Archive for the ‘Yucca Mountain’ Category

By Edward Davis and David C. Blee

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) August 7, 2012 order to defer any final agency action approving the issuance of new reactor licenses or to grant new license renewals for existing operating reactors — in response to a Federal Appeals Court remand of the agency’s existing waste confidence rule — does not represent the draconian “Full-Stop” that the some of the industry’s opponents claim. 

Under the order, the agency will continue with its technical and licensing reviews while holding any final decisions in abeyance until the NRC has developed and completed its work responsive to the Court’s remand.  Accordingly, the Order could impact very few, if any, near-term combined license (COL) applications.  Moreover, under the NRC’s rules for license renewals, no operating plant would be directly affected where a timely renewal license application has already been submitted to NRC. Current spent fuel storage is certainly safe and not in question.  

Notwithstanding, there have been only rare occasions where similar orders have been issued by the NRC. Among them was the Calvert Cliffs Federal Appeals Court Decision in 1971 to require compliance with the newly enacted National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the preparation of environmental impact statements to accompany new reactor licensing and following the Three Mile Accident (TMI).

Moreover, any failure to resolve the waste confidence issue in a timely manner has the potential to delay new-term COLs, cloud license renewals and chill investor confidence in U.S. nuclear energy at a pivotal time. 

As such, the NRC’s Order and the Court’s remand are matters to be taken seriously.  At the same time, they offer a window of opportunity to chart a path-forward to resolve the back-end of the fuel cycle dilemma, which has plagued U.S. nuclear energy since its infancy.  The Reid-Jaczko four-year walk-in-the-wilderness prescription of just-leave-the waste-where-it-is was myopic at best.  Given the stakes involved, a head-in-the-sand approach in light of this new challenge would be equal folly.

For over four decades, the industry has operated under a series of interlocking court and regulatory decisions that have benefited and fostered the continued use and development of nuclear energy in the U.S. Starting in the early 1970s, a number a significant legal actions were taken to force the NRC to make a determination when licensing new plants that the spent fuel and nuclear waste could be disposed of safely and permanently.  In a 1979 Court of Appeals decision, known as Minnesota vs. NRC, it was found that the NRC was not required to find that such disposal capacity actually existed at the time of licensing of a new plant, only that a finding was necessary that NRC had “confidence”  that a permanent repository would eventually be available when needed.

The Court in the Minnesota decision referenced the NRC's 1977 order denying a National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) petition for a "confidence" rulemaking:

"It is neither necessary nor reasonable for the Commission to insist on proof that a means of permanent waste disposal is on hand at the time reactor operation begins, so long as the Commission can be reasonably confident that permanent disposal (as distinguished from continued storage under surveillance) (emphasis added) can be accomplished safely when it is likely to become necessary. Reasonable progress towards the development of permanent disposal facilities is presently being accomplished. Under these circumstances a halt in licensing of nuclear power plants is not required to protect public health and safety."

However, the Minnesota Court case did give rise to what has been enshrined as the Waste Confidence Rule, which the NRC updates from time to time.  The significance of this generic rule is that interveners cannot raise any questions in individual licensing proceedings as to whether the nuclear plant with its accumulation of spent fuel might one day become a de facto repository after its license expired because the Federal Government failed to successfully develop a repository. 

In addition, by virtue of another generic rule, the so-called Uranium Fuel Cycle Rule and its related Table S-3, one that was challenged all the way to the Supreme Court, opponents cannot question the environmental releases assumed from a repository in individual plant environmental impact statements because NRC has assumed a “zero release” assumption as part of these assessments.

Despite these regulatory protections, the NRC under pressure did concede, as it does today, that the NRC will not continue to license reactors if it does not have reasonable confidence that spent fuel and nuclear waste can and will in due course be disposed of safely. And, specifically, this codified policy commitment relates to permanent disposal and not temporary surface storage. 

The linkage between progress towards permanent disposal and continued reactor licensing is at the heart of today’s nuclear waste confidence impasse — one that cannot be resolved through efforts to site temporary storage facilities, notwithstanding how desirable those efforts may be in terms of moving spent fuel from nuclear power plant sites.

