Yucca_proposed_design.jpg
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Several bills attempting to allocate funds for spent nuclear fuel disposal have been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives but none of them has even made it to the U.S. Senate. Many members of the nuclear power industry say that the impasse over disposal of spent nuclear fuel has been impeded by political disagreements. The State of Nevada has vigorously opposed the Yucca Mountain repository because state officials say that it would be unsafe. They say that it would be vulnerable to possible volcanic activity, earthquakes, penetration by ground water, underground flooding and critical nuclear chain reactions.
Nevada GOP Senator Dean Heller has been part of the strong opposition to the Yucca Mountain repository. Nevada Senator-elect Democrat Jacky Rosen who replaces Heller in 2019 has said that she would continue to oppose the Yucca Mountain repository.
At the end of November of this year, Representative Dina Titus (D-Nev) sent the U.S. House of Representatives a letter asking them to reject any funding that could revive the licensing process for the Yucca Mountain repository that might be slipped into a final appropriations bill.
In the past year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Energy and Water Development Appropriations, 2019. This bill included provisions for funding nuclear energy programs. The DoE had asked for one hundred and twenty million for the development of the Yucca Mountain repository and the bill included not only this request but added an extra one hundred billion dollars to the DoE budget.
The U.S. Senate passed a bill that authorized the development of an interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility at a “voluntary site.” The Senate bill did not include any funding for work at Yucca Mountain. Ultimately, the bill that passed both the House and the Senate did not include additional funding for the Yucca Mountain site or the interim storage facility.
The DoE recently sought public comment on the proper interpretation of the legal term, “high level radioactive waste.” In response to this DoE request for input, Representative Titus issued a statement that said, “This move to reinterpret the definition of high-level nuclear waste is nothing more than a backdoor Yucca Mountain. Current law does not allow this kind of waste to be shipped to the State for permanent disposal. If Donald Trump and the Republicans get their way, the flood gates for nuclear waste will be swung wide open, and the Nevada Test Site will be Destination #1.”
While confusion reigns, the spent nuclear fuel keeps piling up at the reactor sites. If the overpacked cooling pools at commercial reactor sites are not relieved soon by having spent nuclear fuel rods moved to temporary storage, some reactors may have to be shut down. Unfortunately, there are serious problems with the design of the current generation of dry storage casks being used for temporary spent nuclear fuel storage. Recently, the dry casks being employed to store spent nuclear fuel from the closed San Onofre nuclear power plant near San Diego, California were all found to be defective and will have to be replaced. Perhaps, new solutions should be sought to the problem of the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel.
Yucca Mountain repository design: