February 09, 2016

Obama Budget Looks to Post-Yucca Nuclear Waste Management

By ExchangeMonitor

The Obama administration’s fiscal 2017 budget proposal lays out an aggressive funding plan to enact a nuclear waste management program to replace the Yucca Mountain deep geologic repository in Nevada.

The money is to be used for the department’s phased, adaptive, consent-based approach to finding permanent storage for tens of thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, DOE spokesman Bart Jackson said.

"The FY 2017 Budget Request will expand efforts that support the Adminsitration’s waste management strategy incudling continued implmentation of the activities to lay the groundwork for consent based interim storage and transporation of nuclear waste, and activities associated with exploring potential alternative disposal options for some DOE-managed spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste," DOE said in a budget document.

The Obama budget proposal lists no funding for the nuclear waste management program in the upcoming fiscal year, then $56 million in fiscal 2018 and $94 million in fiscal 2019, according to the department. The outlays would increase into the $200 million to $300 million range in following years before spiking to $1.115 billion in fiscal 2025. How the funds would be specifically used in that period was not immediately known.

After halting funding for construction of the Yucca Mountain deep geologic depository in 2011, the administration formed a blue-ribbon panel to consider options for permanent disposal of the waste stored at government and commercial sites around the country. The panel in 2012 urged a process in which multiple storage facilities are built near willing communities. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz last year said the government would keep commercial fuel separate from defense waste in final storage.

The Department of Energy in December announced the formal beginning of the consent-based siting process, starting with public input this year. In fiscal 2016, DOE plans to "develop a consent-based siting process to support a consolidated commercial used fuel storage, a permanent repository and a separate disposal path for defense waste, all supported by transportation planning and R&D activities such as the deep borehole field test," a DOE budget document says.

Comments are closed.