor of the state of Utah is if it comes in under the guise of temporary, it will stay under the practical reality of permanent. Once it's here, we'll never be able to get rid of it.
Northard: Well there are many reasons why this facility in Skull Valley will not become a permanent facility. Number one, we won't allow it to be. Our customers and our companies will not stand for temporarily storing spent fuel on our own, indefinitely. It's not something we would like. That's why we're in court with the federal government today. That's why we're working very hard with Congress to force the Department of Energy to be accountable and to take this spent fuel as soon as they possibly can. That's why we're doing everything we can to support continued licensing at Yucca Mountain, and if you look at the license that's granted for this facility, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not allow you to indefinitely store fuel at a temporary storage facility. It's just not part of the licensing basis, so it's not allowed.
Now there are a lot of other reasons why spent fuel will not stay at Skull Valley permanently and why Yucca Mountain or a permanent repository will eventually open. The first reason is that commercial spent fuel, like we have from power plants, is not the only thing that Yucca Mountain is being built and designed for. In fact, it needs to receive spent fuel that comes from our Navy nuclear submarines, from the Navel aircraft carriers, that's now piling up at a facility up in Idaho. There are materials in Hanford, Washington that were left over from the weapons production plants in the 40s and 50s that's in liquid form, it's in underground storage tanks. That material needs to be solidified and stored in a permanent repository where it can be safely protected from the environment for a long period of time.
There are other plants located all around the United States that were part of our weapons complex, back during the Cold War in the 40s, 50s, and 60s that have materials all destined to go to Yucca Mountain. And there's 15,000 spent fuel assemblies that we're currently receiving from 42 foreign countries in the United States today, that has to go to Yucca Mountain as well. We're bringing all this material back from 42 foreign countries and finding space at federal facilities all around the United States until Yucca Mountain is ready to receive it. So all of this material, in addition to commercial spent fuel, has to go to Yucca Mountain. Now, our material is being stored safely and it's in good condition and we're protecting the environment the way we store it now, but it still needs to go to a permanent repository someday and we're working very hard to make sure the federal government builds that repository and lives up to their obligation to our customers to store that spent fuel.
Verdoia: You've been, by your own account, involved with the Nuclear Power Industry for more then 20 years. When the subject turns to "radioactive" or "nuclear" you can almost see the fear factor rise in a good portion of the public. What prompts that fear and how do you address that central fear?
Northard: Well, unfortunately, we live in a day and age when people are concerned about radioactivity and people fail to understand that radioactivity is a part of our everyday life. It's in the soil around us. It comes from the atmosphere. It comes from other sources that we have that we deal with in daily life. Our smoke detectors in our homes and lantern mantels. There's potassium in salt substitutes that we use on our food. Some of the dishes that we eat off of may contain radioactive materials. The buildings we live in have radioactive material, the granite and marble at the state Capitol in Utah contains radioactive materials. It's part of our everyday life. People don't understand that generally, because it is not something that they can see or smell or taste but it is something that's very natural and very much a part of our everyday life.
In fact, living in Utah, most residents receive more than the average annual exposure from natural sources because they live at a higher elevation near the mountains, than perhaps people on the coasts. The atmosphere tends to shield a lot of the radiation from outer space that bombards us everyday. So it is a part of our everyday life and it is unfortunate that it's difficult for people to put in context how small the radiation contribution is from nuclear power plants and facilities like Private Fuel Storage would be in comparison to the natural background sources. I guess I've often said that I don't think we'll be totally comfortable with it until you're watching the nightly weather forecast on the news and they tell you what the temperature is. They tell you what the wind speed is. They tell you what the relative humidity is that day and then they also tell you what the natural background radiation levels are, because it's just as natural as the other elements we hear about on the weather report.
