PHOENIX — The Department of Energy supports the construction and operation of more than one consolidated interim spent nuclear reactor fuel storage site, a senior DOE official said this week.
“From our perspective, having more than one interim storage facility can help build a more robust, a more flexible, system that will enable us to be more responsive in the future,” Andrew Griffith, associate deputy assistant energy secretary for fuel cycle technologies, said Monday during a panel discussion here at the 2016 Waste Management Conference. For example, having multiple facilities could ensure fuel could be moved to storage even if one of the sites unexpectedly became unavailable, he said.
The department last week issued a request for proposals for a contractor to prepare a generic design and topical safety analysis report (TSAR) for a pilot interim storage facility for spent nuclear waste. DOE has said a pilot plant would be the first facility in its plan for storage of spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste, followed by interim used fuel sites and, decades later, one or more permanent geological repositories. The TSAR would be provided to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at an undetermined date.
The Obama administration issued its “phased, adaptive, consent-based” strategy after halting work on the Yucca Mountain waste storage project in Nevada. The new plan is intended to enable DOE to finally meet its decades-old legal obligation to find a permanent home for that nuclear waste.
Waste Control Specialists plans in April to submit a license application to the NRC for a West Texas consolidated storage site with a maximum capacity of 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel. Holtec International expects within a few months afterward to submit its own license application for a southeastern New Mexico facility that would max out at 70,000 metric tons of fuel – which would be roughly the full amount now stored on-site at closed and operational commercial nuclear facilities around the country.
Griffith suggested that more communities could vie for an interim storage facility. While DOE does not want to interfere with the privatized storage initiatives, which offer an opportunity to move up the timetable for resolving the spent fuel storage question, “we want to keep the door open to communities that may be willing to host an interim storage facility, however haven’t the resources yet to consider that type of involvement or participation in an integrated waste management system,” he said.
Representatives from WCS and Holtec during the Monday panel acknowledged the benefits of having multiple interim storage sites, though they suggested two might be the right number.
“Having too many sites would be too expensive, and having just a single site would be limiting flexibility,” said Holtec Vice President of Engineering and Licensing Stefan Anton. The Obama administration’s Blue-Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future envisioned the potential for two sites, added Scott Kirk, WCS vice president for licensing and regulatory affairs.
Speakers on a panel Tuesday were less restrained in urging DOE not to look beyond West Texas and southeastern New Mexico for its near-term spent fuel storage needs. Those regions have already made clear their support for such facilities by hosting, respectively, WCS’ waste treatment, storage, and disposal complex in Andrews Country and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, they said.
“When you have two volunteers, why are you out there seeking more? What’s the point?” said John Heaton, chair of the Carlsbad Mayor’s Nuclear Task Force.
Speakers on both panels said they recognized that significant challenges lie ahead in the waste storage plan. A major barrier is changing the law to allow DOE to contract with private companies for storage of nuclear waste. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said in February he would sponsor such legislation.
“I think there’s some momentum along those lines, but again if it doesn’t happen I don’t see these projects going forward,” WCS’ Kirk said during the Monday panel.
Other potential obstacles include figuring out the plan for safely and securely transporting the used fuel, overcoming congressional opposition – particularly in the House of Representatives — to any plan that does not include Yucca Mountain, and determining whether DOE or the utilities own the fuel (and the potential liability) once it leaves the nuclear plants.
“Our vision is … the Department of Energy would take title of the fuel at the reactor site, and they would also be responsible for the transportation to one of the consolidated interim storage facilities. We think that’s the way that makes the most sense,” Kirk said. “The Nuclear Waste Fund, some of those monies, could be used to support the operations of those facilities. We think that makes sense as well.”
Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), whose district includes Andrews Country, has submitted legislation that would enable interest from the Nuclear Waste Fund to be used for storage of spent nuclear waste. But the House resolution appears unlikely to advance in the lower chamber.
During the Tuesday panel, participants said there would also be hard work in the consent-based siting approach for any future nuclear waste storage facility, starting with ensuring there is a clear understanding of what “consent” involves in a given community. Getting a state’s governor on board and determining the strategy and timing of incentives will also be key, speakers said.
John Kotek, acting assistant secretary for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, said the recent cancellation of a planned nuclear waste storage test borehole project in Pierce County, N.D., demonstrates the importance of incorporating consent into the department’s long-term waste storage strategy.
In the face of strong opposition from local residents and the county commission, DOE last week said it would not move forward with the five-year, $35 million dig that was to break ground on Sept. 1. The aim of the project had been to test the viability of drilling deep boreholes into crystalline rock formations to hold DOE-managed high-level nuclear waste. DOE and lead contractor Battelle Memorial Institute emphasized repeatedly that no actual nuclear material would be used in the test and that similar geologic conditions can be found across the country. Local residents, though, said they had not received sufficient notice of the project and worried the work could open the door to nuclear waste one day being stored near their homes.
“One of the things that this has underscored for me is the importance of a consent-based siting process. This was a contract for a research project,” Kotek said. “We didn’t go off and ask the competing teams to do a consent-based siting process. And it’s a facility that’s not going to be using nuclear waste. We didn’t ask them to do the kinds of things that we’re asking them to do here.”
Panelist Chuck Bernhard, president of Bernhard Consulting, said an industry official in the room had warned him that the failure in North Dakota had set back the entire consent-based process by a decade. The public will now be more skeptical of future waste-siting projects, Bernhard said: “DOE seems to have a hard time getting this right. They do not yet know how to respond to some stakeholder sensitivities to anything involving nuclear waste, and I mean anything.”
The department will have to work significantly harder to secure support for “uninitiated’ citizens who have no experience with nuclear issues than it will for those in New Mexico or other communities that already host a nuclear facility, Bernhard said.
