Gary Sandquist, Ph.D.
University Professor

Continued...

Verdoia: Let me ask you to be a bit of an observer on this on then, the issue of radioactive waste management seems to represent a confluence of science and politics and raw human emotions. In all honesty, when those are mixed together, what rises to the top?

Dr. Sanquist: It's hard to know. You know. Admittedly, like we've said before, there's no free lunch. We want to produce electrical power. It's important for our standard of living. Whether we burn coal or natural gas or oil or nuclear, or fusion or solar or geothermal, they all have their problems. They all have their tradeoffs. In reviewing them, I think the point of view I could just get those people who have anxiety about it and such and sit them down, we used to conduct workshops for high school teachers and bring them in. We would take a vote, initially, on the first class and ask them about it and they would respond much the same way you do. Oh, the last resort would be nuclear. We'd go through and we'd look at the tradeoffs and the considerations and at the end of the course, that's not necessarily, not all of them agreed, but they said we realize there's issues with all of them and we can see that in fair unbiased area in which you need to make a selection, nuclear must be an option that we have available to consider.

If the greenhouse problem is real and we're effecting the climate, let me pose these two problems. We know how to solve the problem of storing spent nuclear fuel. It's going to be expensive but we know how to do it. I ask my friends who believe that the greenhouse gas is a real problem, "How do you pose to process the atmosphere and remove CO2 to correct this problem and bring weather back to where it should be?" I don't know how to process the atmosphere. It is a technical problem that is just beyond us. Only nature can do that and we're going in the wrong direction. We're cutting down and removing rain forest. We're adding more cities. We're pumping more materials, carbon fuels, into the environment. I believe that the greenhouse problem is a real problem and the only solution that we have available today is nuclear. Now, if we had unlimited supplies of solar. If it were available, fine. But we do not have that. It is not available today. We can not run Los Angeles or California with solar power. We can try a few things. We can try wind and others and research needs to be spent on those but it isn't going to come in the next decade and it's not going to supply the needs of California over that short of time.

Verdoia: One aspect that we talked about before we came on camera, was the perception of financial benefit and largely has been characterized, many times, that there's no financial gain to be had for Utah in the Private Fuel Storage proposal.

Dr. Sanquist: That's not correct. The total cost associated with handling this spent nuclear fuel is about three billion dollars. Now, admittedly, some of that money is associated with simply preparing the fuel, handling and shipping it, but it is anticipated that a possibly a billion dollars will be spent in the state of Utah, or could be spent if the state receives it and is willing to interact. For example, steel cannisters have to be fabricated. Concrete liners that hold or go around these steel cannisters for storage there. The concrete pad has to be laid. In fact, in a way, it's almost ideal because the freeway construction will be winding down within the next year or two and if this facility is licensed or such, this would pick up and provide those jobs and much of the activity. It is a major industrial complex, much as we'd consider any others. It has the potential return to the state on the order of a billion dollars or more and if the state is willing and will participate in it a sense, there'll be some benefit. Now there'll be some disbenefit to some groups but that's true of most major industrial facilities. I think the net overall positive value would be positive.

Verdoia: I'm going to ask you to also talk about another example we chatted about over there. You compared the environmental impact of radioactive waste storage with the business of computer chip manufacturing.

Dr. Sanquist: Chip manufacturing and Micron, and I'm a very strong supporter of that and I think it's a wonderful facility. It will have a profound impact on the University and research and such but there are environmental products associated with manufacturing chips. Some of the materials that go into those are toxic materials. They have to be handled. Water requirements and others. Chip manufacturing is not without its environmental impacts. Furthermore, traffic and other issues. So it's about comparable to what Private Fuel Storage, on the order of a few billion dollars. When you look at the two, there's some interesting tradeoffs, from the point of view. In my own estimation, and that's my view here, I think environmentally Private Fuel Storage will have less environmental impact then will Micron.

Now that's not to say that we don't support Micron, we think it will be, it's net effect will be very positive but all of them. If we want to leave Micron aside, suppose the Goshutes wanted to site a refinery. We need some additional refineries in order to handle the oil and other materials that are available. Refineries, as we well know from being the fact that we have a lot of refineries in our local area here, they have some strong environmental impacts. They're on the order of several billion dollar investment. No question, at least in my mind, Private Fuel Storage has much less environmental impact then would a refinery. But I would think if the Goshutes were going to site or allow a refinery to be built there, we wouldn't have near the contention that we have at this point in time. There would be some who would object and have concerns about property values, smoke, other releases, and issues in transportation.

Verdoia: I want to ask you about the role of science. It seems science can be twisted, about what people call advocacy science. Help me understand this notion as the uninitiated, I would assume, that science stands on its own merit and can't be twisted.

Dr. Sanquist: That's the reason when I come into this venture and speak to you, I'd like to speak technical truth. That I feel very strongly on. The part of a scientist is to give the technical truth. It is best that they know it. Now when it comes to political opinion, and that's something for the state to decide whether they would like to accept Private Fuel Storage or not, but from the point of view of technical aspects and technical facts, it's important to recognize, I think, or at least listen to it.

Many of the implications, especially when I think the state brought in an outside critic Martin Resnikoff to address in this. He's well known in the nuclear community. He travels around the country testifying to try and stop nuclear in any way he can. He is not, let me just say, an unbiased party. It was a poor choice, at least in my mind from that point of view of interacting, and I tried to contact our local medium and say, "I think you ought to provide some input to suggest what are his statements and how correct are they." Now why he does that, I don't know, but I think it's important to be honest with people and mention what are the risks, and there are some.

No question about it, if Private Fuel Storage is sited and they put spent fuel out there without the very strong regulatory control and the input and the demonitoring and other activities that are needed, things can go wrong. We've seen that in the past. Atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons sometimes was handled poorly and the area of defense and I can understand the state is intimidated over that and there's still a long memory about downwinders and others concerned. And many think, "Well it's the same people running the organization, we're going to have the same thing come back to us again." I don't think so. I think in this case, it is such a high profile item, it is handled by the industry and such, and I invite as much oversight on the part of the state and others to make sure this is done safely. If it isn't, then I would oppose it.

Nuclear can be unsafe if it is not handled properly, if the storage of spent nuclear fuel and it's handling, just the same way as we have facilities at the University. Chemistry labs and our nuclear research reactor and others. If we don't know what we're doing and not careful with them, we can harm people. But we try to be careful and in general I think we do a good job.

Verdoia: Who should bear the cost of that oversight? Is that something that should be paid out of a special fund paid into by the power companies that administered by the Department of Energy?

Dr. Sanquist: I think so and in fact, such funds are available. If Private Fuel Storage were to come in and the licensing process which the NRC is reviewing, those funds are available and that's part of it. Yes it is. There is a transuranic waste storage facility in New Mexico and there are funds provided out of that from the Department of Energy and others to provide local oversight and independent review.

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