Establishing a federal commission dedicated to overseeing the disposal of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors should be one of Congress’s most pressing tasks, according to a new report from the government’s independent research organization.
Congress “will need to establish a single-mission entity with responsibility for managing and disposing of commercial nuclear waste,” the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) said in its report, published Tuesday. Such an entity “will need continuity of leadership and funding, as well as a consistent disposal strategy,” the report said.
The proposed nuclear waste authority should also engage with the public in a way that builds trust in a federal waste management program, and it must operate effectively “over many decades” to handle the current volume of spent fuel as well as future waste generated by advanced reactors, NAS said.
NAS was directed by Congress in 2020 to examine the viability of different nuclear fuel cycle options and waste issues facing future advanced reactor concepts.
The idea of a new, independent federal organization to handle spent fuel management has come back into the limelight in recent months. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) in July reintroduced the Nuclear Waste Administration Act, his version of ill-fated 2019 legislation aimed at creating such an agency.
DOE’s Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Kathryn Huff has also expressed support for an independent nuclear waste agency to oversee facilities outside of DOE’s jurisdiction.
The U.S. has no centralized facility to store the nearly 90,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel currently stranded at reactor sites across the country. The only Congressionally-authorized permanent waste repository, Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, has been on ice since 2010 when the Barack Obama administration pulled the project’s funding.
DOE is now in the midst of its latest attempt to locate a willing host community for a federal interim storage facility for spent fuel. The agency is currently accepting bids on around $16 million in funding for interested parties.