There are many opportunities in our life when we receive radiation exposure from natural sources. On a transcontinental flight you receive approximately three millirims of radiation exposure. A chest x-ray might be 20 to 30 millirims of exposure. During the course of a year, a resident in Utah may receive about 400 millirims of radiation exposure. We are required at Private Fuel Storage and all nuclear facilities like that, to limit the amount of radiation exposure that a member of the public would get by standing next to the fence at the facility for a year to less then 25 millirim per year. And in fact, our analysis for this facility shows that , the radiation levels would be less then 1 millirim per year to a member of the public. We've gone above and beyond to try to make sure that radiation exposure from the facility like this are extremely low and a small fraction of what is normally received from our everyday life from background radiation.
Verdoia: Another sentiment that is expressed on a regular basis is when it comes to nuclear waste, spent fuel rods, Utah didn't produce it. Utah didn't benefit from it. Utah is not a nuclear power state, therefore this is not for us to deal with. It's not our problem. How do you respond to that?
Northard: Well in the United States about 20 percent of our electricity is generated from nuclear power. Nuclear power is really a great help in providing a diverse source of reliable and cost effective power for customers throughout the United States. And as you know, all states are connected by a high voltage power grid so we share power among and between all the states in the Union. Nuclear power helps keep the air clean. We all benefit from nuclear power. It generates about twenty percent of the nations electric power and we all benefit from that because we're all interconnected with a high voltage power grid that goes between and among the states in the Union. In the West, there are seven large nuclear power plants. Four in California, three in Arizona that provide quite a bit of power in the West. Those plants also help keep carbon based emissions out of the atmosphere by generating nuclear power and displacing power that would have to be generated otherwise by fossil fuels like natural gas, oil and coal.
Now the other thing that nuclear power does is it provides diversity in supply for our electric power. I don't think we all want to relive the lessons we learned back in the 1970s when we were so wholly dependent on foreign sources of oil. Likewise, we don't want to be dependent on a single source of fuel for electricity. Right now natural gas prices are high and most of the power plants that have been built over the past ten to fifteen years have been using natural gas. So that resource is being consumed to make electricity and you're seeing a lot of price volatility with natural gas right now. Nuclear power doesn't see the same volatility because the price of uranium stays fairly stable and the amount of fuel that's used at the power plants is not that large. So the price of power from nuclear power plants stays fairly stable and that's a stabilizing force for electricity prices in the nation and electricity is really the fuel for the economic engine we have in the country.
Verdoia: You address the importance of nuclear power in the nation's energy needs. You've spoken to the dependability of the storage site that PFS is intending to create in Skull Valley and yet even as we meet on this day in February, the Utah State Legislature is considering tough new laws to keep you the hell out of Utah. They don't want you. How do you address that public sentiment being expressed in those halls of power?
Northard: Well we've been very up front about this project from the very beginning. We announced this proposal after we began working with the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indian tribe. We've hand delivered our materials to the state government at every step of the way. As we go forward in this project, we've testified before the Utah Radiation Control Board, before the Utah Legislature about our intentions. But really this is not a project with the state of Utah. It's really a project with the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indian tribe, which is a sovereign entity. They're the ones who envisioned the idea for this project. They're the ones who came to us, and we ultimately agreed upon a lease agreement to work with them.
So while the state of Utah does have concerns about the project, they are a full participant in the licensing process and we are required to answer their questions just like we are required to answer anybody else's questions on this project, but in the end we really don't have to have the state of Utah give the blessing for this project. We would very much like to work with the state. We don't want to be a bad neighbor or have an antagonistic relationship with the state and we'll continue to look for opportunities to work with the state of this project, with our partner the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indian tribe.
Verdoia: There are people that question what the benefit of this project would be to Utah in general. There are clear benefits obviously to the Skull Valley Band. But the state of Utah, does it stand to benefit?
Northard: Well I think the state of Utah stands to benefit from this project in a number of different ways. First, by keeping nuclear power a vital part of our nations energy mix the state of Utah receives more stability in pricing for electricity then they would otherwise have without nuclear power. As I mentioned before, about 20 percent of our nation's electricity comes from nuclear power and that energy is used to make the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the products we use in our everyday life. So in fact, everybody in the United States is benefiting from nuclear power, having nuclear power available.
