A citizens’ organization in California is proposing an alternate means for long-term storage of spent fuel that would take the waste away from nuclear power reactors without necessarily relying on the Department of Energy building a permanent repository.
Citizens’ Oversight says its proposal would protect key water resources found near many nuclear plants still holding spent fuel, and remove the danger of long-distance transport of the material to interim or permanent storage sites being considered by the federal government.
“Nationally, we need a better plan for dealing with spent nuclear fuel waste, and we should target safe storage for the next 1,000 years,” the group said in its Nov. 2 white paper laying out its plan.
Its proposal follows an August settlement between the nonprofit group and San Onofre Nuclear Generating Stationprimary owner Southern California Edison that provided a framework to remove spent nuclear fuel from its current location about 100 feet from the Pacific Ocean and just a few hundred yards from one of the busiest sections of Interstate highway in the nation.
The report advocates for a process that moves spent nuclear fuel from U.S. reactors to a “Hardened Extended-Life Local Monitored Surface Storage” facility away from water resources that could be contaminated, preferably staying within the state of the waste’s origin. The material would be placed in a double-layer “Monitored, Extended Life Overcask” (MELO), with the internal container held within a “sacrificial” pressurized outer container.
The proposal questions the viability and likelihood of the long-planned but still unrealized Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada – “which was to be licensed and open for business by January 31, 1998. It is now nearly 20 years later and we can note that no geologic repository is open. YM is far from viable, and nothing is on the horizon.”
The United States has no commercial experience moving spent fuel, because it is all currently stored on its site of origin, according to the report.
The report intentionally skirts questions of cost or specifics of implementing the proposal, but Citizens’ Oversight said it should be funded by the Nuclear Waste Fund, which has collected more than $30 billion from atomic energy ratepayers to pay for the Yucca Mountain repository.
