Gary Thompson, a graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Law, is an attorney with Thompson and Korslund law firm in Beatrice, Nebraska. He was elected to the Nebraska Public Power District Board of Directors in 1992, and is currently First Vice Chariman of the Board.
Good morning. My name is Gary Thompson. I am on the NPPD [Nebraska Public Power District] board. Governor Nelson, I certainly appreciate the initiative you’ve taken in helping us to explore alternatives. I hope that this summit will, in fact, have the desired result of exploring alternatives to the currently process.
I think everyone is aware that Nebraska Public Power District as a major generator has supported the siting process and the compact commission from its inception. We are still committed to continue that process. We have, in fact, voted to continue our current obligation at least until we can see the draft documents. We believe that our funding will reach that point. I would point out that we did take some initiative and voted to terminate the funding as of the current obligation, but we are now negotiating for another funding contract amendment. I am not going to speculate on how the vote on that amendment might come out.
I do want to make it very clear that what I have to say are my views as a citizen. I am not representing the position of Nebraska Public Power District. There are at least three other NPPD board members who are present, and if I misstate the position I’m sure I will hear about that.
We are exploring the possibilities of alternatives, I have heard it said many times that there simply are no alternatives to the current process. I would suggest that the major generators, including Nebraska Public Power District, have already embarked upon some significant alternatives, and that is to reduce rad waste. We’ve heard a great deal about the rad waste reduction that has occurred in the last few years. I want to emphasize again from NPPD’s perspective and statistically what that is. In 1986, about the time that the process began, NPPD was generating approximately 16,600 cubic feet of rad waste each year. By 1995 we generated 1,820 cubic feet. Because of an outage which we had a couple of years ago we went back up some in volume, but it is beginning to reduce again. We will probably produce about 2,800 cubic feet this coming year. But overall, the tendency has been for the volume of rad waste to decline. Not only with NPPD, but the utilities overall have done what they can to reduce radioactive waste, and that is seen throughout the nation. It is also true that curie levels have remained fairly constant. When we disposed of some irradiated hardware, we had a high of 949 curies in 1994, and a low of 147 in 1988.
As I look at what we have done, and what the possibilities are, it seems to me that there is a great deal of technological advances which have occurred. Obviously it results in the rad waste reduction. We will have, before our board perhaps next month, a presentation about the possibility of reducing our curie content as well. Next week, I believe it is, we are going to be meeting with MMT of Tennessee for the possibility of looking at vitrification of our waste; and that does look promising. If it does happen, we will reduce the waste that we now have by about 30 to 1. So we may very well go from 16,000 cubic feet down to one or two hundred cubic feet of waste. We are looking at the possibilities of reducing the curie level, as well.
There has been mention of the fact that Chem Nuclear is having a series of meetings with generators, processors, commissions and so forth. I am very pleased that Mr. Crump has indicated that he is going to attend that September 12th meeting. Representatives of NPPD attended the Chicago meeting. What Chem Nuclear is trying say is, “We’ve got to have more waste. We’ve got to generate more revenues, increase our revenues.” And, they are exploring every possibility of some contractual relations with Central States Compact and others.
There are facilities out there asking for waste, trying to keep themselves in existence. If we continue to reduce rad waste, I do not understand the necessity for trying to proceed with the process of opening another waste facility, which is going to run into these same problems. We have on-site storage. We can, and I understand that on-site storage is controversial, but we can go for another five years. We can expand that and we could store on site. We can continue to operate. And I am in favor of operating Cooper Nuclear Station. It’s a wonderful plant and it does a great deal for us. But it seems to me that this is a point, and I sincerely would urge the Central States Compact, the commissioners, Mr. Crump to explore, really explore, the alternatives that are available now. Not what were available in 1992, or what may have been presented by the host state; but to aggressively explore all of the alternatives that are available in today’s world, recognizing that two to three years from now that’s even going to be changing. And I hope that it would be a continuing process.
I would urge, then, that the commission put on hold, until it has aggressively explored the alternatives, put on hold this appalling process which has so divided the people of this state.
