Toxic waste stranded as nuclear plants close out
Over 76,000 metric tons at dozens of commercial sites.
Midway between San Diego and Los Angeles, the San Onofre Nuclear Plant waits to be dismantled. After more than 40 years of protests, lawsuits and safety scares, its two concrete-encased reactors, jutting from the pristine California coastline, are powered down and its massive steam turbines, once deafening, are quiet.
For the activists who fought to close the plant, the victory is bittersweet.
The reactors will disappear, but 1,600 metric tons of radioactive waste remain. While some is stacked in steellined casks, and the rest is submerged in cooling pools, all of it is trapped in a political and regulatory limbo that keeps it from going anywhere anytime soon. And San Onofre isn’t alone: More than 76,000 metric tons of waste is stranded at dozens of commercial sites, just as the U.S. approaches a critical mass of nuclear-plant retirements.
“Many were surprised to learn that when the plant is decommissioned, the fuel has nowhere to go,” said David Victor, chairman of the San Onofre Community Engagement Panel tasked with overseeing the closure. “The problem is, nobody is in charge.”
Under a 1982 law, the U.S. government, not the utilities, is responsible for disposing of radioactive waste that can take thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of years to degrade. But more than a half-century after nuclear energy powered the first American home, the U.S. Department of Energy still doesn’t have a permanent solution for the waste left behind.
It’s a problem that will only get worse. On Oct. 24, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station near Blair, Nebraska, became the fifth nuclear plant to close in five years. Of 119 reactors in the U.S., 20 are now being decommissioned and a half-dozen more are expected to close prematurely, nudged out by cheap natural gas and growing use of renewables.
Beyond that, “the big wave of retirements really starts coming in around 2030,” Energy Sec ret ar y Ernest Moniz warned at an event in Washington.
Among experts, the nuclear waste debate invariably turns on the fleeting nature of human institutions in dealing with an element that the Environmental Protection Agency has said must be isolated for 10,000 years to protect humans and the environment from toxic radiation.
“The problem with federal agencies is that the management structure changes every few years,” said Allison Macfarlane, a former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which licenses and regulates civilian use of radioactive material. “In hundreds of years, will these institutions be there, will they care, will they pay?”
That’s one issue. A second is where exactly to put the waste.
The safest thing to do is to bury it deep underground, below the water table and within a stable rock formation. Congress picked such a site in 1987: a desert ridge in Southern Nevada known as Yucca Mountain. The site abuts a nuclear weapons testing ground where 928 atomic tests were conducted between 1951 and 1992.
While a few Nevada counties agreed with the selection, the state government didn’t, and the Yucca solution soon devolved into a decades-long political fight that crossed party lines and spanned presidential administrations. In 2010, President Barack Obama finally scrapped the plan, declaring the site unworkable.
Moniz, whose agency has primary authority for disposing of the waste, is hoping to overcome the problem, at least for the short term, by using interim storage sites built by the private sector, he testified before Congress in September. Last month, the DOE for the first time began soliciting public comments on that proposal.
But plans for two private facilities are already facing flak.
Last month, a collection of anti-nuclear, environmental and consumer advocates demanded in a letter that the commission dismiss a license application by Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists LLC that offered up such a plan. The Texas facility, which the company said could be in place by the end of 2021, would store as much as 40,000 metric tons of waste, for as long as 40 years.
In their letter, the plan’s opponents argue that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 bars the federal government from taking responsibility for interim waste in the absence of a federal repository.
“I think it’s a rather hollow argument to say the least,” said Chuck McDonald, spokesman for Waste Control Specialists, adding that the company couldn’t comment on the groups’ criticism of the NRC and the Energy Department.
McDonald said the concept Part of the delay stems from of interim storage came out of a years-long Energy Departthe Obama administration’s ment initiative aimed at getBlue Ribbon Commission on ting volunteers to host a pernuclear waste. manent repository.
“This idea didn’t come “Consent-based siting is from Waste Control, it came absolutely essential,” Moniz from the federal governsaid. “We never said it would ment,” he said. be easy, we just said you’re
Allowing an interim site not going to get there with“l e t s t he ut i l i t i e s of f t he out it.” hook,” making them less In the meantime, the waste inclined to push for a perwill stay at San Onofre and manent solution, said Mindy other commercial sites, where Goldstein, an Emory Univerresidents worry about the sity law professor who co-auintegrity of the containers thored the letter. that hold it. At nearly every
Another concern: “Private meeting of the San Onofre owners will be cutting costs at Communit y Engagement every turn to maximize profPanel, residents line up to its,” said Tom Smith, direcask whether the sea air might tor of the Texas office for cause corrosion in the casks, Public Citizen, a consumer what the chance of leakage advocacy group. is, and who’s responsible if
“That’s an inaccurate and the casks degrade. unfair assumption that miniMaureen Brown, a spokesmizes the oversight role of the woman for Southern CaliforNuclear Regulatory Commisnia Edison, which operates sion and the U.S. Department San Onofre, said the company of Energy, who both have a supports moving the spent pretty good track record as fuel offsite as soon as possidoes Waste Control Specialble, but for now it’s secure. ists,” company spokesman “Until the federal governMcDonald said. ment does its legally man
The other company prodated job and provides a storposing to host the waste, age facility for used nuclear Holtec International Corp., fuel, SCE will continue to declined to comment on the safely store the fuel on site,” letter. she said.
“We have remarkable supAs the amount of waste port,” said Ed Mayer, progrows, so does the governgram director for Holtec, ment’s liability. For decades, which plans to store 120,000 utilities have sued the DOE tons of waste at its facility in for defaulting on a statutory New Mexico. The support obligation to dispose of spent comes from the counties nuclear fuel. The U.S. has paid where the facility would be more than $5 billion to setlocated as well as nearby cities tle these suits, which compaand state officials, Mayer said. nies use to fund temporary
Holtec will submit its applimanagement of the waste. cation for a license in March The government’s estimated 2017, with the site expected to total liability is $29 billion. be in service by 2022, he said. “T h a t ’s p r o b a b l y l ow,
Meanwhile, the Energy because it’s getting more Department remains decades expensive to store this stuff,” away from developing a persaid Rod McCullum, senior manent repository, accorddirector of decommissioning to John Kotek, an assising programs at the Nuclear tant secretary at the agency. Energy Institute. “It’s a direct An interim solution could be hit on the taxpayer whenever working in “a 5 to 10-year the government loses one of range,” Kotek said. “It’s a these lawsuits.” multi-decade effort to get to permanent disposal.”