When the Obama Administration disbanded and defunded the DOE’s nuclear repository program while seeking to terminate the Yucca Mountain project,  former NRC Chairman Gregory Jazcko pushed through an update of the Waste Confidence Rule based on the flawed premise that despite the Administration's efforts to terminate the only repository program that the nation has had over the past 30 years, the NRC still had "confidence” that somehow, some way a repository would materialize precisely  when needed.  In the meantime, the NRC found that spent fuel  could be stored onsite safely for a total of 120 years — 60 years during operations followed by an additional 60 years after license expiration for the repository to become available.

Two states seeking to block license renewals and anti-nuclear groups who have had a long running feud with NRC over this issue saw an opportunity and pounced on this update and its “predicative” finding of confidence as a bridge too far and sued the NRC over the revised rule. 

As a result of the Federal Appeals Court’s June 8th remand, the NRC must now go back and develop an environmental assessment of the implications of not having a repository.  Based on oral arguments, Petitioners are seeking an expansive, multi-century analysis of the uncertainties, costs and effects of a repository and its potential failure and related consequences as well as the onsite effects of indefinitely storing spent fuel at reactor sites across the country. Such an assessment is analogous to the Environmental Protection Agency’s one-million-year repository dose standard for Yucca Mountain that took nearly a decade to address. 

Ironically, the DOE in its 2002 Yucca Mountain EIS submitted to the NRC in connection with its license application did in fact make such an assessment of the potential environmental effects in its “No Action” Alternative and found that potential consequences of not having a repository could be quite significant.

This confluence is manifest destiny for the anti-nuclear community, which now believes it has finally opened up a Pandora’s Box that will force the NRC’s hand not to license new nuclear plants without a repository or even with just the reasonable prospect of one.

In writing the Court’s unanimous opinion in the Waste Confidence case, Chief Judge David B. Sentelle summed-up the paradox:

“The Commission apparently has no long-term plan other than hoping for a geologic repository. If the government continues to fail in its quest to establish one, then SNF will seemingly be stored on site at nuclear plants on a permanent basis. The Commission can and must assess the potential environmental effects of such failure.”

He also highlighted this dilemma during oral argument in responding to a suggestion by an NRC lawyer that the Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) recommendations were a basis of renewed confidence that there would be a repository sometime in the not too distant future:

“You just related the history of the law, the Congressional resolutions had required the construction of the Yucca Mountain site, and then you tell me that we should reason from the fact that the President killed the Yucca Mountain site and put in some other Commission that therefore there’s going to be a solution. If anything it sounds like this is one more time that the frustration of the Petitioners reflected reality. “

In short, without a repository, there can be no nuclear energy resurgence. What is required now is a concerted action not only by the NRC but also the Administration and the Congress to address the root cause of the waste confidence impasse and put the U.S. nuclear waste program back on track.  

A good start would be for the NRC to restart the Yucca licensing process and not wait for a Court mandamus order to do so. Such action is supported by the recent vote 326 members of the House of Representatives to provide additional funding for the Yucca licensing process. In addition, the DOE should re-standup the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management in order to refocus efforts and develop a repository restart plan. Congress should appropriate the necessary funding to put the program back on track.

Progress on these fronts and on Yucca Mountain provides confidence that a repository can and will be available.  It also provides a demonstration that there is a political will to resolve the siting issues and to carry out the law that Congress established

Mr. Davis is President of the Pegasus Group and a former President of the American Nuclear Energy Council. Mr. Blee is a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy and Executive Director of the U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council. 

Excerpt from the Western Republican Leadership Conference (WRLC)/CNN Debate at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino:

MR. COOPER: We have a question in the audience.

Q: My question for you is, do you support opening the national nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain?

MR. COOPER: Speaker Gingrich, let’s start with you. I’m sorry, go ahead.

MR. GINGRICH: But look, we worked on this when I was speaker. I think that it has to be looked at scientifically. But I think at some point we have to find a safe method of taking care of nuclear waste. And today, because this has been caught up in a political fight, we have small units of nuclear waste all over this country in a way that is vastly more dangerous to the United States than finding a method of keeping it in a very, very deep place that would be able to sustain 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 years of geological safety.