Finally, there are a lot of other benefits that the state would receive from this project over its life cycle. If the facility operates for a 40 year period of time, we've estimated that approximately $3.1 billion dollars would be spent in building and operating this facility. Well of course a lot of the products that we will use, the casks, the goods and services that the facility uses would come from local manufactures because it would be more efficient and economical for us to do it that way. So in fact, the Utah manufacturers and fabrication facilities and companies would stand to benefit greatly from this project as well as the state itself through taxes or sales taxes on the products that are used at this facility.
Verdoia: One aspect that has troubled a number of observers, and frankly as a journalist it's troubling for me, is the aspect of secrecy. Certain contracts are viewed as none of my business and certainly not the business of the state of Utah. Documents we've reviewed have been heavily censored. Why is that contract so secret?
Northard: Well there are a couple of documents that have had sections redacted or words redacted out of the contract, meaning that there's certain information that hasn't been provided. In all those cases, the information is considered to be proprietary. It either has some commercial value to competitors and in fact there are other proposals for spent fuel storage facilities in the United States, in fact, one in Wyoming, and these are in fact competition for a business like this.
Secondly, there's matters of privacy with respect to the tribe itself, and the government itself. There are certain matters that they perhaps don't wish to make public and it's not unlike any other contract between private citizens. If you rent your backyard out to somebody else to use for some purpose, that is not a public document. The terms of that agreement are between you and the party you're renting your backyard out to. So it really is not an issue for public dissemination. It's a private matter between the parties who enter into the contract. Now the difference is where there are issues of public safety and or impacts on the public, that information has all been provided and is out in the public but where it's a private matter where it does not effect other parties that information may be kept proprietary in some cases.
Verdoia: And so is it proprietary information to say how much the Skull Valley Band would benefit financially for the life of this contract?
Northard: Yeah. Well that's an issue the tribe has chosen not to make public and it is a private matter between that group and the party that signed the contract.
Verdoia: That leads us to a conversation we had last week with a significant state official in Utah who said the entire process involving Private Fuel Storage and Skull Valley Band really troubled her because, "PFS is trying to fly this one under the radar of public scrutiny and public accountability."
Northard: Well, I guess I would differ with the opinion that we're somehow trying to fly this project in under the radar. I would venture to say that this has probably been the most public licensing and permitting process in the history of the state of Utah. We have had a number of public hearings. We've had public comment meetings where the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has asked the public for comments on the scope of the studies that they're doing. We've had public hearings where we've taken testimony, not only from the state but other parties that are interested in the project and given opportunity for the public to comment.
All of the information that we have submitted has been placed in two public document rooms. One at the Marriott Library at the University of Utah that's open to anybody to come in and look at anytime, and one in the city of Tooele. We have published everything, every notice has been published in the Federal Register. Every letter that we've sent in to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been made available to the public. So I guess I would say that if this is flying in under the radar, I would like to know what being out in the open is because this has been the most open licensing process I think I've ever seen.
Verdoia: You have signed an agreement with the Tooele County Commission. An agreement that promises, potentially, nearly $200 million dollars over the life of the storage project. This has led some to conclude that the Tooele County Commission has been "bought off" by Private Fuel Storage. How do you respond to that assertion?
Northard: Well, we are not buying anybody. In fact, we want to be a good neighbor. We recognize there may be impacts on the local community, so we want to work with the local community to mitigate those impacts. We realize that, for instance, the tribe has a lease agreement with the Private Fuel Storage and there are benefits that the tribe would receive. We'd also like to see the local county receive benefits from this project too, above and beyond just the jobs and the business opportunities that go along with the facility. We'd also like to see the state gain as a result of this project, and we're more then willing to talk about what impacts there may be on the state and how those can be mitigated. But nobody's really buying anything. We're just really looking at what genuine impacts would there be and how can we make that right.
Verdoia: Is it easier to work in an area such as Tooele County, which has a 50 year legacy of dealing with the disposal or handling of extremely hazardous materials, in fact even low grade radioactive materials, does that make the site easier to work with since there is something about history and dealing with this in advance?
