A senior Energy Department official said Wednesday that the new solicitation for deep borehole nuclear waste storage field test proposals leaves the agency with a plan B if the job favorite falters.
The department issued a new request for proposals (RFP) for the $35 million borehole field test on Monday, following two site-selection failures in North Dakota and South Dakota with original contractor Battelle Memorial Institute. That team was unable to convince locals in both states that a successful test wouldn’t lead to actual nuclear waste storage in their respective areas. The field test, which will analyze the feasibility of storing high-level nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel in crystalline rock formations, will not involve any nuclear material.
“While our expectations are that all of the proposals are going to be quality and that they could all succeed, having some competition could help and also gives us a plan B if the team out front doesn’t stay out front,” Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fuel Cycle Technologies Andrew Griffith said at a meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.
The new RFP requires that potential contractors secure all regulatory community approval before the drilling contract is awarded. Griffith said the department anticipates giving two or more awards for the initial work before narrowing the list to one for the drilling portion of the project. Griffith said the new RFP requires the contractor to assure the community it is “part of the team.” He also said the failures in the Dakotas didn’t demonstrate a mistrust in DOE, but in the federal government in general.
Acting DOE Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy John Kotek, who also appeared for the meeting, said the borehole project’s stumbling blocks serve as learning opportunities for the department’s consent-based siting approach for dealing with America’s nuclear waste storage problem. Kotek has led public outreach for that program, traveling to various public meetings around the country, since the department formally kicked it off late last year.
