POWER May 2010 - 32

Nuclear Power
In 1975, Dr. Robert Seamans-in one of
his first acts as administrator of the Energy
Research and Development Administration
(ERDA)-withdrew the EIS associated with
the RSSF and decided that a permanent waste
repository should be given budget priority.
ERDA was created to assume the responsiblities
of the then-dissolved AEC that were not
covered by the newly formed NRC.
In 1976 a multiple-site strategy was initiated
that would have led to the development of
several repositories by 2000. Letters were sent
to 36 state governors, informing them of these
plans and asking for their cooperation in site exploration
activities. A number of generic studies
were undertaken at the Nevada Test Site,
the Permian Basin and Palo Duro sub-basin in
Texas, and Salina Basin in Michigan, Ohio, and
New York. Exploration of specific sites would
begin in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Washington,
and Nevada for the site that would host
the first commercial waste repository.
As a group, these states realized the importance
of becoming more intimately involved in
the nuclear waste management decision-making
process. ERDA offered to work closely with
the states and to keep the governors informed
of how its programs were progressing. It also
promised to terminate a project within a state
if technical issues were not resolved through
mutually accepted procedures. The states, in effect,
were being offered what they believed to be
veto power over construction of a waste facility
within their jurisdiction. Thus, what began as a
new initiative to involve states in participative
decision-making soon devolved into individual
states halting projects because they were reluctant
to consider a facility in their state.
The AFR Storage Concept
Because of the geologic disposal program's relatively
late start and the federal government's deferral
of commercial reprocessing (see " How to
Solve the Used Nuclear Fuel Storage Problem, "
POWER, August 2008), concerns were raised
that a number of operating reactors would run
out of room to store their SNF on-site. Should
that occur, and if there were no alternative locations
for storing the SNF, the reactor would be
forced to shut down. To address this particular
concern, and while ERDA was reorganized into
the current DOE, in 1977, ERDA pursued an
" away-from-reactor (AFR) storage " concept for
any spent fuel that utilities wished to transfer to
the federal government. The government would
then take title to the fuel and be responsible for
its permanent disposal. At the time of transfer,
the utilities would pay a one-time charge that
would fully pay for storage and disposal costs.
The AFR concept was initially designed to
serve four different functions: preventing the
shutdown of reactors pending repository development;
providing time for the geologic dis32
posal
program to mature; allowing the U.S. to
accept limited amounts of foreign spent fuel to
achieve nonproliferation objectives; and maintaining
access to plutonium and uranium in the
SNF should reprocessing become viable again
in the future. However, the AFR concept was
viewed very much as the RSSF concept had
been several years earlier. The result was also
similar: The project was terminated in 1981.
Nuclear Waste Policy Act
In 1982, Congress enacted the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act, which was signed by President
Ronald Reagan on January 7, 1983. The
NWPA represented the most expensive civil
works project in history, establishing a schedule
for the DOE to site and for the NRC to license
geological repositories for permanent disposal
of SNF and HLW. The DOE was directed to assess
numerous locations around the country for
possible sites and present a minimum of three
finalist sites. Although this legislation was a
decisive step forward, its attempted implementation
again raised a public outcry based on accusations
that government agencies were acting
in secret to identify storage sites.
To finance the project, the NWPA established
the NWF, to which electricity consumers
would pay a fee of one-tenth of a cent
for every nuclear-generated kilowatt-hour
of electricity consumed. The DOE would
draw upon the NWF to finance the siting,
construction, and operation of repositories.
In exchange for payment into the NWF, the
DOE was required to take title to the SNF
and HLW following the opening of the first
repository-scheduled for January 31, 1998.
In February 1983, the DOE carried out the
first requirement of the NWPA by formally
identifying nine potentially acceptable locations
(the host rock is shown in parentheses),
for the first repository:
■ Vacherie dome, Louisiana (domal salt)
■ Cypress Creek dome, Mississippi (domal
salt)
■ Richton dome, Mississippi (domal salt)
■ Yucca Mountain, Nevada (welded tuff)
■ Deaf Smith County, Texas (bedded salt)
■ Swisher County, Texas (bedded salt)
■ Davis Canyon, Utah (bedded salt)
■ Lavender Canyon, Utah (bedded salt)
■ Hanford Site, Washington (basalt flows)
By 1984, the DOE believed that one or more
repositories would be available by 2007-2009
and that sufficient repository capacity would be
available 30 years beyond the expiration of any
reactor operating license to dispose of SNF and
HLW generated during that time. In addition,
the DOE reaffirmed its obligation to accept SNF
assemblies beginning in January 1998, whether
or not a permanent disposal facility was ready.
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This announcement was to enable utilities to
plan for their projected waste disposal needs
with confidence and certainty.
After evaluating the nine candidate sites, the
DOE selected three finalists: Yucca Mountain,
Deaf Smith County, and Hanford. These sites
advanced into the next round of intensive scientific
study described as the " site characterization
process. " Critics had claimed the sites were recycled
from surveys performed in the 1970s and
that the NWPA required the DOE to conduct
a new screening process rather than proceed
with sites considered prior to the passage of
the NWPA. On May 28, 1986, President Ronald
Reagan approved Yucca Mountain for site
characterization under the NWPA. By that time,
nearly $1.5 billion had been spent surveying,
drilling, recording seismic information, monitoring,
and analyzing the Yucca Mountain site.
Nuclear Waste Policy
Amendments Act
President George H.W. Bush signed the
NWPAA on December 22, 1987, which supposedly
" settled " the waste storage issue by
codifying the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada
as the nation's first geological waste nuclear
fuel repository. Characterization of each
site had been estimated to take five to seven
years, costing somewhere around $1 billion
to $2 billion, so work on the other two finalist
sites was postponed indefinitely.
The NWPAA outlined a detailed approach
for disposal involving review by the president,
Congress, state and tribal governments,
the NRC, and other federal agencies, while
retaining the 70,000 metric ton limit on the
amount of SNF and HLW that the DOE could
place in the first repository. According to the
amendment's legislative history, the intent
of this limitation was to ensure that no state
would have to bear the entire nuclear waste
disposal burden. The DOE also extended the
timetable for opening the first repository from
1998 to 2003. However, if Yucca Mountain
was found to be unsuitable, Congress was to
be notified and provided alternatives.
Regional Equity Concerns
Regional equity concerns were being raised
over a majority of the SNF being generated
in the eastern U.S., yet having the final candidate
sites for a repository located in the western
U.S. At one time, however, there were 12
potential sites in seven eastern states for a
second repository.
To counter the regional equity issue, a
monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facility
would be integrated into the ultimate disposal
system and preferably be located in the eastern
U.S. Also, the licensing process would
be straightforward because the MRS did not
have to isolate wastes for thousands of years
POWER | May 2010
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POWER May 2010

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