HOPE ON HORIZON?
Just 115 feet from the edge of a bluff in King Salmon sits spent nuclear fuel that is becoming increasingly vulnerable to sealevel rise. Depending on how the licensing goes for the construction of two storage facilities, that spent fuel may no longer pose a threat to the region in the near future.
The Humboldt Bay Power Plant, owned and operated by Pacific Gas & Electric Company, is in the process of being decommissioned as a nuclear power plant, but still has spent nuclear fuel, which is radioactive and can no longer generate power, sitting underneath it in five dry concrete storage casks. That waste is the responsibility of the federal government, PG&E spokesperson Mark Mesesan wrote by email.
“The federal government made a commitment to move the spent fuel to permanent storage and we expect the government to meet that commitment,” Mesesan wrote. “In the interim, while the government works toward a solution, we safely store the spent fuel in dry casks on site.”
Those casks are “secure, safeguarded and inspected on a regular basis,” but the U.S. Department of Energy, whose ultimate responsibility it is to dispose of the fuel, hasn’t established a timeline for the fuel to be moved to permanent storage.
In 1982, Congress enacted the Nuclear Waste Policy Act requiring the Department of Energy to develop a permanent storage facility for spent nuclear waste from nuclear power plants across the country. The department was expected to develop a site in the Yucca Mountains in Nevada that would be operational by Jan. 31, 1998.
That didn’t happen and a permanent storage facility wouldn’t be operational until 2048 based on a change of direction the department took in 2013, according to an analysis by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The Department of Energy is responsible for bearing some of the storage costs for not taking custody of the spent nuclear fuel. As a result, the government has paid out about $6.1 billion in damages “and has projected future liabilities at about $24.7 billion,” according to the accountability office website.
“Each year of delay adds
about $500 million to federal liabilities,” according to the accountability office website.
PG&E receives approximately $6 million per year from the federal government to reimburse the cost of storing the spent fuel, said PG&E spokesperson Suzanne Hosn.
Private companies Interim Storage Partners and Holtec International are in the process of obtaining licenses from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to each construct a facility — one in Texas and one in New Mexico — that would store the spent nuclear fuel while the Department
of Energy finds a permanent storage location.
“It would be another two or three years before they would be able to start accepting fuel, but if these applications go through and they get all the various permits they need from the states, they would be at least a temporary solution that would get the fuel out of Humboldt Bay,” commission spokesperson David McIntyre said by phone Feb. 28.
One or both of the facilities will prioritize plants that have been totally decommissioned, but still have spent fuel onsite, McIntyre said.
“Humboldt Bay hasn’t quite had its license terminated, but it’s close to it,” McIntyre said. “So it would be fairly high on the list.”
The facilities’ applications are still under review, but McIntyre said the agency anticipates a licensing decision for both of the facilities a year from now.
Spokespeople from both companies said there isn’t yet a firm timeline to begin receiving the spent nuclear fuel because the facilities are still going through the licensing process.
“Since the facility is not licensed yet, I won’t speculate on the timing to receive shipments from different nuclear plants,” Joseph Delmar, Holtect’s senior director of government affairs and communications, wrote in an email. However, he said depending on how licensing goes, the facility might begin accepting its first shipments
in 2024.
Both facilities have faced some pushback from environmental groups and tribes, according to reporting from Texas and New Mexico news outlets, but at least Holtec said the communities where the facility is going to be constructed are receptive to it.
“Holtec was invited to New Mexico by the EddyLea Energy Alliance (ELEA), an incorporated four-entity consortium of the cities of Hobbs and Carlsbad, and the counties of Eddy and Lea,” Delmar wrote. “HI-STORE would be built on land owned by ELEA. The project enjoys strong public support in these communities.”