About YES Symposiums Overview

1)  Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982:

a.    A statement review of the original intent of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
b.      The 2008 amendment updates to the NWPA.
c.       2013 update the processing, storage and reprocessing of spent fuel.
d.      We need to identify that Yucca media coverage denoting negative articles and how the overweight of negative media (controlled by bureaucrats) has unfairly represented the technical science of Yucca Mountain and proliferating a negative perception of the facility to Nevada’s public. The August 2013 D.C. Court of Appeals recently upheld the U.S. Court of Appeals granted 2 to 1 a mandamus petition that will force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to complete the licensing process for the Yucca Mountain repository. The petition for writ of mandamus against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was filed by parties including the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners; Nye County, Nevada.

e.      Dialogue how the misinformation supports the politics at the expense of the citizens. Bureaucrats have somehow convinced the casino industry that the Yucca Repository would kill tourism in Nevada yet the French AREVA reprocessing storage facility in La Hague France gets 280 requests annually for tours.

f.        We need to openly educate the purpose of the original law for the Yucca facility as a permanent storage site in order to carry through the original intent of the law which is “in place”. We also need to identify that the facility has been delayed partly because of the advancement in both storage and reprocessing technology and it would be the full intent of implementing the “total” neutralizing of ALL of this stored spent fuel when nuclear science “solves the complete closing of the fuel cycle”.  

2) How and why a Yucca educational program will transform Nevada’s public opinion

a.       “YES" will provide PowerPoint presentations, print collaterals and movies to supplement the symposium “panel participant” dialogue and audience Q&A.

b.      Facts data and charts to provide a robust truth of the science. We too often undermine the ability of our citizens to comprehend factual data and give them instead “downsized” information.

c.       “YES” will provide the symposium events schedules to all “panel participants” in advance so that they can coordinate their messages.

d.      “YES” has made arrangements for the showing of the new documentary Pandora's Promise a 2013 documentary film directed by Robert Stone. From his page on HIS website: The making of this film has taken me to four continents on a grand tour of the hidden world of nuclear energy. I’ve been inside the doomed power plant at Chernobyl (the first cameraman to do so, I believe), deep into the Fukushima exclusion zone, and to a popular beach in Brazil that has a naturally occurring background radiation level that’s over 300 times what is considered “normal!” I’ve visited a research facility in Idaho where a new kind of reactor was developed 20 years ago that can’t meltdown and is fueled by nuclear waste.

If there was a single ah-ha moment it was when I was granted entry into a room in France (the size of a basketball court) where all the waste from powering 80% of the country for 30 years is stored: four cylindrical tubes 10 meters long and 1 meter wide are all that’s left from powering the city of Paris for 30 years with clean nuclear energy! I thought, “My God, what on Earth were we thinking?” Robert Stone

3)      The “YES” symposium will detail the potential economic impact of the Yucca Nuclear Waste Repository and some economic forecasts if combined with a reprocessing facility:

a.       The potential economics of Yucca Mountain as a storage facility have not been made radially available to Nevada’s citizens. The ongoing nuclear waste fund will provide the sustainability of the storage program.

b.      As the planned Yucca permanent storage facility is constructed, the designs in recent years, call for the expected removable of this “spent fuel” as our “reprocessing technology” advances to the full resolution of closing the fuel cycle. The first step the public needs to understand is establishing the facility as a stable economic business.

c.       The second task receiving much discussion is recent years is the commercial size development of a “reprocessing facility” for the 66,000 tons we currently have. We need to “educate” the Yucca Mountain “reprocessing facility” as a “modular nuclear technology proposal”. The business economics of nuclear technology must be “educated” on 60 year timelines. We must “educate” the Yucca Project on the basis of “incremental modular design stages”. Design the reprocessing facility as self-contained “modules” that can expand by 1, 2, 3 modules at a time. Time allows for productive redundancy or interactive modification as technology advances the need for expansion may reduce.

4)       Symposium Invitees:

Gary Duarte: YES Symposium, Director & program moderator. My knowledge of nuclear energy is that of an average citizen, I am not a scientist or an engineer. Served as Executive Vice President of the Maine Jaycees, organized the first statewide multi-chapter March of Dimes Walk-A-Thon offered as a model to the National Jaycees, Tulsa, OK. Owned and operated Duarte Typesetting Company for 17 years, the first computerized book phototypesetting company in the State of Maine. Developed a software application Stylo-Type I, the first "Mac" based mnemonic coding program to link a Macintosh computer to a Linotronic typesetting machine. Taught, Introduction to Printing & Graphics, Truckee Meadows Community College, Reno, NV. Retired in 2006 as an audio-video technician and launched the US Nuclear Energy Foundation to educate the grassroots public about nuclear energy and spent nuclear fuel storage & reprocessing.

Bruce Marlow, Vice President, AREVA, As a 41 year veteran of AREVA, Bruce has been supporting the successful operations of the Nuclear Power Industry by driving Innovation and training along with leading large integrated projects.  Currently, Bruce supports AREVA’s business interest throughout the West and is highly evolved in the dynamics of Energy and Water.  During the past year and half, Bruce has been the Integrated Site Manager leading the AREVA Team working to return the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) back to service. Before becoming a Vice President, Mr. Marlow served as the General Manger of Conam/Rockridge, an AREVA legacy company where he was responsible for all Business Development, Project Execution and Technology Advancement. He developed Conam from a $2.5 million company in 1980 into a $40 million organization in 7 years. In 1997, Conam generated 70% of the operating income of AREVA North America.  Mr. Marlow has worked at every Pressurizer Water Reactor (PWR) in the US and several in Japan and Europe.

We MUST YUCCA EDUCATE the state of Nevada and our nation, the public and government need to understand as well. It doesn’t matter which “side of the fence” you may be on, In the case of America’s “Requirement for High Level Used Nuclear Fuel Storage” our government has failed to implement Congressional Law and the recommended solution by “many” of the stakeholders is a consideration to transfer the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to a “Public Private – Partnership transfer the business to business management and transfer government specification to administrative overview.

Gary J. Duarte, Director,

US Nuclear Energy Foundation