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07.11

Impasse Over Yucca Mountain

By George F. McClure

The damage to Japanese nuclear reactors at Fukushima from the earthquake and tsunami on 12 March has focused attention on the state of nuclear power generation around the globe. The United States has 104 reactors in service. Germany has announced its intention to mothball all 17 of its reactors by the end of 2022, increasing its dependence on energy imports, fossil fuels and expansion of renewable energy resources, and opening up the probability of lawsuits from owner/operators of the closed plants.

To reduce its dependence on foreign fossil fuel, the United States is considering applications for more nuclear power plants, but has not come up with a permanent solution for storage of spent nuclear fuel. Following is an excerpt from the Government Accountability Office's description of the chronology of efforts in this direction:

Nuclear energy, which supplied about 20 percent of the nation’s electric power in 2010, offers a domestic source of energy with low emissions but also presents difficulties — including what to do with nuclear fuel after it has been used and removed from commercial power reactors. This material, known as spent nuclear fuel, is highly radioactive and considered one of the most hazardous substances on earth. The current national inventory of nearly 65,000 metric tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel is stored at 75 sites in 33 states and increases by about 2,000 metric tons each year.

In 1983, the President signed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA), which directed the Department of Energy (DOE) to investigate sites for a federal deep geologic repository to dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste. DOE studied six sites in the West and three sites in the South, and by 1986, DOE recommended three candidate sites for site characterization: Hanford in Washington state, Deaf Smith County in Texas, and Yucca Mountain in Nevada. In 1987, however, Congress amended the act to direct DOE to focus its efforts only on Yucca Mountain—a site about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Under this amendment, DOE was to perform studies to determine if the site was suitable for a repository and make a site recommendation to the President if it met certain requirements. DOE was also authorized to contract with commercial nuclear reactor operators to take custody of their spent nuclear fuel for disposal at the repository beginning in January 1998. Ultimately DOE was unable to meet this 1998 date because of a series of delays due to, among other things, state and local opposition to the construction of a permanent nuclear waste repository in Nevada and technical complexities. DOE issued a viability assessment in 1998 that stated Yucca Mountain was still a viable alternative and, in 2002, recommended the site to the President. In turn, the President recommended the site to Congress, which subsequently approved the Yucca Mountain site as the location for the nation’s geologic repository.

In June 2008, DOE submitted a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) seeking authorization to construct a high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain. NRC has regulatory authority to authorize construction of the repository. DOE planned to open the repository in 2017, but later delayed the date to 2020.

In March 2009, however, the Secretary of Energy announced plans to terminate the Yucca Mountain repository program and instead study other options for nuclear waste management. The President’s fiscal year 2011 budget proposal, released in February 2010, proposed eliminating all funding for the Yucca Mountain repository program and the DOE office responsible for nuclear waste management — the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM). At about the same time, the administration also directed DOE to establish a Blue Ribbon Commission of recognized experts to study nuclear waste management alternatives (but not disposal sites). The commission is scheduled to issue a report by January 2012.

The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy notified Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko that it is launching an investigation into the decision-making process to terminate the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Environment and the Economy Chairman John Shimkus (R-Ill.) launched the inquiry after reviewing available evidence indicating there was no scientific or technical basis for withdrawing the application. In the wake of the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan and uncertainty about the damaged nuclear reactors, Congress is demanding answers about the administration’s decision to halt development of the only permanent U.S. site for spent nuclear fuel.

At a June hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Energy Peter Lyons said that the administration believed that the Yucca Mountain repository lacked social public acceptance, and that Secretary Chu was meeting with Energy Department lawyers to formulate the grounds to terminate the program[see video].

Dr. Lyons said that a Blue Ribbon Commission on the subject of processing for spent fuel storage is scheduled to issue a report in July.

Committee Chair Emeritus Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), an engineer, was incredulous that federal law mandating the site is not being followed when the best science showed that Yucca Mountain was an optimum storage location for spent nuclear fuel. He asked whether dislike of the color purple would be as good grounds as lack of social public acceptance to flout federal law. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), noting that his state had 9,700 canisters of spent nuclear fuel ready to ship toYucca Mountain, characterized the present situation as “a failed state.” [See 1:27 to 1:34 on the video for the interchanges.]

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) asked about the investment to date in Yucca Mountain. Consumers (ratepayers) have paid $9.5 billion of the nearly $15 billion spent thus far, with taxpayers paying the rest. There is also a judgments fund compensating utilities for the government’s failure to have a facility ready to receive spent nuclear fuel in 1998, as required.

The federal government has already paid out about $1 billion in lawsuits for reneging on promises made under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to cart off nuclear waste.

 Yucca Mountain is scheduled to open for storage in 2020. These costs will total $15.4 billion by 2020 and increase by an estimated $500 million for each year delay after that.

The Inspector General for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a report describing procedures there that confuse and delay actions. Among them are voting irregularities on decisions that were long overdue and information kept from commissioners by the NRC chairman.

A video prepared by the House Energy & Commerce Committee including testimony by the NRC Inspector General is available.

The Washington Post called the situation “toxic politics,” in a recent editorial.

Physics Today notes the dysfunctional controversy as reminiscent of another expensive hole in the ground — in Texas — for the superconducting super collider, canceled in 1993.

An industry survey of electric utilities this year found nuclear waste disposal and storage a top concern for the first time. Another top concern is the availability of sufficient water for hydroelectric dams, turbine cooling and production of natural gas from shale rock.

George F. McClure is Technology Policy editor for IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society's representative to IEEE-USA's Committee on Transportation and Aerospace policy.

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.