If you ask Sam Shakir, president of Westinghouse’s environmental services division, nuclear waste shouldn’t be taboo for the nuclear industry.
“I think the nuclear industry has stayed away from the controversy of spent fuel because everyone’s interested in building new plants and they don’t want to associate that with any sort of negative perceptions associated with what to do with spent fuel,” Shakir told RadWaste Monitor during a wide-ranging interview this week at the annual Waste Management Symposium in Phoenix. “The reality is, there are no problems.”
Yet, recent attempts to license and build commercial interim storage facilities in Texas and New Mexico have met with severe legal and political resistance.
Texas passed a law in September banning the storage of high-level waste in its borders and the state’s attorney general sued the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over its decision to license a site proposed by Interim Storage Partners — a joint venture of Waste Control Specialists and Shakir’s old employer, Orano USA — in Andrews County.
New Mexico has also turned litigious, suing the NRC not only over the interim storage site Holtec International has proposed in Eddy County, but also the one Interim Storage Partners wants to build across the border in the Lone Star.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) have even set aside their many, many differences to draft a bipartisan bill to block federal funding for interim storage of nuclear waste.
Shakir — who joined Westinghouse after a five-year stint as president and CEO of nuclear services company Orano USA — has watched all this with interest as the company eyes a potential expansion into nuclear-waste management and plant decommissioning. Before that can happen, he said, public perspectives on spent fuel need to change, and the feds need to take the lead on that endeavor.
“[T]o be able to succeed in building nuclear power and to deliver the promise of what nuclear can achieve, you really have to take care of the back end in an efficient, cost effective and safe way,” Shakir said.
At the company’s booth in the Waste Management Symposia’s exhibition hall RadWaste Monitor sat down with Shakir to discuss those topics and more in a 30-minute interview.
RWM: When you moved to Westinghouse from Orano, the company said your addition was part of its move to expand its decommissioning and waste management services. How has that gone, so far?
Shakir: To come back to basics, there are three pillars on which Westinghouse is looking to build its business. One is new builds. Another is servicing operating plants. The third one is environmental services — to have end-to-end capability.
We are pretty well-known in the first two pillars. Everyone recognizes Westinghouse for the reactors that we build and that we service. But we’re little-known in our environmental services side. We’ve done a lot of smaller contracts here and there. The idea for us is to build this business into a fully-integrated provider: decommissioning, waste management, treatment and possibly disposal where the market may allow.
We’ve been able to successfully grow organically without any sort of [mergers or acquisitions], but we recognize that some of where we want to go to play tier-one in a world market requires us to add some inorganic growth. So, we’re looking at all of that. It’s of interest for me to be at this conference, to look and see what is out there.
The next thing is contracts. Today, we have over 50% of the decommissioning reactors in Europe. Since I joined, we have added business in Sweden, Romania and Germany. We continue to add to our backlog. We only have one contract for decommissioning in the U.S., at Fort Calhoun [in Nebraska] where our customer is EnergySolutions. That is going exceptionally well as well.
But, we don’t want to look at the market with a very specific, limited scope. We want to open the door for us to participate in larger-scale decommissioning. We think we have the know-how and capabilities to do that.
We’ve had a good run and we’ve won a lot of new contracts to build the pipeline. But our ambition is much bigger than the type of contracts that we have today.
Let’s talk about U.S. decommissioning projects. You said you have just one current project in Nebraska, but some other companies like Holtec International are working at four or five plants stateside. Is Westinghouse looking to catch up?
I don’t think we look at it as catching up. I think we look at all of the sites that are in decommissioning, including the sites that Holtec and EnergySolutions are working at, as potential customers. That’s because we bring a variety of solutions that we believe — and I think to some extent, they believe — they need.
For example, take Three Mile Island. TMI is a complex decommissioning program. To some extent, it’s the first of its kind. We have a significant amount of capabilities and solutions that we can bring to that site to help EnergySolutions accomplish what they need to do. So, we look at them not as a lost opportunity but in fact market space for us.
What does that mean for us going forward? If the market continues to go with the asset transfer model, we’d like to certainly look at that and participate. I came from Orano, where we teamed up with NorthStar to do Crystal River. So I understand that market pretty well, and I understand how these deals are configured. So while we’re leaving all of our options open on existing work, I think the market is going to see $5 billion in decommissioning activities for those license transfer programs, and we see that as a viable market for us to play in.
