WASHINGTON — Plans for consolidated interim storage of spent fuel from commercial nuclear power reactors raise questions about the ultimate disposition of that radioactive material once a facility’s federal license expires, former Nuclear Regulatory Chairman Gregory Jaczko said Monday.
Speaking at a Capitol Hill event on nuclear decommissioning, Jaczko posited a scenario in which the federal government remains unable to meet its legal mandate to build a permanent repository for used fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
“As much as you may hear from people about consolidated interim storage it is de-facto permanent storage. Because once you move the fuel somewhere it’s going to be very hard to move it somewhere else,” he said. “The only place in principle you could move it to would be a permanent repository. But right now there’s really no prospects, certainly in the next several decades, for any type of permanent repository for spent fuel.”
The U.S. Department of Energy is more than 21 years past the congressionally set deadline of Jan. 31, 1998, to begin taking nuclear waste for disposal. The Trump administration has for several years sought funding to resume licensing of the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada, but Congress so far has refused to comply.
Two corporate teams have applied for 40-year Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses to build and operate consolidated interim storage facilities to hold the used fuel until a final disposal option is available. Holtec International plans a site in southeastern New Mexico that ultimately could hold up to 173,000 metric tons of material. An Orano-Waste Control Specialists team intends to build a facility in West Texas with a maximum capacity of 40,000 metric tons.
Jaczko, an NRC commissioner from 2005 to 2012, asked what might happen once the sites’ initial licenses and potential extensions expire if there still is no repository. “Do you require the owners of the fuel today to reserve an area of land where they can take back that fuel in the future?”
