DATE: Saturday, April 5, 1997               TAG: 9704050243

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY AKWELI PARKER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   81 lines

ENERGY DEPARTMENT, UTILITIES REVISIT NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL< PAYING UTILITIES TO STORE WASTE ON-SITE WAS SUGGESTED BY ENERGY OFFICIALS.

Since the Department of Energy tried backing out of a nuclear waste agreement last year, utilities have been making more noise than a Geiger counter in a plutonium mine.

On Thursday, Energy Secretary Federico Pena called a conference to cool tempers in the nuclear industry and seek alternatives to the nixed agreement.

Why are utilities so hot under the collar?

A 1982 law, upheld by a recent court decision, requires the Energy department to accept radioactive waste from civilian nuclear power plants starting next year.

But Energy says it can't, because there's no place to put the stuff.

For years, the U.S. Geological Survey and Los Alamos National Laboratory have been studying whether Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is an appropriate, safe site for underground waste storage. Engineers must take into account a site's susceptibility to earthquakes, volcanoes and water leaks.

If deemed suitable, the repository wouldn't be ready until 2010 at the earliest, according to DOE.

Pena raised some alternatives to immediate waste storage, said Virginia Power President James T. Rhodes, who attended the conference.

``But we just don't think leaving the fuel at dozens of sites is an option.''

One possible DOE concession: to pay utilities for keeping waste on-site - either in pools of water or in massive steel and concrete cylinders called casks.

``We do not think (monetary) compensation should be a substitute for actually moving fuel off our sites,'' Rhodes said.

The power-consuming public already has paid $13 billion into a waste fund through monthly electric bills and interest. Virginia Power levies a $1 per nuclear megawatt-hour surcharge on customers.

All told, the government takes in $600 million a year, or $49 every minute to fund its radioactive waste program.

Last year, President Clinton vetoed a bill to erect a temporary storage site in Nevada and pledged to swat down similar legislation that's up for a Senate vote next week.

The Department of Energy defends its aversion to a single temporary site, saying it would undermine efforts toward building the permanent site. The department said it had to scale back its nuclear waste effort in 1996 after the program suffered a 40 percent drop in available funding.

The argument doesn't wash with groups like the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry policy group in Washington.

``We've done our own analyses and there are sufficient funds available,'' said Leigh Ann Marshall, a spokeswoman for the institute.

According to their calculations, ``if you build an interim storage facility, it's going to save you $5 (billion) to 7 billion.''

Marshall said the government has to build a temporary site anyway to act as a transfer station between nuclear plants and the casks' final, subterranean resting place.

What's more, congressional studies say that not building a temporary site could mean $40 to $80 billion in damage claims by utilities and state governments.

Others counter that building a temporary storage site is asking for trouble.

``We're talking about a 30-year shipping pattern,'' said Fred Millar of the Nuclear Waste Citizens' Coalition in Washington. That's 30 years - instead of 20 without a temporary site - of trucks and trains criss-crossing the nation with highly radioactive waste.

``Railyards and truck stops are not particularly known for being secure,'' Millar said, raising the specter of terrorist attacks.

A solution to the storage dilemma could be months down the road, but nuclear industry officials characterized the meeting with Pena as a good start.

And good thing - although some utilities will decommission plants in coming years, nuclear power likely will be around awhile.

Virginia Power expects to seek 20-year license extensions for its four reactors at Surry and North Anna beginning in 1998 or 1999, the company said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by FILE PHOTO

The Department of Energy is required by law to accept radioactive

waste from power plants like this one in Surry, but officials say

they can't.

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