POWER April 2013 - 67

NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY
Nuclear Waste Disposal Sites Still
Rare After All These Years
Nuclear power generation is well established, but efforts worldwide to develop
permanent disposal sites for highly radioactive waste remain nascent
at best. If this were a horse race, you'd have to say the smaller
horses are winning.
By David Wagman
T
he U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
published in early January its " Strategy
for the Management and Disposal of
Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive
Waste, " an 18-page outline of how the
Obama administration plans to implement
recommendations made by its so-called Blue
Ribbon Commission (BRC) on America's
Nuclear Future. The commission was set up
in 2010 to review and recommend a plan of
action to manage and dispose of used nuclear
fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
With appropriate authorizations from Congress,
the Energy Department said it hopes to
implement a program over 10 years that:
■ Sites, designs, licenses, constructs, and
begins operations of a pilot interim storage
facility by 2021 with an initial focus
on accepting used nuclear fuel from shutdown
reactor sites.
■ Moves toward siting and licensing a larger
interim storage facility to be available by
2025 that will have sufficient capacity for
enough used nuclear fuel to reduce expected
government liabilities.
■ Makes demonstrable progress on the siting
and characterization of repository sites
to facilitate the availability of a geologic
repository by 2048.
Other aspects of the administration's proposal
include requiring consent-based siting,
reforming the funding approach, and establishing
a new organization to implement the
program.
This seemingly back-to-square-one action
runs counter to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act
of 1982 and subsequent congressional action
that, in 1987, named Yucca Mountain in the
Nevada desert as the sole candidate to receive
U.S. domestic radioactive nuclear waste. Lawsuits
are under way challenging the Obama administration's
decision to scrap development
of a Yucca Mountain repository and establish
a new process for designating and building a
long-term waste storage facility.
April 2013 | POWER
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67
Those decisions, which came early in
Obama's first term, were motivated in part
by politics. As described in prior articles
(see the sidebar " The Quest for Long-Term
SNF Storage " ), candidate sites in Texas
and Washington State were dropped from
consideration in favor of Yucca Mountain
largely because Nevada's congressional
delegation couldn't block action anointing
Yucca Mountain. In the intervening years,
Nevada Senator Harry Reid gained stature
and as Senate majority leader found an
ally to stop Yucca Mountain's development
once Barack Obama took office in 2009.
As a result, some $15 billion in taxpayer
investment at the Nevada site now seems
likely to lead to nothing. What's more, the
timetable for establishing a national nuclear
waste repository has been reset until at
least 2048, according to the DOE's January
recommendation.
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), an
industry trade group, said it welcomed the
Energy Department's recommendation and
said many of the concepts put forward by
the BRC and recommended by the DOE
have enjoyed support among its members
and other experts.
" After two years of BRC deliberations
and an additional year for DOE to develop
its strategy, it is essential that the nuclear
waste fee be used solely for its intended
purpose-to cover the cost of used fuel
management and disposal, " the NEI said.
The fee (equal to one-tenth of a cent per
kilowatt-hour of electricity) paid by consumers
of electricity from nuclear power
plants, totals about $750 million a year and
is at present " effectively unavailable for its
intended purpose, " the NEI said.
Conflict remains, however. In late January,
the NEI joined state utility regulators
1. Nuclear fuel cycle. The multi-step process from uranium mining to enrichment to use
in a reactor is well known. Disposal, at the very end of the cycle, remains something of a black
box. Source: Nuclear Regulatory Commission

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POWER April 2013

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