If Americans think Congress is at at impasse now, just wait until lawmakers return to tackling the disposal of nuclear waste. That’s pretty much what a commission appointed by President Obama has said.

After two years, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future just came out with its final report to the U.S. Energy Department as to what to do with nuclear waste. That radioactive material is a hot potato and one that needs needs to find a permanent home or a way in which it can reprocessed and re-used.

Right now, the spent fuel from nuclear operations is stored on site in above-ground, steel-encased concrete caskets. Those places were meant to be temporary and Yucca Mountain in Nevada had been authorized to be the ultimate repository. But the Obama administration nixed that idea, leaving the utilities that had already helped fund that site in the lurch.

The blue ribbon panel said that the standoff between utilities and those opposed to the Yucca Mountain location only typifies the troubles that have befallen the nuclear sector over three decades. To top it off, Japan’s nuclear accident in March occurred because the back-up power systems there had failed, allowing the spent fuel rods to be exposed and damage the reactor’s core. Radioactive material escaped.

“The need for a new strategy is urgent, not just to address these damages and costs but because this generation has a fundamental, ethical obligation to avoid burdening future generations with the entire task of finding a safe, permanent solution for managing hazardous nuclear materials they had no part in creating,” the commission wrote.

The panel is not charged with promoting nuclear energy, which is the collective decision of Congress. Rather, it is to ensure that existing nuclear facilities are safely addressing their waste issues. Larger interim sites may be necessary before the spent fuel would find a permanent home, it says.

To that end, the commission is recommending a “consent-based approach” when it comes to the permitting of waste facilities, particularly where local populations are skeptical of having them near their backyards. Secondly, the commissioners are saying that the management of nuclear waste should be transferred away from the Department of Energy and to a new organization -- one whose sole function is to deal with this issue.

“We believe actions can be taken to encourage and achieve consolidated interim storage in a willing host community within the next 10 years, well before a repository could be opened,” says a joint statement by industry concerns that includes the Nuclear Energy Institute. The group adds that a new form of oversight would help “insulate the program from political interference.”

Long Term Solution

The United States currently has more than 65,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel stored at about 75 operating and shutdown reactor sites around the country, according to the commission. More than 2,000 tons are being produced each year.
 
While the report focused more on finding long-term storage for radioactive waste, it also considered the reprocessing of such fuel. Panelists held out hope for the eventual re-use of those byproducts but concluded that any real solutions are decades away. The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board concurs, adding that reprocessing may reduce nuclear waste but it does not yet eliminate it.
 
Simply, reprocessing separates the uranium and the plutonium from the rest of the nuclear waste, allowing plant operators to get between 20 percent and 30 percent more use from the uranium. The technique is now used in France and Japan, where some nuclear professionals say it is working well.

“Reprocessing is very real," says Dave Nulton, a nuclear engineer and former energy department official, in a prior talk with this writer. “A new plant could be up and running in the United States in five years. And new technologies can make it impossible to use the plutonium in advanced weapons.” Essentially, the technology to which he speaks would mix the plutonium with other compounds and thereby make it impractical to use for nuclear weapons.

Reprocessing, however, will have to take a backseat to finding a permanent nuclear waste storage facility, which itself is a long shot given the billions already spent on the ill-fated Yucca Mountain site. Nuclear operators may not be pacified but they are prepared to keep their spent fuel on site for years to come. 



EnergyBiz Insider is the Winner of the 2011 Online Column category awarded by Media Industry News, MIN. Ken Silverstein has also been named one of the Top Economics Journalists by Wall Street Economists.

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energybizinsider@energycentral.com

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