The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in November spent $16,743 of its remaining Nuclear Waste Fund balance, leaving it with just under $525,000 to spend, according to the agency’s latest update to Congress.
The fund in total as of January 2017 had a balance of roughly $34 billion collected from nuclear power generators to fund development of a permanent repository for spent commercial reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
The Obama administration in 2010 cut off work on the long-planned underground disposal facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but a 2013 federal court ruling forced the NRC to resume the licensing process for the Department of Energy repository. As of November, the regulator had spent over $12.9 million of the $13.6 million it had on hand at the time of the court decision.
Roughly $11 million was used for three specific projects: finishing a safety evaluation report on Yucca Mountain, a supplement to the environmental impact statement on the site, and loading the Licensing Support Network (LSN) into the NRC’s online ADAMS document database.
Nearly all the spending in November — $15,761 – was for ongoing planning of a virtual meeting expected early this year of the LSN Advisory Review Panel, which includes the Energy Department, NRC staff, state of Nevada, a number of Nevada counties and Native American tribes, and other entities. The meeting comes as the NRC considers options for reconstituting the Licensing Support Network, which contains more than 3 million documents connected to the NRC’s adjudication of the DOE license application for Yucca Mountain, as the Trump administration seeks to revive the project.
“On November 8, 2017, agency staff conducted a training session on the functionality and operations of the recently-completed ADAMS LSN Library for individuals associated with governmental entities or organizations that are LSNARP members, participants in prior LSNARP meetings, or parties to, or otherwise participating in, the Yucca Mountain adjudication,” according to the update, submitted to lawmakers on Dec. 21 and posted on the NRC website on Dec. 29.
The November spending left the NRC’s total Nuclear Waste Fund balance at $574,339. Accounting for $52,186 in unspent obligations, its accessible balance is $522,339.
