A panel of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality on Thursday rejected a request for an exemption to state rules to enable EnergySolutions to move ahead with potential disposal of depleted uranium at its facility near the unincorporated community of Clive.
The Waste Management and Radiation Control Board voted against the Salt Lake City-based nuclear services company’s request that it not be required to conduct an otherwise-mandatory performance assessment to demonstrate there will be no breach of performance standards prior to disposal of over 1 metric ton of concentrated depleted uranium, according to a DEQ press release.
One board member was not at the meeting and another from EnergySolutions abstained, but the vote was otherwise unanimous. “Although board feels confident in EnergySolutions ability, board majority is uncomfortable accepting DU without a completed PA,” the state agency said on Twitter.
EnergySolutions wanted to provide a permanent disposal option for roughly 6,000 metric tons of solid depleted uranium metal left by dismantlement of Defense Department munitions. A representative from the company told the board it would lose the business opportunity if the regulatory proceeding is not accelerated, according to the DEQ Twitter feed.
The deadline for bids on that business is anticipated before the Department of Environmental Quality wraps up a separate performance assessment for disposal at Clive of depleted uranium oxide, the Salt Lake City Tribune reported. That document is likely to land in 2019.
“There is no NRC rule or guidance that says EnergySolutions is limited to 1 ton,” EnergySolutions said at the meeting.
In a presentation to the board, DEQ Waste Management and Radiation Control personnel noted concerns such as the potential for the depleted uranium to “react to form explosive substances,” according to the press release. “DEQ said it could not support the exemption without a specific DU metal performance assessment that demonstrated that there would be no undue hazards to public health and safety or the environment and that performance objectives would be met.”
“While disappointed by the Utah regulator’s recommendation today, EnergySolutions will continue to cooperate with the ongoing regulatory review of the performance assessment that was initially submitted to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality in 2011 and concurs with the Board’s request to expeditiously complete their review,” EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said Friday by email.
Perma-Fix Environmental Services has applied for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ship low-level radioactive waste back to Mexico after treatment.
The two-reactor Laguna Verde nuclear power plant near Veracruz is expected to send radioactively contaminated metals, wood, paper, concrete, and other materials for treatment and processing at Perma-Fix facilities in Richland, Wash., and Kingston, Tenn. The material was produced by “operations, maintenance, modifications, laboratory analysis, and laundry activities” at the facility, Perma-Fix said in an attachment to the revised application filed Aug. 30.
The export license would cover as much as 650,000 kilograms of thermal treatment residues, stabilized or solidified wastes, or “size-reduced metals” that could not be recycled, according to an Aug. 30 letter from Tammy Monday, vice president for waste services sales and business development at the Atlanta-based waste management provider, to David Skeen, deputy director of the NRC’s Office of International Programs.
“Although, waste classification does not apply to the waste streams managed under this export license the waste streams are equivalent to Class A, B and C” low-level radioactive waste, the export application says.
The material would be shipped by truck back through the port of exit at Laredo, Texas, for storage and eventual disposal in Mexico.
Monday said she could not discuss details of the waste treatment project, which remains part of an active procurement.
There was no word this week on the timeline for an NRC decision on the export license. Shipments are scheduled to begin no sooner than Dec. 1 of this year and to continue up to Nov. 25, 2023, according to the application.
The NRC on Wednesday issued a notice in the Federal Register opening the proceeding for public comment and requests for a hearing or intervention through Nov. 23. Comments can be submitted at www.regulations.gov, Docket ID NRC-2012-7946; by email to [email protected]; by fax to Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 301-415-1101; by mail to Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C., 20555-0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff; or in person at NRC headquarters, 11555 Rockville Pike in Rockville, Md.
Entergy said Thursday it would place the second spent fuel storage pad for its Atlantic Ocean-side Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station 75 feet above sea level and 700 feet from shore.
That is in line with requests from Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who said he and residents near the Cape Cod facility had worried about the potential impact of climate change and rising sea levels on storage of the radioactive waste.
