Reproduced with permission from Daily
Environment Report, 110 DEN A-16 (June 10, 2010).
Copyright 2010 by The Bureau of National Affairs,
Inc. (800-372-1033) <http://www.bna.com>
Panelists at a June 9 forum on the nuclear fuel cycle agreed that until a stable national policy is in place on managing spent nuclear fuel, industry and regulators need to focus on making “extended storage” as efficient and safe as possible.
“As you may have surmised, extended storage really is the only game in town,” said Doug Weaver, deputy director of the division of spent fuel storage and transportation at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Weaver spoke at a forum on Achieving Nuclear Fuel Cycle Sustainability sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council, an industry trade group.
U.S. nuclear power plants all use the “once through” or open fuel cycle, using fuel for one reaction only and then cooling the used fuel rods in a secure cooling pool until they can be moved to dry storage casks on the power plant site. All storage is currently on site because there are no off-site interim storage facilities, and no permanent repository has been built for used nuclear fuel.
“Within the next week or so” NRC staff will deliver a report on how the commission should proceed on spent fuel regulatory issues, Weaver said. The report was requested by the commissioners in February. It will also be presented at a public session on June 25, he said.
The goal of the review is to “bolster our technical basis for extended storage licensing” and a number of other related issues, he said.
“We are trying to make sure we are in a position to respond to whatever [policy] the blue ribbon commission decides” to recommend for U.S. high-level radioactive waste management, Weaver said.
Under an executive order from President Obama, Energy Secretary Steven Chu appointed in January a 15-member Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, charged with developing comprehensive policy recommendations for U.S. radioactive waste management. It has met twice and is set to deliver an interim report by July 2, 2011 (100 DEN A-4, 5/26/10).
In the meantime, Weaver said, there is already a pending rulemaking on extending the licenses of independent spent fuel storage installations. Currently, a utility that holds a license for storing spent fuel must request an exemption to keep that license for longer than 20 years, and the renewal period is limited to 20 additional years. If the proposed rule is finalized, the initial and the renewal period will each be extended to 40 years (177 DEN A-8, 9/16/09).
The possibility of commercially reprocessing used fuel in the future is on the NRC's agenda, too. Weaver said the NRC has not looked at an application for a fuel reprocessing license since the 1970s. It has nothing “to take off the shelf” at this time, but it has a lot of work to do there, he said.
To increase fuel efficiency as a means of reducing the quantity of radioactive waste, some utilities are considering using “high burnup,” Weaver said. This means more fuel would be consumed in the nuclear reactor, and less would remain to be disposed. But high-burnup fuel would have implications for storage that current regulations may not cover, he said.
“We don't have a lot of data on high-burnup fuel and how it behaves after extended time in storage,” Weaver said.
John Kessler, manager of the used fuel and high-level waste management program at the Electric Power Research Institute, said EPRI is spearheading a new effort, the Extended Fuel Collaboration Program.
He told BNA after the forum that the NRC, the Department of Energy, dry cask storage vendors, and the nuclear utility industry are all participants.
Issues the collaborative wants to address are “globally applicable,” so it is also pursuing participation from international regulators and utilities, he said.
The group's main objectives are to conduct research and gather data on technical questions associated with extended storage, according to Kessler. For example, what environmental and handling conditions might compel repackaging of fuel already stored in dry casks? How would long-term storage affect transportability of spent fuel? What are implications of storing “high burnup” fuel?
Kessler said the most difficult thing they want to do is “look at a demonstration project of high-burnup spent fuel storage.” He said they “would like to be able to load a canister with higher-burnup spent fuel, instrument it, monitor it, and leave it sit for X number of years, and then look at it again to examine it for degradation.”
“We are looking for places where we might be able to do this work,” he added.
Tim Frazier, designated federal officer for the Blue Ribbon Commission, said two of its recently formed subcommittees have just scheduled meetings. The Reactor and Fuel Cycle Subcommittee will hold a meeting July 12 and 13, with both open and closed sessions, in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The Disposal Subcommittee will meet July 7 in Washington, D.C., with open and closed sessions, “but more open than closed,” according to Frazier.
The commission's first public teleconference is scheduled for Aug. 17.
Copyright 2010, The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.