A streaming audio replay of the September 30, 2009, teleconference news event will be available by 5 p.m. CDT on September 30, 2009, at: http://www.hastingsgroupmedia.com/psr/093009IEERMNreprocessingevent.wma
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
16 MINNESOTA GROUPS TO MN CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION: REPROCESSING OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE FROM PRAIRIE ISLAND, OTHER REACTORS “NOT A SOLUTION
Higher Costs, Pollution and Proliferation Dangers if Congress Opens Door to Reprocessing
MINNEAPOLIS, MN.///September 30, 2009/// Minnesota’s Congressional delegation is hearing today from a diverse group of 16 Minnesota organizations – including Clean Water Action, Environment Minnesota, Sierra Club North Star Chapter and the Minnesota Peace Project – that strongly oppose any effort to open the door to the reprocessing of radioactive waste from Prairie Island and other nuclear reactors when Capitol Hill considers climate and energy legislation.
In the case of Xcel Energy's Prairie Island site, where the entire island, including the dry cask storage, sits in a flood plain of the Mississippi River, the waste needs to be moved to a more secure site as close to the reactor as possible as a necessary interim step.
The joint letter states that the controversial and dangerous practice of reprocessing is “not a solution to Minnesota’s or any state’s nuclear waste problem”. The letter explains in detail how reprocessing actually increases the volume of radioactive waste, is enormously costly, worsens proliferation concerns (including terrorist threats), increases pollution going into lakes, streams and rivers, and poses a range of safety risks. The full text of the 16-group letter is available online at http://www.carbonfreenuclearfree.org/state-groups/minnesota. [The letter follows this press release.]
In alphabetical order, the signers of the letter to Minnesota’s federal elected officials are: Clean Water Action, Communities United for Responsible Energy, Environment Minnesota, Fairmont Peace Group, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Institute for Local Self Reliance, Mankato Area Environmentalists, Minnesota Peace Project, North American Water Office, Prairie Island Coalition, Sierra Club North Star Chapter, Twin City Artist Front, White Earth Land Recovery Project, Honor the Earth Foundation, Women Against Military Madness, and Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom.
Dan Endreson, program coordinator, Clean Water Action Midwest Office, Minneapolis, said: "Minnesota state legislation over the past 15 years has allowed nuclear facilities at Prairie Island and Monticello to store spent fuel in casks along the banks of the Mississippi River. These casks were meant to serve as a short term solution to nuclear waste storage while the federal government constructed a geological repository. As the proposed site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been declared "no longer an option" by President Obama, nuclear advocates claim they have found a silver bullet to the waste problem that would make the need for a repository unnecessary –reprocessing. This claim is completely false. Not only will reprocessing not solve the waste problem, it will actually make it worse. Department of Energy officials estimate that reprocessing spent fuel will result in a six-fold increase in the volume of repository-bound radioactive waste. Moreover, a reprocessing plant would take decades and tens of billions of dollars to build – not exactly a cost-effective or quick solution for the real problem of spent fuel storage at Prairie Island. We urge our elected officials to reject the reprocessing of nuclear waste and instead work to secure spent fuel at or as near as possible to reactor sites."
Lisa Ledwidge, outreach director, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Minneapolis, said: "France is often held up by proponents as a poster country for radioactive waste reprocessing. Problem is, the narrative usually includes some mythology. My colleagues at IEER have studied the French nuclear situation in detail … First is the problem that reprocessing is expensive. France spends about $1 billion extra per year on plutonium fuel compared to conventional uranium fuel. Reprocessing drives up the cost of nuclear-generated electricity by 5.3 percent – according to a report written for the French Prime Minister by members of the country’s nuclear establishment. We can extrapolate this to the U.S. waste problem. Right now, nuclear electricity consumers are paying 0.1 cent per kWh for radioactive waste disposal; this fee is fixed by the U.S. government. While it may well turn out to be quite inadequate, if reprocessing becomes part of U.S. waste management policy, the waste disposal costs would likely increase the cost of nuclear power by 2 cents per kWh, possibly more."
Cathy Murphy, district coordinator, Minnesota Peace Project, Minneapolis, said: “The Minnesota Peace Project is dedicated to stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and we think our congressional delegation ought to be, too. Because reprocessing would make proliferation problems worse, we vigorously oppose it and ask our Minnesota congressional representatives to stand with us in saying NO to reprocessing. Reprocessing radioactive waste poses significant proliferation risks. Since reprocessing extracts plutonium – a key component of nuclear bombs – from spent fuel, it makes weapons materials more available for nuclear and non-nuclear states, as well as terrorists”.
