WASHINGTON – America’s ability to safely dispose of its high-level nuclear waste remains a major challenge, even as Congress debates legislation that proposes to streamline and improve an already complicated process.
In the next step toward a bi-partisan solution, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee grilled Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz Tuesday on a bill called the Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2013.
The most pressing question committee members raised was whether the legislation would make it easier to secure a site for a deep geological repository that could safely harbor nuclear waste.
“Instead of focusing on interim solutions, this legislation should assure that future congresses and administrations sustain the political and financial will that will be required to open a geologic repository,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.
Experts say that the U.S. currently has no long-term storage site for its civilian nuclear waste. The waste – much of it spent nuclear fuel — is stored “temporarily” at nuclear facilities around the country where it is less secure. The 2011 disaster at a nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan has renewed calls for the U.S to better secure its high-level waste.
“The federal government is morally obligated to make sure that waste from the nation’s nuclear programs is safely and permanently disposed of in a repository,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “Simply continuing to pass the burden to future generations is not an option.”
The new legislation, co-sponsored by Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., seeks the establishment of a new agency to take the reins from the Department of Energy on waste storage matters.
It would also set up a consent-based process for finding permanent repository sites. This includes getting state, local and if necessary, tribal approval before any sites can be considered.
But the consent-based process did little to meet the committee’s concerns over the controversial Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. By law, Yucca Mountain is designated as the existing repository for high-level nuclear waste, but funding for its construction was cut by the Obama administration effective in April of 2011.
“There is simply no excuse for this administration to backtrack on their commitment. Some might find Yucca to be politically inconvenient, but that doesn’t matter,” said Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. “It is still the law of the land. What good are laws passed by Congress if we can decide not to enforce them?”
But a January 2012 report published by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future notes that even Yucca Mountain alone is not enough to solve the nation’s problem.
“Regardless of what happens with Yucca Mountain, the U.S. inventory of spent nuclear fuel will soon exceed the amount that can be legally emplaced at this site until a second repository is in operation,” the report said.
A Government Accountability Office paper published in June of 2011 reported that the U.S. had produced over 75,000 metric tons of waste to that date. If all U.S. nuclear generators remained at their current capacity, that number was expected to double by 2055. The Yucca Mountain site is legally authorized to hold only 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste.
And capacity issues are a large reason why Moniz says the 10-year window the new legislation provides for a new repository site is so important.
“It is very important that as we move out that we have a demonstrably aggressive program,” he said. “I do believe it is quite feasible. It’s aggressive, but quite feasible.”