U.S. nuclear waste storage: SNAFU

The stars would seem to be aligned to resolve the more than 50-year-old puzzle over what to do with spent fuel from the U.S. civilian nuclear power plant fleet, now stored at reactor sites. And it would seem that the nuclear and electric utility industry approach – reactivating the long-stalled underground storage project at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain – would be the final answer.

No so. The supporters of a Yucca solution were optimistic when the 2016 national elections produced a Republican Congress and a Republican White House. Soon, that included a Republican 3-2 majority on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Never mind. The decades-long stalemate over nuclear waste continues, with no end in sight. It appears the final solution to what to do with the nation’s used nuclear fuel is nothing: keep it where it is, mostly in dry-cask storage at reactor sites, where the NRC has consistently certified it is safe.

The nuclear industry had hope for a final, out-of-sight, out-of-mind, solution in the depths of federal government owned land in the Nevada desert. The odds of that look no better in Washington’s Republican ascendance than they did in the Obama administration. Waste disposal remains a key element in what appears to be the slow but inexorable death of nuclear power in the U.S., despite worries over carbon dioxide and global warming, where nuclear appears to be part of a solution.

Chemical & Engineering News commented recently, “Despite more than 50 years of laws, regulations, lawsuits, and debates, the U.S. has no long-term repository for nuclear waste—nor even much of a plan for one.” Indeed, the Trump administration, despite some rhetoric to the contrary, appears to be oblivious to nuclear power, focusing instead on trying to resuscitate a dying coal industry, with little to show for that.

Sen. Dean Heller

Congress has shown little interest in nuclear waste. The House, before it went into its August recess, approved a defense authorization that included no money for restarting the Yucca Mountain approval process. The administration has said little about nuclear waste, fearful that coming out strongly for Yucca Mountain could jeopardize the 2018 election prospects for GOP Sen. Dean Heller, who is in a tight reelection race in Nevada, which could determine whether the Republicans or the Democrats take control of the Senate.

Yucca Mountain is political poison in Nevada. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, made sure the project got no support when he ran the show, and he had an ally in Obama. Republican Heller worked with Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma to keep pro-Yucca authorization out of the Senate’s defense authorization bill.

Yucca Mountain became the nation’s designated final grave for high-level nuclear waste not as a result of a rigorous scientific process, as envisioned in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Rather, it emerged from a political process when the Reagan White House and Energy Secretary John Herrington decided in 1986 that the law was jeopardizing a crucial Republican Sen., Robert Stafford of Vermont, who was chairman of the Senate Environment Committee.

As a result of the White House cutting the selection process short, Louisiana Democratic Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, chairman of the energy committee, pushed legislation in 1987 to sideline the selection process and pick Yucca Mountain. Its advantages were a location in a low population state, on federal land, and presumably, because of its desert location, unlikely to present water challenges to the spent fuel (that later proved to be a mistaken assumption). Johnston’s legislation became known as the “Screw Nevada” bill.

Former Sen. Harry Reid

Little did Johnston and his industry allies know that an obscure Las Vegas Democratic Representative named Harry Reid would win a Senate seat in 1987, and rise through the ranks to become Senate Majority Leader in 2007. Reid spent all of his years lobbing political hand grenades into the Yucca Mountain project.

With Reid now retired and the Senate in Republican hands, the irony is that the GOP is still captive to Nevada politics. Heller is important to the Republicans as they see the possibility of a slim one-vote majority slipping to a slim minority position. Opposition to Yucca in Nevada is not partisan. Reid worked against the project. Both Heller and Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval are opponents.

In the meantime, one of the new Republicans on the NRC, former South Carolina utility regulator David Wright, is facing a challenge to his participation in NRC proceedings on a revival of DOE license hearings on Yucca Mountain. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit will be hearing a case of the state vs. the NRC, where the state claims Wright should recuse himself from Yucca Mountain decisions. He has made public statements supporting the project and headed a National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners task force that came out strongly for reviving Yucca Mountain. He has refused to recuse, saying his views were expressions of general support for long-term waste storage.

— Kennedy Maize