The American Nuclear Society has formally backed preliminary findings from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in support of licensing a facility in New Mexico for temporary storage of spent fuel from nuclear power plants.
The March 10 draft environmental impact statement (EIS) from staff at the industry regulator “provides a thorough evaluation of the environmental impacts of the proposed facility and related actions,” American Nuclear Society President Marilyn Kray wrote in an April 22 letter to the NRC. “ANS agrees with the preliminary NRC staff recommendation for ‘issuance of a license to Holtec authorizing the initial phase of the project, unless safety issues mandate otherwise.’”
The 11,000-member organization of nuclear technology professionals concurs with NRC staff’s finding in the EIS that Holtec International’s planned consolidated interim storage facility would primarily generate small impacts to the environment, according to Kray.
“The draft EIS also found that the proposed facility would bring SMALL to MODERATE socioeconomic benefits to the region surrounding the proposed project area,” she wrote. “ANS notes that, as a general matter, nuclear facilities throughout the country provide employment and other economic benefits to their host communities.”
Holtec, an energy technology firm based in Camden, N.J., in March 2017 applied for a 40-year NRC license for storage in southeastern Lea County of up to 8,680 metric tons of radioactive used fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants. The agency says it ultimately could hold up to 100,000 metric tons of the material as long as 120 years.
Last week, the NRC extended the public comment period on the draft environmental document from May 22 to July 22. The agency intends to conduct five meetings in New Mexico, along with a separate webinar, before the public comment period ends, NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki said in an April 21 letter to the members of the state’s congressional delegation. The letter was posted Tuesday to the agency website.
Svinicki acknowledged the schedule could change based on the state of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As the COVID-19 public health emergency evolves, the NRC staff will continue to re-evaluate these plans for engaging the public, and will consider whether additional extensions to the comment period are warranted,” she wrote.
Dozens of comments released to date on the NRC draft environmental impact statement have largely opposed the Holtec application.
“Failed containers could release catastrophic amounts of hazardous radioactivity directly into the surface environment, to blow downwind, flow downstream, bioconcentrate up the food chain, and harm people down the generations,” one California couple wrote stated in a letter submitted on April 24. “The NRC’s woefully inadequate, to nearly non-existent, treatment of highly radioactive waste transport risks are apparent.”
The Sierra Club and other advocacy organizations petitioned for adjudicatory hearings to raise contentions against licensing. Last week, the NRC’s four commissioners rejected the majority of appeals of the earlier dismissal by an agency Atomic Safety and Licensing Board of the petitions.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects to finalize the environmental impact statement next March. A decision on the license application is anticipated shortly afterward, based on the environmental findings and a separate safety report.
The regulator is also considering a license application from Interim Storage Partners, a joint venture of Orano and Waste Control Specialists, for a facility in West Texas with a maximum capacity of 40,000 metric tons of used fuel.
Consolidated interim storage could be an option for the Department of Energy to meet its 1982 mandate from Congress to remove used fuel from nuclear power plants – though the deadline for that to begin was Jan. 31, 1998. The Energy Department still does not have an NRC license for the planned repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., and for now at least has given up on that approach.
The Obama administration defunded the Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding a decade ago. The Trump administration asked Congress in three consecutive budget plans for money to resume licensing, to no avail. For the 2021 federal budget year, it is instead asking for $27.5 million at the Energy Department for research and development on interim storage and oversight of the federal Nuclear Waste Fund.
The Holtec facility “would not obviate the need for a permanent repository for disposal of [used nuclear fuel] and high-level radioactive waste, but it would enhance the management of UNF and allow shutdown reactor sites to be fully decommissioned and repurposed for other uses,” Kray wrote. “Thus the Holtec CISF, if approved, constructed, and operated, could be a beneficial component of the country’s nuclear waste management system.”
