Bruce Davidson opines that former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid retirement has breathed new life into plans to store high-level nuclear waste at Nevada Yucca Mountain. The Reid departure is good news for efforts to solve the U.S. nuclear waste storage dilemma ... unless you are among the entrenched Nevada opposition to the Yucca Mountain repository or other anti-nuclear activist groups.
High-level nuclear waste is now stored temporarily at reactor sites around the nation, and reactors continue to produce more waste every year. The revived heartbeat at Yucca Mountain does not mean plans for a West Texas high-level nuclear repository are off the table. The licensing process to make an Andrews County facility an interim storage location, although in its infancy, is moving forward.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced in November that it is seeking public comment on issues related to the environmental review of an application from Waste Control Specialists to construct and operate a facility to store spent fuel in Andrews County. The Andrews site is embraced by community leaders, and former Gov. Rick Perry, President-elect Trump nominee for energy secretary, was supportive of the hazardous waste facility in Andrews when he served as the Lone Star State chief executive. Perry ties to the late Harold Simmons, who was the power behind WCS, were fodder for critics in the past. Simmons died in 2013.
Perry will be instrumental in DOE nuclear waste decisions, but media reports show he has been silent on the issue as his confirmation hearing looms. The Andrews site now stores low-level radioactive waste, and the operator is seeking a license to store as much as 40,000 metric tons of spent high-level nuclear fuel.
According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the U.S. has 99 nuclear reactors operating in 30 states. The NEI also reported that 10 nuclear energy plants are completely decommissioned and 18 more are in the process.
Resource Portal for I2M Clients, Associates, and Geoscientists
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-