The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission should establish a new classification for radioactive waste – “Class D” – to replace the more nebulous Greater-Than-Class C designation, according to disposal provider EnergySolutions.
“The NRC should designate a new waste category specifically defining what it is. It should not be defined by what it is greater than, or what it isn’t,” the company told the industry regulator on April 16. “We support a rulemaking that would define a specific waste category for what is now known as GTCC and transuranic waste.”
The Salt Lake City-based nuclear services provider, which operates low-level radioactive waste disposal facilities in Utah and South Carolina, was responding to a request for comments from the NRC as it considers a potential rulemaking for disposal of nongovernment GTCC and transuranic waste.
Interested parties had until April 16 to file comments on a regulatory basis being prepared by the NRC to address scientific, technical, and legal issues for the possible rulemaking on disposal of the waste types in near-surface systems or other non-deep geologic repository options. The regulatory basis could be finished in late 2018 or early 2019, based on the NRC’s schedule.
Greater-Than-Class C-waste is the most radioactive among the classes of low-level radioactive waste, specifically classified as material with radionuclide concentrations above the limits set in the NRC’s designation for Class C waste. It encompasses activated metals, sealed sources, and additional materials generated by nuclear power reactors and other operations within and separate from the nuclear fuel cycle. The NRC has previously said the waste is largely “not suitable” for disposal in near-surface sites.
Transuranic waste is a byproduct of nuclear research and energy activities, and includes rags, tools, and laboratory equipment.
The United States by 2083 is expected to hold about 12,000 cubic meters of GTCC and GTCC-like waste, which for now remains at the site of generation, according to the Department of Energy. The 2005 Energy Policy Act directs the federal government to dispose of the waste.
In 2016, DOE said it supported disposal of GTCC and GTCC-like waste in generic commercial land facilities and/or its deep-underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Along with EnergySolutions’ properties, the only two active commercial LLRW disposal sites licensed by the NRC are Waste Control Specialists’ facility in Andrews County, Texas, and a US Ecology site on DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
It could be reasonable to place Class D waste in near-surface systems, EnergySolutions told the NRC. The company said the waste designation should be based both on waste characteristics and activity.
“Waste that does not fall into that category will be de facto high-level radioactive waste that would require disposal in a geologic repository,” according to its statement to the NRC. “It may be that additional regulatory or legislative action would be necessary to explicitly define that waste category, but from a practical perspective, the United States would have for the first time a system that defines and distinguishes between low-level and high-level radioactive waste.”
EnergySolutions did not respond to a request for further detail regarding its proposal. In an email to RadWaste Monitor, the NRC did not specifically address the recommendation.
“NRC staff is currently evaluating the public comments received on the draft ‘NRC Staff Analyses Identifying Potential Issues Associated with Disposal of Greater-Than-Class C Low-Level Radioactive Waste’ and will consider them in the development of the draft regulatory basis,” a spokesperson wrote. “No decisions have been made at this time.”
The spokesperson reaffirmed the regulator’s schedule for issuing the regulatory basis – six months after staff complete a supplemental proposed rule under the separate rule update on disposal of low-level radioactive waste, which is due this summer.
The NRC received 12 comments prior to the April 16 deadline, including from Waste Control Specialists, DOE, the Nuclear Energy Institute, and other parties.
In its own April 16 comment to the NRC, Waste Control Specialists did not propose any sort of waste reclassification but did make clear its readiness to take on disposal of GTCC, GTCC-like, and transuranic waste.
“Radiation safety is very important to WCS and we would carry that through to the disposal of GTCC, GTCC-like, and TRU waste,” Christopher Shaw, the Dallas-based company’s corporate radiation safety officer, wrote in a letter to the regulator.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm of the nuclear power industry, emphasized that current industry practices and regulatory oversight provide for safe management of radioactive waste on-site.
“That being said, we do believe … that the time is right, if not long overdue, for the federal government to implement a predictable, comprehensive regulatory framework for the permanent disposal of all categories of waste including GTCC and TRU,” according to Janet Schlueter, NEI’s senior director for radiation and materials safety.
