nuclear-news

Why US nuclear waste policy got stalled. And what to do about it.

A difficulty is that current law requires that, before the Energy Department can go forward with a surface storage facility to consolidate the used fuel, it has to have already selected a new geologic repository site, which isn’t happening.

Bulletin, By Victor Gilinsky | July 31, 2024, Victor Gilinsky is a physicist and was a commissioner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations

It is often said—somewhat accusingly—that it isn’t technical issues that stand in the way of siting a US geologic repository for highly radioactive waste, but political and social ones. In fact, the issues are inextricably connected. The root of the US failure lies in the original motive of the nuclear establishment in siting such an underground repository. It was not to protect public safety, but to protect continued licensing of nuclear power plants from attack in the courts on grounds that there were no provisions for dealing with the plants’ highly radioactive waste.

The disdain for public safety and the rush to open a repository infected the design process and fostered slapdash decisions. These ultimately sank the technical case for the repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. And while in the end the project was shelved by a political act, behind it were Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) actions that left a deep residue of public distrust, so deep that there isn’t likely to be a US geologic repository, ever.

The contrast with successful waste repository projects in Sweden and Finland is clear. Their regulatory standards were much tighter than those applied by the NRC, the sites were chosen carefully from a scientific point of view, and the designs strictly focused on public safety. It is not surprising that the Scandinavian authorities were able to gain the confidence of their public, and not just because they took pains to consult the public—which the Energy Department did not. They presented a good case for a sound underground facility.

Waste become a problem. ………………………………………………..

Selecting a bad site. Yucca Mountain was initially advertised as being very dry. It turned out there was lots more water in the mountain than the Department expected……………………………. It became clear the waste canisters would corrode much more rapidly than forecast and radioactive leakage beyond the site boundary would exceed even the lax standards imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency and adopted by the NRC……

A flawed licensing process. While the Energy Department wanted credit for the 11,000 drip shields in the NRC review of its license application, it didn’t intend to install them with the waste canisters. For one thing, the cost of the needed 55,000 tons of titanium alloy was substantial, and putting in drip shields would have complicated the waste installation process and required new, as yet undesigned, equipment. Instead, the Energy Department’s plan “postponed” drip shield installation until the repository closed for good, in 100-300 years. But by then it would be impossible to install drip shields over the waste canisters: The internal underground transportation system would not be functioning, and rockfall would anyhow make passage impossible. Asked how the NRC could possibly accept this fantastical commitment, I remember an Energy Department official responding that “the NRC may not question the promise of a sister agency.”

The Energy Department refused to run any computer analyses on how the repository would perform if the drip shields didn’t get installed. Nevada managed to do this and found that, without drip shields, the repository failed the licensing requirement for radioactive leakage from the site. ………………………………………………………

NRC staff participates in all agency licensing hearings. Since at that point staffers had already reviewed the application favorably, they supported the license applicant. In the Yucca Mountain case, the staff outdid itself in its support of the Energy Department. …………………………..

Stop the stalemate. The Yucca Mountain project was stalled indefinitely by the Obama administration before any substantive licensing hearing took place. It was not irrelevant that Nevada Senator Harry Reid was the Democratic majority leader, and his former assistant was NRC chairman. But the technical failures were a vital part of the background leading to this decision.

The 2012 report of a “Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future” recommended a “consent-based approach” to managing nuclear waste. The Energy Department got religion and formed an Office of Consent-Based Siting, whose website explains that consent-based siting “prioritizes the participation and needs of people and communities and seeks their willing and informed consent to accept a project in their community.” But the department still didn’t get it. It’s not making a show of consulting the public that gains trust. You need a good technical plan to start with and demonstrated competence and sense of responsibility to carry it out, as was the case in the Scandinavian countries. In my judgment, it’s too late for the Energy Department. I don’t think any state would ever trust the Energy Department to build and operate a nuclear waste repository.

The lack of a repository doesn’t seem to worry nuclear enthusiasts anymore, probably because it doesn’t threaten what reactor licensing there is. Recent legislation—the ADVANCE Act—to accelerate approval of new nuclear technologies does not mention nuclear waste at all. The focus is on subsidizing new reactor projects and “streamlining” licensing.

The United States, however, does need a better system for storing highly radioactive used fuel than the current situation of keeping it at over 80 storage locations in 36 states. A difficulty is that current law requires that, before the Energy Department can go forward with a surface storage facility to consolidate the used fuel, it has to have already selected a new geologic repository site, which isn’t happening. This restriction was inserted into the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to prevent the government from siting a “temporary” storage facility and then giving up on an underground repository for permanent disposal of the waste. Now, because of this restriction, the United States has neither centralized storage nor a repository, and the waste keeps piling up. Relaxing the provision in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that has prevented temporary consolidated storage has to be the starting point of a sensible nuclear waste policy. https://thebulletin.org/2024/07/why-us-nuclear-waste-policy-got-stalled-and-what-to-do-about-it/?utm_source=Newsletter+&utm_medium=Email+&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter08012024&utm_content=NuclearRisk_NuclearWastePolicyStalled_07312024

August 9, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes