New DOE Nuclear Waste Strategy 'Flawed'

U.S. research and educational think tank, The Heritage Foundation has criticised he Department of Energy's (DOE) recently published 'Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-level Radioactive Waste'. According to a blog post by Jack Spencer (below), the Research Fellow in Nuclear Energy at The Heritage Foundation's Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, the DOE missed a historic opportunity to fix the nation’s failed nuclear waste management policy. "Its 'strategy' is built on the very same flawed assumptions that doomed the current plan. Specifically, it perpetuates the separation of responsibility for nuclear waste management from nuclear waste production. Its big proposal? Build a small interim storage facility and then a big one. Then, far enough down the road that no one will care now or remember then, build the repository that we actually need. The problem is that building the interim storage sites now eliminates any incentive to build the permanent site that the nation needs. That’s because moving the fuel to an interim storage site achieves the primary objectives of both the government and nuclear utilities, which is to move the waste away from nuclear power plants. This makes sense given the deal that the utilities struck with the government in 1982, which essentially handed responsibility for waste management and disposal over to the government. The utilities have since been paying the U.S. Treasury to the tune of about $750 million per year to take the waste. The problem is that the government completely defaulted on its obligation and is now accumulating somewhere around $1 billion per year in liability costs that it owes back to the utilities. Interim storage fixes both problems. It gets the waste off the utilities’ sites and eliminates the DOE’s growing liability. Problem solved, right? Not really. Ultimately, the nation needs a permanent repository. There is almost no disagreement over that fact. But by eliminating the near-term concerns of the government and the utilities, this strategy undermines the incentive to pursue what the nation needs in the long-term, which is the permanent repository. So what, one might say. The problem is that there are long-term energy policy implications. The DOE strategy not only removes the incentive to build a repository, but it also does nothing to fix the misalignment of incentives, responsibilities, and authorities that emanate from a system that separates waste producer from waste manager. Indeed, the one common thread to nearly every system in the world where nuclear waste is being successfully managed is that waste producers are responsible for waste management. In Japan, Sweden, and Finland, the nuclear utilities—not the government—created new organizations to manage waste. In France, it is true that nuclear waste entities are government-based, but so is the majority of the French nuclear industry. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the U.S. follows the same pattern. That facility is government-run, and it holds government defense waste. The DOE completely ignores this proven key to success. By neither questioning the fundamental assumptions that underlie the current failed system nor clearly setting forth a path to build a permanent geologic repository, the DOE’s strategy, if implemented unchanged, leaves the U.S. nuclear industry stuck in Video The Heritage Foundation, has also published a documentary film outlining the argument for recycling nuclear waste from the power industry. According to the film the practice of recycling and recovering spent fuel was banned in the U.S. by Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, leaving geologic repository as the only option for nuclear waste disposal. However, the film points to the industry in France, where recycling of used fuel is common practice, and the country even processes spent fuel which has been transported from Japan. The recycling process also reduces the amount of material which ultimately needs storing. The film can be viewed below. [youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7A0hGKbVnw| Read More Bechtel Responds to DOE Criticism on $13bn Nuclear Waste Plant Bechtel has responded to a memo that questioned the company's ability to safely design the $13 billion Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. 1.3 Billion Nuclear Contract at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant URS has led a partnership that has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Department of Energy to manage and operate the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Mobile Plasma Arc Gasification to Treat Radioactive Fukushima Suits Reno, Nevada based mobile plasma arc gasification technology developer, Vision Plasma Systems (PINKSHEETS: VLNX) has reached an agreement with Cell Runner Inc. of Japan for the sale of two of its Arc Master I Units for use in the treatment of contaminated waste hazmat suits at the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant.]