Reduced charges for disposal of low-level radioactive waste at the Waste Control Specialists facility in West Texas officially took effect on Nov. 8.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in October approved the updated charges as part of a broader rulemaking covering the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact facility, which Waste Control Specialists operates for the state on its Andrews County property.
Among the updates to the Texas Administrative Code: The charge for disposal of Class A low-level radioactive waste is locked in at $100 per cubic foot, eliminating a separate fee of $180 per cubic foot for shielded material; for radioactivity charges, the curie inventory charge dropped from $0.55 to $0.40 per millicurie; and a number of charges have been fully eliminated, including those for carbon-14, special nuclear material, and containers weighing 10,000 pounds to 50,000 pounds.
State regulations require that members of the compact be charged no more than the listed amounts, while non-compact waste generators pay higher amounts. Texas and Vermont are the only current members to the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact.
The Compact Waste Facility has a maximum capacity of 9 million cubic feet of Class A, B, and C low-level waste.
Waste Control Specialists’s then-management had requested the lower charges in hopes of driving up business for waste disposal after losing millions of dollars for prior owner Valhi Inc. The company was sold in January to private equity firm J.F. Lehman & Co.
“Our commercial customers have been provided with notice of the change, and our sales staff have been working directly with them,” David Carlson, Waste Control Specialists president and chief operating officer, said by email. “It is clear that the rulemaking will benefit our commercial customers and it will support our objective to provide competitive services for all radioactive waste including Class A, B, and C LLRW.”
Waste Control Specialists is also seeking additional radioactive waste business, including potential interim storage of spent nuclear reactor fuel and permanent disposal of Greater-Than-Class C low-level waste.
The manager of the United Kingdom’s Sellafield site on Wednesday announced the formal closure of one of the world’s two remaining spent fuel reprocessing facilities.
The Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, better known as Thorp, recycled 9,331 metric tons of used fuel from 30 clients in nine nations over 24 years, according to a press release from Sellafield Ltd. The last reprocessing operation began on Nov. 9.
The facility, which stretches one-third of a mile, will be used for storage of spent fuel into the 2070s. The radioactive material is intended eventually to be placed into a U.K. deep geologic repository.
All personnel whose jobs are being eliminated following the plant’s closure can take work elsewhere at Sellafield, a former nuclear power and weapons complex in Cumbria that is now undergoing environmental cleanup.
“We helped to keep the lights on in the U.K. and around the world and generated £9bn in revenue for the U.K.,” Sellafield Ltd. CEO Paul Foster said in the release. “I’m immensely proud of Thorp’s contribution and I’d like to thank the workforce for their unwavering dedication and professionalism throughout a period of unprecedented change.”
Construction of the plant cost £1.8 billion ($2.3 billion), but its fate was sealed by 2012 due to lower demand for reprocessing. Clients now largely store their spent fuel rather than shipping it for reprocessing and reuse, the release says.
The shutdown leaves only the La Hague reprocessing facility operated by French nuclear firm Orano, World Nuclear News reported.
Sellafield Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority that manages operations at the site.
From the Wires
From the San Diego Union-Tribune: California Public Utilities Commission asks federal appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit against the settlement on costs for early closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: U.S. Army Corps ready to go on Shallow Land Disposal Area cleanup.
From US Ecology: Company acquires Ecoserv Industrial Disposal.
From Penn State News: University received $800,000 grant from Department of Energy to research nuclear fuel waste reduction.
