The deadline came and went Monday for the Department of Energy and other federal agencies to terminate at least one-third of their federal advisory committees, but it was not clear this week whether the agency had complied with the directive.
A DOE spokesperson did not reply to multiple requests for a list of committees cut in accordance with President Donald Trump’s June 14 executive order to eliminate federal advisory committees that are obsolete, too expensive, or which have been replaced in function by other bodies.
The Department of Energy has around 20 federal advisory committees, fewer than half of which deal with the agency’s nuclear programs.
At least two DOE advisory committees apparently survived. The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, which provides independent management advice to the agency, met Thursday in Chicago. Late last week, the White House announced it would continue the DOE-organized President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology: a group that provides a broad swath of science and science policy advice.
For DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, the part of the agency concerned with civilian nuclear waste created by power plants, there is the Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee.
Any of these advisory committees could have been spared from the culling. Trump’s order permitted agencies to retain panels that the head of that department and the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget agree are necessary.
The United States should stop trying to build a centralized disposal facility for its nuclear waste, instead focusing on a “decentralized” regime while pursuing new technologies to deal with the material, according to a new report from an environmental think tank.
“The current policy regime for nuclear waste management is broken,” the Oakland, Calif.-based Breakthrough Institute said in the report, “Beyond Yucca Mountain: Decentralization and Innovation for U.S. Nuclear Waste Management.” It notes that the federal government is more than two decades past the congressionally set deadline of Jan. 31, 1998, to begin disposal of spent fuel from nuclear power plants and high-level radioactive waste. Meanwhile, the assigned deep geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., is neither licensed nor built.
The current storage system for used fuel, in which it is kept on-site in dry casks at power plants, could be updated for long-term storage, the report says. There were 90 dry-cask storage installations licensed as of last year by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 20 to 40 years. These sites currently hold over 80,000 metric tons of spent fuel.
The system has a “flawless” safety record, and the NRC believes used fuel could be held in cooling pools or casks for up to 12 decades without notable environmental impacts, according to the Breakthrough Institute. With the assent of the participating communities, those sites could be formally licensed for interim storage of spent fuel.
“Then, as designated nuclear waste management facilities, the sites can provide benefits to their communities through payments from the Nuclear Waste Fund,” Breakthrough said. “For communities that do not consent to on-site storage, waste should be moved to the closest available consolidated interim storage sites that gain consent.”
That would go hand-in-hand with work on various forms of nuclear innovations, the report says. These would include alternative disposal technologies, recycling and reprocessing, and waste-fueled reactors.
Established in 2007, the Breakthrough Institute says it provides research “identifying and promoting technological solutions to environmental and human development challenges in three areas: energy, conservation, and food and farming.” The nuclear waste report was written by founder and Executive Director Ted Nordhaus; James McBride, a senior research analyst for energy programs; and Jessica Lovering, the organization’s director of energy from 2015 to 2019.
The NRC this week said it could not comment on the policy measures presented in the report.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in August continued to spend little of its remaining balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund – just $863, leaving it with an unobligated balance of $407,176.
The money was used for unspecified program planning and support, according to the agency’s latest spending report to Congress.
As of Aug. 31, the NRC had spent over $13.1 million of the more than $13.5 million it had on hand in August 2013 from the federal fund intended to pay for construction and operation of a repository for high-level radioactive waste and used reactor fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants.
The NRC in 2008 received the Department of Energy license application for the planned deep geological repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. The Obama administration, though, defunded the proceeding two years later. However, a federal appeals court in August 2013 ordered the federal nuclear regulator to resuming the licensing process.
Major expenditures since then have included $8.3 million for completing a safety evaluation report for the license application and nearly $1.6 million for a supplement to the environmental impact statement on licensing. Program planning and support costs over six years as of August totaled $506,410.
The NRC has acknowledged that it would not be able to complete the licensing proceeding unless Congress appropriates additional money from the Nuclear Waste Fund. Congress has already rejected the Trump administration’s requests for funding to resume licensing in fiscal 2018 and the just-completed fiscal 2019. While Congress has not finalized its fiscal 2020 budget yet, relying a stopgap spending bill through Nov. 21, appropriators in both chambers have already zeroed out the administration’s latest request for Yucca Mountain licensing money.
New Jersey has established a panel of state officials to provide additional oversight of decommissioning at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, Gov. Phil Murphy (D) announced Wednesday.
The Oyster Creek Safety Advisory Panel “will enhance existing oversight to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and provide assurances to the public that the proper protocols for the decommissioning are in place,” Murphy said in a press release. “Providing the public with an opportunity to participate in the robust public input process is critical to ensuring transparency during the decommissioning process.”
The panel is chaired by New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Catherine McCabe. Its other members are the heads of the New Jersey State Police, Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, and Board of Public Utilities, or designated officials at those agencies.
Power company Exelon shut down the single-reactor facility in Lacey Township in September 2018. Following approval by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for transfer of the plant’s licenses, Exelon in July sold the plant to New Jersey energy technology specialist Holtec International for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management.
Holtec says it can complete decommissioning within a decade at a cost of $885 million. The company, though, has faced claims from local union officials regarding cost-cutting efforts in decommissioning, the Asbury Park Press reported last week.
The Department of Environmental Protection is charged with assessing Holtec’s adherence with a January 2018 state administrative consent order on decommissioning, the press release says. The oversight panel will aid in that effort. It will meet no less than two times each year, McCabe stated.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as of Tuesday has placed a new branch in charge of oversight of the recently retired reactor Unit 1 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa.
Oversight has been transferred from the agency’s operating power reactor inspection program to its decommissioning power reactor inspection program under the Region I Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, according to an Oct. 1 letter from Anthony Dimitriadis, chief of the decommissioning branch within the Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, to Exelon Nuclear President and Chief Nuclear Officer Bryan Hanson.
“The NRC’s oversight of your licensed activities as you progress through decommissioning will be conducted under the provisions in [Inspection Manual Chapter] 2561, ‘Decommissioning Power Reactor Inspection Program,’” Dimitriadis wrote. “The objectives of the decommissioning inspection program are to verify that decommissioning activities are being conducted safely, that spent fuel is safely being stored, and that site operations and license termination activities are in conformance with applicable regulatory requirements, licensee commitments, and management controls.”
Exelon announced the retirement in 2017 and on Sept. 20 permanently powered down the 45-year-old pressurized-water reactor. Following removal of the reactor’s spent fuel, the Chicago-based power company plans to place the plant into SAFSTOR mode, under which completion of decommissioning can be delayed for up to six decades. Under Exelon’s schedule, active decommissioning would begin in the 2070s and be completed to license termination in 2079. The company expects to pay $1.245 billion for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management.
The reactor is officially in the “post-operation transition phase” of decommissioning, according to Dimitriadis. Inspections will be carried out under the “core inspection procedures” for that phase under the NRC’s inspection manual. The regulator might also conduct discretionary decommissioning inspections “based on site activities and conditions,” he wrote.
Reactor Unit 2 at Three Mile Island, which has been closed since partly melting down in 1979, is owned by FirstEnergy Corp.
From The Wires
From the Akron Beacon Journal: Ohio attorney general warns against any interference in a referendum on legislation passed earlier this year to provide additional financial support for nuclear power plants in the state.
From the Whyalla News: Following a court order against an injunction, ballots were scheduled to be mailed this week regarding possible siting of a nuclear waste disposal facility in Kimba, South Australia.
From the Grand Forks Herald: Slurry wells are being considered in Alexander, N.D., for disposal of radioactive material and other waste from oil production.