MR. COOPER: Is Yucca Mountain that place?

MR. GINGRICH: I’m not a scientist. I mean, Yucca Mountain certainly was picked by the scientific community as one of the safest places in the United States. It has always had very deep opposition here in Nevada. And frankly —

MR. COOPER: You were for opening it in Congress, right? When you were in Congress —

MR. GINGRICH: When I was in Congress, frankly, I worked with the — with the Nevada delegation to make sure that there was time for scientific studies. But we have to find some method of finding a very geologically stable place. And most geologists believe that, in fact, Yucca Mountain is that.

MR. COOPER: Congressman Paul, you opposed this.

REP. PAUL: Yes, yes. I’ve opposed this. We’ve had votes in the Congress. There was a time when I voted with two other individuals: the two congressmen from Nevada. And I approach it from a states’ rights position. What right does 49 states have to punish one state and say, we’re going to put our garbage in your state? (Cheers, applause.) I think that’s wrong.

So I think it’s very serious — I think it’s very serious and that, quite frankly, the government shouldn’t be in the business of subsidizing any form of energy. And nuclear energy, I think, is a good source of energy, but they still get subsidies, then they assume this responsibility, then we as politicians and the bureaucrats get involved in this and then we get involved with which state’s going to get stuck with the garbage. So I would say the more the free market handles this and the more you deal with property rights and no subsidies to any form of energy, the easier this problem would be solved.

(Applause.)

MR. COOPER: Governor Romney, where do you stand on this?

MR. ROMNEY: Congressman Paul is right on that. (Cheers, applause.) I don’t always agree with him, but I do on that. The idea that 49 states can tell Nevada, “We want to give you our nuclear waste” doesn’t make a lot of sense. I think the people of Nevada ought to have the final say as to whether they want that. And my guess is that for them to say yes to something like that, someone’s going to have to offer them a pretty good deal, as opposed to having the federal government jam it down their throat. (Applause.)

And by the way, if Nevada says, look, we don’t want it, then let other states make bids and say: Hey, look, we’ll take it. Here’s a geological site that we’re evaluated. Here’s the compensation we want for taking it. We want your electric companies around the country that are using nuclear fuel to compensate us, a certain amount per kilowatt hour, a certain amount per ton of this stuff that comes.

Let the free market work and, on that basis, the places that are geologically safe according to science and where the people say the deal’s a good one will decide where we put this stuff. That’s the right course for America. (Applause.)

MR. COOPER: Governor Perry?

GOV. PERRY: You know, from time to time, Mitt and I don’t agree. But on this one, he hit it — the nail right on the head. (Applause.)

And I’ll just add that when you think about France, who gets over 70 percent of their energy from nuclear power, the idea that they deal with this issue, that their (classification ?) and that the innovation — and Congressman Paul, you’re correct when it comes to allowing the states to compete with each other. That is the answer to this. We need to have a — a discussion in — in this country about our 10th Amendment and the appropriateness of it as it’s been eroded by Washington, D.C., for all these many years — whether it’s health care, whether it’s education, or whether it’s dealing with energy.

We don’t need to be subsidizing energy in any form or fashion.

Allow the states to make the decision, and some state out there will see the economic issue, and they will have it in their state.

The full transcript can be found at The New York Times.

April 1, 2011
Nuclear Townhall

What Nuclear Townhall prints today, CBS News features tomorrow. In a remarkably clear-eyed analysis, CBS has revealed the narrow partisan politics that have temporarily killed the Yucca Mountain project and highlighted what it means to the rest of the country.


Instead of putting opponents on camera to rant about the “nuclear dump” that is a “catastrophe waiting to happen,” CBS reporters went out to Nye County and found that almost everybody scheduled to live near the project actually favors it. Jobs and income are the reason, of course. Then the newscasters dug into the files (or leafed through back stories on NTH) and found that NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko had killed the project single-handed and excised whole sections out of the safety report, to the dismay of staff and other commissioners. This was paired with clips of Presidential candidate Barack Obama promising Nevada voters he would not allow Yucca to open.


