Part 2 of 2 parts (Please read Part 1 first)
HI-STORE CIS is being funded by Holtec. They have the enthusiastic support of local communities in southeastern New Mexico as well as the governor of New Mexico. The NRC says that the regulatory review of the application will cost about seven and a half million dollars. HI-STORE CIS is the only facility being planned in the U.S. that satisfies the desire of the Department of Energy for a consolidated interim storage facility.
Critics of the HI-STORE CIS project say that it will be dangerous to transport what could be volatile nuclear waste from nuclear power plants in other states to New Mexico. They also are concerned about the environmental impact of storing so much nuclear waste in New Mexico.
Supporters of the HI-STORE CIS project respond that none of the waste is volatile, there are no liquids in the waste that could leak into the environment, thousands of tons of nuclear waste, nuclear weapons and spent nuclear fuel have been transported safely in the past and we have been storing nuclear weapons waste in the Waste Isolation Plant Project (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico for over fifteen years.
Holtec says that they have been designing, testing and building dry casks for spent nuclear fuel storage for over thirty years. Their casks have been run into concrete bunkers at eighty mile an hour, dropped onto huge steel spikes, burned in jet fuel fires with temperatures of thousands of degrees, and sunk into water for weeks. Holtec says that their dry casks are “as strong as humans can make them.”
Holtec latest dry cask design is called the HI-STORM UMAX. It was certified and licenses by the NRC in 2015 and is currently deployed at many nuclear power plants around the U.S. The HI-STORM UMAX casks are completely below ground. Holtec intends the UMAX casks to standardize spent nuclear fuel storage resulting in simpler systems and lower costs.
While the Holtec dry casks are designed to safely store spent nuclear fuel for at least one hundred years, they are still considered to be only temporary storage. The dry casks at the HI-STORE CIS can be easily retrieved and transported to other locations as new disposal options become available.
Holtec is also seek approval from the NRC to use the heat generated by the spent nuclear fuel to convert dirty water from industrial processes such as drilling and fracking to clean water that can be safely consumed by humans and animals. Southeastern New Mexico is arid and can definitely benefit from a new process to provide safe drinking water.
Holtec International is headquartered in Jupiter, Florida. Florida is considering the use of the Holtec storage system with its waste water process in Florida. Holtec is also working on a small modular reactor design called the SMR-160 at its new Singh Technology Campus on the Delaware River in Camden, New Jersey.
