By Lake Barrett
Lake Barrett is a former Department of Energy official who served as both principal deputy director and acting director of the Office of Civilian Nuclear Waste Management, where he helped implement the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Before that, Barrett worked for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, where he was onsite director of cleanup efforts at Three Mile Island following the plant’s 1979 partial meltdown.
Silver anniversaries are usually a cause for great celebration, but this one is a cause for regret — and a renewed plea for action.
Jan. 31, 2023, marks the 25th anniversary of the Department of Energy’s failure, under law and contract, to start the removal of spent nuclear fuel from the country’s 74 commercial nuclear power plant sites in 35 states for disposal per the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.
I personally know the moral and legal responsibility associated with this failure because in 1998, as the then-responsible Department of Energy official, I had to personally announce it. But much has changed since then. There are many new avenues to address these past problems, such as federal, state and community partnerships that can be a benefit for all, if DOE leads and Congress acts on both disposal and storage.
This failure to legally perform has resulted in a current US taxpayer liability of more than $40 billion for extra storage costs to keep spent fuel safe while it is stranded near reactors located from Maine to California and from Florida to Wisconsin. Even worse, this liability continues to grow by nearly two million dollars for every day of federal inaction. Although the ever-increasing amount of spent fuel is currently being safely stored in nearly 4,000 huge shielded canisters across the country, it is a financial catastrophe and long-term environmental burden that our federal government never should have let happen.
Although DOE is now engaged in positive efforts to find other consent-based sites for short-term storage, the agency is not making a similar effort for necessary, permanent disposal; in fact, it will not even try to engage Nevada to find a fair resolution to the bipartisan, permanent disposal plans enacted by Congress decades ago.
Although DOE experienced delays evaluating the proposed Yucca Mountain disposal site during my time there, after decades of strong scientific work costing more than $10 billion, the proposed Nevada desert site was nationally and internationally found to meet all protective environmental and safety regulatory standards for one million years. It was lawfully designated to be the national repository via special votes in the U.S. Senate and House and signed into law by the President twenty years ago.
Regrettably, practically nothing has happened since then, due primarily to partisan politics, fights over Nevada’s U.S. Senate seats, and presidential primaries.
With support for clean and reliable nuclear energy now strong in both parties there is an opportunity for the U.S. government to offer a permanent solution that will build on decades of excellence and innovative technologies across the industry. With leadership, amendments consistent with the 2012 Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future recommendations — such as creating an independent nuclear waste management entity outside of DOE that is empowered with sustainable funding — can now be achieved.
Our country needs safe, clean, secure, and affordable energy and nuclear energy can play a vital role. Solving the current nuclear-waste-disposal impasse is part of achieving this. We can’t pass this problem on to our grandchildren and great grandchildren. The moment is here for us to come together and act as we move toward a clean and resilient energy future.
