For David Victor, two years ago the prospect of removing spent fuel from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and shipping it out of California seemed like a “political nightmare.”
With communities across the country clamoring for the federal government to take title to nuclear waste being stored nearby and ship it elsewhere, and companies in Texas and New Mexico offering to take that waste, it seems like a no-brainer to put two and two together. But Victor knows nothing is simple with congressional decision-making.
Earlier this month the House Appropriations Committee, in its annual energy and water spending bill, rejected a $70 million Department of Energy request to kick-start its consent-based siting campaign for nuclear waste, instead approving $170 million to resume licensing work on the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada, which the Obama administration canceled several years ago.
“(Interim storage) needs to be understood as a complement to Yucca and not a substitute,” Victor said during a phone interview in March. “As long as it’s seen as a substitute or potential threat to Yucca, then you’ve got all the Yucca-only people, mainly Republicans, who get their backs up about this.”
The San Onofre Community Engagement Panel, which Victor chairs, formed in 2014 in Southern California. Panel leaders have since been communicating with the Department of Energy as it ramps up efforts on consent-based siting, while Victor has had the chance to testify before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Victor said many Californians were surprised that the SONGS waste, as well as waste at about 25 other shut-down plants in the U.S., is stranded on-site. Additionally, waste is accumulating at about 100 operational nuclear plants throughout the country. Even if the Yucca repository gets new life in the next presidential administration, it would be decades before spent reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste is delivered to the site. That means waste will continue to sit at power plants until the 2030s or 2040s.
“That’s really a long time,” Victor said. “Politically that’s really hard for people in the local communities to stomach.”
Which is why Victor and the rest of the panel have championed interim storage, one of the three phases in DOE’s waste siting approach that formally began in late 2015. The department’s goal is to begin accepting waste for interim storage of tens of thousands of tons of spent reactor fuel by 2025. The other two phases are a pilot storage facility, expected by 2021, and a national repository, scheduled for 2048.
Victor said it’s the panel majority’s view that locking up interim storage could be the easy part, with Waste Control Specialists and Holtec International both offering their services upon securing Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses. The transportation details, however, could be more complicated, he said. Congress will need to clarify who will take title to the waste, when that will happen if it gets a green light on a storage destination, and what liabilities storage will entail. Victor described it as an area of “enormous ambiguity.”
No utility is going to release the spent fuel without also releasing ownership of that material, meaning DOE will need to take title and pay for transportation, storage, and disposal of the waste. The generator has little incentive to move the used fuel off-site if it’s still liable for the material, save for the need to remove the waste in order for utilities to free themselves from their decommissioned sites.
According to congressional figures, the federal government has paid $5.3 billion to date in damages to electric utilities as result of DOE breaking nuclear waste disposal agreements tied to Yucca Mountain. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established a U.S. program for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel and designated Yucca Mountain as the only site for a national repository. DOE estimates remaining liabilities at $23.7 billion. Waste Control Specialists spokesman Chuck McDonald said during a phone interview in March that it’s no secret these details drive the issue.
“Are utilities’ hair on fire to solve this problem?” McDonald asked. “Not really, especially if they’re getting settlement funds now. It’s a taxpayer issue. They’re the ones who are double paying now. They’re paying for the storage, and they’re paying for the fact that (DOE) failed to meet their obligation, so we’re asking the taxpayers to pay twice, and that’s what’s driving this.”
This drives the entire premise that the government needs to take title to the waste, McDonald added. The utilities’ incentive to get rid of the fuel, he said, is that they are not free of closed nuclear plants until the waste is completely moved off-site.
“As the permanently shut-down plants can tell you, you’re never off the hook until the spent nuclear fuel is gone,” he said. “There needs to be a plan in place, or they’re going to be in the same place. All these generators are licensed for 15, 20, 30 years, and as long they’re operating that unit, the urgency is not there, but as they get closer to the end of their license and the end of their generator life, it becomes increasingly urgent.”
Entergy spokesman Marty Cohn, who is assigned to the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, in a phone interview discussed the added cost of on-site storage in the decommissioning process. He agreed with McDonald that DOE will need to take title to the waste in order for shipments to begin.
“For 30 years, (the waste) is just going to sit there (at Vermont Yankee),” Cohn said. “Versus as a facility, it would be much cleaner for us the sooner we can get rid of the waste and know there’s a place for it. It would change the cost of the decommissioning.”
Of the $817 million estimated price tag to decommission Vermont Yankee, he said $368 million will be spent on fuel management. Around 2020, Entergy expects to sue the federal government, he said, though legal costs will not be included in recovery costs.
“Yes, we will (sue the government), and we’re confident that we will win the lawsuit against the government to recover the money, but the other factor here is time. If the federal government would put its attention to finding a repository for all the spent fuel, that will greatly reduce the amount of money that we’re wasting.”
Steve Nesbit, Duke Energy’s director of nuclear policy and support, voiced his company’s support for interim storage but said DOE’s first priority should be developing a national repository in Nevada.
“We’re a big country. We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Nesbit said. “The primary emphasis should be on a repository because that’s a permanent solution. Consolidated storage or interim storage is a temporary solution, which makes a bad situation slightly better, but the repository is what’s needed.”
