The United States should prioritize the permanent disposal of defense high-level radioactive waste over commercial spent nuclear fuel, a group of panelists said during a Thursday webinar.
In the Energy Communities Alliance’s (ECA) webinar “Options for High Level Waste and Used Nuclear Fuel”, Matt Bowen, a former Department of Energy official, said that defense high-level waste is already legally able to be disposed of at potential non-Yucca Mountain sites. Through a collaborative effort with states, he said the repository could also be a trial run of how the collaboration-based siting could look for future disposals.
Bowen said defense high-level radioactive waste currently fits in between defense transuranic waste, which has domestic disposable capabilities at the DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and commercial waste, which lacks disposable sites.
“I think there’s an argument to be made that we need to get another repository, at least one more,” Bowen said. “I can see a state potentially getting its mind around hosting a defense high-level waste repository.”
Kara Colton, ECA director of nuclear policy, agreed with Bowen, adding the defense high-level waste has more “known knowns” as it is “older and colder”, non-reuseable waste, she said.
Colton was among multiple nuclear industry experts who came together and put together a study on how the country should approach its nuclear waste management.
New Mexico-based Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance member Jack Volpato said that the defense high-level waste repository is the way-to-go.
“It’s the easiest step going forward,” Volpato said. “The waste is not going to be used for anything; it can go in some place permanently without any kind of retrieval system. You can build it cheaper and build it quicker. I think that’s the way we really need to go.”
At the same time, Volpato said he found it concerning that there are many requests for information for repository sites and nobody participates in them. He said he would consider a site in New Mexico, but said that the political climate in the state would make it unattainable.
Colton echoed a similar point during the discussion that the main U.S. waste management issue is a political one and not technical.
When discussing the possibility of a second geologic repository, the panel members agreed that generic geologic repository standards need to be updated to reflect the modern nuclear industry’s needs.
Bowen said the first repository, which was supposed to be Yucca Mountain, was capped to hold 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste until a second repository was operational. He said that the country is already beyond the need of a second one.
According to DOE, the U.S. has generated over 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste and adds roughly 2,000 metric tons per year.
DOE also reaffirmed to Congress in 2008 that if the 70,000 metric ton limitation is not removed, then a second repository is needed, Bowen added.
Colton said if the United States. accepts that Yucca Mountain will not be its first repository, then the country should stop packaging any waste to those standards, which she said has been the case for many years.