Thankfully, with the Department of Energy allocating funds to support nuclear going forward, we’ll see some delay in shutdowns. We’ll service those plants, and when they’re ready to shut down, we’ll help them do the job efficiently and effectively.
I’m not interested in tallying up how many plants we have versus how many others have, I’m more interested in providing real solutions [so] we can help companies do the job.
Speaking of asset transfers, we’ve been tracking at RadWaste Monitor the proceedings surrounding EnergySolutions’ purchase of the Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin, in which NorthStar is in the process of intervening. Do you see this sort of competition as an emerging trend in nuclear license transfers, or is this more of a one-off thing?
It can be both. Take Crystal River as an example. [Duke Energy] ended up doing a license transfer, although it was not a complete asset transfer. They ran a competitive process and had multiple bids that they were able to select from, assuring that at the end of the day, they’re getting the most qualified bidder to take over the license. I call this model a hybrid model, since it was not a complete asset transfer. The utility remained as the license owner, and the contractor became the licensed operator. I think you’ll possibly see more of those in the future.
There’s no reason not to run a competitive process to see what the best value is. I don’t really know the specifics of the Kewaunee situation. We’re all following it with some interest and curiosity.
But, I think there will be room for more asset transfers in the U.S. marketplace because the regulations allow that. I think that model works, and in some ways, the regulator looks at this favorably, because it actually does what the regulations were intended to do. I think we’ll see a lot of these plants that most likely would have been in SAFSTOR go into decommissioning and be done.
You have to select, obviously, the right company that has the expertise in that space to do this work. You can’t just say, ‘I’m washing my hands of this as a former operator and utility, and turning it over to somebody else.’ You still have your name and your reputation on the line. But you can still run a competitive process. I don’t think that’s incompatible.
Let’s move on to spent fuel. DOE is in the very early stages of looking into a federal interim storage facility. Would Westinghouse consider getting involved in the management of such a facility if an opportunity arose?
Yes, we would. We were offering very similar services, to design, build and even operate those types of facilities, elsewhere in the world. So, yes, we would be interested in that if an opportunity is there for us to participate.
I just don’t know to what extent that initiative is going to move forward. As you know, anything spent fuel-related has been very controversial. We’ve got licensed facilities today — [Interim Storage Partners] has a license, but now, Texas is saying ‘don’t bring it here.’
Will the DOE succeed in doing something different in consent-based siting? Maybe, but I feel like this is still a hurdle to overcome.
It’s true that the proposed Interim Storage Partners (ISP) site is facing roadblocks on the state level, but the project has at least demonstrated that a private company can clear the regulatory hurdles required to do commercial interim storage. Would Westinghouse ever pursue a commercial storage facility?
We’re watching [interim storage] with interest to see what happens. I think Holtec International’s site in New Mexico is going to face similar hurdles. You have to have staying power to educate the public about what it means to store spent fuel which is currently stored in dry storage across multiple sites in the country, even in Texas. It’s not something that the states aren’t already dealing with, and it’s safely stored.
Consolidated interim storage is a way to lead to significant economics, ultimately for the federal government, but it’s going to take some education. It’s not clear what the arguments against interim storage really were in Texas. I mean, I know what they are, but they’re not really fact-based. When it comes to that, it’s more emotional.
Will Westinghouse have interim storage? I think if we see signs that there’s public acceptance, whether it’s for a DOE or commercial site, we will certainly take a harder look at participating. It’s not something that we would shy away from. I think that’s our business: we make the fuel, we fuel the reactor and we handle spent fuel. We would certainly be looking at managing facilities that store spent fuel as an extension of our capabilities.
But, to actually apply for a license …
We’d need to see a commercial path. And one could say, ‘well, if companies like Westinghouse don’t participate to create a path, it won’t happen by itself. And maybe that’s true.
So, we’ll see what opportunities come up for us to work in that space, to help industry and to help the public reach some level of acceptance that interim storage is safe and normal. If that happens, you would probably see us participate.
I spent a lot of time in spent fuel management in my career, so I’m quite familiar and comfortable with that space. I was part of the organization that set up ISP and applied for that license. But, I think we will take a ‘wait and see’ approach.
