Happy Friday, nuke-watchers. Before we head into the weekend, here are a couple of other stories RadWaste Monitor was tracking this week.
Former Chernobyl Nuclear Plant, Waste Sites in Russian Hands, Ukraine Says
The status of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant and its waste facilities are “unknown” after Russian forces seized the site Thursday, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told local media.
“After a fierce battle, our control over the Chernobyl site was lost,” presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak told Ukrainian publication Ukrainian Pravda Thursday. “The condition of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant, confinement and nuclear waste storage facilities is unknown.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report Thursday that there had been “no casualties or destruction” at the site.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine early Thursday, which began with missile and artillery strikes across the country followed by an air and ground incursion.
Chernobyl, a former four-reactor RBMK-1000 plant operated by the Soviet Union, was in 1986 the site of one of the worst radioactive releases in history when its No. 4 reactor exploded. The resulting meltdown contaminated almost 40,000 square miles of land around the plant and forced the evacuation of neighboring city Pripyat.
NRC Secures Deadline Extension for Interim Storage Suit Comeback
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has until the spring to formulate its response to the Texas attorney general’s arguments challenging a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in the Lone Star State, a federal judge ruled this week.
April 18 is the new deadline for NRC’s next brief in state Attorney General Ken Paxton’s suit over the proposed Interim Storage Partners (ISP) site, a judge in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. The commission on Feb. 15 asked for an extension on the deadline.
Paxton’s team argued Feb. 7 that NRC “lacks authority” to license a private interim storage facility like ISP’s, challenging the agency’s assertion that the Atomic Energy Act gives it such authority.
“No language in the Atomic Energy Act grants the Commission the power to license private, away-from-reactor storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel,” Paxton said.
Paxton also said that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act bars NRC from licensing interim storage before a permanent waste repository is operational — a claim that has received pushback from both the commission and some experts.
If ISP, a joint venture between Waste Control Specialists and Orano USA, manages to build its proposed interim storage site, the company has said it could eventually hold around 40,000 tons of spent fuel during its 40-year license — around half of the roughly 80,000 tons of nuclear waste currently stranded at reactor sites across the country. NRC licensed the project in September.
Michigan Dems Still Opposing Proposed Canadian Nuke Waste Repository
Michigan’s congressional delegation came out swinging again last week against a Canadian proposal to build a nuclear waste repository along the Great Lakes, according to a press release.
Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) introduced a resolution opposing Ottawa’s proposed repository in South Bruce, Ontario, the lawmakers said in a Feb. 16 press release. The resolution urged President Joe Biden “to work with the Canadian government to find an alternative location to permanently store nuclear waste that does not pose a threat to the Great Lakes,” the release said.
“Placing a nuclear waste facility next to one of the world’s largest supplies of fresh water makes absolutely no sense and is dangerous,” Stabenow said. “Our Great Lakes are central to our Michigan way of life, and any nuclear waste spill would be devastating.”
The proposed South Bruce site, located along Lake Huron, has drawn consternation from the Michigan delegation in recent months. A September resolution in the House led by Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) also pressed the Biden administration to prevent Canada from moving forward with a potential repository.
Ottawa’s state-run Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is also considering a site in Ignace, Ontario for a repository. NWMO in November finished borehole testing at the Ignace location, in what it called a “significant milestone” in determining whether it could eventually host Canada’s nuclear waste.
