The Nuclear Regulatory Commission as of Wednesday had not received word on whether Waste Control Specialists intends to move ahead with its suspended application for a spent nuclear fuel storage site in the wake of the company’s foiled merger with rival EnergySolutions.
“We have not heard of any change from WCS,” NRC spokesman David McIntyre said by email.
The Dallas-based company in April 2016 applied for an NRC license to build and operate a consolidated interim storage facility in Andrews County, Texas, with capacity to hold up to 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel now stranded at nuclear power plants around the country. However, WCS one year later asked the NRC to freeze its review of the application pending completion of its $367 million buyout by EnergySolutions, a Salt Lake City nuclear services provider.
A federal judge in June blocked the deal on antitrust grounds, accepting the Department of Justice’s contention that the merger would undercut competition in the market for disposal of low-level radioactive waste. The companies within days walked away from the deal, and financially troubled WCS has since then remained silent on its future plans. The company “is not issuing any public statements at this time,” spokesman Chuck McDonald said by email Friday.
The NRC on Thursday formally withdrew the notice of opportunity to request a hearing on the license application. The update, published in the Federal Register, is in line with a June 22 order from the industry-regulator’s commissioners and the wishes of Waste Control Specialists.
There had been no hearing requests to that point, though the Sierra Club, Beyond Nuclear, and Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition had indicated they might seek to intervene in the matter.
A new notice of opportunity to request a hearing would be published if Waste Control Specialists asks that the technical review resume, McIntyre said. Given the early stage of the evaluation – the NRC had only completed its acceptance review of the application in January – the process would still take roughly three years.
Waste Control Specialists had hoped to open its facility by 2021. But, in court and in official documents, it has acknowledged that its financial losses threaten both the project and its entire future.
In closing arguments during the antitrust trial, WCS attorney Van Beckwith reportedly said the company has lost $130 million over five years and could lose another $200 million. He said Waste Control Specialists could go out of business, its West Texas waste storage complex closed and covered.
Waste Control Specialists cited the high cost of the NRC licensing process – projected at $7.5 million – as part of the reason for requesting the suspension. While CEO Rod Baltzer said in April he expected the spent fuel storage project would resume “at the earliest possible opportunity” after the sale concluded, WCS parent company Valhi Inc. said the following month in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it no longer believed it would secure the NRC license.
If so, that would leave Holtec International as the sole remaining company currently seeking to provide temporary storage of U.S. spent fuel, after a South Carolina group abandoned its plan without filing a license application with the NRC.
Holtec in March submitted its application for a 120,000-metric-ton-capacity facility in southeastern New Mexico, just across the state border from the WCS storage complex. The NRC is still conducting its acceptance review of the application, and in late June requested additional information from Holtec, McIntyre said.
More than 75,000 metric tons of spent fuel is now stored on-site at U.S. nuclear facilities. The Department of Energy is legally responsible for building a permanent repository for the waste. The 1987 amendment to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act demands that the facility be built at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
While the Obama administration terminated work on Yucca Mountain, the Trump administration has proposed funding in the upcoming fiscal year for both NRC and DOE to resume the licensing process. The House energy and water funding bill for fiscal 2018 would provide that funding, while the corresponding Senate measure expressly provides no money for Yucca Mountain. Both bills are now awaiting floor votes.
The Senate legislation would allow DOE to initiate one or more pilot programs for interim storage of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. While House appropriators focused on Yucca Mountain, a separate measure in the lower chamber would allow DOE to prepare one interim storage facility alongside the Nevada project.
