A proposed change to Texas regulations would reserve a small amount of disposal capacity in the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact facility for “small quantity” waste generators from states that are not direct members to the agreement.
The change would be made through an amendment and addition to the Texas Administrative Code, according to a notice in the July 5 edition of the Texas Register.
If approved, the update would redefine a small-quantity generator as producing up to 200 cubic feet or 100 curies of low-level waste on an annual basis, and specifically not a nuclear power plant, electric utility, or the Pentagon. The current cap is 100 cubic feet per year, “provided that the curie level of such waste is minimal as compared to the curie limit in the Compact Facility’s license as determined by the” Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission. That language would be eliminated in the revised regulation.
An entirely new section to the Texas Administrative Code would then allot 2,000 curies per fiscal year specifically for waste from small-quantity generators in states that are not party to the compact. The commission would also be given the authority to increase the reserved amount, if warranted based on national demand for low-level waste disposal. However, the boost would only be good for one fiscal year at a time.
The state of Texas is the owner and licensee for the low-level waste compact facility, which is operated by Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists in its Andrews County disposal facility. Texas and Vermont are the only members of the compact, but 34 other states can dispose of their low-level waste at the facility at higher charges.
In total, the compact facility is allowed under Texas health and safety rules to take up to 275,000 curies of waste from non-party states in a single fiscal year. “The proposed amendment and new rule will better serve the public by ensuring that small quantity generators of low-level radioactive waste will have available capacity from the total annual allotment for the disposal of that waste,” according to the Texas Register notice. “It is critical that all generators of low-level radioactive waste have a pathway for disposal, however, because of their size, small quantity generators may not have the same resources to arrange for disposal as their larger counterparts.”
The proposed regulatory revisions can be adopted no sooner than Aug. 4. Stakeholders can submit comments through Aug. 3 to Leigh Ing, Executive Director, Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, 919 Congress Ave., Suite 830, Austin, Texas 78701, or by email at [email protected].
Waste Control Specialists President and Chief Operating Officer David Carlson referred questions on the proposal to Ing, who did not respond to a query by deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor.
The head of the government-owned company that manages the United Kingdom’s Sellafield nuclear site is scheduled to step down in January.
Paul Foster has served as chief executive officer at Sellafield Ltd. since 2016, and has been at the site since 2000, according to an announcement Thursday.
Sellafield Ltd. manages nuclear fuel reprocessing and remediation at the Cold War-era facility that contributed to the U.K.’s nuclear weapons and power programs, including through production of plutonium. The company in April 2016 became a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.K.’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the branch of the government charged with remediation of the nation’s nuclear complex.
In a press release, the NDA said Foster had overseen “unprecedented progress” in cleanup at Sellafield, citing examples including extraction of all used nuclear fuel from the world’s first nuclear fuel pond and beginning removal of materials from multiple facilities.
“In the process, Paul established Sellafield Ltd as a business that delivers more value for money than ever before; Sellafield Ltd is on target to deliver £1.4 billion in efficiencies by 2020 and has pledged a further £1 – £1.4 billion to government by 2029,” the release says.
A November 2018 report from the British House of Commons, though, said most major projects at Sellafield were significantly behind schedule and were expected to exceed their total budgets by £913 million.
There was no mention in the NDA press release regarding Foster’s successor.
Foster started at Sellafield Ltd. when it was privately operated. His positions at the site have included chief operating officer, decommissioning director, and infrastructure director. Previously, he worked for 12 years in the steel industry, according to his Bloomberg profile.
The government of the United Kingdom prefers to establish just one geological repository for its higher-activity radioactive waste, but cannot rule out that multiple disposal sites might be necessary.
The message was affirmed in the latest iteration of the government’s National Policy Statement on geological disposal infrastructure, submitted to the U.K. Parliament at the end of June. The document is intended to help guide decisions on approval of infrastructure projects. That would cover both potential repositories and deep boreholes that would be used in site characterization.
Deep geological disposal would involve permanent disposal of radioactive waste no less than 200 meters below round or under the seabed, with both engineered and natural barriers preventing the escape of any radioactive contaminants.
“The development of one site for geological disposal of the entire inventory would allow for the sharing of surface facilities, access tunnels, construction support and security provisions, leading to major cost savings, and lower environmental impacts,” according to the NPS. “However, it may not be practical to dispose of all the waste in one geological disposal facility, and so it cannot be ruled out that more than one such facility will be required.”
The nation held 744,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste that would go into geologic disposal as of 2016, according to the inventory published last October. The total stockpile ultimately could encompass eight specific types of waste, including: high-level waste generated by reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel at the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria; intermediate-level waste from various nuclear operations; spent fuel from nuclear power plants, though that has yet to be formally characterized as waste; and a limited amount of low-level waste that cannot go into a separate repository planned for that material type.
The material is now held by its owners at dozens of sites across the United Kingdom.
Radioactive Waste Management, a branch of the U.K. government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, in December 2018 formally began site selection in England and Wales. A prior selection process ended in 2013 after local leaders in Cumbria rejected the facility.
“Identifying a willing host community with a suitable site for a GDF may be a lengthy process,” the report says. “This is because it will take RWM time to identify, investigate and evaluate potential sites and to make sure that communities that choose to get involved understand the implications of a GDF being developed in their area.”
Developmental nuclear power reactors do not provide an easy solution to management of the radioactive waste generated by the technology, according to a onetime head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“Plans to revitalize US nuclear power, which is in dire economic straits, depend on the potential for new, ‘advanced’ reactors to reduce and recycle the waste they produce. Unfortunately, as they ‘burn’ some kinds of nuclear wastes, these plants will create other kinds that also require disposal,” former NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane and Sharon Squassoni, a nuclear nonproliferation specialist at George Washington University, wrote in a July 8 commentary in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Macfarlane and Squassoni expressed skepticism about the viability of next-generation nuclear power reactors, which are being developed by a host of companies ranging the Bill Gates-backed TerraPower to energy technology firm Holtec International. The U.S. government has thrown its weight behind advance nuclear technology with funding and legislative support.
The current fleet of U.S. nuclear power plants has for years faced economic challenges including low-cost energy production competition from natural gas. That has led to a series of closures and planned shutdowns, most recently the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts on May 31. Proponents hope small modular reactors and other forms of advanced nuclear power will provide a less-expensive option to revitalize the industry.
“Many of these ‘advanced’ reactors are actually repackaged designs from 70 years ago. If the United States, France, the UK, Germany, Japan, Russia, and others could not make these reactors economically viable power producers in that time, despite spending more than $60 billion, what is different now?” Macfarlane and Squassoni wrote “Moreover, all of the ‘advanced’ designs under discussion now are simply ‘PowerPoint’ reactors: They have not been built at scale, and, as a result, we don’t really know all the waste streams that they will produce.”
They cited the production of sizeable amounts of high-level waste from new power facilities, along with hydrofluoric acid that would require additional reprocessing for safe disposal.
From The Wires
From The Philadelphia Inquirer: Federal inspector general’s report indicates energy technology company Holtec International delivered tens of thousands of dollars to a federal manager while seeking a federal contract more than a decade ago.
From the Brattleboro, Vt., Reformer: NorthStar Group Services says it is six months ahead of schedule in decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
From WilmingtonBiz: GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy wins a contract to support decommissioning of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station.
From SBS News: An Australian federal court has rejected an effort by an Aboriginal group to head off a potential radioactive waste disposal site near the town of Kimba in South Australia.
