Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
7/17/2015
The Department of Energy is moving forward with the generic design of an interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility, according to a sources sought notice issued on FedBizOpps this week. The notice seeks interested small business-qualified contractors to prepare a generic design for a pilot facility and a Topical Safety Analysis Report (TSAR) on the generic design suitable for submission to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for review, approval, and issuance of a Safety Evaluation Report. Responses to the notice are due by July 28.
Much of the focus of the TSAR, according to the notice, involves the “72-71-72 Issue” of storing, transporting, and storing used nuclear fuel that has previously sat for decades on-site elsewhere. “Material to be stored at a pilot ISF will have been stored for years and in some cases for decades at existing ISFSIs prior to be being transported and placed back in storage at the pilot ISF,” the notice states. “The NRC has promulgated regulations for storage of SNF, GTCC, and other nuclear material in 10 CFR Part 72, transportation in 10 CFR Part 71, and protection of that material against theft or sabotage in 10 CFR Part 73. Any pilot ISF will be designed, constructed, and operated to meet these regulations.”
A consent-based pilot consolidated storage facility is the Department of Energy’s preferred strategy to satisfy the nation’s spent fuel disposal needs. However, language in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act prevents the department from considering other sites beyond Yucca Mountain in Nevada without congressional approval. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, however, announced in March that the department would begin to take “affirmative steps” to siting a consent-based pilot interim storage facility. DOE has been working on generic analyses of how to move forward with an interim storage facility, but now the department will take a much more proactive approach in talking with actual communities about hosting a site, Moniz said. Construction of a facility, though, cannot occur without congressional approval.
