Nearly a year after putting it on ice, Waste Control Specialists aims to revive its application for a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to build and operate a facility for consolidated interim storage of used nuclear reactor fuel. It is doing so in a joint venture planned with Orano USA, the nuclear services and technology company previously called AREVA Nuclear Materials before its parent company’s restructuring.
Establishment of the joint venture and a formal request to restart the NRC review are expected in the second quarter of this year, said Jeffery Isakson, vice president of business operations at Orano subsidiary TN Americas, who is working on the spent fuel storage project.
“We’re very excited to be taking this step,” Isakson said in a Tuesday telephone interview with RadWaste Monitor.
The plan remains to build an engineered independent spent fuel storage installation on Waste Control Specialists’ property in Andrews County, Texas, to hold up to 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel until the Department of Energy finds a permanent home for the radioactive waste.
Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists (WCS) first submitted its application in April 2016. The NRC completed its acceptance review in January 2017, but the company three months later asked that the regulator halt the full technical review ahead of WCS’ then-pending merger with rival low-level radioactive waste disposal provider EnergySolutions. A federal judge blocked that deal on antitrust grounds last June, and Waste Control Specialists was acquired in January by private equity firm J.F. Lehman.
AREVA and NAC International had previously been partners in the spent fuel storage project, effectively contractors to Waste Control Specialists, Isakson said.
The French nuclear company officially became Orano earlier this year after its nuclear power business was split and sold off in 2017. Orano, now focused on fuel-cycle operations, will be a full stakeholder in the spent-fuel-storage program as one-half of the entity that will take over the license application, Isakson said.
In a joint press release, the companies touted the experience they will bring to the project: Orano’s capabilities in nuclear fuel packaging, storage, and transportation, and Waste Control Specialists’ operation of a disposal facility for low-level radioactive and other waste forms from the commercial and government sectors.
Isakson said he could not yet discuss details of what each company will provide operationally to the joint venture. He also demurred on addressing matters including the schedule for the NRC review and the cost of the facility itself.
At the time of the original license application, WCS management believed the NRC review would require three years and that the storage site could be open by 2021. The license would be good for 40 years.
The Waste Control Specialists-Orano joint venture would need to submit a formal request for the NRC to resume the license review that will cover environmental, security, and safety matters, agency spokesman David McIntyre said Tuesday.
“When the NRC receives the WCS request to resume, the staff will develop a new schedule for continuing the review, publish a new notice of hearing on this license application, and re-open the environmental scoping period for 60 days using our established procedures for these activities,” he wrote in an email.
Assessments on the cost, schedule, and personnel needed for the review will be made after the request is filed, according to McIntyre. The joint venture will be billed for the agency’s work, which Waste Control Specialists under prior owner Valhi Inc. had cited as costing around $7.5 million.
More than 75,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel is now stored at over 70 active and retired power plants around the country. Under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, DOE is legally responsible for building a final resting place for that waste. In the absence of a permanent disposal site, attention in recent years has turned to interim sites that can hold the material for at least a few decades.
“I think as a member of the nuclear industry it’s important to be able to address the end of the fuel cycle,” Isakson said. “It would be progress because we would be able to consolidate” the fuel.
Holtec International is also seeking an NRC license for a storage site that could hold up to 120,000 metric tons of used fuel underground in southeastern New Mexico, not far from the WCS property. The NRC on Feb. 28 formally accepted the Camden, N.J., company’s application for a full technical review.
Isakson declined to discuss the competing project.
While the Energy Department has encouraged other interim spent fuel storage projects, no one else has come forward with an application to the NRC.
