The decades-long failure to establish a route for permanent disposal of U.S. spent nuclear reactor fuel could undermine industry efforts to expand nuclear power around the nation, the Congressional Research Service said in a recent report.
A number of nuclear power plants have shut down in recent years, or announced their near-term closure, in the face of economic challenges including low natural gas prices for energy production. The industry has sought to counter this trend with development of new reactor technologies that are cheaper to build and operate.
“Disposal of radioactive waste will be a key issue in the continuing nuclear power debate. Without a national waste management system, spent fuel from nuclear power plants must be stored on-site indefinitely,” according to the May 9 analysis on civilian nuclear waste disposal from Congressional Research Service energy policy specialist Mark Holt. “This situation may raise public concern near proposed reactor sites, particularly at sites without existing reactors where spent nuclear fuel is already stored.”
The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act gave the Department of Energy until Jan. 31, 1998, to begin accepting used fuel from nuclear power plants for disposal. As members of Congress have pointed out repeatedly this year, the 20th anniversary of that deadline passed without any progress on that mandate.
The nation’s nuclear power facilities, both retired and operational, now store over 78,000 metric tons of spent fuel, the report says. The federal government as of fiscal 2016 had paid out roughly $6.1 billion in payments and court judgments for failing to meet its mandate to remove spent fuel from utilities. The Energy Department says its liability could exceed $30 billion, according to the CRS report.
The report discusses at length both historic and ongoing efforts to deal with the nuclear waste, including the Trump administration’s plan to revive the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada.
