U.S.
Waste Control Specialists announced last week that it is on schedule to submit its application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a consolidated interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility in West Texas.
As of March the company had planned to submit the application by May 1. In an announcement, WCS President and CEO Rod Baltzer said: “We said a year ago that we would submit this application in the spring of 2016, and be in position to be accepting waste by 2021. It was an ambitious timeline, but I’m pleased to report that we are still on schedule. I expect to submit the license application very soon.”
WCS is one of two companies planning to submit an application, the other being Holtec International, which plans to build and operate an interim storage site in New Mexico. The Department of Energy has laid out a three-phased consent-based siting process for American nuclear waste that encompasses a pilot storage facility, interim facilities, and eventually one or more permanent repositories.
WCS is applying for an initial 40-year license that would allow a storage system to with a capacity of 40,000 metric tons to be built in eight phases. Combined, the WCS and Holtec sites could house the estimated 74,000 metric tons of spent fuel that has accumulated at American nuclear sites as a result of DOE’s failure to yet meet its obligation under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 to provide permanent storage for the material.
Exelon Corp. announced on April 15 that its Clinton Nuclear Generating Station in Illinois will remain open as planned for an additional year through May 2017.
Exelon confirmed the decision after the plant cleared the 2016-2017 MISO capacity auction, an event that ensures power generation meets demand of the region covering southern Illinois and much of the Midwest.
A press release from the company said the plant continues to lose money and remains on schedule to shut down unless “a combination of market and energy policy reforms are implemented to level the playing field for all zero carbon resources and recognize nuclear energy for its environmental, economic, rate stability and reliability benefits.” The release cites a state of Illinois study that found the Clinton closure will result in a wholesale energy price rise from $236 million to $341 million annually for customers in the region.
“Without urgent action on the policy front, we will have no choice but to prepare for a potential early retirement in the face of continued financial losses at our Clinton nuclear plant,”Exelon President and CEO Chris Crane said in the statement. “The loss of this plant would have significant economic impacts on southern Illinois and erase the environmental benefits equal to 80 percent of the wind installed in Illinois, making it significantly harder and more expensive for the state to meet its carbon reduction goals.”
A decision is expected later this year on the potential for future operations.
The 10-mile emergency planning zone at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant will shrink to within the site’s boundaries this week through a Nuclear Regulatory Commission-granted safety exemption.
The NRC in December granted the standard safety requirement exemption at the plant, which ceased operations in 2014, reasoning that closed facilities pose lower safety risks than operating plants. With the change, the plant will also no longer be on the hook to pay millions of dollars annually to surrounding jurisdictions, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont. The plant’s funding in those jurisdictions for emergency planning and groundwater monitoring will expire June 30.
The states may not be cut off cold turkey, however. Marty Cohn, spokesman for plant owner Entergy, said recently that the company is negotiating ongoing funding for the states. Entergy has agreed to pay New Hampshire a total of $279,000 over the next four years, while similar deals are in the works in the other two states.
