An industry executive agreed Wednesday that concerns over transportation of spent nuclear fuel could impact the Department of Energy’s deadlines for moving that material into consolidated interim storage.
The department in December rolled out plans for operation of a pilot storage facility by 2021; one or more larger, interim facilities by 2025; and finally at least one permanent geologic repository by 2048.
Waste Control Specialists and Holtec International are preparing to submit license applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for construction and operation of interim facilities in, respectively, Texas and New Mexico. Their combined capacity of about 115,000 metric tons would be more than enough to hold the roughly 70,000 metric tons of spent fuel now stored on-site at nuclear plants around the country.
Kent Cole, president and CEO of NAC International, a nuclear fuel cycle consulting and technology company, appeared on a panel at the 2016 Nuclear Industry Summit in Washington, D.C. He was asked whether concerns over transportation of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste through corridor communities could impact DOE meeting those deadlines.
“It’s a legitimate concern,” Cole said. “We need to demonstrate that there’s a lot of stakeholders that are out there. We need to be prepared early to engage them on plans for interim storage. There’s also a number of investments that we need to make before we’re able to move any fuel, and we need to get that underway promptly in order to meet the targets that people are talking about on consolidated interim storage.”
Earlier this year, DOE officials were pressed on whether corridor communities will have to give consent to the transportation of spent fuel. Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fuel Cycle Technologies Andrew Griffith said those details need to be ironed out.
Acting Assistant DOE Secretary for Nuclear Energy John Kotek has said the department is preparing transportation plans so that it’s ready to move if and when Congress gives it the green light. In 2013, DOE set the goal of having transportation ready for a pilot facility within 10 years. While the department has not outlined exact transportation details, it said then that logistics for the department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico have been successful, and infrastructure and lessons learned from that method will be used moving forward.
NEI CEO: Congressional Support Building for Interim Storage
Nuclear Energy Institute President and CEO Marvin Fertel said Wednesday he believes “good support” is building in Congress for plans to move American nuclear waste into consolidated interim storage.
Fertel, who leads the U.S. nuclear industry policy organization, appeared during a press conference at the Nuclear Industry Summit on Wednesday, along with two other executives.
Both Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) and Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) have introduced legislation that would allow the Department of Energy to contract with private companies for the interim storage of nuclear waste. Both bills include access to the $34 billion Nuclear Waste Fund, though Conaway’s bill directly taps into as much as $1 billion in annual interest from the fund. However, the Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee has said it will not consider a bill that does not address the shuttered project to build a permanent waste depository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
“We think it’ very likely (that legislation moves) next Congress,” Fertel said, noting the Conaway and Mulvaney bills. “It would include consolidated interim storage, it would include moving forward with repositories, both with Yucca Mountain and maybe others if necessary, it would include a new organization to manage this program outside the Department of Energy.”
Fertel also offered the opinion that Congress could initiate research and development for closed fuel cycle alternatives, which allow for reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. The U.S. has not allowed reprocessing of commercial fuel since 1977. In 2005, DOE’s Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative received $85 million to develop, in part, fuel cycle technologies with reprocessing capability, but by January 2013 the department opted against making any federal recommendations on implementation of reprocessing and recycling technologies. During the press conference, Centrus President and CEO Daniel Poneman was asked if the U.S. should encourage or discourage closed fuel cycles, given that several other nations recycle large amounts of spent fuel. Some argue that closed fuel cycles carry greater proliferation risks, suggesting the U.S. should discourage the practice.
“Every nation makes a sovereign decision on what to do with its energy portfolio,” Poneman said. “In those cases, where you have nations with impeccable nonproliferation credentials, fully compliant with (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards, and a coherent intellectual policy on how to steward their own resources to benefit their own citizens, it is not the role of the U.S. to unmake those decisions, and therefore there’s respect (for those decisions).”