The Minnesota groups’ concerns about a lack of safe radioactive waste disposal are shared by many organizations and experts around the U.S. In 2006, over 150 national and local groups from around the country signed onto “Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors,” (http://www.citizen.org/documents/PrinciplesSafeguardingIrradiatedFuel.pdf) which called for spent fuel to be secured at or near reactor sites, recognizing the lack of a viable permanent storage plan for the dangerous waste. These groups, including Minnesota organizations, recognized that reprocessing “has not solved the nuclear waste problem in any country, and actually exacerbates it by creating numerous additional waste streams that must be managed. In addition to being expensive and polluting, reprocessing also increases nuclear weapons proliferation threats.”
In a September 15, 2009 opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Frank von Hippel, a physicist, professor of public and international affairs at Princeton University and co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, noted: “Reprocessing is enormously dangerous.The amount of radioactivity in the liquid waste stored at France's (nuclear waste reprocessing) plant is more than 100 times that released by the Chernobyl accident. That is why France's government set up antiaircraft missile batteries around its reprocessing plant after the 9/11 attacks.”
Earlier this year, an effort to overturn Minnesota’s ban on new nuclear reactors was defeated. The Minnesota House voted 70-62 on April 30, 2009 to keep the state's nuclear moratorium in place. Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis, has stated publicly that the issues that led to the 1994 law are still not resolved. "We hear about advancement in technology, but we haven't solved the issue of waste -- a million-year radioactive toxic legacy that we'll pass on to untold generations," said Hornstein.
CONTACT: Leslie Anderson, (703) 276-3256 or landerson@hastingsgroup.com.
EDITOR'S NOTE: A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available on the Web at http://www.carbonfreenuclearfree.org/state-groups/minnesota as of 5 p.m. CDT on September 30, 2009.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
September 30, 2009
Dear Member of Congress,
We are writing to ask you to oppose reprocessing, the separation of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. Reprocessing, sometimes misnamed “recycling,” is not a solution to Minnesota’s or any state’s nuclear waste problem because:
Reprocessing does not decrease waste or obviate the need for a repository. While the vitrified (glassified) waste product of reprocessing is smaller in volume than the original spent fuel, reprocessing produces additional waste such that the total volume of waste to be disposed of in a deep geologic repository is several times larger than the original spent fuel. This is because reprocessing generates large volumes of waste that is significantly contaminated with plutonium. In addition, the leftover uranium, which constitutes about 95 percent of the weight of the spent fuel, is contaminated with plutonium and traces of fission products. This re-enrichment difficult partly because the uranium now contaminates the enrichment plants with plutonium. In France, most of the recovered uranium is piling up un-used. Uranium recovered in reprocessing may also have to be disposed of in a deep repository. No waste classification for this material exists at present.
Reprocessing is costly. France, the world’s reprocessing leader, spends about $1 billion extra per year on plutonium fuel compared to conventional uranium fuel. Plutonium fuel obtained by reprocessing is two to three times more costly than uranium fuel. Japan's new reprocessing plant, Rokkasho, will likely provide the most expensive nuclear power fuel in history, about 3 cents (about 3.5 yen) per kilowatt hour of electricity.
Reprocessing worsens proliferation problems. About 10,000 bombs worth (over 80 metric tons) of separated commercial plutonium has accumulated at France’s La Hague reprocessing facility. There is even more at Sellafield in the UK. More than 30 metric tons are in Chelyabinsk, Russia. Accounting for them is difficult. Japan had more than 200 kilograms of unaccounted-for plutonium in 2003 in its reprocessing program – a problem that took a huge effort on the part of the International Atomic Energy Agency to sort out.
“Advanced” reprocessing technology also has proliferation potential. The leading “advanced” reprocessing technology is called electrometallurgical processing, or pyroprocessing. This is being promoted as “proliferation-resistant.” Pyroprocessing produces impure plutonium but it can be used to make nuclear weapons. While the material is more difficult to handle initially than plutonium in the current process (known as PUREX), this problem abates in a few years. Weapons states that have stocks of plutonium are unlikely to use the plutonium for weapons. However, terrorists who blow themselves up and prepare others for suicide bombings are not likely to care about added radiation doses to workers who would handle contaminated plutonium. Further, pyroprocessing installations, being much smaller than PUREX facilities, will be far easier to hide, pyroprocessing was not supported even in some pro-nuclear studies such as the MIT study on nuclear power.
