The federal fund intended pay for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada was valued at $44.5 billion at the end of fiscal 2017, down by $1.5 billion from the prior year, according to a newly released report from the Department of Energy Inspector General’s Office.
The Nuclear Waste Fund as of Sept. 30, 2017, had received since 1983 about $25.4 billion in fees from nuclear utilities (suspended since 2013) and the Defense Nuclear Waste Disposal appropriation, along with $26.2 billion in interest revenue and other funding lines, according to the audit by accounting firm KPMG dated May 25 and made public Tuesday.
The Energy Department and its now-disbanded Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board had received $11.7 billion from the fund as of last Sept. 30, the audit says.
Money not needed to pay expenses related to the fund’s operation are invested in U.S. Treasury securities, which has raised concerns about the availability of the money should the repository proceed again to licensing and construction.
“No funds for Yucca Mountain were requested in the FY 2017 or FY 2016 Budget Requests,” the report says. “Funds remaining from OCRWM have been used between October 1, 2010 and September 30, 2017 to continue the management of the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF), litigation activities, for additional closure activities under the previous administration, and for exploratory activities under the current Administration to prepare for a resumption of DOE participation in the licensing proceeding pursuant to the FY 2019 Budget Requests.”
Congress in 1987 designated Yucca Mountain as the site for permanent disposal of U.S. spent nuclear reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The Energy Department submitted its license application to the NRC in 2008, but the federal government wound down work on Yucca Mountain just two years later under direction from the Obama White House.
The Trump administration has sought funding to restart licensing, without luck to date. Congress provided no Yucca money for DOE or the NRC in the fiscal 2018 omnibus appropriations bill signed into law in March. While the House has proposed $270 million in fiscal 2019 for licensing activities between the two agencies, the Senate again appears set on zeroing out any such funding.
The County Board of Commissioners of Bernalillo County, N.M., on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution opposing rail transport of spent nuclear reactor fuel through the jurisdiction.
Bernalillo County, which encompasses Albuquerque in northern New Mexico, joins that city and other municipalities in the state in expressing concerns about Holtec International’s plans for a consolidated interim storage facility for used fuel in the state’s southeastern region.
“An accident could leave (sic) to the release of radioactive materials causing an environmental catastrophe that could cost millions or billions of dollars to remediate,” according to the summary for the resolution from Commissioner Debbie O’Malley, which the board approved on a voice vote. “The Commission believes that this resolution sets forth substantial groups to oppose the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s] granting of the license to operate its proposed temporary holding facility.”
Holtec, a New Jersey-based energy technology company, last year submitted a license application for a facility with a planned maximum capacity of more than 100,000 metric tons of radioactive material. The NRC is expected by 2020 to complete its technical review of the application, and with a license the facility could open by 2022.
“Nobody knows exactly what the routes would be, but we all know there are railroad lines that come through Bernalillo County, so any or all of those lines could be at risk,” Don Hancock, Nuclear Waste Safety Program director for the nongovernmental Southwest Research and Information Center, told the board.
Consolidated interim storage is seen as an avenue for the Department of Energy to meet its 1982 congressional mandate to remove spent fuel from U.S. power reactors while it tries to build a permanent repository. Hancock said the fuel remains safe at its point of generation.
“Over the last 40 years, thousands of shipments of government and commercially generated spent nuclear fuel have been transported throughout the United States without causing any radiological releases to the environment or harm to the public,” Joy Russell, Holtec vice president of corporate business development, said in a statement to RadWaste Monitor. “Holtec’s proposed facility in Lea County is of vital strategic importance to the US and we are thrilled to be working with so many who support this project. We understand this is a very technical proposal and look forward to meeting and educating the Bernalillo County Commission and others as we move forward.”
Speaking to the Carlsbad, N.M., Current-Argus, Holtec project director Ed Mayer emphasized the history of safe shipment of radioactive waste and the regulations intended to ensure the spent fuel storage site would not threaten its neighbors.
“There’s a risk with anything,” Mayer told the newspaper. “But that risk is defined by the heavy regulations of the NRC. There are threats the NRC wants to protect from. We have to prove we can do that.”
The European Commission has proposed that the European Union spend 1.178 billion euros — roughly $1.36 billion — on reactor decommissioning projects from 2020 to 2027, including in Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia.
This money is the European Union’s share of the decommissioning costs, with the three countries handling the majority of the expenses. It is part of a 4.8-billion-euro ($5.5 billion) tranche of security funding over that period.
The European Commission proposes legislation to the European Parliament, which votes on the common laws, appropriations, and measures of the 28-members European Union.
Following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, European leaders decided that so-called “High Power Channel Type Reactors” and first-generation Soviet-designed reactors need to be shut down. When Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia joined the European Union, they agreed to shut down and decommission eight of their Soviet-era reactors prior to the end of their design lives. That breaks down to four reactors at Bulgaria’s Kozloduy complex, whose design lives end in 2030; two reactors at Bohunice in Slovakia with 2025 end dates; and two reactors at Ignalina in Lithuania with 2038 end dates.
The European Commission’s website said the union is contributing money due to health concerns for workers and the general public, and as well is heading off future environmental damages. “As decommissioning activities in the EU will grow in the next decades, it is also a priority to build further knowledge in a sector which is not fully mature at this stage,” the website says.
In a report Wednesday, the European Commission said decommissioning at the three locations is on schedule.
“Bulgaria, Slovakia and Lithuania have made effective and efficient progress in decommissioning their reactors. There have been challenges and setbacks due to the complexity of the programmes, although the management system has increasingly proven that it can cope with them,” the report says.
The decommissioning budget proposal for 2021-2027 breaks down as follows:
- 552 million euros ($638 million) for Ignalina. For 2014-2020, the EU allocated roughly 450 million euros.
- 118 million euros ($136 million) for Kozloduy and Bohunice. For 2014-2020, the EU allocated roughly 500 million euros to the two sites.
- 348 million euros ($402 million) for decommissioning and waste management at nuclear research laboratories across Europe. For 2014-2020, the allocation was roughly 200 million euros.
- 160 million euros ($184 million) for general nuclear safety matters. For 2014-2020, a corresponding allocation figure could not be found.
From The Wires
From The Hill: Members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission express skepticism about national-security case for federal bailout of nuclear and coal plants.
From the Las Vegas Review-Journal: Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board members approve anti-Yucca Mountain resolution.
From The Associated Press: California appeals court upholds state lease extension for Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, which is scheduled for closure in 2025.
From Reuters: Swedish nuclear waste company anticipates government ruling by 2020 on application for disposal facility.
From World Nuclear News: Japanese nuclear regulator signs off on decommissioning approach for nation’s oldest reprocessing facility.
From Reuters: Tokyo Electric Power Co. to look at decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
