A bipartisan panel of radioactive waste experts issued a study Thursday urging formation of a corporation of nuclear reactor owners to manage disposal of spent nuclear fuel from power plants and high-level waste from weapons production.
The NuCorp, or Nuclear Corporation, would be required by federal legislation and set up by reactor owners, according to the study led by retired Department of Energy executive Lake Barrett and former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Allison Macfarlane.
The new entity would be federally-chartered with a governing board of directors, according to the report. The new outfit could be “an independent public benefit corporation or a non-profit corporation,” the report said. Either way the Nuclear Corporation would be required to operate in the public interest on nuclear waste disposal.
“We have an opportunity to make the necessary real progress on nuclear waste disposal in the U.S.,” Barrett said in a statement. “Our bipartisan group feels that we have hit upon a solution that will move the ball forward for our country.”
“While the U.S. has safely stored spent nuclear fuel at reactor sites for decades, such storage is a temporary measure and spent fuel must be moved from the more than 76 sites where it currently sits to one or more deep geologic repositories for final disposal,” according to the introduction to the report.
The report from the 11-member panel draws from “current thinking about nuclear waste and deep geologic repositories from the US and around the world, including Canada, Finland, France, Sweden, and Switzerland,” according to the introduction.
The report is being posted online.
In the 1980s, the amended version of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) settled on Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the potential home for a deep geologic repository for spent fuel and high-level waste.
“However, such a facility never received a license and was never constructed,” the report notes. Congress last appropriated money for Yucca Mountain in 2010. Congress has also treated the $50-billion Nuclear Waste Fund, “which was paid by electricity customers, as taxpayer money, severely restricting the ability to use it for its intended purpose.”
Since 1998, DOE has been forced to pay numerous legal settlements for being in “breach of contract” for its failure to remove the radioactive waste from reactor storage locations across the country, the report said.
But recent international experience shows development of a deep underground repository is not an impossible dream, according to the report. “Finland, for instance, has progressed to constructing a repository, and it intends to begin to dispose of spent fuel before 2030,” according to the report.
The authors say lack of a disposal site not only blunts ongoing revival of nuclear energy domestically, “but is also a major detriment to America’s ability to compete with nations like Russia that can demonstrate their ability to offer full fuel management services, including waste disposal.”
“First and foremost, the US needs an entity that can successfully implement a solution: an organization that is responsible to find a suitable site for a geologic repository, characterize the site, apply for and obtain a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), construct the facility, transport the waste, operate the facility, decommission the facility,” according to the report.
On top of that, the NuCorp would also need the authority to deal with stakeholders ranging from local and state lawmakers to Congress to tribal nations. This new entity would also need authority “to develop a consolidated storage facility (CSF) for spent nuclear fuel as a bridge to a repository,” according to the report.
The idea of setting up an organization outside of DOE to manage the spent fuel repository is not a new one.
The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future concluded in 2012 that a new organization was necessary to manage spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
The just-released report said the Blue Ribbon Commission’s thinking was that “DOE would likely never be able to lead the country to the successful siting of a repository due to a lack of public trust and because it is continually subject to politics and focused on other priorities, including managing the nuclear weapons complex and energy technology development.”
The NuCorp would have an advisory committee that would report to the board of directors and to Congress.
In addition to Barrett, who led the DOE program for disposal of spent fuel and high-level waste, and Macfarlane, who is today head of the public policy school at the University of British Columbia, there are nine other committee members who helped put together the report.
The other members of the panel are:
Kara Colton who has worked with the Energy Communities Alliance on nuclear issues for more than 20 years.
Fred Dilger, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
Rod McCullum expert on used nuclear fuel who has worked 40 years in government and industry, including the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Timothy E. Smith who worked on nuclear waste and Yucca Mountain-related issues during the 1980s for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Jack Spencer, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Mary Anne Sullivan, a former DOE general counsel who has represented many legal clients on nuclear waste issues; and
Thomas Webler, senior research fellow at the Social and Environmental Research Institute in Massachusetts.
Heather Westra has over thirty-five years of experience working with Federally recognized Indian Tribes on a variety of environmental issues and
Greg White, former executive director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and of the National Regulatory Research Institute.
One industry executive, who stressed his professional respect for the authors, said he was disappointed by the report’s lack of specifics. For example, the study lacks detail on key obstacles, like how to divvy up the nuclear waste fund money.