Northard: Well the one thing Tooele County provides is they have probably one of the most advanced and well trained emergency response organizations in the United States. Because this group has worked with facilities like Dugway Proving Ground, the nerve gas incinerator, some of the hazardous waste facilities in the county, they're well equipped and well trained to deal with emergencies should they come up. They understand the technologies that are used to protect the public and protect workers. We've found that it's been very easy to work with the county and their emergency response organization. They're very well trained and highly capable.
Verdoia: With re-licensing, Prairie Island could stay on-line through the year 2034. That's 33 years away. Today we visited your dry casks storage site. It seems to be a model of what might be done in the Skull Valley of Utah. The governor says if it works so darn good here in dry cask storage, keep it here. Just keep it here. You're only going to be operating for 30 more years anyway. There's plenty of time for a permanent storage site to be on-line. Just keep it at Prairie Island.
Northard: Plants like Prairie Island would like to continue operating but there is limited space available and limited storage available at their plants. Also, there are many other plants in the United States that want to continue operating and they're running out of storage space as well. Doesn't it make more sense to build one single, centralized storage facility to temporarily store spent fuel then it does to build seventy-two separate facilities all around the United States that all would need a separate work force, a separate set of equipment to handle the casks, a separate set of monitoring equipment, separate security systems, and all sorts of other ancillarious equipment that's necessary to operate those facilities. It makes much more sense to build a large centralized storage facility then 72 smaller ones spread, spread throughout the United States.
Verdoia: These public utilities are business entities, not withstanding the difficulties created by the California energy crisis, but these are wise business leaders. You're going to spend $3.1 billion dollars over the next 40 years, or you hope too, in Utah. Where's the financial incentive for the utilities? I mean, how does this turn out to be a good deal for them?
Northard: Well if we were to spend $3.1 billion dollars over the next 40 years in Utah, if we were to build facilities at 72 separate sites, we would have to spend much more then that to store it all around the country. So while it may seem like a lot of money to spend at that storage facility, it would be even more if we had to store it individually at all of our separate sites. And then once a facility is permanently shutdown and wants to decommission, they're prevented from decommissioning until that spent fuel is removed. So there are a lot of compelling reasons why it makes sense to build one facility, even at $3 billion dollars over 40 years then it would to build 72 separate ones across the United States.
Verdoia: Not the least of which would be the headaches of trying to win local approval and support, state support and licensing, I would imagine for each one of those 72 individual sites, correct?
Northard: Yeah, there's a separate licensing process you have to go through for each one so why not go through it one time for a large centralized storage facility then to go through that 72 separate times. That's correct.
Verdoia: The governor of Utah says, "Just keep it there at Prairie Island." Minnesota, the state government of Minnesota seems to be saying, "No, thank you." So it seems like you have that type of pressure being exerted on you as well.
Northard: Well the state of Minnesota is looking to make sure that the customers and the citizens of Minnesota get what they paid for, and that is a permanent long-term storage and disposal facility built by the federal government to take that spent fuel off of our hands and dispose of it properly, because we paid for that service and we're continuing to pay for additional storage of above and beyond that. So there's a strong interest by the state of Minnesota and I'm sure by electric customers all around the United States to make sure the federal government lives up to their obligation. And we're going to continue to work very hard to make sure the federal government ultimately lives up to their obligation and that the fuel would only have to be stored in Skull Valley for a short period of time until the federal government's got a facility available in Nevada.
Verdoia: Does the permanent site immediately mean the end of the temporary site?
Northard: Well there will probably be some number of years where you'll have to transition from temporary storage into the permanent storage. As you know, you can't ship all of the fuel in one year from a temporary facility to the permanent facility because it only receives so much fuel at a time. It would depend how much fuel is located in Skull Valley, but it would take some number of years to transport it from Skull Valley to the federal repository.
Verdoia: What happens if we move forward and you get licensing for Skull Valley and then the federal government, as it's done many times, stumbles, fails to come forward with a definitive stride forward in a National Energy Policy, fails to create the permanent site on a reasonable timetable and 40 years from now we're still dragging our feet on a permanent solution?
