WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Energy’s report on a national waste management plan is coming together, DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory senior policy advisor Bradley Williams said this week at the American Nuclear Society (ANS) conference.
Driven by President Donald Trump’s executive order “Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base,” DOE, in conjunction with other agencies, is supposed to develop a strategy for management of spent fuel and high-level waste.
The 240-day report is due to the White House by January 2026.
Williams, one of the lead authors of the report, did not go into much detail on the document itself but said Monday on the panel that the report has been drafted and is being reviewed prior to publication.
“I think we have the opportunity to really finally solve this problem, but we need to be smart about it, not only technically doing the right thing, but how we work together and how we keep it bipartisan,” Williams said. “We need to cease this opportunity [and] do it right.”
Many of the recommendations DOE has received have had recurring themes, Williams said. The recommendations include the long-discussed establishment of an independent waste management organization and collaborative siting for disposal facilities.
The idea of an independent waste management entity was previously recommended by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future under the Barack Obama administration. Panelist John Kotek, Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) senior vice president for policy and public affairs, was the staff director of the Blue Ribbon Commission.
Groups such as the NEI and ANS offered various recommendations, Williams said.
Assuming the United States meets the White House goal of quadrupling its nuclear generating capacity by 2050, Williams said the country might need the equivalent of 12 Yucca Mountain repositories. The calculation is based on current nuclear technologies, Williams said.
If the United States elected to revisit fuel reprocessing, then it would likely need one to two repositories, Williams said. Reprocessing would be necessary from a fuel availability and waste management standpoint, Williams added.
Among other things, the report calls for evaluating the feasibility of fuel recycling.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) was keen on the possibility of fuel reprocessing.
“This [reprocessing] technology is known, this technology is expensive, but it is good and many of our friends, our friends in France, have done this successfully for decades and our adversaries do it as well,” Fleischmann said on the panel. “That to me is one of the reasons why we need to look at this.”
Both Fleischmann and Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), in a recorded message, said during the panel that the country will need a repository even if fuel reprocessing started up again.
Amanda Shafer, Levin’s senior legislative assistant, was another panelist in attendance.