The Energy Department hopes to soon start conversations with potential host communities for nuclear waste storage facilities under DOE’s consent-based siting program, a department official said Friday.
Melissa Bates, acting team lead for DOE Nuclear Fuels Storage and Transportation, appeared Friday at the ExchangeMonitor’s 2016 RadWaste Summit in Las Vegas. She said the conversations will begin Sept. 15, when DOE hosts an open house for the program, which will involve discussion on potential incentives for hosts and defining the term “consent.”
DOE anticipates awarding grants to potential host communities, so they can independently study the prospect of hosting DOE facilities. The consent-based siting program, which is the Obama administration’s alternative to the canceled Yucca Mountain geologic repository in Nevada, envisions operation of a pilot storage facility by 2021; one or more larger, interim sites by 2025; and at least one permanent geologic repository by 2048.
How far the department takes its consent-based siting initiative in the new year will depend highly on what Congress decides this month for fiscal 2017 spending. If it passes a continuing resolution, which appears likely, DOE would be funded at 2016 levels for a potential three-month or six-month period. The department for the next budget year has requested $76.3 million for its Integrated Waste Management System (IWMS), including $39.4 million in new funding for consent-based siting. DOE’s fiscal 2016 enacted funding includes just $22.5 million for IWMS.
“I think there is definitely potential for a continuing resolution to impact where we’re trying to take (consent-based siting),” Bates said. “I think there are enough things that we might still be putting a good foot forward, but” the first step will be starting conversations with communities.
The Sept. 15 open house is scheduled from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Washington, D.C., Convention Center, 900 10th St. N.W.
