By John Stang
Wyoming legislative leaders voted earlier this month to explore whether the state should host a consolidated interim storage site for used nuclear reactor fuel — similar to projects underway in New Mexico and Texas.
The unannounced 7-6 email vote on July 8 by the state legislature’s management council paved the way for establishment of the seven-member study subcommittee.
The effort is sparked by “the war on coal and the war on fossil fuels really hitting Wyoming,” state Sen. Jim Anderson (R), who developed the legislative proposal, told RadWaste Monitor.
Two coal mines closed on July 1 in the state due to the bankruptcy of owner Blackjewel. However, the company that owned the mines prior to Blackjewel told a federal bankruptcy court on Thursday it is willing to buy them back for reopening in a few years, according to the Casper Star-Tribune.
Anderson, chairman of the Wyoming Senate’s Mineral Committee, remembered past attempts in the 1990s to locate a nuclear waste storage site in the state, and decided the idea was worth reconsidering.
The subcommittee plans to meet with officials from the U.S. Department of Energy to find out what would be involved in setting up a consolidated interim used fuel storage site and if the state can receive federal money for hosting such a facility. No meeting date has been set yet.
The subcommittee expects to finish discussions with DOE by October. If it wants to pursue the matter further, it could prepare a bill for the legislature’s 2020 session to set a more formal process in motion.
Anderson said Wyoming has twice considered this idea in the past 25 years, and it went nowhere. In one previous examination of the concept, legislators heard speculation that the state could receive $1 billion annually in revenue from such a venture.
It is unknown whether renewed effort could result in $1 billion in annual revenue to the state, Anderson said: “Before we go any further, we want to get the facts.”
The Department of Energy is legally responsible for disposal of tens of thousands of tons of spent fuel from nuclear power plants, along with high-level radioactive waste from defense nuclear operations. It is already more than 21 years past the Jan. 31, 1998, deadline Congress set in 1982 for beginning the process. Consolidated interim storage could be an opportunity for DOE to meet its obligation in the continued absence of a permanent repository.
The corporate teams behind the planned New Mexico and Texas facilities have said the Energy Department could be their customer, or they could deal directly with the nuclear utilities that today are stuck with the used fuel.
WyoFile, a Wyoming political and environmental news website, said two defunct uranium mines — Gas Hills east of Riverton and Shirley Basin south of Casper — have been mentioned as possible sites for the storage facility.
The overwhelmingly Republican Wyoming Legislature has a management council that consists of leaders of both parties, totaling 13 members, that assigns studies and tasks to the legislative committees. During a recent review of email votes by the management council, WyoFile stumbled across the July 8 vote to establish the study subcommittee. There was no advance announcement of the vote, according to the website. The Wyoming legislature is currently not in session.
Anderson and study committee members Joe MacGuire (R) and Don Burkhart (R) said voting by email is not common, but has been used in the past due to Wyoming’s vast size and state capital Cheyenne being tucked into one corner of the state.
All three said they are undecided on whether to pursue a consolidated interim used fuel site, but wanted to gather information to see if the idea is worth additional exploration. “There’s going be a lot of emotion on both sides,” Burkhart said.
Interim Storage Partners hopes to obtain an initial 40-year NRC license in 2021 or 2022 to build and operate an interim storage site in western Texas. The tentative construction completion date is 2023 or 2024, beginning with 5,000 metric tons of storage capacity. The site could ultimately hold 40,000 metric tons of capacity, potentially licensed for up to 120 years.
Meanwhile, Holtec International hopes by 2023 to open the initially licensed part of used fuel facility, with underground-storage capacity for 8,680 metric tons between the cities of Hobbs and Carlsbad in New Mexico. Its total capacity could eventually exceed 100,000 metric tons.
A 2019 report by the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance said the Holtec project could result in $2.4 billion in capital investments into the region, plus 115 construction jobs and 100 permanent jobs. The alliance, a coalition of two counties and two cities in the area, is partnering with Holtec on the facility.
Holtec and ISP said they are aware of the brainstorming that emerged three weeks ago in Wyoming, but neither is interested in a Wyoming project at this point in time. Anderson said no one in Wyoming has considered a potential corporate partner yet. Holtec’s and ISP’s current projects are several years ahead of any potential Wyoming effort in planning and permitting.