“Critics charge you were simply doing the bidding of your former boss, Harry Reid,” the reporter says to Jaczko on camera. The chairman dances around the issue before ending that “the decision was in the best interest of the agency.”
 


The obvious motive here is that millions of Americans have suddenly discovered that it isn’t such a good idea to have spent fuel sitting around in cooling pools decade after decade and that a national repository – or perhaps even some form of reprocessing – wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The report ends solemnly, “Still, nuclear wastes sits scattered across 35 states . . . and Yucca Mountain sits silent, and empty.” 


Even more remarkable, the Yucca report was followed by a piece on radiation pointing out that levels detected on the West Coast are barely above background and that irrational fear of radiation was a much bigger health threat than the radiation itself. If nothing else, the Fukushima accident has caused an outbreak of common sense at CBS News.

See the video here

March 25, 2011
Nuclear Townhall

Three Republican Senators stepped up to the plate Thursday morning and reiterated their support of nuclear power, despite calls for a moratorium or shutting down reactors in the face of the Fukushima accident.

"We don’t have a form of energy production in the United States with a better record than nuclear power," Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee told a press gathering at the nation’s Capitol.  "I don’t think we should be making long-term, domestic U.S. policy based on something that happened in another part of the world," added Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky.  "We certainly need to observe it, learn from it."

Senator Alexander has been a leading figure in the effort to revive nuclear, calling for the construction of 100 new reactors over the next twenty years. 

Democrats at the press gathering were more cautious.  I think we all pause and examine what happened and what these plants look like. Of course, I mean, we need to have a lot more information than we have now," Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio told the audience.     "We need to have a way for a complete safety assessment," added Senator Diane Feinstein of California. "I think that’s the important thing, particularly plants that are of vintage, plants that are close to faults, plants that are close together. Seems to be that’s the emerging no-no."

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama warned against a moratorium on the model of oil drilling after the Gulf oil spill.  "I am not for delays," he said.  "They delayed in the Gulf and they still haven’t started drilling again."  Texas Republican John Cornyn added that safety issues in nuclear had already been given extensive scrutiny.  "We’ve had a virtual shutdown of new reactors for the last 30 years, so I don’t think we need any more brakes on it, especially if we’re going to make ourselves less dependent on foreign sources of energy," he said.

Although the Senate does not have any particularly nuclear issues before it now, the debate may be joined if the issue of extending loan guarantees or reviving Yucca Mountain come to the floor.
 

Read more about it at WAMU News Radio

March 21, 2011
Nuclear Townhall
From the Editors

The immediate reaction from anti-nuclear activists to the nuclear crisis in Japan is likely to be an immediate call to close down similar American plants and stop relicensing. Pickets are already preparing to assemble outside Vermont Yankee and Indian Point.


Reasoned concern is likely, however, to focus around the issue of spent fuel. As the events at Fukushima have revealed, the spent fuel pools can be potentially vulnerable and on-site stockpiles are mounting in the U.S.
 
The Chicago Tribune tackles this question in an editorial this weekend, leading to the inevitable conclusion – why not revive Yucca Mountain:



“Obvious question: Why do nuclear plants store spent fuel that way?



“Obvious answer in the U.S.:

Yucca Mountain isn’t open. In the 1980s, the federal government launched plans to develop nuclear waste storage carved into the mountain in Nevada and let it slowly and harmlessly decay.



But lawsuits, politics and environmental challenges stalled the project for decades.”

The Tribune takes the Obama Administration to task for its ongoing attempt to terminate the project, largely at the behest of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.



“The decision to mothball Yucca was a huge mistake, and the Obama administration should recognize that in the wake of the nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan. . . .

“Wake-up call: Illinois is home to more spent fuel rods than any other state in the nation.”

Read more at the Chicago Tribune
 

Press release follows below:

-

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 24, 2011

February 19, 2011

Yucca Mountain Safety Evaluation Report – Appendix A

Yucca Mountain Safety Evaluation Report – Volume 2

Yucca Mountain Safety Evaluation Report – Volume 3

January 19, 2011

For more, read here.