U.S.
There was extensive discussion and widespread agreement during Thursday’s meeting of the San Onofre Community Engagement Panel on the need to move forward with consolidated interim storage of U.S. nuclear waste, according to Chairman David Victor.
Representatives from San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) owner Southern California Edison and local community members spoke at the panel’s meeting in Dana Point, Calif. Attendees also included representatives from organized labor groups, local emergency responders, and conservationist San Clemente Green.
“In my view, (consolidated interim storage) is No. 1 on the list of things that we can work on,” Victor said prior to the meeting. “We can’t make it happen ourselves, but that’s the topic that’s getting more attention than anything else.”
Southern California residents and lawmakers, along with communities all over the country, have been clamoring for the Energy Department to take title to commercial nuclear waste, as dictated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Various groups have voiced concerns over SONGS nuclear waste storage about 100 feet from the Pacific Ocean shoreline in a densely populated area subject to earthquakes.
Acting Assistant DOE Secretary for Nuclear Energy John Kotek attended a SONGS panel meeting this summer, at the request of U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has called for the material to be relocated as soon as possible.
The Obama administration is pursuing a consent-based siting process for nuclear waste storage as an alternative to the canceled geologic repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. That siting process, as drawn up, envisions a pilot storage facility by 2021; one or more larger, interim facilities by 2025; and at least one permanent geologic repository by 2048. Two private companies, Waste Control Specialists and Holtec International, are pursuing Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses for interim storage facilities in West Texas and southeast New Mexico, respectively.
SONGS was permanently shut down in 2013. The entire cost of decommissioning the plant, including site restoration and fuel storage, is estimated at $4.4 billion. Companies bidding for about $1 billion in dismantlement work are Team Holtec, Bechtel, and an AECOM/EnergySolutions partnership. Plant majority owner Southern California Edison (SCE) has repeatedly extended the timeline on selecting the decommissioning contractor, and has not offered a firm date.
INTERNATIONAL
U.K. nuclear company Magnox Ltd. said Monday it has retrieved the first fuel skip from the Oldbury Site’s cooling pond, marking the start of a campaign to clear 60 tons of waste from the pond before draining and decontamination.
Located in South Gloucestershire, the Oldbury nuclear power plant operated between 1967 and 2012. Magnox used the redundant fuel skips for storing spent fuel rods they were retrieved from the reactor. After they are all removed from the pond, the skips will be analyzed for radioactivity prior to final disposal.
“We have been decommissioning the Oldbury Site pond complex for a relatively short period of time, so to be removing skips already is quite an achievement,” Oldbury Site Closure Director Mike Heaton said in a statement.
Sellafield Ltd. has complied with an improvement notice from 2015, stemming from safety shortfalls related to operating instructions at the Magnox Reprocessing Separation Plant, the U.K. Office for Nuclear Regulation announced on Nov. 4.
The announcement did not provide specific details, other than to say that there were a number of issues related to following operating instructions at the facility. There was no radiation release or other harmful event at the plant, but ONR increased regulatory oversight, issuing a formal improvement notice. More than a year of heightened regulatory oversight followed, and ONR has since designated the plant as being in compliance.
“We served this Improvement Notice after identifying weaknesses in one area of the multiple safety barriers in place at the Magnox Reprocessing Separation Plant,” Chief Nuclear Inspector Richard Savage said in a statement. “It is pleasing that the detailed improvement plan that was introduced in response to our legal Notice has achieved the improvements we required, and that these have been delivered on time by the licensee. We will of course continue to regulate this plant as part of our ongoing scrutiny of the Sellafield site, and our broader public duty to ensure the nuclear industry maintains the high standards required by the law.”
