nuclear-news

New Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision” (NWCD) designed to let nuclear power continue?

the fact that their best scenario now projects a repository to be ready by about 2050 is a story in itself.

Seventy Years of Nuclear Fission, Thousands of Centuries of Nuclear Waste ,25 January 2013 By Gregg Levine, Truthout   “…….Confidence Game

Two months after the Appeals Court found fault with the NRC’s imaginary waste mitigation scenario, the agency announced it would suspend the issuing of new reactor operating licenses, license renewals and construction licenses until the agency could craft a new plan for dealing with the nation’s growing spent nuclear fuel crisis. In drafting its new nuclear “Waste Confidence Decision” (NWCD) – the methodology used to assess the hazards of nuclear waste storage – the Commission said it would evaluate all possible options for resolving the issue.

At first, the NRC said this could include both generic and site-specific actions (remember, the court criticized the NRC’s generic appraisals of pool safety), but as the prescribed process now progresses, it appears any new rule will be designed to give the agency, and so, the industry, as much wiggle room as possible. At a public hearing in November 2012, and later at a pair of web conferences in early December, the regulator’s Waste Confidence Directorate (yes, that’s what it is called) outlined three scenarios [PDF] for any future rulemaking:

• Storage until a repository becomes available at the middle of the century
• Storage until a repository becomes available at the end of the century
• Continued storage in the event a repository is not available.

• And while, given the current state of affairs, the first option seems optimistic, the fact that their best scenario now projects a repository to be ready by about 2050 is a story in itself.

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  When the NWPA was signed into law by President Reagan early in 1983, it was expected the process it set in motion would present at least one (and preferably another) long-term repository by the late 1990s. But by the time the “Screw Nevada Bill” (as it is affectionately known in the Silver State) locked in Yucca Mountain as the only option for permanent nuclear waste storage, the projected opening was pushed back to 2007.

  But Yucca encountered problems from its earliest days, so a mid-90s revision of the timeline postponed the official start, this time to 2010. By 2006, the DOE was pegging Yucca’s opening at 2017. And, when the NWPA was again revised in 2010 – after Yucca was deemed a non-option – it conveniently avoided setting a date for the opening of a national long-term waste repository altogether.

  It was that 2010 revision that was thrown out by the courts in June…….. http://truth-out.org/news/item/14065-seventy-years-of-nuclear-fission-thousands-of-centuries-of-nuclear-waste

   

January 26, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Reference, safety, USA, wastes