The Department of Energy on Friday announced it split $26 million among 13 teams who will help the agency define consent-based siting.
The list includes trade groups, universities, local and tribal interest groups and even a few outright antinuclear groups. Some groups are part of multiple teams. Awards max out at $2 million.
Consent-based siting is a term popularized in U.S. nuclear industry and policy circles by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, which President Barack Obama (D) formed to come up with a new way of finding a permanent nuclear waste repository after Obama’s administration decided not to proceed with siting a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev.
Yucca, to which Nye County consents and the state of Nevada objects, is the only congressionally authorized federal repository for spent fuel from nuclear power plants and high-level waste from shuttered nuclear-weapon production sites.
DOE announced the winners in a press release. The department said January that it had increased the total award value to $26 million from $16 million after Congress added more funds to the program in the 2023 omnibus spending bill passed in December. DOE announced plans for these consent-based siting grants in September.
Awardees are:
- American Nuclear Society of Illinois, with South Carolina Universities Research and Education Foundation, Northern Arizona University, University of New Mexico and South Carolina State University.
- Arizona State University.
- Boise State University, with the National Tribal Energy Association, Arizona State, Colorado State, Idaho State, Montana State, University of Idaho, University of Wyoming and University of Michigan.
- Clemson University, with South Carolina Universities Research and Education Foundation.
- Energy Communities Alliance, with Environmental Council of the States, DOE’s State and Tribal Government Working Group, National Association of Attorneys General, National Conference of State Legislatures and National Governors Association. All but the tribal group are based in Washington.
- Good Energy Collective of California, with the University of Notre Dame.
- Holtec International, Jupiter, Fla., with University of Florida, McMahon Communications of Massachusetts, Agenda Global of Washington, American Nuclear Society and the Washington-based Nuclear Energy Institute.
- Keystone Policy Center of Colorado, with Social and Environmental Research Institute, GDFWatch of the United Kingdom and the National Association of Regional Councils of Washington.
- Missouri University of Science & Technology, with University of Missouri – Columbia, University of Illinois, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Nevada (NV), Taylor Geospatial Institute of Missouri and St. Louis University (in Missouri
- North Carolina State University (NC) as the lead, with the yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribe of San Luis Obispo County and Region in California, Mothers for Nuclear in California and the Tribal Consent Based Coalition – Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in California.
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, with Schenectady Foundation of New York and Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Indians in Wisconsin.
- Southwest Research Institute in Texas, with Deep Isolation of California, Westra Consulting of Nebraska, Community Transition Planning of Mississippi and Prairie Island Indian Community Tribal Nation of Minnesota as partners.
- Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, with Rutgers University of New Jersey and Oregon State University.
