Southern Nuclear pushing for nuclear waste disposal site

Jan 14 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Greg Phillips Dothan Eagle, Ala.

Southern Nuclear Chairman Jim Miller told members of the Blue Ribbon Commission on American's Nuclear Future at a hearing last week that the government needs to go ahead with plans to construct a repository for spent nuclear fuel in Nevada.

"It is my sincere belief that if the implementation of the (Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982) had been guided by science and not politics, the United States would be well on its way to developing a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada," Miller said, according to the official transcript of the meeting. "The commission would do the country a great service by recommending that the licensing and development of the repository be continued."

Currently, nuclear plants such as Farley store all used fuel on-site in dry cask storage facilities, which are above-ground containers made of reinforced steel.

While Southern Nuclear Communications Supervisor Amoi Geter said Farley and the company's other plants are capable of storing fuel well past the plants' life spans, she said the government agreed to take responsibility for energy disposal in the 1982 bill.

"One of the things that Southern Company has always said about the Yucca Mountain Project is this is an opportunity for a coherent policy that can be developed to come up with a solution to store spent fuel for the long term, and one of (Miller's) major points is this kind of cooperation between government and industry is what's needed to resolve any issues related to management and disposal of any high-level nuclear waste," Geter said. "Our facilities have ways to store spent fuel, but none of those were actually designed for anything long-term. Under the Nuclear Policy Act of 1982, the federal government's requirement is to come up with a plan and place to store (the fuel)."

The Blue Ribbon Commission was created last year by President Barack Obama to examine U.S. nuclear waste policies.

Geter said customers of Southern Company, which owns and operates Southern Nuclear, have paid in excess of $1 billion in fees since 1982 to support a nuclear waste fund for constructing a centralized national repository.

Miller said Americans haven't gotten their money's worth from the government.

"Unfortunately, they have seen little in the way of return on their investment," Miller told the commission. "To most observers, it seems that the only constant in federal nuclear waste policy over the last decade has been increasingly creative defenses to breach-of-contract claims and the continuing record of adverse legal decisions. While there is no doubt that spent nuclear fuel is being stored safely at the nation's nuclear power plants and can be for the foreseeable future, these facilities were never intended to be permanent storage facilities."

A lawsuit is currently being contested in federal appeals court after the Obama administration decided last year to cut funding for the Yucca Mountain Project.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, South Carolina, Washington state, Aiken County, S.C., and three Washington state businessmen are suing to get the decision overturned in federal court.

Miller also wants the commission to suggest turning control of the nuclear waste fund to a public corporation.

"Unfortunately, the recent effort to withdraw the application (for building the Yucca facility) demonstrates that (the Department of Energy) will forever be subject to changes in executive and congressional attitudes concerning the necessity of compliance with the Act," Miller told the commission. "For that reason, the commission should consider and support legislation pending in Congress that would transfer the responsibility for repository development to a public corporation."

Geter said Farley currently uses 12 containers at Plant Farley.

As of 2006, Farley had about 1,000 metric tons of nuclear waste, which is about 2,200,000 pounds.