The Secretary of Energy this week told members of Congress that her department is planning to start gathering information from communities about the possibility of siting a federal repository for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel.
“We at the Department [of Energy] are going to launch a request for information and start that conversation with communities,” Jennifer Granholm told Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) at Thursday’s meeting of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. “You have to do this in partnership with communities — in a thoughtful way with sensitivity — we want to begin those discussions, because we want to find a location [for spent fuel] that is safe, and secure, and accepted.”
Part of a “consent-based” siting process, as prescribed by the 2012 Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, may mean that “we have to, and we should” compensate communities that agree to host a spent fuel repository, Granholm said.
Granholm didn’t say when such a request would be sent out. At deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor the Department of Energy hadn’t released further information.
Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev. is the only congressional authorized site for a permanent, civil-military nuclear waste repository, but the Joe Biden administration has said it won’t pursue a license to build a repository there. Nevada politicians have effectively stonewalled the project.
DOE’s first movements on a federal waste repository come after Granholm said at a Congressional budget request hearing May 6 that the department was developing a “strategic approach” for the project. An information request was one of the actions Granholm said the agency might take as part of such a plan.
Granholm May 6 said that more information on the federal siting process would be announced “in the coming months.”
Even before her confirmation as energy secretary Granholm was a vocal proponent of the consent-based siting process and reaffirmed the Biden administration’s opposition to the moribund Yucca Mountain geologic repository in Nevada.
“Yucca Mountain is not an option,” Granholm told Gonzalez Thursday. “So, the question is: what’s next?”
