Swiss brief Nye visitors on waste

By MARK WAITE
PVT

German residents voted to shut down nuclear power plants, but in Switzerland five nuclear reactors continue to produce 40 percent of the nation’s power, Nye County Nuclear Waste Project Office Director Darrell Lacy told county commissioners this month.

Lacy made a trip to Switzerland in September as part of a four-member Nye County delegation that included Assistant County Manager Pam Webster, Geoscience Manager Levi Kryder and County Commissioner Roberta “Midge” Carver, who has only a few months left on her term.

County commissioners budgeted $20,000 out of the nuclear waste oversight program for the trip.

They joined a delegation by the United States Transportation Council, an advocacy group for the U.S. nuclear material transport industry.

Last year county officials went on a USTC tour of nuclear waste facilities in Sweden and Finland; the year before, Japan was on the itinerary.

Lacy told Chairman Joni Eastley there was a protest in a Swiss community over nuclear issues the week before their visit. They were told most of the protesters were Germans or Austrians.

“Most major decisions in Switzerland are done through referendum. They’ve had several referendums on nuclear issues. The most recent one was whether to shut down nuclear power in the country as Germany has done and Italy has done, but that was voted down 66 percent,’ Lacy said.

Nye County officials met with the Swiss equivalent of the U.S. Department of Energy, he said. The Swiss energy officials talked about concerns over greenhouse gas emissions and a desire to be free of the use of fossil fuels through nuclear energy.

Lacy said they visited the newest Swiss nuclear power plant, constructed in 1984. He said the German decision to phase out nuclear power may be revisited due to problems getting natural gas supplies through Russia.

The nuclear waste in Switzerland is shipped by rail and offloaded at an intermodal facility a mile from an intermediate storage facility, Lacy said. He told Eastley in 24,000 shipments there haven’t been any accidents.

“They have not identified their geologic repository yet, so they have made a decision to use intermediate storage for the next 50 years or so,” Lacy said.

The long-term goal is to establish a geologic repository like Yucca Mountain, he said, in a country with a lot more rainfall than Nevada.

While the Swedes and Finns have plans to build a nuclear waste repository in granite, the Swiss will build it in sedimentary rock, Lacy said. Yucca Mountain is being built in volcanic tuff. The Swiss will dig drifts over 1,500 feet deep with smaller casks to reduce heat generated by the radioactive waste, he said.

The intermediate storage facilities are big, indoor concrete pads with casks stored on them, he said. Some sites have high-level waste returned for reprocessing in France.

Carver mentioned a few things she learned, like the fact Switzerland has four official languages, but she told Eastley she never heard a concern the nuclear waste might be a target for terrorists.

Lacy said in Switzerland the storage of nuclear waste is handled by a joint venture of private companies, not by the government. The itinerary called for visiting an interim, dry-cask storage facility operated by Zwilag, a company owned by four Swiss nuclear utilities, in Wurenlingen.

Carver was impressed at efforts to educate the public at the Swiss facilities.

“Both sites that we went to were very accommodating to visitors, very educational. At one site they had several different age groups of young people going through this facility,’ Carver said. “Most people get upset about things because they don’t understand them.”

Eastley’s comments seemed to reflect a positive attitude toward nuclear waste and nuclear energy.

“Nothing would make me happier as a commissioner than to see the successful reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods and to have Nye County, Nevada, identified as the nation’s first nuclear energy reserve,” Eastley said.

Eastley admitted that wasn’t something she expects to see before she leaves office.

Eastley is running for re-election. If she’s re-elected to another four-year term Nov. 4 it will be her last, as she’s bound by term limits from running again in 2012.

http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2008/Oct-31-Fri-2008/news/24814268.html