Keith Rogers reports the Nevada commission charged with overseeing nuclear waste issues reported that it expects Congress to seek funding to revive the shuttered Yucca Mountain repository project this year. This is contained in a report to Gov. Brian Sandoval and the state Legislature from the Nuclear Projects Commission. The report states it is not yet clear whether the new administration would support reviving the shuttered program to permanently store 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste, primarily spent fuel from commercial power reactors, in a maze of tunnels inside the Nye County mountain.
The 35-page report, which was approved in a telephone conference by the commission, notes that the Yucca Mountain project faces many hurdles before it could be granted a license by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It notes that Nevada still has 218 alleged contentions challenging the science of the repository plan before the NRC licensing panel that have been in limbo since the Obama administration defunded the project in 2011.
And Bob Halstead, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, which prepared the reports approved by the seven-member commission led by former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said the state also would file up to 50 new issues that we are developing. The state contentions challenge the plan on a range of issues, including arguments that the overall design of the planned repository is flawed and that there is a potential for renewed volcanic activity near the site, roughly 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Those objections were still on the table when the project was mothballed.
Halstead also said it should become clear in the next few months whether Congress will seek funds to revive the process, which is opposed by top state officials from both parties. We expect certainly by the middle of April we would have a sense of what is going to happen with possible funding for DOE.
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