NRC RECEIVES PETITION TO CONSOLIDATE SPENT FUEL STORAGE REGULATIONS

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has received a petition to consolidate all regulations that relate to the environmental impacts of spent fuel storage and disposal, according to a posting in the Federal Register yesterday. The petitioners include the same group of 34 activist organizations that grouped together to petition the NRC to consider the expedited transfer of spent fuel pools to dry cask storage due to the potential for pool fires. “Issues related to spent fuel storage and disposal impacts are now balkanized into separate rulemakings for spent fuel disposal impacts, safety and impacts of spent fuel storage and disposal from fuel generated during the license renewal period, safety and impacts of spent fuel storage after license termination, and safety and feasibility of siting a spent fuel repository,” the petition said. “While the NRC has divided consideration of environmental impacts into piecemeal decision-making, they are in fact related. By considering them separately, the NRC ignores the interaction of impacts, cumulative impacts, and inconsistencies in safety and environmental analyses conducted in the separate decision-making processes.” The call for consolidation came with a long document containing comments against the draft Waste Confidence ruling that said spent fuel can be stored on site for 60 years past a reactor’s licensed life. The NRC will consider the petition in its rulemaking, but it has not requested a public comment period for the petition at this time, the posting said.

With the Department of Energy still mulling its contenders for the Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus program, Oklahoma officials recently shared more details of its proposal as it pushes to be selected as a host state.

According to a September presentation, Oklahoma’s campus would consist of Oklo’s Aurora Powerhouse reactors, an isotope production facility, multiple fuel cycle facilities, including enrichment and recycling, and permanent disposal of waste with borehole technology.

The state expects its campus to have a combined surface footprint of at least 1,040 acres, with the subsurface footprint to range from 800 to 2,000 acres. The underground area would be be determined by the siting of the spent fuel management disposal facility.

Former Oklahoma State Energy Secretary Jeff Starling said during a Sept. 30 public meeting the nuclear campus would be more valuable to communities than a data center because the nuclear complex would place electricity on the grid and add 25,000 jobs to the state.

While all six of the contenders have volunteered to take on waste disposal in some capacity, Oklahoma has put waste disposal at the core of its proposal. A lot of drilling for oil and gas occurs in the state, and it says it plans to leverage that expertise, with the use of borehole technology, to permanently dispose of the spent fuel.

“We’re an energy state, we’re comfortable with energy,” Starling said in a Sept. 30 local news press conference. “When you look at borehole technology where you do long lateral drilling, that’s something we’ve done here and been a part of our energy solution for 25 years. We know how to drill a well down a mile and over a mile as best as anybody.”

Oklahoma hopes to be one of the three states selected to receive a campus and expects DOE to make a decision by the end of this year. DOE officials earlier said they expected to sign one to three hosting agreements by the end of September. However, nothing has been announced yet.

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