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August 2, 2011

Looking Past Yucca Mountain

Nuclear Waste: Blue ribbon panel calls for interim storage of spent fuel

Glenn Hess

Yucca Mountain is no longer the target site for nuclear waste. DOE
Yucca Mountain is no longer the target site for nuclear waste.
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The U.S. should build a network of interim storage facilities to hold the nation's growing amount of nuclear waste as well as one or more permanent geologic repositories, a presidential commission says in a draft report released on July 29.

The 15-member Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future was established by the White House last year to recommend options for disposing of waste from the 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S.. An estimated 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel are now held at power reactor sites in 33 states, and that inventory is increasing at a rate of 2,000 metric tons per year.

In 2009, President Barack Obama canceled plans to build a permanent repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles north of Las Vegas. The Yucca site was strongly opposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other politicians from the state.

"The Obama Administration's decision to halt work on a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is but the latest indicator of a policy that has been troubled for decades and has now all but completely broken down," concludes the panel in a preliminary report delivered to Energy Secretary Steven Chu. A final report is due in January 2012.

The committee says it is pointless to try to "force a top-down, federally mandated solution" to nuclear waste storage and calls for a new "consent-based" approach. "This means encouraging communities to volunteer to be considered to host a new nuclear-waste management facility," the report says.

The panel recommends that a new government-chartered corporation run the disposal program, taking over the task from the Energy Department. The new federal entity would negotiate with communities, and then construct and operate the sites.

"The overall record of DOE and of the federal government as a whole has not inspired confidence or trust in our nation's nuclear waste management program," the report says. "For this and other reasons, the commission concludes that new institutional leadership is needed."

The Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the nuclear power industry, says it supports the commission's recommendations. But Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) asserts that there is no scientific evidence to support the White House's move to kill Yucca Mountain.

"The Blue Ribbon Commission has offered various proposals to fix a problem we don't have. The draft report states that the 'American nuclear waste management program is at an impasse.' We would not have this impasse but for the President's politically motivated decision to close Yucca Mountain," says Sensenbrenner, vice chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2011 American Chemical Society
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