The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday formalized plans to spend $700,000 of $1.27 million in its remaining Yucca Mountain funding to update certain reports on repository plans, which would place the agency in a better position should project licensing activities resume.
The Obama administration canceled the Nevada repository in 2011, opting instead for a plan that prioritizes interim nuclear waste storage prior to building one or more final storage sites. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in August 2013 ordered the NRC to resume its review of the Department of Energy’s Yucca Mountain licensing application. The agency has since spent $12.1 million of the available $13.37 in Nuclear Waste Fund money.
All three commissioners signed off on the $700,000 expense, which will cover nine months of work expected to be completed in 2017. NRC staff will collaborate with the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses in updating reports on pre-closure and post-closure safety assessments at Yucca Mountain, as well as climate and hydrology analyses, according to NRC documents made public Tuesday.
NRC staff suggested that “capturing this information now would position the agency well in the event that the Yucca Mountain repository adjudication is resumed or for potential NRC licensing of another geologic repository for high-level waste.” The remaining $570,000 would be reserved for unanticipated expenses, according to the NRC documents.
Signing off on the expense, Commissioner Jeff Baran provided the most substantive comments of the three active board members. He said NRC staff’s position that although the $1.27 million could be used to restart a rulemaking for fitness-for-duty requirements or security and material control and accounting measures for a repository, the staff recommended against that option because it’s not certain those processes could be completed given the remaining funds.
“I think the staff’s plan for using the remaining previously-appropriated NWF funds is reasonable and, therefore, approve the staff’s recommendation,” Baran wrote on Oct. 31.
NRC Chairman Stephen Burns signed off on the recommendation on Nov. 2, voicing his approval for updating the reports “to capture new insights” since the documents were completed. Commissioner Kristine Svinicki gave her OK a day later without providing comments.
Specifically, the pre-closure and post-closure safety assessments will analyze: corrosion science of barriers in an unsaturated-zone geologic repository; geotechnical stability of repository surface facility structures; methods used to calculate seismic fragility curves; and application of seismic ground motion information for repository surface and underground facilities.
The climate and hydrology assessments will analyze: approaches to climate modeling and the use of updated meteorological data for infiltration and groundwater flow; modeling and characterization of saturated zone flow; documentation of an independent groundwater flow modeling tool for use in performance confirmation of a repository; and current capabilities of monitoring tools and sensors for unsaturated-zone fractured rocks and thermal environments, including remote sensors.