Reprocessing worsens pollution problems. Reprocessing creates huge volumes of liquid radioactive waste, far more than the original waste volume. In Europe, it is discharged to the sea. France and Britain, the two leading reprocessing countries, have contaminated seafood all the way to the Arctic. Many governments, such as Ireland and Norway, have asked them to stop but France and Britain say the radioactive discharges are not “waste” because they are released via pipeline into the sea. However, if the waste were packaged in drums and thrown overboard from a ship, it would be illegal under international law.
Reprocessing is a safety risk. High-level liquid waste generated from reprocessing is not immediately vitrified. It is stored in stainless steel tanks that must be cooled. Loss of cooling for few days risks a catastrophic explosion. The 1957 explosion in the Soviet Union of a waste tank contaminated nearly 6,000 square miles. The land is still contaminated. There was complete loss of cooling for five hours in France due to a series of electrical system mishaps in 1980. Fortunately, power was restored and an explosion was averted.
Democratic and Republican presidents have opposed reprocessing. Presidents Ford and Carter initiated the U.S. policy to stop commercial reprocessing after India's nuclear test in 1974. None has taken place in the U.S. since that time. The only commercial reprocessing plant in the U.S., near Buffalo, New York, was closed in 1972 after only six years of operation. Clean up has cost New York and U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars.
We hope you will agree with us that reprocessing should be opposed. We would be happy to send you detailed materials on reprocessing and to meet with you and provide further information on various aspects of reprocessing.
Sincerely,
Deanna White
Clean Water Action Midwest Office
Minneapolis
Sigurd Anderson, Chair
Communities United for Responsible Energy (CURE)
Frontenac
Samantha Chadwick
Environment Minnesota
Minneapolis
Judi Poulson, Chair
Fairmont Peace Group
Fairmont
Lisa Ledwidge, Outreach Director
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
Minneapolis
David Morris, Vice President
Institute for Local Self Reliance
Minneapolis
Gladys Schmitz, SSND
Mankato Area Environmentalists
Mankato
Roxanne Abbas, Co-Chair
Minnesota Peace Project
Minneapolis
Lea Foushee
North American Water Office
Lake Elmo
Bruce A Drew, Steering Committee
Prairie Island Coalition
Minneapolis
Margaret Levin, State Director
Sierra Club North Star Chapter
Minneapolis
Jane Powers
Twin City Artist Front
Minneapolis
Winona LaDuke White Earth Land Recovery Project, and
Honor the Earth Foundation
Callaway
Carol Masters, Board Co-chair
Women Against Military Madness
Minneapolis
Elizabeth Shippee, Chair, Steering Committee
Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom
Minnesota Metro Branch
================================================================================================
April 30, 2009 Update
Minnesota recently considered repealing its moratorium on new nuclear power plants, but decided to pursue a future of energy efficiency and renewables instead. The Minnesota Senate voted to repeal the moratorium, but the House voted 70 to 62 in favor of upholding the moratorium.
The votes followed hearings, including public testimony and policy discussion. Arjun Makhijani of IEER and the author or "Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free testified at one of these hearings.
With regard to his vote to maintain the moratorium, MN House Energy Committee Chair, Rep. Bill Hilty, said:
"I did not have a position on this issue. I try to keep an open mind, particularly on something as serious as the energy future of the state of Minnesota. ... The thing that really got me in all of this testimony was just one thing that Dr. Makhijani said last night. And that is that, if we imply that we have a immediate nuclear energy future in Minnesota, it will be a distraction from the course that we have in recent years already, I think rightly and sensibly, put Minnesota on to develop its own resources, its own renewable resources, to the greatest extent that we can. The utilities all find that a very challenging order to try to meet. But they're doing it. Let's keep focused on the path we have already started."
A video archive is available of these meetings:
Thursday, March 26, 2009, House Energy Finance and Policy Division hearing of HF 1091
http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/htv/programa.asp?ls_year=86&event_id=1949
Wednesday, March 25, 2009, Discussion of nuclear power in a joint meeting of the Legislative Energy Commission, the House Energy Finance and Policy Division, and the Senate Energy, Utilities, Technology and Communications Committee
Part 1: http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/htv/programa.asp?ls_year=86&event_id=1948
Part 2: http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/htv/programa.asp?ls_year=86&event_id=1964
