The U.S. Energy Department should focus on retired nuclear power plants and some of its own facilities as it prepares for the eventual removal and transport of radioactive waste from dozens of sites around the nation, the federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB) said this week.
That is one of three recommendations in a new report from the independent executive-branch agency, which also lays out 30 technical issues DOE should consider ahead of transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to storage or disposal.
“The Board recommends that DOE give higher priority to evaluating the removal of commercial SNF from shutdown nuclear power plant sites and to evaluating DOE sites that store DOE-managed SNF and HLW,” according to the report. “DOE should also share the results of the evaluations with operators of waste storage sites, so they can apply lessons learned, retain critical site transportation infrastructure, and be better prepared for the eventual transportation of the wastes.”
The board also recommended the Energy Department allow no less than 10 years to develop new designs for the casks and canisters that would be used to store and ship the waste. Otherwise, it added, DOE should prepare its own study of how long would be necessary to design, license, manufacture, and test the vessels.
The report further urges the Energy Department to consider the technical and integration issues identified by the board in planning for transport of the waste. Among the issues: identifying and preparing the systems that will be needed for waste handling and loading at storage locations, including facilities, gear, and procedures; resolving issues with dry-storage casks and containers not authorized for use in waste transport; and readying a railcar for shipping spent fuel (noting DOE’s ongoing Atlas railcar project).
Under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the Energy Department is legally responsible for permanent disposal of what is now a stockpile of roughly 100,000 metric tons of spent fuel and high-level waste held at over 80 sites in 35 states. It is more than 21 years past the Jan. 31, 1998, deadline to begin disposing of that material, and still does not have a license to build and operate the planned repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev.
The NWTRB was established under the 1987 amendment to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to provide technical and scientific guidance for Energy Department nuclear waste management. The new report intentionally does not address the question of where the waste would be shipped or the routes it might travel by, board Chair Jean Bahr wrote in a letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
Holtec International said Monday it has completed construction and testing of the interim storage facility for spent fuel from three shuttered reactors at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.
This effectively ends the New Jersey energy technology company’s role in the project. The state-owned Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP) enterprise must now receive a license from Ukraine’s nuclear regulator to commission the facility and begin loading used fuel, according to a Holtec press release.
More than 21,000 used fuel assemblies will have to each be cut into three pieces – two fuel bundles and an activated connecting rod – within a hot cell before being moved into storage, Holtec said. It did not provide an estimated timeline for that operation.
The new storage facility was completed “not a day too soon,” Sergiy Tarakanov, Holtec Ukraine general manager and program manager for ISF-2, said in the release. “Chernobyl’s wet storage facility where the entire massive inventory of used fuel is presently stored, is living beyond its design life. It is critical that this enormous inventory of fuel be moved to dry storage in the fastest possible time.”
Holtec in 2011 assumed construction of the partially built storage facility, which had been started in 1998 by French nuclear firm AREVA (now Orano). Following completion of construction and repairs on the facility, cold testing began in May. That covered all systems, structures, and components of the facility, in areas including standard operations, emergency response, and systems to prevent worker exposure and contamination spread, the release says.
Cold testing, completed on Aug. 29 and confirmed by the state regulator on Sept. 6, identified no significant challenges to licensing, according to Holtec.
A power surge in 1986 famously destroyed reactor Unit 4 at the facility in what was then the Soviet Union. The three other reactors at Chernobyl remained operational, respectively closing in 1991, 1996, and 1999.
Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) anticipates within a matter of months further narrowing the number of locations being considered for a spent nuclear fuel disposal repository.
“The NWMO is working to identify a single, preferred location for a deep geological repository for used nuclear fuel, in an area with informed and willing hosts. There are currently five areas involved in the site selection process,” Mahrez Ben Belfadhel, NWMO vice president of site selection, said in a recent statement to Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. “The NWMO will select a single, preferred location by 2023 by gradually narrowing down the number of communities. We expect to narrow our areas of focus further within the next few months.”
Belfadhel did not offer a more specific timeline or say how many locations might remain in consideration following the upcoming culling.
The NWMO is a nonprofit organization funded by Canadian utilities to site, build, and operate the facility for underground disposal of an expected 5.2 million bundles of used fuel from nuclear power plants. Site selection began in 2010 and has already eliminated 16 locations from consideration. Five remain, all in Ontario: Homepayne and the surrounding area; Huron-Kinloss; Ignace and the surrounding area; Manitouwadge and the surrounding area; and South Bruce.
A final decision is anticipated by 2023. Site selection involves ongoing technical and social studies of potential locations, focusing on three areas, Belfadhel said: the strong safety case for a deep geologic repository in a specific area; the potential to establish a “safe, secure, and socially acceptable” approach for transporting the used fuel; and the ability to establish strong relationships with the applying community and other impacted communities, including First Nations.
A former Tinder executive, the chairman emeritus of a national whiskey distiller, and the president of the California Institute of Technology are among the eight new members of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced Monday.
The board is a sort of think-tank and sounding board for the energy secretary. Membership is capped at 20: a headcount the board has not quite reached, even with the eight new members slated to join eight members announced in February at a meeting scheduled for Oct. 2.
The full slate of new nominees to the board are:
- Scott Campbell – Senior Strategic Advisor, Baker Donelson; President, The Howard Baker Forum
- Marvin Fertel – Retired President and CEO, Nuclear Energy Institute
- Ankur Jain – Founder and CEO, Kairos, and former vice president of product at Tinder
- Kay Coles James – President, The Heritage Foundation
- Sean McGarvey – President, North America’s Building Trades Unions
- Dr. Thomas Rosenbaum – President, California Institute of Technology
- Bill Samuels, Jr. – Chairman Emeritus, Maker’s Mark Distillery Inc.
- Michael Whatley – Partner, HBW Resources
The newly nominated members have less of a traditional government-and-business bent than do many of the eight members Perry added in February.
The board’s operations are expected to cost the department $400,000 per year, including one full-time equivalent employee, according to the charter issued in August 2018. It is intended to meet on a quarterly basis. The board will expire two years after the date of the charter unless the charter is renewed.
Perma-Fix Environmental Services on Tuesday said it had picked up $15 million in new contracts with the Department of Energy and other customers, for nuclear services including demolition and radiological cleanup.
The projects cover 18 months of work, both in Canada and the United States, according to a press release. The Atlanta-based nuclear services provider did not discuss further specifics of the work to be performed or the number of contracts. A spokesperson said the company could not discuss details of the contracts.
“These wins leverage our experience in complex radiological contamination remediation and recovery efforts while applying new technologies to reduce cost and schedule durations,” President and CEO Mark Duff said in the release. “The new contracts include additional scope in Canada as well as new opportunities in the Department of Defense (“DOD”) and the Department of Energy (“DOE”) focusing on demolition and remediation in radiological environments with direct potential for additional expansion as the projects evolve.”
Perma-Fix’s nuclear services include decommissioning, remediation of radiological and hazardous contaminants, and consulting on management of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM).
Waste generated by the contracted operations could also be directed to Perma-Fix’s treatment business, further strengthening that segment, Duff stated.
From The Wires
From the Asbury Park Press: Labor unions say Holtec International is trying to save money by hiring less-skilled workers for decommissioning of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey.
From the Carlsbad Current Argus: Holtec International seals labor agreement with New Mexico Building and Construction Trade Council for construction of planned consolidated interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel.
From KFYR TV: Oct. 17 hearing scheduled on proposal for disposal of technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material in Williams County, N.D., landfill.
