PHOENIX — When it comes time to search for a potential host for a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, the Department of Energy could offer financial incentives to move things along, the agency’s top nuclear waste official said here this week.
Once DOE finishes up its ongoing information-gathering activities among interim storage stakeholders, the agency plans a “national call for volunteers,” said Kim Petry, acting deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition (NE-8), during a panel discussion Wednesday at the Waste Management Symposium in Phoenix.
Such a call could come “in the form of another funding opportunity,” Petry said, and could happen “in a couple of years.”
DOE is currently evaluating bids for about $26 million in federal funding to be split among people with ideas for defining what constitutes consent in the consent-based siting of an interim storage facility. Petry said Wednesday that the agency would start announcing awards, which would provide recipients with funding for around 18 to 24 months, in May.
Petry forecast that the awards would start heading out the door “by this time next year.””
DOE is not seeking interim storage volunteers under the current funding effort, Petry said, but is instead “focusing on geographical and institutional diversity, so that we have comprehensive representation at the national level” to build a better understanding of consent-based siting.
“By prioritizing the needs of communities and people who live there, we believe we can find a solution to this problem of managing the nation’s spent fuel,” Petry said.
