Summary of interim storage RFI responses coming ‘soon,’ senior DOE official says

Members of the public interested in how the Department of Energy interpreted community input about siting a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel may not have to wait much longer, the agency’s nuclear energy chief said this week.

A summary of responses to DOE’s November request for information (RFI) on its consent-based process for siting a federal interim storage depot is coming “soon,” Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Energy Kathryn Huff told RadWaste Monitor after a hearing Thursday in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. 

The agency plans to release its findings “as soon as we can,” Huff said, but declined to provide a timeline.

November’s RFI asked for public input on how DOE should go about finding a site for a federal interim storage facility. During this comment period, though, the agency was not looking for volunteers to host such a facility. DOE has said that it plans to publish a summary of its findings some time this summer.

DOE is also planning to offer a competitive funding opportunity for interested host communities once the RFI report goes out. Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee back in May that the award could come down in early fall, and that it could help the agency “understand the needs of communities” that might be willing to host an interim storage site.

Currently, federal law prohibits DOE from building an interim storage site, even if a willing host comes forward. 

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) forbids the agency from taking title to civilian spent nuclear fuel until a permanent repository is active. No such site currently exists; Nevada’s Yucca Mountain site, the only location congressionally authorized for the job, has been on ice since 2010, when the Barack Obama administration pulled the project’s funding.

Despite that, Huff told RadWaste Monitor in an exclusive interview in June that she was hopeful for congressional action to change NWPA and allow for federal interim storage. “I have to say, it’s been really refreshing to see the number of congressional and Senate leaders interested in actually finding a solution,” she said earlier this summer.