Interim Storage Partners — a joint venture of Orano USA and Waste Control Specialists (WCS) — on Monday submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a renewed license application to build and operate an interim storage facility for used nuclear reactor fuel.
The spent fuel storage pad would be built on WCS’ waste disposal property in Andrews County in West Texas near the New Mexico border.
“We are pleased to re-energize this application and begin addressing the industry’s increasing need for completing the decommissioning of shutdown nuclear energy facilities across the country. This interim solution is a near-term action on the path of eventual permanent storage in a federal repository.” Interim Storage Partners President Jeff Isakson said in a press release.
The license had previously been submitted solely by Waste Control Specialists under its previous management and ownership, with Orano (then still called AREVA) and NAC International as partners in the project. The proposal remains the same in the renewed application: an initial 40-year license for up to 40,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel in eight phases.
Waste Control Specialists first filed the application in April 2016, but requested the NRC suspend its review a year later while the company waited waiting on closure of its sale from Valhi Inc. to EnergySolutions. A federal judge blocked the deal on antitrust grounds, but WCS in January was sold to private equity firm J.F. Lehman & Co. Management at WCS and Orano had been clear since then that they intended to renew the license application.
Interim Storage Partners tentatively anticipates receiving the license in 2021 or 2022.
An NRC spokesman said Monday the agency will review the updated application and should within 30 to 60 days post a Federal Register notice that it is reopening the environmental scoping period for its review. Interested parties will also have an opportunity to request a hearing.
