Department of Energy March 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice announces a meeting of the Ultra-Deepwater Advisory Committee. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of this meeting be announced in the Federal Register.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announces the availability of a draft evaluation which shows that the vitrification melter (used to vitrify waste from reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and certain treatment material) at the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP), located at the Western New York Service Center in West Valley, New York, is waste incidental to reprocessing and thus is not high-level radioactive waste (HLW) and may be managed and disposed of offsite as low-level waste (LLW). DOE prepared the draft evaluation pursuant to DOE Manual 435.1-1, Radioactive Waste Management. DOE is consulting with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) before finalizing this evaluation. Although it is not required by DOE Manual 435.1-1, DOE is making the draft evaluation available for public and state review and comment during the NRC consultative review period. DOE will make its final evaluation and determination as to whether the vitrification melter is HLW, or is waste incidental to reprocessing which can be managed and disposed of as LLW, after consideration of any public, state, and NRC comments on this draft evaluation.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announces the availability of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Mountaineer Commercial Scale Carbon Capture and Storage Project (DOE/EIS-0445D) for public review and comment, as well as the date, location and time for a public hearing. The draft environmental impact statement (EIS) analyzes the potential environmental impacts of a project proposed by American Electric Power (AEP) Service Corporation, which was selected by DOE to receive financial assistance under the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) program. DOE's Proposed Action is to provide cost-shared funding to AEP under the CCPI. DOE proposes to provide up to $334 million of the project cost to support the construction and operation of AEP's Mountaineer Commercial Scale Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Project (Mountaineer CCS II Project). AEP's proposed project would construct a commercial-scale CCS system at its Mountaineer Power Plant (a 1,300- megawatt [MW] coal-fired power plant) and other AEP-owned properties in Mason County, West Virginia, near the town of New Haven. The project would capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the existing pulverized coal-fired power plant, transport the captured CO2 by pipeline to well locations, and inject it into deep saline geologic formations for permanent geologic storage.

The Department of Energy (DOE) invites public comment on a proposed collection of information to support the Weatherization Assistance Program ARRA-Period Evaluation that DOE is developing for submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized and/or included in the request for OMB approval of this information collection; they also will become a matter of public record. Information about the operation of the program, energy used before and after weatherization, energy used by control group low-income homes, the effectiveness of specific energy efficiency measures, customer satisfaction with the program, and non-energy benefits is needed for a comprehensive and rigorous evaluation of the program operated during the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which includes Program Years 2009, 2010, and 2011.

In this notice, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is forecasting the representative average unit costs of five residential energy sources for the year 2011 pursuant to the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. The five sources are electricity, natural gas, No. 2 heating oil, propane, and kerosene.