Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
9/18/2015
Former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus blasted the Department of Energy this past weekend for failing to publicly disclose specifics of its planned shipment of spent nuclear fuel for research at the Idaho National Laboratory. Andrus’ op-ed, which appeared in the Idaho Statesman, criticized the department for rejecting his Freedom of Information Act requests for details on the planned shipments.
“A careful reading of DOE’s rationale shows that the department wants to consider waste options in secret without involving or in any way consulting Idahoans, and then tell us what it has decided,” Andrus wrote. “I can guarantee that public knowledge of DOE’s ‘open and frank discussions’ about its ‘options’ would be ‘chilled’ by public awareness in Idaho.” He added, “DOE owes all of us a real discussion about those questions — followed by real answers.”
In response to Andrus’ commentary, a DOE spokesperson pointed to an op-ed issued earlier this summer by INL Director John Grossenbacher, in which he advocated that DOE has been open about the possibility of bringing close to 200 pounds of spent fuel into the state. “Contrary to [previous] comments, there was no deception, no tangled web of lies, no disregard for the truth, no misleading, no duplicity, no double-talk, no distortion and no misrepresentation,” Grossenbacher wrote. “There is no camel’s nose under the tent, no secret DOE plan, no quid pro quo and certainly no linkage between the 200 pounds and any other amounts or types of material. The full context for the two research projects and any potential future mission was fully laid out at the LINE Commission’s September 2013 meeting, and — as noted — the meeting is archived on Idaho Public Television’s Idaho Legislature Live website.”
Andrus has joined with another former Idaho governor, Phil Batt, to protest the planned shipments of spent fuel. The former governors both worked to establish the 1995 Settlement Agreement banning additional spent fuel from entering the state; the accord would need to be waived in order for the research material to be brought into Idaho.
The fuel shipments would be necessary to support the department’s high burnup fuel study, conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute. The research is aimed at better understanding the effects of high burnup fuel aging on dry storage cask systems and to support DOE’s ongoing research and development to advance understanding of the long-term aging of spent fuel. The study plans to look at the technical, economic, and nonproliferation aspects of the fuel while also enabling fuel performance studies for the nuclear industry.
Researchers will examine two dozen spent fuel rods before they are placed in the cask to determine the changes that occur over long-term storage. After the casks have been dried correctly, the researchers will move it to the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation pad, where it will be stored for a decade.
DOE had originally anticipated shipping the material to INL in January 2016, according to a Dec. 31, 2014, letter from Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, but due to the state delay, DOE may consider sending it elsewhere, a DOE official said last month.
