US Nuclear Pitch to States Complicated by Spent Fuel Storage Ask

Roughly half of US states responded to the Department of Energy’s effort to gauge their interest in hosting “nuclear lifecycle innovation campuses,” but industry insiders say what the agency is ultimately looking for is a willingness to permanently store spent fuel.

The DOE listed 17 different components related to nuclear energy—from uranium mining to advanced reactor development—in its request for information in January. But industry watchers say the agency’s list of options to support the nuclear power industry and in turn spur economic development are incentives to solve the country’s long-running nuclear policy conundrum: Where to permanently store used fuel.

As the RFI was discussed, stakeholders realized the extent to which waste disposal was “a major issue,” said Patrick White, the Clean Air Task Force’s group lead on fusion energy safety and regulation, which dampened states’ earlier excitement around the proposal.

“The expectation was that if you were going to be receiving one of these projects, infrastructure around spent fuel disposal was expected to be a major part of it,” White said.

At the same time, the states’ responses to the DOE’s RFI—which closed April 1—are indicative of the breadth of which policymakers have been embracing nuclear as energy demand climbs and some states look to hit climate targets.

DOE’s Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, Ted Garrish, said last month in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee 24 states had responded to the agency’s request for information, but only some of those “were very serious.” Garrish said the agency “will very quickly” decide “which ones are viable” after the April 1 deadline.

A spokesperson for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy said the agency is reviewing dozens of submissions it received from states. The agency doesn’t plan on sharing the responses publicly, but will look at them all, the spokesperson said, calling the campuses “a new effort to modernize the nation’s full nuclear fuel cycle.”

Raising Their Hands

Some of the states that responded to the DOE’s request are already familiar with nuclear energy through their active plants, interim waste storage, or nuclear research hubs.

Tennessee, for example, is home to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and more than 200 companies that support the nuclear energy sector. The state on April 2 said its “comprehensive response outlines candidate sites, priority campus functions, and ongoing evaluation of interim and long-term storage opportunities,” but didn’t delve into any specifics.

Utah in late March said it would respond to the RFI, with Gov. Spencer Cox (R) saying the state is “ready to lead in innovation across the entire fuel lifecycle, from advanced fuel development to getting more energy out of the fuel we already have and responsibly managing it for the long term.” The state expressed interest, along with Tooele County, which since the 1980s has housed a facility for treating, storing, and disposing of low-level radioactive waste.

Texas submitted a roughly 13-page response to the DOE’s request, touting its interest in fuel recycling and fabrication, among other categories the RFI mentioned. The state noted a site in Andrews County that houses low-level waste and said it’s important for states to collaborate with the federal and local government on the issue.

While public opinion on nuclear energy has become more positive and bipartisan in recent years, decades-old fears still linger over permanently storing spent fuel.

Wyoming Energy Authority Executive Director Rob Creager said in March the state planned to respond to the RFI and can mine for uranium, a key component of nuclear fuel found extensively in the state. But Creager also highlighted local opposition to permanently storing spent fuel.

“That’s got to be driven by your locals or your counties,” he said, adding that the state’s approach is not pushing the idea on residents unless they volunteer interest.

Addressing the Past

That’s exactly the type of opposition that plagued plans to store spent fuel in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, an effort that all but died almost two decades ago because of pushback from locals and officials like then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). The DOE has tried to differentiate its RFI from Yucca Mountain, which the Nuclear Waste Policy Act deems the nation’s permanent storage site.

“The final fuel stream is substantially less than what we were anticipating at Yucca Mountain,” DOE’s Garrish said at last month’s hearing. “This is a major change in how we would approach this, but this is a very positive development and very well received by the public.”

Though Yucca is by law supposed to be the go-to permanent geologic repository, spent fuel is stored on an interim basis at nuclear plants and in storage facilities around the country. The US Supreme Court and DC Circuit upheld licenses the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted for interim storage at privately-run sites in Texas and New Mexico, respectively.

Lawmakers will need to change the act to accommodate any federal permanent storage site that isn’t Yucca Mountain, said Jay Silberg, a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, but that’s “not the only pathway forward.”

“Our attempts to develop private interim storage sites—that did not require changes to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act,” he said.

Congress will likely be more open to amending the law once states express interest in hosting repositories, Silberg noted.

“I think we will need changes, but I think when we have a willing host, those changes will not be difficult to accomplish,” he said.