A U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission advisory panel on Wednesday suggested which options it opposes for re-establishing a massive database of documents on licensing the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, but ended a two-day meeting without recommending a clear path forward.
Members of the Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel (LSNARP) now have about three weeks to provide additional input to the commission, which ultimately will determine the future form of the system – assuming Congress provides money necessary to realize it.
The Licensing Support Network (LSN) was an electronic system for free, searchable access to evidentiary documents submitted as part of the agency’s review of the Department of Energy’s 2008 license application for an underground disposal facility in Nye County, Nev. The network was shut down in 2011, and nearly 3.7 million documents subsequently shifted to the NRC’s ADAMS online documents system, after the Obama administration suspended licensing operations at DOE and the NRC.
With the Trump administration trying to revive the license application, parties to the proceeding could again need a means for filing and sharing documents. The LSNARP meeting this week offered its members an opportunity for detailed discussion of four options laid out in a December 2017 agency staff report on reconstituting or replacing the LSN. Those options are: keeping the existing network in ADAMS and sharing additional documents by “traditional discovery” means such as mail or email; using the searchable ADAMS LSN Library for all existing and new records; moving the library to the Cloud; and rebuilding the network.
Panel members, both in the conference room and calling in remotely, left little doubt that the first and fourth options were off the table.
The first option had the lowest cost, time, and risk rankings in the NRC analysis, but also more drawbacks than others on the list, including limited public access to new documents and absence of a central electronic search function. Rebuilding the original system was by far the most time, cost, and risk intensive – with upward of $4.4 million in initial costs, $1.5 million in recurring costs, and a 30-42-month timeline.
“What you’re talking about is spending the most amount of money … to go the furthest back in time,” said Rod McCullum, senior director for used fuel and decommissioning at the Nuclear Energy Institute, saying advances in technology in recent years has made the old LSN system a “relic.”
There was more support for the ADAMS LSN Library and Cloud options, each of which offer two versions: using the ADAMS LSN Library, filing documents via the NRC’s Electronic Information Exchange (EIE); using the Library, filing documents semi-manually; moving the system to the Cloud, with maintenance by the NRC; and moving the system to the Cloud, with maintenance by participants in the NRC adjudication.
Beyond the traditional discovery option, the LSN Library options scored best for cost, time, and risk, and they had the lowest number of “cons” of any idea. The EIE alternative would take eight to 15 months to set up, with an initial cost of $900,000 to $1.5 million and annual recurring expenses of $80,000 to $1.5 million. The semi-manual alternative would take seven to 12 months to establish, with an initial cost of $600,000 to $1.1 million and annual recurring costs of $800,000 to $1.5 million.
The strong marks given to the LSN Library option in the NRC staff report led to concerns among some LSNARP members that the agency staff was attempting to push them in this direction. That is not the case, said Paul Bollwerk, an administrative judge with the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, even as he touted the benefits of the Library.
“That wasn’t our intent. We simply wanted to have stuff out there for you to consider,” Bollwerk told the LNSARP members. “As I said, it exists now. … It’s there and it operates the way it does. We’ve heard some suggestions about changes to it. What I’m trying to say is, there’s things with speed, there’s some things that need to be changed, but please give that system a fair shake as you consider, just like we need to give any other system a fair shake.”
Members of the LSN Advisory Review Panel include one city and nine counties in Nevada, one California County, the state of Nevada, the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, four Native American organizations, NRC staff, DOE, and NEI.
Multiple panel members said more expert guidance was needed in identifying the best system for housing the documents, possibly through a dedicated technical review board.
The NRC expects to provide LSNARP members with a transcript of the meeting by March 9, and they will have until March 23 to submit additional input on the network. Those comments will be provided to the commission, which will determine the way forward. No schedule has been set for this process, an NRC spokesman said.
Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.), like her fellow Silver Staters in Congress a vehement opponent to the Yucca Mountain repository, on Wednesday said the entire process should be scrapped.
“Today’s meeting is another incredible waste of time and resources,” Titus said in a prepared statement Tuesday. “Until this Administration recognizes the need for a consent-based approach to the siting of nuclear waste repositories, long-term storage issues will never be solved. It’s a fool’s errand to reconstitute the Licensing Support Network without recognizing the need to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act with my consent-based legislation.”
Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects Executive Director Robert Halstead, representing the state at the LSNARP meeting, noted that the NRC’s current funding levels would not allow it to develop any of the serious options.
The regulator has about $500,000 left in its remaining balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund to pay for Yucca-related activities. The agency requested another $30 million for fiscal 2018, which began on Oct. 1 of last year. Congress has yet to pass a full federal budget, and none of the short-term spending plans that have kept the government operating include any money for Yucca Mountain. In any case, while the House has backed the NRC request, the Senate has not shown any interest in appropriating money for the project.
In February, the NRC requested $47.7 million for Yucca Mountain licensing activities in fiscal 2019. Congressional appropriators have not yet issued their own funding plans for the agency.
