The Department of Energy is planning this year to award cash to communities exploring the prospect of hosting a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, the agency said this week.
“We expect to announce a funding opportunity for interested groups and communities later this year,” a DOE spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor in an emailed statement Thursday. The spokesperson declined to share any further details about when the cash would be available or how it would be awarded.
DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) teased the award in a Tweet Wednesday, saying that the agency “plans to award competitive funding in 2022 for interested groups and communities to start exploring the consent-based siting process and to learn more about federal interim storage facilities.”
4. @ENERGY plans to award competitive funding in 2022 for interested groups and communities to start exploring the consent-based siting process and to learn more about federal interim storage facilities.
— Office of Nuclear Energy (@GovNuclear) January 19, 2022
DOE requested some $20 million in federal funding for fiscal year 2022 to pursue its interim storage inquiry. Congress had yet to pass a permanent appropriations bill at deadline Friday, though unreconciled spending proposals drafted in each chamber last year would each grant DOE’s request.
A funding award would be DOE’s biggest step, under the Joe Biden administration, toward a potential federal interim storage facility. The agency put out a request for information (RFI) in November seeking community input on what an interim storage siting process should look like, but didn’t invite interested hosts to step forward. NE chief Kathryn Huff said last week that responses are rolling in and that input from the community has been “creative.” The deadline for the RFI is March 4.
“We are currently exploring options to make the funding opportunity as effective, inclusive, and meaningful as possible, but we also expect the responses to the RFI to help us shape the funding opportunity,” the DOE spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor Thursday.
Although DOE can find a site for a federal interim storage facility, the agency has acknowledged that federal law currently precludes it from breaking ground on the project.
Huff told RadWaste Monitor in November that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act’s requirement that a permanent repository be built before interim storage would “need to be addressed” before construction work could actually begin.
As the feds deliberate on their interim storage project, private companies are making strides on their own commercial sites. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in September licensed Waste Control Specialists-Orano USA joint venture Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed interim storage facility in west Texas. A similar site proposed for New Mexico by Holtec International is also under consideration by NRC.
