The Nuclear Energy Institute is urging the Energy Department to separate itself from private interim nuclear waste storage efforts in Texas and New Mexico, while also demanding that the department request congressional funding to complete the Yucca Mountain, Nev., licensing review.
Ellen C. Ginsberg, vice president and general counsel at the industry trade group, offered these two suggestions, and a number of others, in a letter submitted to DOE on July 29. The department closed the public comment period for its consent-based nuclear waste storage siting effort on July 31.
NEI suggested that any new DOE siting process be used only in instances where the department is establishing “a new facility,” meaning sites proposed in West Texas, and southeastern New Mexico, where private companies have already gained public consent, should be separate from any DOE efforts. Waste Control Specialists has submitted its license application to the NRC for a 40,000-metric-ton capacity spent fuel storage facility near the Texas border with New Mexico border, while another application submission is expected this fall from Holtec International for a 70,000-ton-capacity facility near Carlsbad, N.M. Roughly 74,000 metric tons of spent fuel is now stored at about 100 American nuclear sites as a result of DOE’s failure to take title to the waste, as dictated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
NEI cautioned DOE against applying whatever consent-based siting process it develops to the ongoing WCS and Holtec efforts, stating that it might create unnecessary delay and/or burden for the project sponsors and stakeholders.
Both Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) and Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) have introduced legislation that would allow DOE to contract with private companies for storage of nuclear waste, but the House Energy and Commerce Committee has said it will not consider bills that do not address the need for a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
“We respectfully suggest that the Department must follow current law, under which the proposed Yucca Mountain project remains the only (spent nuclear fuel) and (high-level waste) repository authorized to date,” the letter reads. “DOE should therefore request money from Congress to support the efforts of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to complete the Yucca Mountain licensing review. If DOE does proceed with a consent-based siting approach, we emphasize that this would not, and legally cannot, substitute for compliance with the” 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
The consent-based siting effort, which is the Obama administration’s alternative to the canceled Yucca Mountain repository, envisions operation of a pilot storage facility by 2021; one or more larger, interim spent fuel facilities by 2025; and at least one permanent geologic repository by 2048.
Furthering its support for plans at Yucca Mountain, NEI said DOE has an obligation to nuclear utilities and their customers not to divert money from the Nuclear Waste Fund for efforts not authorized by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
“Because Congress has not approved a new nuclear waste disposal program, NWF money should not be used to explore the siting of a new radioactive waste disposal facility,” Ginsberg wrote. “In this regard, we distinguish siting a new nuclear waste disposal facility from funding benefits for the Yucca Mountain project, as the latter is authorized under the NWPA.”