What sort of strategies do you think industry can employ to change public perception about spent fuel storage?
The federal government has a lot to do there. If they want to stand behind a commercial site, they would have to take the lead to convince the states and legislators that interim storage is for the benefit of their state and the overall industry.
I think the nuclear industry has stayed away from the controversy of spent fuel because everyone’s interested in building new plants, and they don’t want to associate that with any sort of negative perceptions associated with what to do with spent fuel.
The reality is, there are no problems. We manage it well and it’s of a defined quantity. We have the engineering capability to manage this volume of material without any impact to anyone. But I think, generally, the industry has not come around to say, ‘let’s make that part of our pitch.’ The tendency has been not to talk about it, because it’s very controversial, and instead to focus on building plans and why nuclear is good.
Not every country in the world is looking at it the same way.
Sweden and Finland, they’re moving forward. These are countries that have figured out that a geological repository is a safe way to go forward. It’s unfortunate that we could not take the lead. We were decades ahead with Yucca Mountain, and we abandoned that program after billions in spending. But, I feel like once those geological repositories begin operation and demonstrate to the world that there’s a really safe and practical way to deal with spent fuel, that’s going to open up the dialogue again on interim storage, and getting it closer to a geological repository, which I hope is still Yucca Mountain because we’ve done a lot of work on that site. We should not walk away from it. It’s the law.
And changing the public interim storage dialogue is more the feds’ responsibility?
Commercial players have done a lot.
The industry has gone and licensed commercial facilities. We have demonstrated the safety of dry storage independent spent fuel storage installations around the country. The industry has taken the lead to solve what was an immediate problem: what to do with accumulating spent fuel. But the government has to step up and say, ‘Okay, let’s take it to the next step and consolidate that fuel in interim storage, and let’s stand behind a repository because other countries around the world are doing it safely.’
You also said that industry should stand up and inform the public that spent fuel is not the problem.
Industry does need to step up and say spent fuel is not the problem. But they will only do that if they see enough momentum and support from the government. It’s not clear where the federal government is today on the issue of spent fuel. We were funding Yucca Mountain, then we stopped funding it, and now we don’t want Yucca Mountain. We want interim storage, we don’t want interim storage. Now, we want consent-based siting, but we’re not sure where that’s going to be or how long it will take.
That uncertainty is not something that the industry wants to flag an issue. If people believe uncertainty is an issue, is it going to stand in the way of further development? We don’t want that. We don’t want that uncertainty, we want certainty. That path is pretty clear, and the federal government should stand behind that and begin to promote it, and leave the politics out. Unfortunately, this is all politics.
Do you have any optimism for the Joe Biden administration’s attempts to make interim storage happen?
I think there needs to be a realization that, at the end of the day, if we’re going to be serious about climate change and about promoting nuclear as a major component for getting us to a net zero in this country, we need to stand behind the downstream activities of managing of spent fuel, which is completely manageable — it’s scientifically proven, and engineering-wise, we know exactly what we need to do.
Let’s just go do it, leave the politics out of it. It’s going to require some political will.
And do you think the current administration has that kind of political will?
Not at this point. As momentum continues to grow behind nuclear, and as we — as an industry and as a player in the industry — show that it’s an important component of the overall strategy, I think that will bring the rest of the story along with it. You can’t be on one hand wanting to achieve net-zero [emissions] by 2050, and on the other hand not offer real solutions for what is a very limited waste stream. We’re the only industry that accounts for all of our waste. We know where it is and we know what to do with it. We’re not spewing it up in the air. So, I think that realization needs to come to the surface and be used with science to inform the public about why this is completely manageable.
Given everything going on in the nuclear space, how have you found your inaugural year at Westinghouse?
Excellent. I love it. I came because I felt that this company really has the potential to become a major player in this space. It’s a platform that can bolt on additional capabilities to become an end-to-end provider. Although decommissioning was in my wheelhouse, I looked at the industry as a whole to see where we are going.
In my view, to be able to succeed in building nuclear power and to deliver the promise of what nuclear can achieve, you really have to take care of the back end in an efficient, cost effective and safe way. And I feel that Westinghouse has the base and foundation to build a very viable business on the back end and the downstream in addition to promoting new builds around the world. That was really how I looked at it, and so the short answer to your question is that it’s gone very well.
