Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Expert: Yucca launch date will likely be delayed

Engineering consultant says nuclear waste repository won't be ready until at least 2015

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy is underestimating the time it will need to license and open a nuclear waste repository in Nevada, according to an industry expert who said Tuesday a projected 2010 launch date could be delayed by five years "at the earliest."

Testifying in a federal lawsuit, nuclear engineering consultant Eileen Supko said the Yucca Mountain Project faces a potential six years of review for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue a construction license, double what DOE estimates in official documents.

Further delays are likely when the NRC considers a follow-up license to enable DOE to begin accepting waste at a repository, Supko said, and when DOE begins to prepare the Yucca site for major construction.

"They are not going to have a repository ready until 2015 at the earliest," said Supko, a senior consultant with Energy Resources International, a firm that advises utilities on managing their nuclear fuel.

Supko said a repository opening could be pushed as far as 2020, although she expected DOE would take action to streamline the project. She said DOE already plans to construct the repository in stages, and initial plans for waste handling facilities at the site have been scaled back to save construction time.

On the other hand, Supko said the project could face further uncertainties if Congress does not appropriate enough money for construction, or if DOE suffers setbacks in ongoing lawsuits filed by Nevada and environmental groups.

"No matter what, the 2010 date is unreasonable and the actual date is farther out in the future," she said.

Supko's remarks came during testimony in a lawsuit in U.S. Court of Federal Claims over government delays in opening a disposal site for highly radioactive spent fuel piling up at commercial nuclear reactors.

Indiana Michigan Power Co., which operates the 2,100-megawatt Donald C. Cook Plant near Bridgman, Mich., is seeking $107.7 million in damages after DOE failed to meet a Jan. 31, 1998 contract deadline to take over nuclear waste generated by Cook's two reactors.

Utility owners and nuclear plant operators have filed more than 65 similar contract lawsuits against DOE that could total billions of dollars in damages. The Indiana Michigan case is the first to reach the damages phase.

Supko testified for the utility, which based its damages claim on her estimates of when DOE would be ready to accept its nuclear waste.

In court, attorneys for the Energy Department sought to discredit Supko's testimony, arguing she is neither a construction expert nor an authority on project scheduling.

"It is a firm position and DOE's firm belief it will be operating by that (2010) date and DOE has a firm plan to do so," attorney Harold Lester said.

Lester said a Yucca project manager, Christopher Kouts, was expected to testify during the trial on how the Energy Department plans to meet the 2010 goal.

Defending her estimate, Supko said "six years is a reasonable schedule given this is a first-of-its-kind licensing effort."