Holtec International is committed to its plan to build and operate an interim storage facility for used nuclear fuel in New Mexico, no matter what route Congress eventually selects for managing the nation’s nuclear waste, according to the chairman of the organization partnering on the project.
“If there is not a bill passed, Holtec and us in New Mexico, think we’re still the solution … and we’re going to definitely go forward with it,” John Heaton, chairman of the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, said on Sept. 6 at the ExchangeMonitor’s RadWaste Summit in Summerlin, Nev.
Heaton added that the New Jersey-based energy technology company is also ready to take title to spent fuel shipped to its planned facility in southeastern New Mexico upon opening. Presuming approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is currently reviewing the company’s license application, that is scheduled for 2021.
The licensing process is actually twofold: both for the facility itself and separately authorizing it to hold all storage canisters produced in the United States – even those from other manufacturers, Heaton said. He specifically mentioned the NUHOMS used fuel storage system from AREVA.
The Holtec facility could be part of the solution to the nation’s decades-long quandary of disposal of its growing stockpile of nuclear waste.
Congress in 1982 passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which directed the Energy Department to site and build a permanent repository for U.S. spent reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste. It followed that up five years later by ordering the facility be built under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The location remains hotly debated, and there has been increasing focus in recent years on consolidating used fuel in a small number of locations until the final storage space is ready.
The Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance is a limited liability company owned by the New Mexico cities of Hobbs and Carlsbad and Lea and Eddy counties. The organization secured the New Mexico state government’s backing for the consolidated interim storage facility, and in 2015 signed a memorandum of understanding with Holtec to partner on the project.
Holtec submitted its NRC license application for the facility in March, and is in the process of answering a round of additional questions as part of the regulator’s acceptance review of the application. The company did not respond to requests for comment by deadline this week.
Meanwhile, Congress remains divided on the question of nuclear waste disposition: The House of Representatives’ fiscal 2018 energy appropriations bill would meet the Trump administration’s request to provide DOE $120 million and the NRC $30 million to resume licensing activities for Yucca Mountain that were halted under the Obama administration; the Senate version of the bill provides no money for Yucca Mountain, instead pressing DOE to move ahead with interim storage.
“Whether the twain will ever cross, whether there will ever be a compromise on something, I don’t know,” Heaton said.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill similarly disagree on nuclear waste strategy, with various bills submitted in the current congressional session. The most prominent, Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, is broadly intended to remove obstacles to building the Yucca Mountain repository but was amended to allow DOE to enter into one contract on interim storage before the NRC rules on the license for the Nevada repository. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) in January submitted legislation authorizing DOE to enter into public-private contracts for storage of certain waste, using expenditures from the federal Nuclear Waste Fund.
“We think that that generally is a pretty good bill and would like to see that get passed,” Heaton said of the Issa legislation.
The former New Mexico lawmaker, also chairman of the Carlsbad Mayor’s Nuclear Task Force, touted the benefits of interim storage to both the nation and region.
The Holtec facility would provide 350 jobs during construction, then about 150 during operations, he said. The state and nearby localities would also receive incentive payments for hosting the site.
The Department of Energy also could finally be freed of what stands to be tens of billions of dollars of liability for failing to meet its legal mandate to take the spent fuel off the hands of nuclear utilities. The federal government has already paid out more than $6 billion in payments to settle lawsuits from utilities, and could be on the hook for up to $22 billion just by the early 2020s – “a very expensive proposition,” Heaton noted.
The Holtec HI-STORE CIS Facility would in total have capacity for up to 120,000 metric tons of spent fuel – more than the current national stockpile of over 70,000 tons, which grows by 2,000 tons per year. The waste would be held underground, though the containment systems would have an above-ground presence.
“We expect we’ll be ready to start taking fuel in 2021, and we’ll see how all this unfolds,” Heaton said.
