Nuclear waste commission to tour SRS

Nov 20 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Rob Pavey The Augusta Chronicle, Ga.

A national panel appointed to study nuclear waste disposal options will tour Savannah River Site, and possibly Plant Vogtle, during a visit that has been scheduled for Jan. 6-7, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, created by President Obama last January in the wake of a controversial decision to abandon the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste program in Nevada, will also hold a public meeting during its visit.

"The location and logistics are things we are just starting to work out," said Jim Giusti, a department spokesman at the site.

The government's Yucca Mountain project, 90 miles from Las Vegas, was to accommodate 70,000 tons of waste from the nation's 104 commercial reactors, which are generating about 2,000 additional tons of spent fuel each year.

It was also to be the disposal site for radioactive material from 121 temporary sites, including SRS.

Many local groups, including the Savannah River Site Community Reuse Organization, protested the cancellation of Yucca Mountain, saying it would make it more difficult to move radioactive waste out of South Carolina.

The group also asked that the panel reconsider Yucca Mountain because more than $10 billion has already been spent on the project.

The 15-member Blue Ribbon panel's mission, as stated by Energy Secretary Steven Chu, is to explore alternatives that would offer safe, effective ways to handle nuclear waste.

A co-chairman of the group, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, announced in September that his commission also wants to visit the Energy Department's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, in addition to SRS, as part of its mission.

The group is scheduled to make its first series of recommendations in fall 2011.