nuclear-news

USA Dept of Energy’s poor record on nuclear waste management

Nuclear waste management needs new agency, says commission   http://www.fiercehomelandsecurity.com/story/nuclear-waste-management-needs-new-agency-says-commission/2012-01-30  Fierce Homeland Security January 30, 2012 —   By David Perera The Energy Department’s poor record on nuclear waste management means the federal government should set up a new, congressionally chartered federal corporation to take over dedicated responsibility for the matter, says a final set of recommendations from a blue ribbon commission chartered by President Obama in 2010.

The panel’s report, released Jan. 26, characterizes the overall record of U.S. nuclear waste management as one of “broken promises and unmet commitments.” Obama set up the commission following his administration’s 2010 decision to withdraw the license application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. The commission is co-chaired by former Rep. Lee Hamilton and Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.
The central task of a new federal waste management organization would be to stand up sites for the final disposal of spent fuel and nuclear waste, the report says. Addressing the question of whether a deep geologic repository–along the lines of what the Yucca Mountain facility was intended to be–is necessary, the commission says “it is the only responsible way” to manage nuclear waste.
The benefits and commercial viability of spent fuel recycling are too uncertain for the United States to committee to it as a matter of policy, the report says. In any case, spent fuel reprocessing generates nuclear waste that requires disposal, it adds.
The commission also urges development of consolidated interim storage facilities, particularly for spent fuel stored at shutdown nuclear plants. Currently, about 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors–including shuttered plants–have no location for storage other than the grounds of the reactors themselves. About three quarters of the spent fuel resides in pools, which originally had been intended only as a short-term storage area. The National Regulatory Commission estimates that nuclear power plants will reach full pool storage capacity in 2015. The remainder of the spent fuel is in “dry casks,” multi-layered containers with inert gas inside that rely on passive air cooling to dissipate heat buildup.
Standing up disposal or storage facilities has been “the most consistent and most intractable challenge” for managing nuclear waste, the report acknowledges, leading the commission to recommend a siting process that encourages communities to volunteer to host a nuclear waste facility.
The new federally chartered corporation that would oversee the process could be funded with existing waste disposal fees ratepayers pay for nuclear-generated electricity, the report adds. In fact, Congress should act to ensure to guarantee that the new organization has access to the fees, the report says, since the Energy Department now must compete for annual appropriations dollars to fund waste activities. That creates uncertainties that the fee was meant to alleviate, it adds.
For more:
– download the commission’s final report (.pdf)
– go to a commission webpage with additional material

Read more: Nuclear waste management needs new agency, says commission – FierceHomelandSecurity http://www.fiercehomelandsecurity.com/story/nuclear-waste-management-needs-new-agency-says-commission/2012-01-30#ixzz1l4pgNnP1

February 1, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes