Mark Holt updated (16 September 2019) this CRS report, Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposal.
Still don't have a solution to this issue. I still like deep burial within a formation like the Pierre Shale or salt deposits like the WIPP. One of these days....
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Summary
Management of civilian radioactive waste has posed difficult issues for Congress since the beginning of the nuclear power industry in the 1950s. Federal policy is based on the premise that nuclear waste can be disposed of safely, but proposed storage and disposal facilities have frequently been challenged on safety, health, and environmental grounds. Although civilian radioactive waste encompasses a wide range of materials, most of the current debate focuses on highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants. The United States currently has no permanent disposal facility for spent nuclear fuel or other highly radioactive waste.The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA) calls for disposal of spent nuclear fuel in a deep geologic repository. NWPA requires the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop such a repository, which would be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Amendments to NWPA in 1987 restricted DOE’s repository site studies to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. DOE submitted a license application for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository to NRC on June 3, 2008. The State of Nevada strongly opposes the Yucca Mountain project, citing excessive water infiltration, earthquakes, volcanoes, human intrusion, and other technical issues.
Licensing and design work for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository was halted under the Obama Administration, which cited continued opposition from Nevada. To develop an alternative nuclear waste policy, the Obama Administration established the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, which in 2012 recommended a “consent based” process for siting nuclear waste storage and disposal facilities.
The Trump Administration included funds to restart Yucca Mountain licensing in its FY2018, FY2019, and FY2020 budget submissions to Congress. The FY2018 and FY2019 Yucca Mountain funding requests were not enacted. For FY2020, the House did not provide funding for Yucca Mountain in the Energy and Water Development appropriations bill (H.R. 2740), and the Senate Appropriations Committee also provided no funding in its version of the bill (S. 2470), approved September 12, 2019.
Several nuclear waste bills have been introduced in the 116th Congress. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing June 27, 2019, on a bill to create a Nuclear Waste Administration to implement a consent-based siting process for nuclear waste facilities (S. 1234). Newly proposed waste sites would require consent by host states and affected local governments and Indian tribes. The bill would not affect the existing Yucca Mountain licensing process.
A bill to provide the necessary land controls for the planned Yucca Mountain repository (H.R. 2699) was introduced May 14, 2019. The bill also would authorize DOE to store commercial waste from nuclear power plants at a nonfederal interim storage facility and ease the capacity limit on the Yucca Mountain repository from 70,000 to 110,000 metric tons, in comparison with the approximately 80,000 metric tons currently stored at U.S. nuclear plants. It is similar to a bill passed by the House in the 115th Congress (H.R. 3053, H.Rept. 115-355).
Other nuclear waste bills in the 116th Congress would prohibit expenditures on the Yucca Mountain repository without state and local consent (H.R. 1544, S. 649), establish priorities for nuclear waste disposal (H.R. 2995), and authorize grants to communities to compensate for continued waste storage at closed reactors (S. 1985), among others.
Nonfederal interim storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel are being proposed in New Mexico and Texas. Interim storage proponents contend that DOE could fulfill its disposal obligations under NWPA by taking title to spent fuel at nuclear plant sites and storing it at private facilities until a permanent underground repository could be opened.
NWPA required DOE to begin removing spent fuel from reactor sites by January 31, 1998. Because that deadline was missed, nuclear utilities have sued DOE to recover the additional storage costs they have incurred, with damage payment so far totaling $7.4 billion.
Cutting to the chase...
Disposal of radioactive waste will be a key issue in the continuing nuclear power debate. Without central disposal or storage facilities, spent fuel from nuclear power plants must be stored on-site indefinitely. This situation has raised growing public concern near permanently closed nuclear plants, which cannot be fully decommissioned until their spent fuel is shipped off-site. Concern about spent fuel storage safety was heightened by the March 2011 disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Under current law, the federal government’s nuclear waste disposal policy is focused on the Yucca Mountain site. However, President Obama’s actions to terminate the Yucca Mountain project and develop a new waste strategy through the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future brought most activities in the DOE waste program to a halt. Congress is continuing to debate the project’s future, particularly through the appropriations process. The NRC staff’s finding in October 2014 that the Yucca Mountain site would meet NRC standards after the repository was filled and sealed has been cited as evidence of the project’s continued viability.130
The Trump Administration’s proposed funding to restart Yucca Mountain licensing and the 2017 retirement of Senator Reid, who as Democratic Leader had strongly opposed the Yucca Mountain project, may affect legislative action on nuclear waste. In requesting $120 million in FY2018 for Yucca Mountain licensing and spent fuel storage, the Trump Administration said, “These investments would accelerate progress on fulfilling the Federal Government’s obligations to address nuclear waste, enhance national security, and reduce future taxpayer burden.”131 The Yucca Mountain funding was not approved for FY2018 or FY2019, but the Trump Administration has made a similar request for FY2020. The requested Yucca Mountain funding was not included in FY2020 Energy and Water Development appropriations bills passed by the House or approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Because of their waste-disposal contracts with DOE, owners of existing reactors are likely to continue seeking damages from the federal government if disposal delays continue. For example, DOE’s 2004 settlement with the nation’s largest nuclear operator, Exelon, could require payments of up to $600 million from the federal judgment fund. DOE estimates that its potential liabilities for waste program delays could total as much as $35.5 billion, including the $7.4 billion already paid to Exelon and other utilities in settlements and final judgments. The nuclear industry has predicted that future damages could rise by tens of billions of dollars more if the federal disposal program fails altogether.
Lack of a nuclear waste disposal system could also affect the licensing of proposed new nuclear plants, both because of NRC licensing guidelines and various state laws.132 In addition, further repository delays could force DOE to miss compliance deadlines for defense waste disposal.
Problems being created by nuclear waste disposal delays were addressed by the Blue Ribbon Commission in its final report, issued in January 2012. Major options include centralized interim storage, continued storage at existing nuclear sites, reprocessing and waste treatment technology, development of alternative repository sites, or a combination. The commission recommended that a congressionally chartered corporation be established to undertake a negotiated process for siting new waste storage and disposal facilities.
The “consent based” nuclear waste siting process recommended by the Blue Ribbon Commission, and which would be authorized by several bills in Congress, has attracted serious interest from localities in New Mexico and Texas. However, previous voluntary siting efforts, such as those by the U.S. Nuclear Waste Negotiator established by the 1987 NWPA amendments, also attracted serious local interest but were ultimately blocked by the governments of the potential host states.
Therefore, the cooperation of states is likely to be crucial to the success of any renewed “consent based” siting effort.
Enjoy!
Reports likw this conjure memories of running around Nevada over 30 years ago.
"The problem with cats is that they get the same exact look whether they see a moth or an ax-murderer." - @paulapoundstone
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