The new independent spent fuel storage installation “will be located in the upper parking lot in the southwest corner of the property,” the New Orleans-based energy company said in a prepared statement. “This second pad will be at an elevation of 75 feet above mean sea level, some 350 feet from Rocky Hill Road and 700 feet from the closest point of the shoreline.”
Two other locations were considered, one near Pilgrim’s existing ISFSI and the other in the southeast corner of the plot on which the plant sits, Entergy said. All three sites were assessed under nine technical and regulatory facets, including storage capacity and layout, potential hazards, and how the selected site could affect reactor decommissioning.
Entergy plans to close the boiling-water reactor facility no later than June 1, 2019, after which more than 4,000 spent fuel assemblies will be divided between the two ISFSIs. As of late 2017, nearly 3,000 of those were still in a cooling pool, with the rest about evenly divided between the first storage pad and the reactor.
At present, some of the used fuel assemblies are held in 17 containers on the first storage pad, roughly 25 feet above Plymouth Bay and 200 feet from the edge of the coast, the Boston Globe reported.
Entergy hopes to begin construction of the second ISFSI before Pilgrim closes. All used fuel should be on the storage pads by 2022, a spokesman said Thursday.
The company plans by the end of 2019 to sell the site to Holtec International, a New Jersey energy technology company that would assume responsibility for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management. Holtec says it can complete decommissioning by 2027.
“A safe and secure future for the community around Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant needs to include a plan for all dangerous spent nuclear fuel, and I will continue to work with the neighboring residents and closely watch actions taken by Pilgrim,” Markey said in a prepared statement Thursday. “It’s time for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to take its head out of the sand and recognize the threat climate change poses to nuclear power plants across the country. Rising seas, warmer waters, and stronger storms are the new normal, and the NRC needs to take them into account when ensuring the safety of Pilgrim and all nuclear power plants.”
SHINE Medical Technologies has received its first production accelerator as it gears up for manufacturing the medical isotope molybdenum-99.
The accelerator from Phoenix LLC arrived on Oct. 15 in Building One of SHINE’s facility in Janesville, Wis., facility, according to an Oct. 18 press release. It will be used for training, preparing maintenance procedures, and other work as SHINE builds its actual production plant.
“This is a really special day for all of us, and is personally very exciting for me,” SHINE CEO Greg Piefer said in the release. “This delivery represents the culmination of almost a decade of joint work between Phoenix and SHINE, moving from proof of concept, to proof of scale, and now to a commercial-ready unit that can produce thousands of doses of medicine per day when paired with the SHINE target. Our tests in Building One will prove the technology is ready for production and provide us important maintenance and operational data well in advance of starting up the actual plant.”
SHINE plans next spring to start building the manufacturing facility, which when complete will house eight separate units for isotope production without the need for a nuclear reactor. Each of those units will have a neutron generator from Phoenix, a Monona, Wis., company that specializes in the technology.
SHINE has received a Nuclear Regulatory Commission permit to build its $100 million facility and expects to apply for an operations permit by the end of this year. Management plans to begin producing molybdenum-99 for the commercial market in 2021 and to eventually provide one-third of the worldwide need for the isotope, which decays into the isotope technetium-99m. That material is used for medical imaging and other purposes.
The United States has since 1989 had no domestic production capability for the molybdenum-99. Several companies are competing to provide that capacity.
From The Wires
From the Detroit Free Press: 60,000 tons of radioactive waste is left near the Great Lakes.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Owner of West Lake Landfill sues to recoup part of cost for cleanup.
From the Wisconsin State Journal: NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes readies to begin production of crucial medical isotope.
From the Adelaide, Australia, Advertiser (subscription-only): Decision on location of radioactive waste repository expected to be delayed to 2019 by federal court case.
From Euronews: Nobel physics prize winner believes lasers could be applied to nuclear waste safety.
