Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal suggested last week that a foreign entity could be used for recycling of U.S. spent nuclear fuel.
“If we don’t build a recycling plant in the United States, that’s OK, there are other entities that certainly could do this for us,” Baranwal said during a March 27 webinar hosted by the American Nuclear Society.
Since taking office in July 2019, Baranwal has regularly discussed reprocessing as an option for addressing the nation’s stockpile of used fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. There is now more than 80,000 metric tons of the material spread across 70 locations in 34 states, with more than 2,000 metric tons generated each year.
Recycling would recover fissile materials to again fuel nuclear power plants.
The United States has not had a commercial reprocessing operation since the 1970s. The Carter administration prohibited recycling for a few years, but economics kept if off the board even after President Ronald Reagan lifted the restriction in 1981.
As she has previously, Baranwal noted that sent fuel has used only 5% of its energy potential. If the United States wants to be competitive in the global market for export of advanced nuclear fuels, it must be able to manage the material once it is used and repatriated, she said.
“I need to have something to do with that fuel when I take it back. And if I can’t store it in a place like Yucca Mountain, I need to be able to do something with it, and that is one of the motivators for looking at recycling,” according to Baranwal, a materials engineer, who noted that her career in the private sector and government has been focused on nuclear fuel.
The mission of DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy is primarily to promote sustainment of the existing U.S. nuclear power fleet and development of new reactors and other nuclear technologies. But it is also charged with managing the agency’s nuclear-waste activities.
Baranwal said her team at Nuclear Energy has determined there are no statutory or legal limitations on spent-fuel reprocessing and has studied how it is conducted in other nations. The assistant secretary toured France’s La Hague recycling facility in October 2019.
Some form of nuclear fuel reprocessing is also conducted in India, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom, according to the World Nuclear Association. However, the U.K. plans by the end of this year to wind down its reprocessing operation at the Sellafield site in Cumbria.
Baranwal offered no hint at where U.S. spent fuel might be sent for reprocessing, and the Energy Department did not respond to a query this week.
The United States has for decades focused on disposal of its used fuel.
The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act required the Department of Energy to by Jan. 31, 1998, begin disposal of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste from defense nuclear operations. The agency does not yet have a federal license for the congressional mandated repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., with the proceeding defunded a decade ago by the Obama administration. The Trump administration asked Congress in three consecutive budget proposals to appropriate money to resume licensing, but was rebuffed each time.
The White House relinquished that approach for the upcoming fiscal 2021, instead requesting $27.5 million for a program emphasizing centralized interim storage of used fuel. That approach would at least enable the agency to remove the waste from nuclear plants – notionally ending the series of lawsuits from operators stuck with used fuel that have already cost the federal government more than $7 billion and could cost it billions more.
In March 3 testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee, Baranwal said the Energy Department plans to issue a request for proposals for basic design of such a storage facility. The procurement notice did not appear to have been issued as of Friday.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as it stands, limits DOE’s options for advancing interim storage, Baranwal acknowledged during the webinar. Notably, the agency is barred from taking title to the spent fuel until the repository is available.
“We cannot put a shovel in the ground to proceed with interim storage construction. Because right now, the way it is on the books is that construction on Yucca Mountain … would need to proceed before we could break ground on an interim storage facility,” she said. “So, where we are right now is we’re exploring options for interim storage. Something like a facility will not materialize overnight, and so it is very prudent for us to explore what those options are.”
For the upcoming fiscal 2021, DOE has requested just over $1 billion for the Office of Nuclear Energy. That would represent a 22.2% reduction from the more than $1.3 billion enacted by Congress for the current budget year through Sept. 30. As they have in previous years, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are likely to plus-up that budget request – the Energy Department asked for just $824 million for Nuclear Energy this year.
The office would receive $187 million for fuel cycle research and development under the DOE spending plan, including $60 million for used nuclear fuel disposition research and development. That would be a small step down from the current funding of $62.5 million.
That reduction “reflects an increased focus on R&D for alternative storage, transportation, and disposal of U.S. nuclear waste in alignment of the program with Administration efforts to more efficiently manage and dispose spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste material,” according to a DOE budget justification document.
