WASHINGTON — Plans for consolidated interim storage of spent fuel from commercial nuclear power reactors leave questions about the ultimate disposition of that radioactive material once a facility’s federal license expires, former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said Monday.
Speaking at a Capitol Hill event on nuclear decommissioning, Jaczko posited a scenario in which the federal government remains unable to meet its legal mandate to build a permanent repository for used fuel and high-level radioactive waste from defense nuclear operations.
“As much as you may hear from people about consolidated interim storage it is de-facto permanent storage. Because once you move the fuel somewhere it’s going to be very hard to move it somewhere else,” he said. “The only place in principle you could move it to would be a permanent repository. But right now there’s really no prospects, certainly in the next several decades, for any type of permanent repository for spent fuel.”
The U.S. Department of Energy is more than 21 years past the congressionally set deadline of Jan. 31, 1998, to begin taking nuclear waste for disposal. The Trump administration has for three years sought funding to resume licensing of the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada, but Congress so far has refused to comply.
Two corporate teams have applied for 40-year Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses to build and operate consolidated interim storage facilities to hold the used fuel until a final disposal option is available. Holtec International plans a site in southeastern New Mexico that ultimately could hold up to 173,000 metric tons of material. An Orano-Waste Control Specialists team intends to build a facility in West Texas with a maximum capacity of 40,000 metric tons.
The NRC’s rulemaking on continued storage of spent fuel, completed in 2014, studied environmental impacts for time frames up to 120 years, agency spokesman Scott Burnell said by email Thursday. “The NRC continues to conclude there will be a permanent repository at some point. That being said, there is no statutory limit on renewing interim storage site licenses, as long as the licensees meet all the applicable requirements.”
Jaczko asked what might happen once the sites’ initial licenses and potential extensions expire if there still is no repository. “Do you require the owners of the fuel today to reserve an area of land where they can take back that fuel in the future?”
Jaczko served on the commission from January 2005 to July 2012, including a turbulent tenure as chairman from 2009 to his resignation. During his time at the industry regulator, and since, he has staked out a strong position against the Yucca Mountain repository – in line with his onetime boss, former Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
There was no immediate response from Holtec and Waste Control Specialists to Jaczko’s comments.
The federal government is not likely ever to secure local consent for disposal of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors, but that approach could nonetheless be tested in a plan for temporary storage of the radioactive material, according to a former head of the Energy Department’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM).
“Consent-based siting does sound very appealing. I just don’t see it leading to a successful leading to a successful conclusion. Of course, I may be wrong,” Ward Sproat, who as head of OCRWM from June 2006 to January 2009 filed the department’s license application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, wrote in a May 2 letter to Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wy.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.), the top members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Among the obstacles to consent, Sproat wrote: history, as illustrated by failed Private Spent Fuel storage project in Utah; politics, including the potential for elected officials who support a facility to be replaced by opponents; and the need for at least two layers of local approval to analyze a selected location and then to begin licensing.
Still, Sproat indicated support for assessing the viability of a consent-based approach for interim storage discussed before the committee by an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Geoff Fettus, senior attorney for the NRDC’s nuclear program, was among the witnesses for a May 1 hearing on a draft bill from Barrasso that is intended to advance interim storage and permanent disposal of U.S. spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Among the measures, the legislation would authorize the secretary of energy to site, build, and operate at least one monitored retrievable storage facility.
In his prepared testimony, Fettus said the NRDC supports changing existing federal laws to give states more authority for regulating radioactive waste as part of a consent-based approach. A pilot program for interim storage should specifically involve a hardened structure at an operational nuclear power plant, Fettus said.
Sproat lauded the senators for conducting what he called a “fair hearing” on the bill, which as of Friday Barrasso had not filed. The bill includes important measures to bring Yucca Mountain into existence, according to Sproat, who testified in the House in 2017 on a prior version of the legislation.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday announced a figurative round of musical chairs in its senior management.
Catherine Haney, administrator for the agency’s Atlanta-based Region 2, is returning to NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md., as assistant for operations in the Office of the Executive Director for Operations. Haney has worked at the regulator continously since 1989 after a short stint earlier that decade, in positions including director for the Division of Operating Reactor Licensing and director of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards (NMSS).
Haney takes over for Robert Lewis, who is shifting to the position of deputy director of the NMSS office, according to an NRC press release.
Replacing Haney in the coming month is Laura Dudes, currently deputy director of the Region 2 office. Dudes has been with the NRC since 1994, starting as a reactor engineer intern and taking roles including senior resident inspector at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in New Jersey and director for construction inspection and operational programs in the Office of New Reactors.
Separately, Vonna Ordaz will replace the retiring Pamela Baker as director of the Office of Small Business and Civil Rights. Ordaz started at the agency in 1991 as an engineer in the Office of New Nuclear Regulation, with subsequent roles including resident inspector for Arlington, Texas-based Region 4.
Scott Moore, NMSS deputy director, has been selected as acting deputy director for the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research. Mark Lombard will move from the position of deputy director in the Office of Administration to deputy director in the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Reponse. He takes over for John Lubinski, who was promoted to NMSS director.
Michele Evans, deputy office director for reactor safety programs and mission support in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, is set to retire this summer. She will be replaced by Brian McDermott, deputy director for engineering in the same office.
Finally Mirela Gavrilas, director of the NRR office’s Division of Safety Systems, will take over as the office’s deputy office director for engineering.
From The Wires
From Agence France-Presse: U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres warns that “a kind of coffin” of nuclear waste could be leaking in the Pacific Ocean.
