Holtec International must submit dozens of pieces of additional data before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can proceed with its initial review of the company’s license application for interim storage of spent nuclear fuel in southeastern New Mexico.
To start, the Camden, N.J.-based energy services company must, per NRC rules, affirm under oath that all the information included in the original application filed earlier this year is true and accurate, an agency spokesman said Tuesday. Holtec’s application for the independent spent fuel storage installation was not submitted “under oath or affirmation,” the regulator said in a July request for supplemental information.
NRC staff also determined that Holtec had not supplied sufficient information on various safety and security questions at the planned facility to complete the acceptance review of the license application and proceed into the full technical evaluation.
Holtec on March 31 submitted its application for an underground facility with capacity for up to 120,000 metric tons of used fuel from U.S. commercial nuclear reactors. The site, if approved, could play a role in the federal government’s effort to meet its legal responsibility to remove what is now more than 75,000 metric tons of waste from nuclear utilities.
Spent fuel could be interred at one or more consolidated interim storage facilities until a permanent repository is built. The Trump administration has asked for funding in fiscal 2018 to resume licensing of the Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada, which its predecessor canceled in 2010; the House of Representatives has supported its request, while Senate appropriators have offered no money for the project for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.
Speaking to reporters in early April, Holtec founder and CEO Kris Singh expressed optimism that the NRC would expeditiously review and approve the license application. His company, working with a coalition of communities in southeastern New Mexico, hopes to open the facility by 2022.
The NRC on July 7 issued two separate requests for supplemental information: one covering the application’s safety evaluation and environmental reports and another its physical security, safeguards contingency, and security training plans.
The document covering the remaining security-related questions is not being made public. The other document lists more than 30 separate data requests, plus a number of observations. These include requests for:
- Data on the probability that aircraft could crash onto the storage site, given the multiple airways in the area;
- An evaluation of hazardous cargo that could be shipped over the major highway and rural roads in the area of the facility.
- Detailed staffing requirements and responsibilities for radiation safety officers and other personnel who will be tasked with radiation safety at the site.
- Data on environmental impacts of the access road and railroad spur for the planned facility.
Holtec as of last week had informed the NRC it would respond to the safety information requests in two separate data tranches in early October and December. It had not set a schedule for responding to the security-related questions, the NRC spokesman said at the time.
The company this week had not responded by deadline to requests for additional detail on its license application.
The NRC also requested supplemental information for the only other current interim spent fuel storage facility application, for Waste Control Specialists’ planned 40,000-metric-ton site in West Texas. The regulator issued the request in late June 2016, about two months after the Dallas-based company submitted its application. After receiving the additional data, the agency accepted the application for formal review in January of this year.
However, WCS in April asked the NRC to suspend the review while it completed its then-pending merger with Salt Lake City-based nuclear services provider EnergySolutions. However, a federal judge in June blocked the deal on antitrust grounds, and the companies chose not to appeal. Waste Control Specialists since then has declined to discuss its future plans.
