The U.S. Energy Department should focus on retired nuclear power plants and some of its own facilities as it plans for the eventual removal and transport of radioactive waste from dozens of sites around the nation, the federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB) said this week.
That is one of three recommendations in a new report from the independent executive-branch agency, which also lays out 30 technical and integration issues DOE should consider ahead of transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to storage or disposal.
“The Board recommends that DOE give higher priority to evaluating the removal of commercial SNF from shutdown nuclear power plant sites and to evaluating DOE sites that store DOE-managed SNF and HLW,” according to the report.
The board also recommended the Energy Department allow no less than 10 years to develop new designs for the casks and canisters that would be used to store and ship the waste. Otherwise, it added, DOE should do its own study of how long would be necessary to design, license, manufacture, and test the vessels.
The report further urges the Energy Department to consider the technical and integration issues identified by the board in its planning for transport of the waste. Among the issues: identifying and preparing the systems that will be needed for waste handling and loading at storage locations, including facilities, gear, and procedures; resolving issues with dry-storage casks and containers not authorized for use in waste transport; and readying a railcar for shipping spent fuel (noting DOE’s ongoing Atlas railcar project).
Under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the Energy Department is legally responsible for permanent disposal of what is now a stockpile of roughly 100,000 metric tons of spent fuel and high-level waste held at over 80 sites in 35 states. It is more than 21 years past the Jan. 31, 1998, deadline to begin disposing of that material, and still does not have a license to build and operate the planned repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev.
The NWTRB was established under the 1987 amendment to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to provide technical and scientific guidance for Energy Department nuclear waste management.
