U.S. court tosses nuclear-waste rules
NEW YORK — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission failed to fully evaluate risks associated with its regulations on the storage of spent nuclear fuel and must draft new ones, an appeals court ruled Friday.
The commission’s conclusion that permanent storage will be available when needed in the future didn’t account for how its absence could affect the environment, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington said. The commission also failed to fully assess the dangers of storing spent fuel on-site for 60 years after a nuclear plant’s license expires, the court said.
“The commission’s evaluation of the risks of spent nuclear fuel is deficient,” Chief Judge David Sentelle wrote for the three-judge panel in the opinion on a petition brought by New York. Spent fuel “poses a dangerous longterm health and environmental risk.”
Spent nuclear fuel refers to fuel rods that, after four to six years of use in a reactor, are no longer efficient at producing energy, according to the court filing. The rods, which still emit dangerous radiation, are transferred to deep water pools for cooling. They may then be sent to dry storage in concrete and steel casks at the site of the reactor.
On-site storage is now the norm “due to the government’s failure to establish a final resting place for spent fuel,” Sentelle said.
Holly Harrington, a spokesman for the commission, said in an e-mailed statement that the agency’s general counsel is reviewing the decision.
The commission’s chairman, Gregory Jaczko, announced last month he was retiring after lawmakers and an independent government agency criticized his management. A new chairman will have to face matters such as a potential atomic waste repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, regulations to be adopted in the wake of Japan’s nuclear disaster last year and license extensions for aging reactors.
The challenge to the 2010 update to the commission’s spent-fuel rules was brought by New York, New Jersey, Vermont and Connecticut, as well as the Prairie Island American Indian community and environmental groups.
The amended rules were based in part on the assumption that a permanent repository for the fuel would be available “when necessary,” according to the court’s opinion. The commission argued that federal law doesn’t require selecting a precise date for establishing the repository.
The amended rules also increased the amount of time spent nuclear fuel could be stored at a plant to 60 years from 30 years after a facility’s license expires.
The analysis by the commission of the rules’ impact on the environment was “conducted in generic fashion,” Sentelle wrote. The petitioners said the study of environmental risks should have been done as a site-by-site analysis.
The office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman had no immediate comment on the ruling.
The case is New York v. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 11-1045, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (Washington).