POWER September 2020 - 35

NUCLEAR WASTE
Interim Options
Joe Delmar, senior director, Government
Affairs & Communications for Holtec International,
told POWER that the company's
proposed HI-STORE CISF in New
Mexico " continues through the NRC
licensing process. The NRC issued the
draft environmental impact statement
[EIS] and found no environmental reason
that would prevent a license from
being issued. Due to COVID, the NRC
has conducted two public meetings on
the draft EIS and has extended the public
comment period until September 22.
The NRC is also conducting a safety review
of the HI-STORE project. " He said,
" The NRC has indicated a license could
be issued in 2021 based on the current
schedule. "
Holtec has touted the safety of its
storage system; the risk of accidents
that would cause radiation to leak into
the surrounding area has been an argument
against interim storage sites and
against the transport of nuclear waste to
those sites.
Delmar said Holtec's
" HI-STORE
CISF utilizes Holtec's HI-STORM UMAX
vertical ventilation dry storage system,
which is engineered to be immune to
extreme environmental phenomena,
such as hurricanes, floods, tornados,
and earthquakes. The canisters are
stored in underground, concrete and
steel cavities making them essentially
impenetrable. HI-STORE CISF is designed
to withstand a crashing aircraft
or an unlikely on-site fire without any
radiological impact. "
John Buchser, nuclear waste issues
chair for the Rio Grande chapter of the
Sierra Club, said that while the environmental
group is opposed to the New
Mexico site, the Holtec system " is a
good example of hardening " when it
comes to storage. He said his group is
most concerned with the transportation
of nuclear waste from current onsite
storage facilities.
" Probably one of the largest issues
is the risk of transportation [of nuclear
waste], " Buchser told POWER. " There
are probably at least 10 [nuclear power
plants] with concerns about storage
onsite. " Buchser said companies such
as Holtec have " tried to do a good job
with the design of those [storage] casks,
and they're probably good for 50 to 100
years, but we need to have procedures
in place to address any leakage. One
concern is a 'return to sender' if it's leaking.
If it's leaking, you're going to send it
back? I don't think so. "
September 2020 | POWER
2. A final disposal canister for spent nuclear fuel is among the items on display at the Olkiluoto
Nuclear Power Plant visitor center in Finland. Courtesy: Creative Commons / Teemu Väisänen
Going Underground
There are many techniques for disposing
of nuclear waste, including geological
disposal such as that proposed at Yucca
Mountain. That method includes several
types of underground storage.
The World Nuclear Association (WNA)
earlier this year, in an update to its recommendations
for nuclear waste disposal,
said that high-level waste should be
stored for about 50 years before permanent
disposal to allow the radioactivity
to decay. The WNA also said, " Disposal
of low-level waste is straightforward
and can be undertaken safely almost
anywhere, " and said, " Storage of used
fuel is normally under water for at least
five years and then often in dry storage. "
The group noted that " Deep geological
disposal is widely agreed to be the best
solution for final disposal of the most radioactive
waste produced. "
Switzerland is among the countries
working on geological disposal. The National
Cooperative for the Disposal of
Radioactive Waste (Nagra), in charge
of the country's effort, in mid-July said
it has completed drilling of the Marthalen
borehole, saying, " Taking the results
together with the information from the
Trüllikon borehole, the earlier borehole
in Benken and other investigations, the
picture of the underground in the Zürich
Nordost siting region is becoming more
complete. " The group said it had drilled
to a depth of 1,100 meters, studying the
boreholes in the Opalinus Clay host rock
where its repository is planned.
Philipp Senn, Nagra's deputy division
head for Collaboration Sectoral Plan
and Public Outreach, said, " The results
to date from the boreholes in Trüllikon
and Marthalen, the earlier borehole in
Benken and other investigations give a
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consistent picture of the underground
environment in [the] Zürich Nordost siting
region. " The group said three regions
have been identified " as suitable in principle
for the construction of a repository.
Nagra's objective in drilling the deep
boreholes is to find out which of the
three regions is best suited. " The group
said it expects to announce in 2022
which region it will submit for a license.
The Onkalo nuclear waste disposal
facility under construction in Finland is
a $555 million project that will be operated
by Posiva, a joint venture between
Teollisuuden Voima (TVO, with a 60%
stake), and Fortum Power and Heat
(40%). Posiva will be responsible for the
final disposal of nuclear waste produced
by TVO's Olkiluoto nuclear power plant
(Figure 2), as well as Fortum's Loviisa
nuclear plant in Finland. The site, located
on Olkiluoto Island near Finland's
west coast, is expected to hold as much
as 6,500 metric tons of spent nuclear
fuel over an estimated operational life of
100 years.
" Deep geologic repositories remain
the answer embraced by most who have
studied it, " said Farward, who added
that " Maintaining spent nuclear fuel at a
large number of discrete sites with limited
security perimeters does not make
good risk management sense for the
long term.
" [The] logical intermediate step,
which can be taken as our government
works to develop a final solution to this
issue, requires amendment to the Nuclear
Policy Waste Act in order to allow for
interim storage facilities to operate without
an ultimate destination in a geologic
repository, " he said. ■
-Darrell Proctor is associate editor
for POWER.
35

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POWER September 2020

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