Who’s to blame for the paralysis that strands millions of pounds of radioactive waste at reactor sites all over the nation, and will cost taxpayers some $40 billion — and perhaps a lot more?
Congress, the U.S. Government Accountability Office says. And Congress must fix it.
In a dispassionate but merciless examination of the string of follies that has put the federal government nearly a quarter-century behind accepting waste from commercial reactors like the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station — where 3.6 million pounds of waste must sit for years or possibly decades — the GAO chronicled the weeds that have choked the effort, then hacked through them to clear a path forward.
“Commercial spent nuclear fuel is extremely dangerous if not managed properly,” the report said. “About 86,000 metric tons of this fuel is stored on-site at 75 operating or shutdown nuclear power plants in 33 states, an amount that grows by about 2,000 metric tons each year.”
The radioisotopes produced in a reactor can remain hazardous from a few days to many thousands of years, the GAO said.
“The longer it takes the federal government to resolve the current impasse and develop a solution for the permanent disposal of commercial spent nuclear fuel, the greater the potential risk to the environment and public health, or of security incidents associated with temporary on-site storage,” the report said. “(T)he safety of long-term dry cask storage is unknown, and the risks, such as environmental and health risks, of on-site storage increase the longer the fuel is stored there.”
Attempted sabotage and theft of radioactive material are also potential security risks, the report said.
How we got here
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 made the management and permanent disposal of commercial spent nuclear fuel a federal responsibility, the GAO explained.
It directed the secretary of energy to investigate locations for permanent geologic repositories and established a Nuclear Waste Fund to collect money from utility customers for disposal.
At first, officials envisioned two permanent sites — one for eastern states and one for western states.
But in 1987, Congress amended the act, telling the Department of Energy to focus its efforts on a permanent repository at just one site: Yucca Mountain, some 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Nevada, which has no nuclear plants, said hell no.
No matter. The 1987 amendments forbade the DOE from pursuing temporary storage until the secretary of energy recommended a permanent site to the president.
“This effectively tied the development of such a facility to Yucca Mountain,” the GAO noted.
Political winds blew.
In 2008, under President George W. Bush, the DOE formally submitted a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain.
In 2009, under President Barack Obama, the DOE said Yucca was not a viable option. The license application was terminated in 2010.
Congress hasn’t funded anything related to a repository at Yucca Mountain since then, nor has it authorized the Department of Energy to explore other possible solutions.
“As a result, under current law, Yucca Mountain is the only location authorized for a permanent repository for the disposal of commercial spent nuclear fuel,” the GAO explained. “The development of the Yucca Mountain site remains unresolved, with significant short-term as well as potential long-term financial consequences for the federal government.”
Hence, the DOE failed to meet the January 1998 deadline to start accepting spent fuel from commercial reactors stipulated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Reactor operators, stuck with the stuff, even as their customers paid for timely disposal, sued. And won.
As of last year, the federal government has forked over almost $9 billion to reactor operators to pay for the temporary storage they’ve had to build to house waste while the feds dicker. These costs will continue to grow, the GAO said: The DOE estimates the outstanding bill at some $30.6 billion, but others say it may be closer to $50 billion.
How to fix
Obama assembled a Blue Ribbon Commission that laid out a path forward in 2012, and it’s largely the path that the GAO urges lawmakers to embrace now. It recommends that Congress:
- Amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to allow the DOE to implement a new, consent-based process for siting temporary storage and permanent geologic disposal facilities.
- Restructure the Nuclear Waste Fund, which has about $43 billion in it to ensure reliable and sufficient funding.
- Create an independent board or similar mechanism to provide political insulation for a nuclear waste disposal program, as well as continuity of leadership.
- Direct DOE to develop a temporary waste management strategy that includes plans for the transportation, interim storage and permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel.
It’s not as if officials don’t know what to do with nuclear waste. In 1957, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that disposal in a geologic formation was the safest way to isolate nuclear waste. Myriad studies in the decades since have reached the same conclusion.
“Congress needs to take action to break the impasse over a permanent solution for commercial spent nuclear fuel,” the GAO said. “(I)t would be unethical to leave future generations responsible for addressing the problem … the generation that benefited from nuclear energy and created the waste has the responsibility to find a safe solution for disposing of (it).”
Canada, Finland and Sweden have all made progress after similar impasses — Finland’s repository is slated to start operating in 2023 and Sweden’s in 2028. Canada spent almost 20 years, Finland about 17 and Sweden more than 30, engaging with the public before selecting sites for permanent repositories.
Try, try, again
Some lawmakers say it’s not for lack of trying.
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein teamed up with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, to introduce the Nuclear Waste Administration Act in 2013, which would do much of what the GAO and others say needs to be done.
“This bipartisan bill — years in the making — will finally begin to address the dangerous, expensive absence of a comprehensive nuclear waste policy,” Feinstein said in the statement at the time. “In addition to creating an independent Nuclear Waste Administration to manage nuclear waste, the bill authorizes the construction of interim storage facilities and permanent waste repositories, sited through a consent-based process and funded by fees currently collected from nuclear power ratepayers.”
The bill didn’t get far. Alexander is no longer a senator. And officials in Feinstein’s office are working on the next move.
Over in the House of Representatives, U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, has introduced legislation that would prioritize the removal of nuclear waste from places with high population and high seismic activity — that is, San Onofre — and also pushed for $25 million for temporary storage.
He has formed a task force on San Onofre, and Southern California Edison, San Onofre’s operator, has assembled a panel of local governments and businesses to push Congress for a solution as well.
“A federal solution to spent nuclear fuel management, or at least one which encompasses a significant degree of federal support, offers the surest and most achievable path to relocating the SONGS spent fuel,” said Edison spokesman John Dobson by email.
Edison is encouraged by appropriations bills passed by the House and Senate that not only provide funding to restart the federal spent fuel management program, but also authorize DOE to begin work on federal interim storage, he said.
David Victor, a professor at UC San Diego and chair of San Onofre’s volunteer Community Engagement Panel, was one of the experts the GAO consulted for its report.
“This problem is first and foremost a failure of congressional action, made possible in part by the fact that the nuclear waste problem has been easy for most communities to ignore,” he said by email. “Only a relatively small number of communities are like ours — highly focused on this long-term challenge — but that is changing as more communities realize the need for action.”
‘We don’t have our act together’
Washington is difficult these days because of political polarization, he said, but there are ways to move the ball forward: Appropriate funds to the DOE for interim storage, which is in progress with support from Feinstein, Levin, Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, and others. The next level involves actual legislation, which has proved difficult.
“That’s why the coalition here locally is so important, because we need to find ways to support the relevant congressional delegations and to build support within other communities that also face problems of stranded spent fuel,” Victor said. “That coalition needs, as well, to help give voice to communities that want to serve as interim storage sites — in Texas, for example, a community that is volunteering for this role is eclipsed, now, by statewide policies set far from the community.”
The NRC has granted one license for private, interim storage in Texas, but the state opposes it and the law right now doesn’t allow the DOE to tap the Nuclear Waste Fund to pay for private storage.
A looming challenge, however, is convincing communities that may want to host interim storage that interim is not forever.
“We need, as well, a longer-term repository for the nation,” Victor said. “If Yucca Mountain is dead, which seems to be the case, then that means a different location (or locations) or a different technology. I am very concerned by the lack of much progress on that front — partly because the ghost of Yucca still stalks the policy debate and partly because there hasn’t been enough sustained pressure to find solutions.
“This is in sharp contrast to what has happened in Finland or Canada. We really don’t have our act together as a nation on this topic. Without a longer term plan, interim may fail.”
