Margaret Macdonald Stewart is a board member of the Snake River Alliance, a nuclear watchdog group that promotes clean energy.
By MARGARET M. STEWART
With the heady news and celebration that AREVA, the French nuclear company, has chosen Idaho for its uranium enrichment plant, I offer the first of many questions that must be answered as the champagne goes flat, the bubbles burst and we come back down to Earth.
Highly enriched uranium is used for nuclear power plants and nuclear bombs. With the economy shrinking and current cost to construct a nuclear power plant increasing from $5 billion to $12 billion (Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2008), can this country afford nuclear power plants to create energy? Using nuclear power entails risks of nuclear proliferation, serious accidents and terrorism along with intensifying nuclear waste problems. Why not use less expensive and safer energy sources?
Once nuclear fuel is fabricated, where will the fuel assembly plant be located? There were rumors that a carrot for AREVA was for a very high temperature reactor (VHTR) for hydrogen production at INL. Any plans for the VHTR? Where will the uranium yellowcake originate that AREVA plans to enrich? How will it be transported to INL?
With much proprietary information attached to a private corporation, how is the concerned citizen to trust the safety of such a facility and its activities? It's common for industry and governments to omit mention of a mistake (major or minor) until the error is leaked, then questions of honesty arise.
About 90 percent of what comes out of a uranium enrichment plant is depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) waste, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. When DUF6 is exposed to moisture in air, it releases highly corrosive gases that can kill upon inhalation. A violent explosion is also possible. The United States now stores more than 57,600 10- to 14-ton low-level-radiation-emitting cylinders of solid DUF6 (three-quarters from nuclear power production) with no place to dispose of the waste.
There is news that a company is planning to build a facility to "deconvert" AREVA's DUF6 into a safer form for disposal. But it will take decades to deal with the current DUF6 backlog. Where will the nuclear waste from this enrichment plant be stored? Above our aquifer?
Idaho already has enough nuclear waste to last hundreds of lifetimes. Idaho's nuclear waste covers acres, much of it buried in unlined pits above the sole source of water for nearly one-quarter of all Idahoans. Ex-Governor Cecil Andrus sent out the National Guard to block the interstate highway to prevent more nuclear waste from coming into Idaho. Ex-Governor Batt campaigned to "Get the Waste Out" of Idaho, signing an historic document declaring that "most" of Idaho's nuclear waste must leave Idaho by 2035. Where are the voices of today's elected officials protecting Idaho from nuclear waste?
Idaho has a long history of stopping unnecessary projects at INL. Information from the Snake River Alliance stopped the site's practice of injecting nuclear and hazardous waste into the underlying aquifer in the mid-1980s. Idahoans stopped two nuclear weapons plants from being constructed in Idaho during the Cold War, and Idahoans and our neighbors in Wyoming stopped a plutonium incinerator from being constructed at INL. Is it time for Idahoans to raise their voices to protect our state and precious aquifer from this unnecessary and nuclear waste-producing plant from being built? There is no need to create more nuclear fuel for energy since sustainable clean and safe energy sources are so abundantly available in Idaho.
Idahoans stood together and stopped construction of a polluting, coal-fired power plant in our state. Now is the time to start asking tough questions about the plans AREVA has for Idaho. Our people, land, water and air are worth protecting.
