nuclear-news

Connecticut welcomes Appeals Court decision discouraging decades of nuclear fuel storage

Spent nuclear fuel storage decision praised, West Hartford News, June 12, 2012 By Luther Turmelle   A federal appeals court is forcing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to rethink its rules regarding how long spent nuclear fuel can be stored on site at current and former reactors.

State Attorney General George Jepsen called Friday’s unanimous decision by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia a landmark ruling. Connecticut was one of several Northeast states that challenged changes made in 2010 by the NRC to rules
governing waste storage at reactor sites.

Before the change, spent fuel could be stored on site for up to 30 years after a reactor closed. But the NRC increased the period of time to 60 years and made other changes to its rules governing the storage of spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants.

“This is a critical decision for Connecticut and other states with nuclear power plants,” Jepsen said. “It means the federal regulators must make a full and comprehensive analysis of the potential environmental impact before allowing additional decades of storage of
high-level nuclear waste at reactor sites.”
The Obama administration has cut off funds for a proposed nuclear
waste dump in Nevada, but has not identified an alternative site. The
appeals court said the NRC should complete a detailed environmental
review of on-site storage or explain why one is not needed.

The states that challenged the NRC had argued that any leaks from
spent fuel-storage pools or dry-storage facilities could have
significant impacts on groundwater and land use. They contended those
factors should have been considered before the storage period was
extended.

Both the Indian Point reactor in New York and the Vermont Yankee
reactor have had leaks of small amounts of nuclear material into the
groundwater. Both reactors are owned by New Orleans-based Entergy.

Connecticut has two operating nuclear plants, Millstone 2 and 3 in
Waterford and two decommissioned nuclear plants, Millstone 1 in
Waterford and Connecticut Yankee in Haddam.

Although the Connecticut Yankee plant has been torn down, a portion of
the former site has been set aside to store the spent fuel, awaiting a
permanent federal storage facility. The spent fuel from Millstone 1 is
stored on the site of the former plant as well.

Pat Parenteau, a professor at the Vermont Law School, said the court’s
ruling will require the NRC to develop generic environmental
assessments on both the likelihood of spent nuclear fuel material
leaking into groundwater and contaminating the land on which the
storage sites are located. The NRC could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to
overturn the appeals court decision, but is not expected to, Parenteau
said…..
“The court also said the NRC has to look at the risk of fires starting
in these pools and develop a plan for fighting them if they occur. The
NRC really didn’t consider any of the consequences if either of these
things happened; they basically said it was very unlikely.”

Parenteau said the court’s ruling essentially allows the NRC to make
the changes to its existing rules, rather than requiring the
regulatory agency to develop new ones.

But there is an even bigger question the NRC must face, even after it
reconfigures its rules regarding spent nuclear fuel storage, Parenteau
said.

“The real question: ‘What’s next?’” he said. “There’s no place for the
waste to go. And utility commissions in a number of states could
conceivably argue that until a national facility is built, that the
existing repositories in their jurisdictions should no longer accept
any new spent nuclear fuel.”….
http://www.westhartfordnews.com/articles/2012/06/12/news/doc4fd77c3522df1254512025.txt?viewmode=2

June 13, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA