MANCHESTER, England – Like the United States, the United Kingdom is holding off on defining the term “community consent” in its most prominent nuclear waste storage project, the geological disposal facility (GDF).
“Standing here right now, I don’t have in front of me a formula which addresses those issues,” Ivan Stone, stakeholder engagement and communications director for U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority subsidiary Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) Ltd., said Wednesday during his appearance at the 2016 Nuclear Decommissioning Conference Europe.
Instead, Stone pointed to the 2014 white paper that lays the framework for long-term management of high-level radioactive waste and the GDF, which is expected to be in operation by 2040. That document says the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change will establish a working group to address the issue, but Stone stopped short of saying the group would define the term, calling that a “real challenge.”
In January, when the U.S. Energy Department kicked off the first of several public meetings this year concerning its consent-based siting effort for nuclear waste storage. acting Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy John Kotek said President Barack Obama’s nuclear waste advisory group, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, wisely chose not to define the term “consent.”
Both the U.S. and U.K. have claimed their siting process will not move forward unless the selected host community consents, but neither government has explained precisely how they will confirm consent. In the U.S., two companies have offered to host interim storage facilities in Texas and New Mexico. Waste Control Specialists has already submitted its operating license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its site in West Texas, and Holtec International expects to submit its own this summer for a site in southeast New Mexico.
Kotek added that potential host states can opt out of consent until the time the operating license application is submitted. The American consent-based siting program — Obama’s alternative to the canceled Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada — envisions a pilot storage facility by 2021; one or more larger, interim facilities by 2025; and at least one permanent geologic repository by 2048.
Stone said the U.K., a nuclear nation since the 1940s, can learn much about the geological process for siting nuclear waste storage from the international community. Repository projects are underway or planned in Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland. The U.S., Finland, and Sweden all have operating repositories.
“There is a wealth of experience from our international colleagues,” Stone said. “What is clear is that none of that provides one straightforward, simple solution. There isn’t a golden bullet in this issue.”
Simon Napper, RWM stakeholder engagement adviser, said the U.K. is not subject to the political entanglements that held up national repository plans at Yucca Mountain.
“We have, in a sense have, moved a bit further,” Stone said. “We do know that at the moment policy says that we will have a GDF, provided we can get the technicalities right.”
Earlier Wednesday, Jari Tuunanen, director of nuclear waste and waste management at Finland’s Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant, described his country’s success. Finland in December 2015 became the first country to approve construction of a permanent storage facility for high-level radioactive waste. Tuunanen attributed the success to long-term waste agreement commitments from power plant owners, both political parties, and the government. In other words, there was consensus by all major stakeholders, something that has been missing in the U.S.
RWM plans next year to invite communities to put their names in to host the GDF. The 2014 white paper lays out a broad timeline: National geological screening, community engagement, and land-use development are expected to take two years. Additional community engagement, site investigation, and facility design should take anywhere from 15 to 20 years. Construction, operation, and closure would last an additional century.
Stone said there’s an understandable amount of skepticism surrounding the project, which has already failed in two prior siting attempts, and RWM needs to provide reassurance.
“We need to demystify the journey and the issues surrounding geological disposal and demonstrate that we have a clear mission in this process” and a determination to see the project completed.
