The Nuclear Regulatory Commission might not decide whether to license the second of two proposed commercial interim storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel until around Labor Day, the agency said this week.
Although Holtec International has said that it expected NRC to license its proposed consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in the second quarter of 2022, the agency’s tentative timeline for completing its review of the site “extends into late summer,” an agency spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor via email Thursday.
NRC staff are in the process of revising the agency’s review schedule after Holtec April 15 submitted a third round of information needed to complete required safety and environmental assessments of the company’s proposed site. NRC in November told Holtec it would not be able to make a final decision on the site’s license — at the time targeted for January — until it had that additional info.
A final version of the updated schedule should come out “in a few days,” the NRC spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor Thursday.
Holtec did not respond to a request for comment about the review timeline by deadline Friday.
If it gets a federal license, Holtec has said that its proposed CISF in Eddy County, N.M., would initially be able to store around 8,700 tons of spent nuclear fuel in 500 canisters, with extra capacity for an additional 10,000 canisters to be added in future license amendments.
The Camden, N.J., company’s proposed site has been the target of legislative and legal opposition in the Land of Enchantment for over a year, to little avail. Two separate bills aimed at blocking the project died in the New Mexico legislature in 2021, and the U.S. District Court for New Mexico in March dismissed a suit from state Attorney General Hector Balderas challenging NRC’s authority to license the site.
Meanwhile, NRC in September licensed a similar site proposed for west Texas by Waste Control Specialists-Orano USA joint venture Interim Storage Partners (ISP). The ISP site, which is facing legal troubles of its own, would be able to store around 40,000 tons of spent fuel, the company has said.
