The five-state shortlist for nuclear hubs was driven by the Department of Energy’s search for host sites focused on managing waste, DOE’s Marla Morales said in a webinar Monday.
In a webinar hosted by the American Nuclear Society, Morales, DOE’s acting deputy assistant for spent fuel and high-level waste disposition, said that the Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus is “anchored” in finding a solution to close the backend of the fuel cycle, including fuel recycling.
As over half of the states in the nation responded to DOE’s solicitation, published in January, Many of the inquiries were heavily focused on the front-end and deploying reactors, but not hosting nuclear waste facilities, Morales said. However, of the 26 inquiries, 12 states had interest in hosting some kind of spent fuel.
“But what this [the innovation campus] really is a new opportunity for us,” Morales said. “Again, there’s the need, the narrative is changing, we’ve had years of groundwork to understand how to actually talk about nuclear [and its waste]. You may or may not agree, but it needs to be part of a solution.”
From the 12 states, Morales said DOE trimmed the list of selections down to nine and then to five. DOE announced it selected Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah for its initial shortlist last month.
Morales said that the agency is expected to go forward with plans with only some of the states on the shortlist. The Oklahoma Department of Commerce said in a July 28 press release that DOE plans to finalize agreements with three out of the five states to host an innovation campus.
“You can put in federal legislation, you can put in place state legislation, but you need to have a willing and informed host community to really make this go forward,” Morales said.
The Donald Trump administration has pushed for the innovation campus to be a partial solution to the nation’s longstanding nuclear waste management problem. The Trump White House has also proposed a draft policy for legislation that would remove Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the sole repository option in the United States.
A legislative fix is needed before non-Yucca alternatives can be considered.