Todd Jacobson
RW Monitor
3/20/2015
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, said this week that he is in favor of a waiver that would allow research quantities of spent nuclear fuel into Idaho, and he urged Department of Energy cleanup officials to settle differences with Idaho officials over cleanup milestones that are threatening work at Idaho National Laboratory. Former Govs. Cecil Andrus (D) and Phil Batt (R), both of whom worked to establish the 1995 Settlement Agreement banning additional spent fuel from entering the state, threatened DOE earlier this month with litigation should it move forward with planned shipments of commercial spent nuclear fuel to Idaho National Laboratory for research purposes. “I really do not want the [Environmental Management] side of this laboratory in Idaho to affect the lab side and … if they prevent us from bringing in research quantities of nuclear material it would greatly affect the future of INL,” Simpson told acting DOE cleanup chief Mark Whitney and Deputy Under Secretary of Energy for Management and Performance David Klaus at a March 18 subcommittee hearing.
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter (R) has said he is open to providing DOE a one-time waiver to allow the Department to send the spent fuel to INL for research purposes, but only if the Department provides an enforceable time frame for coming back into compliance with a 1995 Settlement Agreement. Simpson urged Whitney and Klaus to meet with Idaho officials to resolve the disagreements. “I really don’t want to get these two entities going at one another so I would encourage you to get out and resolve these differences so we can resolve the overall issue of allowing these research quantities of material to come into the state because it makes sense to do it,” he said. “It’s the smart thing to do.”
Simpson Echoes Otter
Simpson’s comments appear to echo remarks made by Otter suggesting INL should be viewed not as a liability, but as an asset. “It seems as if the former governors would be satisfied with cleaning up the INL and shutting it down,” Otter said in a statement. “Their approach ignores the asset the INL has become to eastern Idaho, the state and nation. Clean up under the terms of the agreement, including removal of ALL materials by 2035, remains our first priority, but it is not our only priority. Continuing the valuable research at the Lab with its world-class facilities and people is the future and one we should all work towards. It is clear the former governors see the Lab as a liability, while I see its possibilities.”
Shipments Would Support High Burnup Fuel Study
The fuel shipments would be necessary to support the Department’s high burnup fuel study, conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute. The research is aimed at better understanding the effects of high burn-up fuel aging on dry storage cask systems and to support DOE’s ongoing research and development to advance understanding of the long-term aging of spent fuel. The study plans to look at the technical, economic, and non-proliferation aspects of the fuel while also enabling fuel performance studies for the nuclear industry.
Researchers will examine two dozen spent fuel rods before they are placed in the cask to determine the changes that occur over long-term storage. After the casks have been dried correctly, the researchers will move it to the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation pad, where it will be stored for a decade. DOE anticipates shipping the cask to INL in January 2016, according to a Dec. 31, 2014 letter from Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.
