The Department of Energy’s recently-rebooted search for a federal interim storage site to store spent nuclear fuel is one step in the right direction, one of Congress’s foremost advocates for nuclear-waste management said in a recent op-ed.
DOE’s Nov. 30 Request for Information (RFI) about using a consent-based process to site a federal interim facility “is an important step for everyone who has been fighting to find locations to move the waste out of our community, and it’s something I’ve been pushing the DOE to do for a long time,” wrote Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) Sunday in an op-ed for the San Clemente Times.
The RFI, which is aimed at refining the process for selecting an interim storage host community, is a “critical step towards addressing the nation’s spent nuclear fuel challenges,” Levin said.
Levin’s district is home to San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), currently being decommissioned. DOE’s interim storage inquiry “could have significant implications” for spent fuel currently stranded in dry storage at SONGS, Levin wrote. A report published by plant operators Southern California Edison (SCE) in March pointed to federal interim storage as a possible disposition pathway for its spent fuel, in addition to commercial interim storage.
Levin also applauded DOE’s commitment to pursue a consent-based siting process — a term popularized during the Barack Obama administration’s 2012 Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.
“The federal government has a responsibility to address the nation’s spent nuclear fuel challenge, but history has shown us that without the consent of the communities that will be involved, we are unlikely to succeed,” Levin said.
In recent months, Levin has emerged as a leading voice on Capitol Hill for spent fuel solutions. He is co-chair of the Spent Nuclear Fuel Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan group formed in July with Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.). Levin said at the time that his caucus “seeks to address the challenges associated with stranded commercial spent fuel across the country.”
Meanwhile, DOE has said that responses to its RFI are due March 4 of next year. Even if a willing community comes forward, however, there will have to be some changes to federal law before an interim storage site can be built. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) prevents DOE from breaking ground on such a site in the absence of a permanent spent fuel repository — and the Joe Biden administration determined not to develop Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., none currently exists.
Kathryn Huff, acting head of DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, told RadWaste Monitor Nov. 30 that while the agency can pursue its inquiry, “further development, deployment and operation of that interim storage facility would be subject to the constraints [of the NWPA] that would need to be addressed.”
