ARLINGTON, Va. – Legislation modifying the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), could remove a roadblock to the full implementation of the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus, a DOE official said.
During Wednesday’s session at the National Cleanup Workshop, several panels discussed the early progress of the nuclear campuses. Marla Morales, DOE’s acting deputy assistant for spent fuel and high-level waste disposition, said the Office of Nuclear Energy would require removing the Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the site of the nation’s sole repository.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1987 told DOE to characterize only Yucca Mountain as a geologic repository to dispose of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. There had previously been three sites under consideration. This law remains in place.
However, plans for the repository were met with pushback from the state of Nevada and were canceled during the Barack Obama administration.
President Donald Trump’s administration has released draft legislation, which Morales joked was the “worst best kept secret in Washington right now,” to remove Yucca as the sole repository.
Morales previously said the innovation campuses are driven by used fuel management, adding that this legislative change could allow for DOE to request appropriations to address permanent storage and disposal.
In a separate panel focused on the nuclear campus program, EnergySolutions Executive Vice President David Campbell and DOE’s Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Fuel Cycle Josh Jarrell also agreed revising the NWPA is vital for the program. Jarrell said if the NWPA does not get changes this Congressional session, DOE can still move forward on the program, but it would stunt the program’s full potential.
“Obviously, if the Nuclear Waste Policy Act doesn’t change, and if we can’t do federal storage, we can do other sort of demonstration pilots in either, you know, sort of back end, but also recycling, versioning, and all of those things that are sort of open,” Jarrell said. “But it doesn’t get us to the real robust final, but really a robust agreement that allows us to really move out in a meaningful way.”
Campbell said in his opinion the policy change is necessary and needs to be consistent to allow for these projects to continue for years to come. “It’s not the technology. It’s not the operation. It’s not even the state that hosts all the accommodations. It’s really the policy,” Campbell said.
Morales said some states have shown hesitancy to be the sole state responsible for managing waste, so DOE intends to have “one or more” campuses ultimately selected to be host communities for the campuses. This has led DOE to push for the removal of Yucca as the sole repository to accommodate potentially multiple repositories.
There are six states that are finalists for the program and DOE is expected to sign one or more of them to a host agreement by the end of this month. While there has been some recent discussion around funding for the project, potentially even using funds from the Nuclear Waste Fund, Jarrell said it is too early in the program’s process to determine its financial model.