Nearly half of the states have sprung to respond to the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus request for information by the April 1 deadline.
An industry source told Exchange Monitor on Thursday that 25 to 28 states submitted a response to DOE, with a handful of them taking an interest in managing nuclear waste as a part of their submissions.
Some of the states are open to providing full-service hubs, including possible waste disposal, while others are more selective. Some sites already have deep roots in the nuclear sector while others do not.
States receptive to nuclear waste
Last week, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) announced that his state filed an application to make the area around the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site a DOE nuclear lifecycle hub. Lee said the state has an interest in the full nuclear lifecycle, including fuel fabrication, enrichment and recycling of used nuclear fuel.
DOE already has the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex in East Tennessee. The Tennessee Valley Authority, Centrus and Kairos Power, along with scores of other nuclear organizations, already do business in the Oak Ridge-to-Knoxville corridor.
Texas penned a 13-page submission to DOE for the RFI expressing interest in many of its facets, including waste management. In the RFI, the state offered several locations to have the campus placed at, including X-Energy and Dow’s Seadrift Operations site in Seadrift, Texas and the Waste Control Specialists site in Andrews, Texas.
In Nebraska’s RFI response, the Nebraska Department of Water, Energy and Environment said the state “remains open to continued discussions regarding long-term storage of nuclear-related waste.”
Other states that also currently do not have operating nuclear reactors, such as Idaho and Utah, expressed interest in adding hubs that will also manage nuclear waste. On March 25, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) selected Tooele County, Utah to be the location for its DOE nuclear lifecycle hub.
Other State RFI Responses
Though many states took an interest in having all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, other states were more selective about what they intend to take on.
In New Hampshire’s RFI response to DOE, Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R) told DOE that the state had “low interest” in waste disposal, fuel recycling and enrichment activities. But has a “high interest” in advanced reactors.
“New Hampshire has a long history with nuclear energy beginning with the construction and maintenance of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear submarine fleet at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard continuing through the construction of Seabrook Nuclear Power Station in 1976, which is permitted to operate through 2050,” Ayotte wrote.
Ayotte issued an executive order March 26 seeking information about adding more nuclear generation to New Hampshire. Ayotte also joined other New England governors to push for nuclear power in their region.
The industry source told the Monitor that Wyoming filed a response to the RFI and is a national leader in uranium mining. However, the source said the state did not seek to permanently store nuclear waste. Wyoming also now hosts TerraPower’s Natrium advanced reactor project in Kemmerer, Wyo., where the plant is under construction.
Mississippi and Indiana are two states said to have responded to the RFI. The Mississippi Development Authority’s Energy and Natural Resources Division did not comment on the Monitor’s inquiry.
The Indiana Office of Energy Development did not respond to the Monitor’s inquiry. But, as noted in a recent presentation, Gov. Mike Braun (R) hopes to have a small modular reactor operating in Indiana within eight years.
Nuclear waste continues to be a key concern as the nation seeks more nuclear power generation. During a March 19 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) said that nuclear waste management needs to be prioritized going forward if the country plans to push for more nuclear power. Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Ted Garrish told the Nevada lawmaker during the hearing that the nuclear lifecycle hub was one of the recommendations to address nuclear waste.
Nevada, which successfully fought licensing of the Yucca Mountain waste repository, has no interest in pursuing DOE’s campuses, state officials have told the Monitor.
DOE’s solicitation, published Jan. 28, is seeking to gauge states’ interest in hosting a nuclear lifecycle campus that could include fuel fabrication, uranium enrichment and waste disposal. The campuses could also support a potential advanced reactor and a co-located data center.