Energy Northwest operates the Columbia Generating Station nuclear power plant near Richland, Washington. Earlier this year Energy Northwest announced its plans in collaboration X-energy and Grant County Public Utility District to construct a small modular reactor (SMR) near its current, full-sized commercial nuclear power reactor on its leased land on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near the Columbia River.
The U.S. does not have a deep geological repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. Initially, it was planned to build such a repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Political opposition killed that project in 2009. Now there will be no such repository before 2050 at the earliest.
The Columbia Generation Station is the only commercial nuclear power plant now operating in the U.S. Northwest. The spent nuclear fuel that it produces is currently stored in concrete and steel storage cylinders that sit on a reinforced concrete pad near the reactor pending the availability of a permanent geological storage facility.
The SMR that is planned by Energy Northwest is a high temperature gas-cooled Xe-100 reactor. The eighty- megawatt reactor could be the first operating advanced nuclear reactor in the U.S. If the project goes forward, it could be operating as soon as 2028. Additional SMRs could be added to the first to ultimately produce three hundred and twenty megawatts. The Columbia Generating Station has the capability to generate one thousand two hundred and seven megawatts of electricity.
An Oregon environmental group is objecting to the Energy Northwest’s plan for an SMR at Hanford. Columbia Riverkeeper has issued a report that it expresses its concern about the spent nuclear fuel that the proposed new reactor would generate. Columbia Riverkeeper says that the Xe-100 would generate more spent nuclear fuel than the conventional big reactor with respect to the power generated by each.
Columbia Riverkeeper is also concerned about situating the new SMR on Energy Northwest’s leased land at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation in south central Washington. They point out that the Reservation was developed expressly for the purpose of Cold War nuclear weapons manufacture rather than as a location for commercial nuclear power production. The Department of Energy Nuclear Reservation was used to produce two thirds of the U.S. plutonium from World War II through the Cold War which ended in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Approximately two and a half billion dollars is being spent each year to clean up the radioactive and chemical contamination left from the project.
The DoE is focused now on fifty-six million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste stored in underground tanks after chemical processing was used to separate small quantities of plutonium from irradiated uranium fuel. Spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power reactors usually remains in a solid form rather than being liquefied and chemically processed.
Lauren Goldberg is the legal director with Columbia Riverkeeper. She said, “Adding more nuclear infrastructure — a small modular nuclear reactor — at Hanford without any long-term plan for the radioactive waste should be a nonstarter. A new nuclear reactor and its inevitable waste would further perpetuate the burden of cleanup.”
Miya Burke is the lead author of Columbia Riverkeeper’s new report titled “Q&A: Nuclear Energy Development Threatens the Columbia River.” The report quotes the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The Tribes have treaty rights at Hanford and they oppose any new nuclear projects on the Hanford site. They say that no expansion of nuclear energy production should be developed without permission obtained through the Tribes by government-to-government consultation.
Energy Northwest has responded to the Columbia Riverkeeper concerns. They say that they have always supported open discussions on advanced nuclear and small modular reactors. However, Energy Northwest has questioned the validity of some of the claims made in the new report and the data that was used to support them. Among issues raised in the report was the safety and cost of the proposed SMR which remains under development.
X-energy claims its proposed reactor design is based on “safe, secure, clear and affordable technology”. The DoE awarded it eighty million dollars to develop, construct and demonstrate its first commercial SMR.
Energy Northwest issued a statement that said, “Over the past year we have engaged many groups and stakeholders — from environmental organizations and tribes to elected officials and local communities — to understand their concerns and receive their input. Energy Northwest and our partners hope to have the same opportunity with the authors of this report.”