The Department of Energy is several years away from initiating a siting process for a defense-only repository, or disposal facility, for high-level nuclear waste, acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Energy John Kotek said Monday.
Kotek, who is leading the department’s consent-based siting effort for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, appeared before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday, where Commissioner Jeff Baran asked for an update on the status of a defense-only repository.
DOE in December rolled out plans for operation of a pilot storage facility for waste from decommissioned nuclear sites by 2021; one or more larger, interim facilities by 2025; and finally at least one permanent geologic repository by 2048. That came after the Obama administration in 2015 issued a memorandum to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz calling for the development of a separate repository strictly for waste from atomic energy defense activities. The canceled repository planned at Yucca Mountain would have stored both commercial and defense nuclear waste.
“We’ve made it clear that what we’re ultimately looking for is an integrated waste management system that includes both storage and disposal facilities and disposal facilities and disposal facilities that could include a separate repository for defense waste,” Kotek told Baran. “We’re still several years away from actually getting to the point of looking at specific sites.”
Kotek noted that President Barack Obama’s memo does not require consideration of a separate defense waste repository but opens the door. DOE, he said, will engage potential host states and communities after the department has designed its consent-based siting process. The dialogue would begin after DOE issues grants to states, tribes, and local governments so they can study whether they have interest in hosting such a site.
The prospect of moving forward with private storage of nuclear waste, he said, “could certainly move faster we think.” Communities in Texas and New Mexico have voiced their support for hosting facilities for the DOE’s consolidated interim storage portion of its siting process. Waste Control Specialists has submitted its license application for the Texas site to the NRC, while a second application is expected from Holtec in November for the New Mexico location.
Following a meeting Thursday in Tempe, Ariz., Kotek’s office has two more sessions in its series of public meetings nationwide on consent-based siting: Boise, Idaho, on July 14; and Minneapolis, Minn., on July 21.
Kotek also agreed to visit with the San Onofre Community Engagement Panel in San Diego on Wednesday. Kotek agreed to make an appearance after Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) requested that DOE hold a public meeting in Southern California.
