DOE finds ‘many challenges’ to developing 2nd WIPP-like repository

The Department of Energy sees “many challenges” to identifying and developing a second deep-underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste, not the least of which is Congressional authorization, according to a report to New Mexico officials.

Before Congress agrees to funding, it will likely want assurance a second transuranic waste repository is needed, and that’s not yet clear, DOE said in the December Repository Siting Annual Report to the New Mexico Environment Department.

Any effort to select a second deep repository to succeed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., would likely resemble the consent-based approach taken by President Joe Biden’s (D) administration to site a federal interim storage facility for commercial spent nuclear fuel, DOE said.

Under DOE’s latest 10-year state permit for WIPP from the New Mexico Environment Department, the federal agency was required to start filing repository-siting reports to the state describing the federal agency’s plans for repositories in other states.

“Because any efforts to site a future repository will require prior Congressional authorization and funding, the report includes a needs assessment to analyze the schedule considerations and mission needs that would justify any such effort,” DOE said. As of Monday morning, the report had apparently not yet been posted online, but a copy was seen by Exchange Monitor.

Based on data in DOE’s Annual Transuranic Waste Inventory Report, the projected combined total of transuranic waste already emplaced, plus waste that could be sent to WIPP by 2080, might amount to 177,000 cubic meters. That estimate would exceed by less than 1% WIPP’s legal cap of 175,560 cubic meters, DOE said. The 177,000 cubic meters includes some waste currently ineligible for WIPP disposal “due to technical, regulatory, or legal considerations,” according to the report.

The Annual Transuranic Waste Inventory Report has historically overestimated future transuranic waste volumes, in part because some of the material often turns out to be low-level waste not eligible for WIPP disposal, DOE said.

The Albuquerque-based antinuclear group the Southwest Research and Information Center considers the new DOE report inadequate on various fronts, said the head of the center’s nuclear waste program, Don Hancock. The report shows no evidence of involvement by DOE’s legal department or DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, Hancock said in a Monday email. 

The National Nuclear Security Administration has a claim on WIPP space to dispose of transuranic waste created by the manufacture of new plutonium pits for nuclear weapons. That manufacturing started this year.