Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Monday the United States could be operating consolidated interim storage for nuclear waste in a little over five years if Congress would authorize his department to move forward, while also calling the stalemate over nuclear waste management a “hostage situation.”
The Department of Energy continues to seek a solution to permament storage of more than 74,000 of nuclear waste now held at nuclear sites around the country. The federal government has paid out more than $5.3 billion to nuclear plant operators over DOE’s failure to assume control over the material, as required by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. DOE estimates the remaining liabilities at $23.7 billion.
Moniz has said in the past that the Department of Energy can move forward with contracting private interim storage facilities without congressional approval, but on Monday he suggested the timeline would be shorter with authorization. He said the next five years will be a critical time for the nuclear industry and waste plans.
“Getting on with this consolidated storage, public or private or maybe public and private, is something that we need to do pronto,” Moniz said during a nuclear energy event at the Center for Strategies and International Studies in Washington, D.C., adding that a pilot facility could be operational in “not much more than five years.” “There’s no reason for us not to do it, other than what I would call a current hostage situation.”
In other words, the theory is that a preference in some quarters of Capitol Hill for the planned Yucca Mountain geologic repository in Nevada could be obstructing progress on interim storage.
The Obama administration canceled the project in 2011, opting instead for a consent-based siting process that envisions operation of consolidated interim spent fuel facilities by 2025 and one or more permanent repositories by 2048. Waste Control Specialists and Holtec International have proposed operating private interim storage sites in West Texas and southeast New Mexico, respectively.
Meanwhile, House Republicans have been gearing up for a potential Yucca Mountain licensing restart. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and panel member Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) urged Moniz in March to “expeditiously” resume the Yucca Mountain licensing process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They also sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), requesting a congressional audit to see what financial resources are available to the NRC should the licensing process resume.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s lobbying arm, delivered its own input to the department this summer during the comment period on consent-based siting, suggesting DOE separate itself from private interim nuclear waste storage efforts, while also demanding the department request congressional funding to complete the Yucca licensing review. Recently appointed NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick has said Yucca Mountain and interim storage must move forward together in order to reach a permanent solution.
Moniz on Monday emphasized his department’s view that interim storage is essential, regardless of what happens with plans for a permanent repository.
“We never said it would be easy,” he said. “We just said you’re not going to get there without it, and that remains the case. … It’s time to stop having (interim storage) as hostage to other issues because this is a critical five years, and we’re going to just mess up a whole bunch of decisions in this time period if we just don’t move forward. It is not helpful to have this as hostage to other decisions.”
