Progress must be made on both Yucca Mountain licensing and consolidated interim storage in order for the U.S. to reach a permanent solution for nuclear waste management and disposal, incoming Nuclear Energy Institute President and CEO Maria Korsnick said Friday.
“I do believe it (all) needs to move together,” Korsnick said at a media briefing. “We have some folks (in Congress and in the industry) that will support the interim consolidated interim storage only if there’s progress on licensing for Yucca, and sort of ultimately for putting this policy in place we’re going to need the administration’s support. Not to say that we can’t make a little bit of progress on one, but the reality is we’re really going to need that to all to come into alignment to make progress.”
Korsnick on Jan. 1 will replace outgoing President and CEO Marvin Fertel, who is retiring from the position he has held for nine years with the nuclear industry lobbying group. The new chief executive joined NEI in May 2015 as a loaned executive from Exelon Generation and Constellation Energy Nuclear Group.
She said the reality is that the 74,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel that has accumulated at some 100 reactor sites around the country is safe. The issue, she said, is that the federal government has made a promise to collect and manage that fuel, as written in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
“So I just want to reinforce it’s not a safety concern, but it is a promise, right?” Korsnick said. “That the federal government made to all of these stations: We will find a place for this fuel. So we absolutely need to pursue the long-term solution for the ultimate storage.”
Korsnick was asked about concern that NEI only supports Yucca Mountain. The organization in July commented on the Energy Department’s consent-based siting program for nuclear waste, which is the Obama administration’s alternative to the canceled geologic repository in Nevada. The Department of Energy is now looking at one more more interim storage sites by 2025, followed by one or more permanent facilities by 2048, all of which would need to open with the support of area communities.
In its comments, NEI suggested DOE separate itself from private interim nuclear waste storage efforts that would fall under the program in Texas and New Mexico, while also demanding the department request congressional funding to complete the Yucca licensing review. The Obama administration suspended funding for Yucca Mountain licensing in 2011. NEI suggested that any new DOE siting process be used only in instances in which the department is establishing “a new facility,” meaning the West Texas and New Mexico projects would be separate.
“It’s a two-pronged approach, where we are in favor of the consolidated storage as long as we’re making progress with Yucca licensing,” Korsnick said.
Korsnick was asked about the positions of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump when it comes to nuclear waste management. Clinton’s camp has indicated an anti-Yucca Mountain approach, while Trump seems undecided, based on his remarks in Nevada last week.
“We need to let the dust settle after all this campaigning and sort of get into the next administration with whoever it is that lands in office and sort of lay out what the best game plan is with moving things forward,” she said.
Korsnick added that she doesn’t want to just focus on used fuel, as NEI will need to address a number of other issues facing the industry, including progress on advanced nuclear reactors and licensing new power plants.
Korsnick also touched on energy legislation in New York, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Clean Energy Standard seems to have staved off closures at three upstate nuclear plants, and in Illinois, whose lawmakers failed to pass a similar bill.
Exelon in May said it would close two of its Illinois nuclear power plants, the Quad Cities Generating Station and the Clinton Power Station, if legislators failed to pass the Next Generation Energy Plan, which they did. State Attorney General Lisa Madigan blasted the legislation as an unnecessary bailout for profitable companies, saying it would generate billions of dollars for Exelon and subsidiary ComEd in spending and profit paid for by consumers. The legislation in New York is expected to pay upstate nuclear operators about $1 billion in energy credits over the first few years of the program. If Exelon closes on a $110 million deal to purchase Entergy’s James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant, the company would own all three upstate plants. Asked if Exelon had cried wolf in Illinois, Korsnick said the company wants lawmakers to see what they’re losing, in terms of jobs and clean energy, by closing the power plants. She said Exelon has been accurate in describing the “dire situation” its plants are facing.
