The Department of Energy plans to take bids on the design of a facility for interim storage of used reactor fuel from nuclear power plants, a senior official said Tuesday.
Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal discussed the upcoming procurement in a hearing on the new DOE budget proposal before the House Appropriations energy and water committee.
“One of the specific actions that the department is planning to carry out is to issue a request for proposal, which has been drafted, and the intent is for the basic design of an interim storage facility,” Baranwal told the panel. “What we are looking forward to in the future is that there are developments in the technology space that have occurred over the past several years, and we are hopeful that those will manifest themselves in the responses to the RFP.”
Baranwal was responding to a question from panel Chair Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who was seeking details on work that would be conducted under DOE’s request for $27.5 million in fiscal 2021 for an Interim Storage and Nuclear Waste Fund Oversight program.
The program is intended to lay the groundwork for centralized, temporary storage of what is already over 80,000 metric tons of radioactive used fuel rods. The Energy Department has long since missed the Jan. 31, 1998, deadline to begin disposal of that material, as set in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The Trump administration focused its budget request for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 on interim storage, reversing three prior, unsuccessful attempts to persuade Congress to appropriate money to resume licensing the congressionally directed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada.
Kaptur asked whether the Energy Department has any specific locations in mind for interim storage. Identification of potential sites will be part of the process, according to Baranwal.
“To succinctly answer your question, no, we don’t have a potential location in mind at the moment,” Baranwal said.
There was no mention in the discussion of two corporate teams that are already seeking Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses for consolidated interim storage facilities: Holtec International, for a site in Lea County, N.M., with maximum storage exceeding 100,000 metric tons; and Interim Storage Partners, for up to 40,000 metric tons of storage in Andrews County, Texas.