Northard: I don't think we're going to be dragging our feet 40 years from now. The one thing that is certain is our country needs a solution for high-level waste storage and disposal. The federal government needs to move on with it, to get on with building the repository at Yucca Mountain. It's something that's needed, not only for the commercial spent fuel, but for all of the other materials that we have located throughout the country and for all the materials that we're bringing in from all the foreign countries for disposal in this country. There are very compelling reasons why we've got to move on with it. We've studied and studied and studied Yucca Mountain. I believe we're near the point where the Department of Energy can make a site recommendation at the end of this year to the president to move on with characterizing, to move on with licensing Yucca Mountain and getting a repository built there.
Winston Churchill had a favorite saying about Americans. He says, "You know, Americans always do the right thing after they've tried everything else." Well, we've been trying everything else and I think we're finally coming around to the fact that we need the permanent repository. We need to safely dispose of all this material that we've collected from the weapons production programs, from the Navy nuclear reactors program, from the research reactor programs, from the foreign research reactor programs, and from the commercial spent fuel programs. And that material should go into a place like Yucca Mountain for a long term burial and disposal.
Verdoia: If you had one minute to speak directly to every person in Utah, just to give them your most heart felt reasoning. "As you hear people talk about PFS and Skull Valley, you need to keep this in mind." What would you tell them?
Northard: I think people really need to go out and learn a little bit more about what's being proposed. Some of our opponents have talked about exaggerated claims of safe, or of accidents and fears and leaks, radioactive leaks, etc. I think you really need to go out and look at how this spent fuel is being stored in dry storage containers. These containers are passive storage. There's no moving parts. They're stored in a inert gas. It's environmentally benign. They just sit there until they're ready to go to the permanent repository. The transportation record for spent fuel in this country is unparalleled. Over the past 40 years there's been over 3,000 shipments of commercial spent fuel and there's never been a major injury or a fatality in that, in those shipping programs. I don't think any industry that transport hazardous material can claim that kind of safety record.
You know, everyday we have gasoline tankers going down our freeways and there are accidents and you'll see a story about a fiery accident and a car being burned up or people being killed but yet we continue to allow those gas tankers to drive down the freeways and next to us and we don't seem to get worked up about it. Yet when people talk about spent fuel transportation all of a sudden, it's the end of the world. People are talking about doom and gloom and, and it's because a lot of people's fears have been whipped up in a frenzy by exaggerated claims and misrepresentations that are made about the transportation of spent fuel.
I think you people should go out and see how the casks are built and how they're tested. The casks that we use to transport spent fuel are built like the black boxes on airplanes. Where you have a very robust container and you put a crushable surface or an impact limiter on the casks to absorb the force of the crash. You know that when there's an airplane crash the one thing that survives is the black box and it's because they're built to survive that type of an accident. Well that's the way spent fuel casks are built, to survive the accident even though the railcar may be damaged, even though other parts of the train maybe damaged, the cask will remain intact because that's how it's designed. And people need to go out and actually see how they're built. See how they're tested and designed, because they're designed to remain intact during all sorts of horrific accident scenarios. It's just an extra measure of design and protection that's built into these packages.
Verdoia: And so if they're sitting at home and on the other hand they hear elected officials proclaiming doom and gloom, saying this is a danger, this is a threat, this is deadly for 10,000 years. How would you counter that from the state's own elected officials?
Northard: Well it's unfortunate that people try to fan the flames of fear and misperception on spent fuel storage and transportation. Even politicians may make claims that this is dangerous and it shouldn't be done, but the fact is it's being done everyday. The fact is that spent fuel is being shipped through all the states, including Utah, on a fairly regular basis. Just within the last couple of years there have been shipments through Utah, up to Idaho, and there didn't seem to be a big outcry by the politicians when those occurred. In fact, the state is notified of these shipments well in advance and they monitor those shipments while they're going through. So I don't know why this should be treated any differently then what's customarily or ordinarily being done today.
Source: http://www.kued.org/
