The Sierra Club is seeking permission to file a late argument against licensing by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission of a temporary spent nuclear fuel storage facility in New Mexico.
The environmental organization said its Oct. 23 motion is based on previously unavailable information contained in a new report from the federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which was published months after an NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) dismissed all petitions for hearings on Holtec International’s planned consolidated interim storage facility.
“On September 23, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB) issued a report titled Preparing for Nuclear Waste Transportation,” according to the Sierra Club motion. “That report raises new issues that were not addressed in Holtec’s Environmental Report [in its application]. The new information in the report is materially different from information previously available.”
The New Jersey energy technology company in March 2017 applied for a federal license to build and operate a facility for storage of up to 8,680 metric tons of used fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants. With further approvals from the NRC, the facility’s maximum capacity could exceed 100,000 metric tons of waste.
The Sierra Club and several other organizations filed petitions for intervention and hearings in the licensing. The three-member, quasi-judicial ASLB rejected all the petitions in May of this year, finding the organizations had not proved standing to intervene or submitted admissible contentions.
The Sierra Club said its new contention, No. 30, meets the standard for approval under federal regulations. Holtec wants to open its facility in the early 2020s, but the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board determined that spent nuclear fuel could be removed from all nuclear power plants if material in large vessels is repackaged into smaller containers to reduce heat levels. Without repackaging, particularly hot waste might not be safe for transport until 2100. Both dates are well beyond the 40-year license sought by Holtec.
Holtec’s environmental report, though, says the facility could operate up to 120 years, via extensions to the initial license.
