Radioactive waste storage is revised
WASHINGTON -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is revising its estimates of how long nuclear waste can be kept safely at power-generating facilities as confidence shrinks that the radioactive material ever would be shipped to a Yucca Mountain repository.
The agency could decide this summer that spent nuclear fuel could be stored securely in above-ground concrete and steel casks for at least 120 years, which is 20 years longer than current policy, NRC Chairman Dale Klein said at a Senate hearing Wednesday.
The NRC set forth its proposal last fall, after the Department of Energy sent the agency a construction license application but before the election of President Barack Obama. He opposes the project and has indicated he will take steps to scale it back dramatically.
"We wanted to have a clear understanding of our confidence in the event the Yucca Mountain site is not successful," Klein told members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "Because of the uncertainty of the (Yucca) license application, we wanted to make sure we were confident there was an option forward to handle the spent fuel."
The NRC's determination on the availability of storage sites for nuclear waste -- the so-called "waste confidence rule" -- is an important part of the process the agency follows to license new nuclear power plants.
Critics of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, which is planned 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, point to the NRC's conclusions about on-site storage as evidence there is no need to complete the Nevada site if the material can stay where it is for the foreseeable future.
Increasingly, the nuclear power industry has referred to the agency's findings to explain that a failure to build a Yucca repository need not be a show-stopper in licensing new power plants. There is time to come up with other solutions.
Klein testified at a hearing on nuclear issues facing Congress. Also speaking were Marvin Fertel, president and chief executive of the Nuclear Energy Institute, and Tom Cochran, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Fertel told senators the Nuclear Energy Institute is supportive of Yucca Mountain but that setting it aside would not discourage the construction of new plants.
"We will truck through because we can manage (nuclear waste) safely, waste confidence works, the standard contract (for waste disposal) works. We need to be able to plausibly explain to people why it is OK, and it is."
Senators at the hearing asked about the feasibility of nuclear waste reprocessing, and whether Congress should make more loan guarantees available to the industry as it seeks financing for new plants.
As he has in several recent hearings, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., expressed support for the Yucca project, and challenged Klein over the prospect that nuclear waste would remain at sites in 39 states if the Nevada site is not built.
"Spent nuclear fuel sitting in pools and in dry casks at nuclear plants all over America, is that what you are planning on?" McCain asked Klein.
"Yes," Klein responded.
In his testimony, Fertel said that if the Obama administration slows or stops progress at Yucca Mountain, the secretary of energy should reduce the fees that nuclear utilities pay into a special repository construction fund.
The fund, fed by assessments on consumers, contains more than $20 billion; but Congress has limited spending from it. The fee raises about $750 million a year, but Fertel suggested it be scaled back to no more than what Congress decides to spend from year to year.
Cochran urged senators to spend enough money to avoid deep layoffs on the Nevada project, as scientists and engineers will be needed to develop other nuclear waste sites "as the political sun sets" on Yucca Mountain.
The Yucca work force has dropped by more than half over the past three years in the face of budget cuts.
Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@ stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.
Reid to meet with energy secretary
WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., will meet on Monday in an effort to harmonize competing proposals for a nuclear waste study commission.
Reid's office confirmed the meeting this afternoon. It came a day after Chu told reporters he was putting his proposal on hold until he consulted with Reid and others in Congress.
Chu and Reid "have the same goals in mind," a Reid spokesman said. That would be to assess alternatives to the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada that the Obama administration has said is no longer an option for nuclear waste storage, the spokesman said.
The energy secretary and Reid, the Senate majority leader, have advanced competing ideas for an expert commission on nuclear waste.
The board would be asked to evaluate a variety of management ideas, including keeping radioactive spent fuel stored at power plants, gathering the material in centralized above-ground storage sites, and pressing ahead with development of technologies to recycle portions of the waste into new fuel.
Chu has said he was planning to appoint a panel administratively, and would give it a year to report back to him on possible paths forward.
On the other hand, Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., have introduced a bill to establish a nine-member panel that would be appointed by congressional leaders. The group would be given a two-year assignment.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the government relations arm of the nuclear industry, has questioned whether a commission appointed by Congress could be independent on such a thorny matter.
The Nuclear Energy Institute favors a panel that would report to the Obama administration, the group's chief executive Marvin Fertel said today. Fertel said the commission could complete its work within a year.
The Reid-Ensign bill would allow Reid to appoint two members, and also the chairman in cooperation with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Reid also has indicated a desire that the expert panel disregard Yucca Mountain or any other role for Nevada in any waste strategy.
After appearing before the House Science and Technology Committee on Tuesday, Chu said he wanted to consult with Reid before moving forward.
"Secretary Chu stated ... that he is working with Senator Reid and other members of Congress who share the department's goal of devising a new strategy for nuclear waste disposal," DOE spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller said.
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