Governors from 22 western states and territories last week called on the new Congress to advance a solution to the long impasse over disposal of U.S. radioactive waste.
Radioactive waste management was among the many issues for state and federal cooperation included in the Western Governors’ Association’s priorities list, mailed Jan. 14 to the leaders of both the House and Senate. Specifically, the organization called on Congress to:
- “Work cooperatively with states in implementing a policy to ensure the safe transportation, storage, and disposal of spent fuel and high-level waste.”
- “Require the consent of an affected state’s Governor before allowing construction of a centralized interim storage facility.”
The letter is in line with a more-detailed policy resolution the WGA approved last June on transportation, storage, and disposal of radioactive waste, radioactive materials, and spent nuclear fuel.
The federal government has for decades sought a permanent repository for what is now about 100,000 metric tons of used fuel from commercial power reactors and high-level radioactive waste from defense nuclear work. The domestic stockpile of spent fuel grows by about 2,000 tons per year.
Nevada is one of the states represented in the WGA. The state has for decades been battling the federal government’s efforts to establish a disposal site for nuclear waste under Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Two other member states, New Mexico and Texas, would be home to planned interim storage sites for spent nuclear reactor fuel. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing license applications for both projects.
In the last two budget cycles, Congress has failed to appropriate any money for establishing temporary or permanent waste facilities. Federal agencies are expected next month to roll out their latest budget plans, with Congress coming up with its own funding approaches through the spring. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the lead energy appropriator in the Senate, has said he wants funding for both Yucca Mountain and interim storage this year.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) plans this year to drill two more boreholes in one of the five locations being evaluated for a deep geological repository for the nation’s used nuclear reactor fuel.
These will be the second and third boreholes drilled in the Ignace area in northwest Ontario. The first was completed in early 2018.
“We’re working with other communities to plan drilling on potential sites in their areas as early as next year,” Lisa Frizzell, vice president for stakeholder relations with NWMO, said Wednesday during a presentation at the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management’s Spent Fuel Management Seminar.
Each nrrow borehole costs $3 million to $4 million (CAD), covering all activities involved — from site preparation to drilling to analysis and testing of samples.
Up to 10 boreholes will be drilled at each potential repository site, down as far as 1,000 meters into the earth. Samples taken from each borehole will help the organization analyze the rock at the locations being considered for the disposal facility. Drilling will go deeper than the plan for the repository itself, which would be at 500 meters underground.
“We need to get a good picture of what the geology looks like so we can build the safety case” for the location that is eventually selected for the repository, Frizzell told RadWaste Monitor after her presentation.
The NWMO is a nonprofit, nongovernmental entity established in 2002 by three Canadian nuclear utilities to site, design, and build a repository for what could eventually be 5.2 million bundles of used fuel from power plants. The organization expects to select the location by 2023, with operations beginning in the early to mid-2040s. As of 2018, the full life-cycle cost estimate for the project was was $23 billion (CAD, in 2015 dollars).
All five locations being considered are in the province of Ontario: Ignace, Homepayne, Huron-Kinloss, Manitouwadge, and South Bruce.
The GeoMelt vitrification system installed at Perma-Fix Northwest in Richland, Wash., has wrapped up its initial demonstration melt of sodium-contaminated radioactive waste from the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL).
Paris-based Veolia owns the waste processing technology, obtained in its 2016 acquisition of Kurion of Irvine, Calif. One of the systems was deployed to the Perma-Fix Environmental Services property in Washington state.
Veolia Nuclear Solutions Federal Services in September received the INL contract to “demonstrate at full-scale” the system’s capabilities to process the reactive metals into an inert oxide form safe for disposal, according to a Perma-Fix press release Tuesday. Both companies then carried out the work.
The Idaho National Laboratory has since the 1980s held drums of waste from the Enrico Fermi nuclear power plant in Michigan, which were contaminated with low-level radioactively contaminated elemental sodium, the Atlanta-based environmental services company said. The first melt of 55 drums wrapped up on Dec. 20.
Additional demonstration melts are anticipated in 2019, with the number based on “the specific configuration of the waste to be processed,” a Veolia spokesman said by email Thursday. The resulting material will then be shipped to a licensed disposal facility.
“I am pleased to report we successfully completed hot commissioning and an important demonstration project for the US Department of Energy Idaho National Laboratory to treat sodium contaminated radioactive wastes,” Perma-Fix President and CEO Mark Duff said in the release. “Expanding our PFNW facility to accept and treat sodium contaminated radioactive wastes provides an outlet for these wastes that is not currently available. This successful demonstration marks an important milestone in our partnership with Veolia Nuclear Solutions and illustrates the unique nature of our facilities, permits and capabilities. Importantly, we continue to execute on our strategy to broaden our market base by treating complex waste streams through new technologies and partnerships within our industry.”
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy said Tuesday it has completed the first of two reactor segmentation operations for Sweden’s Oskarshamn Nuclear Power Plant.
The work on Unit 2 is covered under a contract the Wilmington, N.C., company received in January 2017 for the OKG AB-operated plant near the city of Oskarshamn. Terms of the award have not been released.
Segmentation of Unit 2 began in May 2018. Working underwater, personnel disassembled, segmented, and packaged the parts of the boiling-water reactor that was retired in 2015 after 41 years of service. The components are held in steel tanks on-site until permanent disposal is ready.
Corresponding work on reactor Unit 1, which closed in 2017 following 45 years of operation, is expected to begin soon and to wrap up in 2020, a GE Hitachi spokesperson said Friday by email.
The third reactor at Oskarshamn remains operational.
From The Wires
From Forbes: New book says then-Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko undercut the U.S. response to the March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.
From KXNET.com: North Dakota lawmakers consider legislation on permitting storage of nuclear waste in the state.
