transportation planning and emergency response training consistent with NWPA Section 180(c)” (ibid., p. 13). The “Strategy”went on to acknowledge the work these groups had already done to plan and oversee radioactive waste shipments toWIPP. These cooperative agreements have allowed varying levels of direct engagement among DOE, states, and Tribes (see Stakeholder Involvement ). DOE acknowledged the importance of consent-based facilities siting in several sections of the “Strategy.” In fact, four years later, DOE released the “Draft Consent-Based Siting Process for Consolidated Storage and Disposal Facilities for Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level RadioactiveWaste.”The draft report even listed a five-phase, 17-step siting process and a rough schedule that the proposed consent- based siting process would follow (see Consent-Based Siting ). As part of DOE’s actions to meet the BRC’s recommendation of “prompt efforts” to prepare for transportation, the department began a series of site visits to the country’s shutdown nuclear power plants. These visits by DOE staff and representatives from the state regional groups, Tribes, and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) evaluate transportation infrastructure on, and around, the shutdown sites to help DOE to determine how, when, and at what cost SNF could be moved from the sites. These visits, led by Steve Maheras of Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, continue to this day, and have expanded to include operating facilities, as well (see Shutdown Sites ). The BRC’s large-scale transport recommendation, as well as OCRWM’s 2004 decision that SNF shipments would occur by “mostly rail” (OCRWM 2004, p. 18558), gave rise to a great deal of departmental focus on rail shipments in the years following the BRC and the release of DOE’s “Strategy.” In 2015, DOE-NE established the National Transportation Stakeholders Forum (NTSF) Spent Nuclear Fuel Rail/Routing Ad Hoc Working Group (R/R AHWG). Among other activities, this group, made up of DOE and FRA staff as well as state and tribal representatives, has spent the last five years identifying potential rail routes for SNF shipments and monitoring the design of the Atlas railcar, which will eventually carry SNF casks (see Rail Transportation ). Computational modeling represents another DOE action in its pursuit to prepare for the eventual large-scale shipment of SNF and HLW. Three specific modeling tools have been developed to use systems engineering, systems analysis, and decision analysis principles to evaluate routes and integrated waste management systems. (See System Analysis Tools for more information.) With these planned, and continuing, DOE activities in mind, how has the implementation of the BRC’s recommendations gone when fast forwarding to the end of the decade? While the second term of the Obama Administration saw a good amount of progress toward implementing the BRC’s recommendations, the Trump Administration greatly reduced these efforts and shifted a lot of the focus to R&D. Meaningful engagement with states and Tribes has also ground nearly to a halt under the Trump Administration. Digging into the BRC’s recommendations themselves, no new government-owned and operated nuclear waste management facilities have opened, so the BRC’s recommendation of a consent-
based siting approach has not been tested. Organizationally, no new federal government agency has been formed for the sole purpose of implementing a nuclear waste management program. On the funding front, the Nuclear Waste Fund remains inaccessible to DOE except through Congressional appropriations — one of the main factors in the extremely slow pace of progress of the former Yucca Mountain project. Additionally, there have been little to no prompt efforts to develop a geologic disposal facility. While Congressional bills have been brought to advance the Yucca Mountain site, or restart the siting process, there has not been enough political will to move forward with either option. The BRC recommended developing one or more consolidated storage facilities; but without a siting process, DOE has had to focus on R&D. The delay has prompted private industry to take it upon themselves to try to develop such facilities. Two companies, Holtec International and Interim Storage Partners, have submitted license applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for SNF consolidated interim storage facilities (CISF) in southeastern New Mexico and west Texas, respectively. As of August 2020, both applications were still under consideration (see Industry Interest ). Perhaps of most importance to the MRMTC, preparing for the eventual large-scale transport of SNF has proceeded very slowly and has been characterized by starts and stops that hinder real progress. The states and Tribes have limited ability to engage with private industry to prepare for possible shipments to the proposed CISFs; the timeline for these shipments, however, is significantly more compressed than the nine to 12 years estimated for a federal program. Regarding support for innovation in energy technologies, Assistant Secretary for Office of Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal has spoken in Congressional testimony about DOE-NE’s Advanced Reactor Technologies and Advanced Small Modular Reactor R&D subprograms (Baranwal 2020, p. 3). However, it will be difficult to deploy more nuclear power generation when there is no apparent solution to the nuclear waste issue. Nuclear power plants across the country are decommissioning early because of cheaper energy alternatives and this intractable waste question. Finally, the U.S. has had a mixed record on the eighth recommendation to be an active leader in international efforts to address nuclear concerns like non-proliferation and waste management. Despite the promise of the BRC’s recommendations and DOE’s early implementation, in 2020 there was little of long-lasting value to show for that work. It is unclear whether even a change in administrations would prompt a return to ideas developed by the Obama Administration.
12
Made with FlippingBook Annual report