Only one of 13 states surveyed recently showed any interest in becoming home to an interim or long-term repository for spent fuel from U.S. commercial nuclear power reactors.
The Natural Resources Defense Council sent a survey on nuclear waste issues to government officials in all 48 states in the continental U.S. Thirteen states responded in full: California, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Vermont.
Responding to the question of whether “My State could be interested in hosting a consolidated commercial spent fuel storage facility,” nine respondents strongly disagreed, one disagreed, two neither agreed nor disagreed, one agreed, and none strongly agreed.
The results were identical to the question of whether “My State could be interested in hosting a commercial spent fuel repository.”
The first question refers to an interim storage site, while the second refers to a permanent disposal facility along the lines of the long-planned and hotly contested Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada.
There was no support whatsoever for having a nuclear power plant in any of the states host a consolidated site for used nuclear fuel from other states: two states neither agreed nor disagreed, three disagreed, seven strongly disagreed, and one answered N/A.
The survey report does not identify the state that indicated it could be interesting in hosting a spent-fuel storage or disposal facility – assuming it was the same state. Officials were told their individual responses would not be identified, said Don Hancock, Nuclear Waste Program director at the nongovernmental Southwest Research and Information Center, who prepared the survey on behalf of the NRDC.
It’s safe to assume Nevada fell on the disagree end of the spectrum of answers. The state government has strongly opposed plans to store the nation’s stockpile of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste below Yucca Mountain.
Missing from the list of respondents were New Mexico and Texas, where plans have been made to open interim storage sites for consolidation of spent reactor fuel from power plants around the country.
